Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all, etc., etc.

A/N: And now, we wrap up Hermione's and Harry's pre-Hogwarts letters adventures. I know I didn't expect to be 60,000 words in already, but I've been very encouraged by all the positive reviews. Next chapter, Harry reenters the magical world.

The opening quote is taken from the classic Doctor Who serial Survival, the final episode of which aired on 6 December 1989. The Search out Science episode in question also exists and is just as absurd as Hermione describes. Yes, I am an über-nerd who has seen all 800 episodes of Doctor Who. What of it?


Chapter 12

December 1989

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold. Come on, Ace—we've got work to do!"

"Ace totally would have been cooler with super cat powers," