Chapter 3: Like-Minded Deceit
She'd never had much of a family.
Her father. That was all. Her father and her grandparents, but she'd never really liked them; they doted upon her one moment but sneered at those around them the next.
She could appreciate a degree of deception and misdirection when she saw it. There was a certain art, a certain degree of skill, in adopting a front before a particular person to so entirely dupe them. She'd managed just as much to countless teachers and parents before to protect herself from the complaints of children who hated her for simply being her.
But her grandparents? She didn't like them. And Deidre Dursley was beginning to think that she didn't like most people who adopted that very front, hypocritical as it might be.
Until she met her cousin.
They lived in Godric's Hollow, her father had called it. A quite little town, barely more than a village, and so much quieter, slower, calmer than the inner-city flat Dee and her father shared. Trekking through the snow barely a week after Christmas, rugged up in more jumpers than Dee thought was entirely necessary but her father always insisted upon, she decided that she liked it. And didn't like it, because too quiet was boring, but… yes, she liked it a little bit, too. There was something just a little wondrous about Godric's Hollow. Something secret. Something hidden.
Something magical.
That word meant a different thing to Dee now. Since the teacher – or 'professor', as the man had called himself – had arrived on her doorstep and presented her with a letter, everything had changed. It had been a joke, surely, a cruel joke likely played by those very similar to the kids at school who picked on her for speaking out, speaking her mind, admitting what she liked and wanted and cared for. Dee was a different in that regard already; she just hadn't realised that her kind of 'different' extended beyond simply being a social outcast.
But magic. Hogwarts. Witches and wizards and… and magic. Dee had never suspected, and mostly because her grandparents took every opportunity to dismiss such 'silly notions' since she was young. That her homework had impossibly appeared in her bag at school when she'd very definitely left it at home? It was surely only forgetfulness on her part. That the front gate would never open for the neighbour that she loathed for the woman's condescending attitude? Well, the lock was getting somewhat old. That her grandmother's too-dry meatloaf always seemed to miraculously disappear from her plate when they visited?
"Don't be ridiculous, Deidre. Honestly, saying such things." Her grandmother would shake her thin head, lips pursing. "You probably just forgot that you ate it already."
Dee didn't forget. She knew she wasn't particularly smart, but she wasn't that dumb. It was just one more reason she tended to dislike her grandparents. Even more so when she received her visitor and letter.
A whole world. A whole magical world of which she'd known nothing about, yet somehow seemed to click so perfectly into place with everything that hadn't sat quite right with her. And more than that, Dee had family. A family outside of just her frustrating and distasteful grandparents. A magical family.
Dee didn't skip like a little kid on the road through Godric's Hollow, but it was a near thing.
"Harry's my uncle, then?" she asked for what must have been the hundredth time. She didn't really need to ask, but Dee found she couldn't help but do so.
"Of a sort, yes," her father said. "Not your uncle, exactly, but you could call him that."
"And my cousins, they're James and Lily, right? And the third one with the bad name –"
"Albus," her father said. He spared her a slightly reprimanding glance. "Dee, don't make fun of his for his name."
"I'm not making fun of him," Dee said with a shrug, for she truly wasn't. Her cousins could be the strangest people in the world, could have the worst names imaginable – and certainly worse than 'Albus', though it was a somewhat old-fashioned name – and she would still be as eager to meet them as ever. "I'm just saying it like it is."
"Yes, well, maybe we'll try and tone down the honesty a little bit to start off with."
"You always tell me off for being dishonest."
"I didn't say be dishonest," her father sighed. "Just to show a little tact."
Dee bit her tongue on a further retort. She regarded her father sidelong, and it was with something approaching concern. She was… a little worried about him.
Dudley Dursley was a big man. Solid, and tall, and just a little imposing, all three features of which he seemed to have passed onto his Dee in variable degrees. He spoke his mind and generally didn't care much for what anyone thought of him. Dee liked that about her father; he wasn't ever mean, she didn't think, but he didn't put up with people he had no time for. She thought it made him a much happier person.
Except that lately he hadn't been all that happy. He'd taken to sighing an awful lot, his big shoulders sagging, and his focus turned inwards as though he was thinking too much. Dee wasn't stupid, and she was realistic enough to know that her father wasn't a particularly 'thoughtful' person. Since she'd received her acceptance letter for Hogwarts, he'd been acting… differently.
Even more differently since he'd accidentally bumped into her Uncle Harry.
Dee was worried about her father. He was the most important person to her in the world, and growing up without a mother had made him only more so. She was worried – but not today. Today she was thoroughly distracted with her excitement, because she had cousins. Magical cousins. Magical cousins just like her. Dee would attempt all of the 'tact' she supposedly lacked for the opportunity to meet them.
The passed the snow-laden streets, ice-slick roads, and sedate, quietly glowing houses at a rapid step. Dee was all but bouncing in her excitement, couldn't help herself, and as they turned onto a street she briefly noticed as being called 'Eldridge Lane', she slipped her gloved hand into her father's and tugged him at a quicker pace. Her father allowed himself to be drawn, even if his step was a little hesitant.
The house they stopped before was large. Or at least it was large compared to Dee's flat in the city. Two stories, of grey brick that somehow didn't seem plain, it was ringed by a snow-speckled hedge complete with ornate iron gate. A cobbled footpath wove through the similarly snow-blanketed lawn to exactly three steps, a front porch, and a door. Dee stared for a long moment before glancing up at her father.
"That's their house, right?"
Her father nodded.
"And they definitely, definitely know we're coming. Right?"
"Right."
"And they're all nice? You said they were nice?"
Dee didn't care all that much how 'nice' they were. She would have likely still been thrilled to meet them even if they were evil, but it was always a good idea to double check. Just in case. Dee didn't think that she herself was exactly the 'nicest' of people – niceness had its limitations, after all – but she could hope that the Potters wouldn't all be horrible.
They wouldn't be. Surely.
Her father's shadow of a frown deepened into a more heartfelt furrow. "Of course they are," he muttered, and for some reason sounded regretful of that fact. "Harry's nice, despite everything."
Dee didn't know what her father meant by that. He'd said many such cryptic words in the past weeks since meeting her 'uncle', and she hadn't questioned it any of those times, either. Just as she knew not to mention Harry around her grandparents; her father seemed to have made a point of remaining close-lipped about their renewed acquaintanceship.
Dee didn't ask. She just accepted. So, instead of prodding further, she tugged her father's hand once more and started towards the gate. "Then why are we still waiting out here?"
The cobbled path. The steps. The doorway, a melodic chime of the bell, and then a wait. Dee bounced on her heels, a mixture of excitement and nervousness welling within her. She'd been afflicted by that very feeling oftentimes over the past weeks, what with her magic, and her new school, and now the encroaching possibility of this. The feeling only mounted when the door swung inward to spill a warm, welcoming glow onto the porch.
The man who stood framed within wasn't tall. He wasn't anywhere near as tall as Dee's father, but he somehow didn't seem diminutive for his lesser height. Dark haired, a pair of round glasses sat atop his nose, right above a small smile as welcoming as the flooding light.
He didn't look strange. Not in the slightest. Dee was almost disappointed after her father had warned her time and time again that morning: "Witches and wizards can be a little… strange, Dee. Just remember that. Use your tactfulness, alright?"
They could be strange.
They could be strange.
The man before Dee didn't look strange. He looked utterly normal.
"Dudley," the man that must have been Harry said. He nodded to Dee's father before turning towards Dee herself. "And you must be Deidre, I take it?"
"I'm Dee," Dee said. Then, because it felt appropriate, she stuck out her hand in offering. "Nice to meet you, Uncle Harry."
Harry blinked for a moment before his smile widened. He grasped Dee's proffered hand and shook it with just the right amount of gentleness and firmness. "Likewise. I've heard a lot about you."
"Have you?"
"Certainly," Harry assured her. "The whole family's been really excited to meet you."
If that didn't kick-start Dee's own excitement to a whole new level, she didn't know what would. She was practically already lurching through the doorway even before Harry stepped aside to allow them entry. Still smiling, he waved his hand invitingly. "Please, come in."
The house was as welcoming as their greeting. A brightly lit hallway of high ceilings met Dee as the door closed behind her. The pale walls were smattered with picture frames of smiling and grinning and laughing faces, branching off into a stairwell that curved to an upper floor and another that trailed into the house proper. Dee continued to almost bounce in Harry's wake as he led them inside, peering at each picture as she passed. Here, a cluster of redheaded children. There, what must have been Harry and his wife, kissing in wedding garb. A trio of smiling children that all looked younger than Dee, clinging to each other and laughing with varying intensity, and countless, multitudinous depictions of those children and many others caught in the midst of motion.
Or actually moving. They moved.
For a second, Dee thought they might have simply been all digital photo frames, but then reality struck and left her in awe. Not digital. Magical. The pictures, the actual pictures themselves – they moved, and not with a recurring, film-like projection but as though the figures within had a life and mind of their own.
So this is a wizard's house, Dee thought to herself. That is so cool. It was only pictures, but somehow, just that brief presence and something so disregarded by Harry himself by his apparent acceptance of their normalcy, was wonderful. This would be Dee's. She was a part of this. Her thrill was so paramount that she hardly noticed her father paling at her side as he, too, shuffled in Harry's wake.
Harry led them into a living room that was, apart from it's own array of moving pictures, decidedly un-magical. Dee was slightly disappointed again, but that disappointment faded in moments when she took in the room properly. The fireplace, crackling a colour too green and purple to be wholly natural. The Christmas tree towering in the corner and adorned in a surplus of messy tinsel and baubles and ornamentation that wasn't just ornamentation, because Dee could swear those fairies were moving. There was the wide telly on the wall, and the somewhat impressive array of interlocked couches that could have hosted a dozen people or so, but such rudimentary elements were secondary to the more interesting elements.
Like the magical bits. And the people.
A woman, not quite as tall as Harry and with a head of vividly red hair, rose from one of the couches and crossed the room towards them. She smiled in beaming welcome. "Hello. You must be Dudley, yes? And Deidre?"
"Dee," Dee corrected again, dutifully holding out her hand for the woman to shake.
"It's a pleasure to meet you," she said. "I'm Ginny. We're so happy you could both come today."
"Thank you for seeing us," Dee's father said, shaking Ginny's hand in turn, and Dee couldn't help but glance towards him. His voice was oddly low, sounded strangely heartfelt despite his obvious discomfort.
Ginny's beaming smile only widened. "Of course. We're family, right?"
Family, Dee thought. Another thrill seemed to zap through her veins, though not quite distracting enough to override the introduction of the other two members in the room.
James was a little taller than she, a little older, and wore the easy, disregarding swagger of one who didn't really care for family events but would make the required effort nonetheless. He wore normal clothes, Dee noted, just like Harry and Ginny – which was strange as she'd somehow not expected it even after Harry's own normality. James nodded in greeting, not unfriendly and certainly without awkwardness. It was almost as though another family member appearing out of the blue was hardly worthy of comment.
Lily was younger than Dee. Younger by a few years even, and short, as redheaded as her mother. She seemed more excited than James, and beamed just as widely as her mother. "That's pretty cool, that you're our cousin," she said after Ginny introduced her. "Dad said your name's Deidre."
"Dee," Dee corrected for the third time.
"Alright, then, Dee." Lily accepted the correction without fuss. "That's really cool, though. I've never had a Muggleborn relative before except for Auntie Hermie."
"Lily," Harry and Ginny scolded in synchrony.
"Sorry," Lily said, though she didn't sound particularly apologetic. Dee didn't mind. She was satisfied enough for the fact that Lily seemed even a fraction as excited as she withheld from showing.
Her father exchanged words with Harry and Ginny. Dee listened, bit her tongue against the questions that rose on the tip of her tongue, and stared around herself. A magical house, with actual magical people in it. Granted, they didn't appear all that magical – regrettably so – but still, Dee thought it was wonderful.
Except that there was something missing.
"It wasn't all that much trouble, really," her father was saying, waving a big hand at Harry and Ginny both. "The trip was only a few hours."
"We could definitely work out an alternative for the future," Ginny said, sharing a glance with Harry.
"No, no, it's fine. We don't mind if –"
"Apparation isn't really that bad when you get used to it," Harry said. "And if you're not comfortable with that, there's always the Floo you could give a try."
Dee didn't know what any of those words meant, but it didn't bother her unduly. Her distraction and the 'something missing' was growingly nigglingly loud. She found herself speaking before she realised it. "Where's the third one?"
All eyes turned towards her: Harry, Ginny, and her father paused in their exchange. James glanced up from the gaming device he'd surreptitiously pulled from his pocket, and Lily paused in where she'd been plucking at the definitely-animated tree-fairies. "The third one?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder. "Do you mean -?"
"Dee, please," her father sighed, a little long-sufferingly, and Dee winced internally. Oops. Tact.
"Don't worry about it, Dudley," Harry said, sparing him a smile before glancing towards Dee. "Do you mean Al?"
Dee instantly disregarded her self-reprimands to nod. "He's going to be in the same year as me, right?"
"Right," Harry said. "And he should be here, actually, but he…"
"Disappeared upstairs, like, an hour ago," James said, turning back to his game.
Ginny shook her head, smiling fondly. "He can be very quiet and unobtrusive sometimes. You almost don't notice him leave." She turned to glance over her shoulder towards the hallway door and raised her voice. "Albus! Your cousins are here; come down for a moment, please!"
"Sorry, Dee," Harry said. "I don't know, maybe he's a little shy?"
"He's not shy," Lily said. "Just because he doesn't have that many friends –"
"Lily," Ginny scolded her again.
"Sorry."
"It's true, though," James muttered, just quietly enough to apparently slip under his mother's radar.
Dee glanced between them. Shy. Unobtrusive and quiet. 'Not many friends'. That last wasn't particularly concerning, but the rest… Dee knew herself to be a loud person, at times demanding, at other times dismissive of those who couldn't keep up with her pace. To have a shy, quiet, and unobtrusive cousin as her potential friend…
"Al!" Ginny called again. "Could you please -?"
"I'm already here, Mum. I've been here all this time."
As one, the entire room turned towards the second doorway from the living room that visibly led into the kitchen. Dee peered around her father to catch a glimpse.
The boy was… small. Definitely smaller than Dee. Short and kind of skinny, he had the slight hunch to his shoulders that bespoke of constantly wavering on the cusp of nervousness. A thick mess of dark hair, as dark as Harry's, tangled around his ears and all but obscured his eyes, except that… not quite. Maybe it was because Harry wore glasses, but Albus' eyes – Dee had never seen eyes quite so wide, nor so wholly green.
He was definitely not the kind of person that Dee thought could keep up with her. She tried not to feel too regretful for that fact.
"Were you really there the whole time?" Lily asked, plucking at one of the indignantly wriggling tree-fairies while eyeing her brother.
Albus shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah."
"Did you want to introduce yourself, Al?" Ginny asked.
Albus glanced towards Dee, then her father, then back to Dee again. He offered a small smile and raised a hand in a wave. "Hi. I'm Al. Nice to meet you, Uncle Dudley. And you must be Dee, right?"
Dee nodded, unconsciously appreciating the absence of a need for correcting him. "And you're… Al?"
Albus – or Al – smiled a little wider. Then he seemed quite content to allow his parents to take it from there.
Dee watched Al as she listened to her father's and Harry and Ginny's discussion, the skirting small talk that seemed to last for an unnecessarily long time. She watched Lily, too, because the fairies were certainly interesting, and James, because why was he playing with something very not magical when he surely had access to every magical game in the world?
But mostly Al. She mostly stared at Al, the cousin her own age who would be in her year and maybe, sort of and a little worryingly, could be her friend.
For his part, Al watched their parents with quiet attentiveness. It was apparent he really was one of those 'good kids', and Dee almost frowned before she recalled, once more, her father's reminder about tact. Still, the urge remained; she didn't know if she liked the thought of a goodie-two-shoes cousin. They were, to her understanding, usually frustrating tattletales.
"You're more than welcome to stay for the night if you'd like," Ginny was saying after a progression from their trip – their annoyingly long trip – to Godric's Hollow and the second round of welcoming with accompanying description of the dinner to come. "We have a guest room that's always set up."
"That's very kind of you," Dudley muttered. To Dee's ears, he sounded nothing short of thoroughly awkward. "But I wouldn't want to, um… impose."
"It wouldn't be imposing, Dudley," Harry said. "Stay as long as you'd like."
"How long?"
All eyes – even James' and Lily's again – drew towards Al when he interrupted in his quiet voice. Dee couldn't help but frown a little at the connotations of the query. He might be shy, but maybe his father should coach him on a little bit of tact, too.
"Al, I know you wanted to spend the day with Rose," Harry said, with more gentle reprimand than scolding, "but just for today, alright?"
"Sorry, Dad," Al said, instantly dropping his chin and hunching his shoulders a little further. "That's fine. I was just asking. Rosie said she was feeling a little lonely today, is all, so I just thought… but that's fine."
Harry melted. Ginny spared him a glance, and they seemed to hold an unspoken discussion in a matter of seconds. "If she wants, she can come over after dinner," Ginny said. "But just for a little while, alright?"
Al nodded, still apparently chided, and subsided once more.
Dee stared at him. She stared, and her frown settled into one of suspicion more than disgruntlement. That was… strange. Interesting. Curious, because Dee might not be that smart, but she certainly wasn't dumb. Definitely not about things like that, because that…
"Why don't you show Dee around the house a little, Al?" Harry suggested after a time, with an encouraging glance towards Dee. "You'll be in the same year at Hogwarts, so maybe it would be a good chance to get to know one another."
Dee was still frowning. She was still studying Al to the exclusion of even the fairies and the magical pictures, but she nodded her acceptance immediately. Al, like the good child Dee's father had told her Harry said he was, like the quietly obedient son he appeared, smiled another small smile, and nodded obligingly. Then he beckoned just as silently towards Dee and turned back to the kitchen, disappearing from the living room.
"Shall I give you the grand old tour, then?" he asked as she followed after him. Without waiting for a reply, he gave a small turn of the kitchen. "I suppose you can probably work out most of everything for yourself, though, right?"
"Kitchens all look pretty much the same," Dee said, and though she was curious to see what elements of this kitchen differed to her own, she was somewhat distracted by the boy that led her.
Al nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Just don't put your hand in the knife drawer."
Dee blinked. "What? Why?"
"'Cause kids can't usually control their magic so well, and some of the magicked knifes get a bit antsy around it." He gave another small smile as though he hadn't just suggested the potential for mutilation at the hands of kitchen utensils.
Dee blinked again. "Huh. Right. Got it."
Al's smile widened fractionally. "Great."
He led her around the house – into the bathroom, the dining room, then up the stairs and bypassing several bedrooms. There was minimal exchange, all with Al's quiet voice and gentle smiles, and Dee found herself growing only more suspicious. Not because of the lack of visible magic – which was a little disappointing – but because of Al.
That suspicion mounted when Al led her into her room.
It was as unremarkable as the rest of the house. A boy's room, though nothing about it particularly screamed 'boy'. A bed with a green and blue quilt, a desk scattered with knick-knacks and pens, a bookshelf stuffed with oddments as much as books themselves. Some of those oddments were indeed interesting, the likes of which Dee had certainly never seen before, but magical? She wasn't sure. Interesting, but not quite as much as the boy that plopped down in the centre of the room with another inviting beckon.
Not as much as the girl that was already sitting on the rug beside him.
"So this is your cousin, huh?"
Dee stared at her. A tall girl, grasshopper legs crossed before her, she stared at Dee down a rather long nose and idly brushed aside a wayward curl of her frizzy red hair.
Dee continued to stare at her until she was distracted by Al. Al, who spoke not quite so quietly and curiously enough to draw her attention. "Yeah. This is Dee, Rose. Dee, this is Rose."
Then Dee was staring at Al. The boy who, until moments before, had been quiet, almost reserved, and nothing if not placid. He was still quiet, still seemingly placid, but something had slightly… changed. It could have been the company of 'Rose', or merely the comfort of his own room, but he seemed eased slightly. More than eased, he seemed…
"Rose?" Dee found herself saying. "As in, your cousin Rose?"
Al blinked up at her as he tucked his knees comfortably to his chest. "Yup."
"As in, your cousin who you're not supposed to have over?"
"Not supposed to," Rose said, rolling her eyes.
Al smiled. It was a different kind of smile, too; not overtly, but very definitely different. Maybe someone else wouldn't have noticed, but to Dee – she knew the elements of a 'different' smile. She wasn't quite so adept at the full range of them herself, but she could recognise them. "What Mum and Dad don't know won't hurt them."
Dee wasn't all that smart at school. She didn't really have friends, and she knew that, in general, people didn't like her upon first meeting her. Too loud, to forward, too set in her ways. Just as much, however, Dee didn't particularly like others.
Not until then. Not until the meaning behind Al's words dawned upon her. Was Al being deliberately inclusive in 'revealing' as much to her, or was it not such a revelation at all? Did no one else see it?
Falling to her knees with a heavy thump, Dee glanced between the two of them with her own smile spreading. Not so boring and placid after all, she thought. "You're sort of a liar, aren't you, Al?"
That was the moment. It was like a switch was flipped. A switch, and instead of a light being flicked off, a curtain seemed to be drawn aside. Rose turned slowly from her cousin to regarding Dee more fully, and there was something like growing understanding, growing respect, even, upon her face. An acknowledgement that perhaps Dee wasn't quite so worthy of disregard as she'd previously thought. Dee liked that. She liked it a lot.
But Al was the one who really changed. Or changed again, more specifically. His wide green eyes didn't grow any less beautiful, and his smile didn't falter; if anything, it grew wider, too. But on top of that, a further light seemed to flood his face, and something about his posture, how he held himself – it slipped away.
Dee was just a little awed by the sight of it. She was good at tricking her teachers, at getting what she wanted from her father when she wanted it, and pretending she didn't dislike visiting her grandparents as much as she did. But she knew without second thought that her own skills at deception held nothing upon Al's.
"Huh," Al said, coiling an arm around the front of his legs and dropping his chin atop his knees. "I think I like you, Dee."
Dee blinked. Then she felt herself smiling even wider. "Really?"
"Really," Rose answered for her cousin. "It's almost embarrassing how oblivious people can be, you know."
"People? In Godric's Hollow?"
"In everywhere," Rose said with another roll of her eyes. Dee decided that, high-and-mighty as Rose might seem, she quite liked the girl. Even more so when she smirked conspiratorially to Al. "No one quite seems to realise Al's playing the puppet-master, even after he's gotten bored of pulling the strings."
"The puppet-master?" Dee echoed. She wasn't quite sure she fully understood the reference.
But Rose was still smiling, and Al was smiling too. He hadn't looked away from Dee for a moment. Strange, how he could look both small and seemingly harmless yet wore a smile that Dee knew, could feel, was something decidedly Other than innocent.
Dee liked that. She thought she liked Al, too. Sweetly innocent was boring, after all, even if it did often entail 'niceness'. She would rather a little less nice and more interesting.
Satisfaction growing, Dee shuffled forwards on her knees. She planted both hands flatly on the carpet before her and glanced between Rose and Al. "I've made up my mind," she said. "We're going to be friends."
"Is that right?" Al asked.
"You're making the decision for us, then, are you?" Rose asked in turn, still smirking.
Dee nodded. She'd always been a decisive person. "I am. I like both of you –"
"You don't really know us, actually," Rose said, raising a pointed finger.
Dee shrugged. "Not much, but a little bit."
"A very little bit," Al said, head cocking slightly where his chin still rested atop his knees.
Dee shrugged again. "Friends always start off as just a little bit, right? What's important is that you're both not really, really dumb, you're both magic, we're all going to school together, and –" she paused, glancing between the both of them meaningfully, "you're obviously not really, really boring."
For a moment, neither Al nor Rose spoke. Then they exchanged a glance, turned simultaneously back to Dee, and broke into giggles.
"Well, that's a relief," Rose said, shaking as she bowed forwards in merriment, arm wrapped around her belly. "I'd hate to be boring."
"At least you have your priorities straight, Dee," Al said through his own giggles. He edged forwards slightly before sticking out a hand to Dee in a manner that felt strangely formal with another kid rather than an adult yet kind of nice at the same time. "Friends, then."
Dee didn't hesitate. She grabbed his hand and squeezed, pumping enthusiastically. "Friends."
"The terrible trio," Rose said, shaking her hand with the same too-adultness that Dee found herself liking even more.
"We'd be better as a four, I think," Al said.
"Don't be picky, Al."
"I'm just stating a fact. Safety in numbers, but not too many. And," he winked – actually winked – at Dee a little slyly, "much less boring that way."
"Maybe we could be," Dee said, settling onto her knees more comfortably. Very, very comfortably, she realised; Al's room suddenly seemed just that much more welcoming, and even more delightful for the fact that Rose – their secret company – joined them. "Maybe we'll find a fourth person at Hogwarts?"
"Maybe," Al said.
Then he grinned. And Rose smirked. And Dee couldn't help but beam in something that was definitely delight and entirely irrepressible. It would seem that, for the first time, things were beginning to look up. Dee was a little strange, very independent, and played to no one's whims but her own. And yet it seemed that she might have just found the perfect people for her.
Hogwarts' letter couldn't have been more welcomed. The terrible trio – it was almost, almost perfect, right from the get-go.
Almost.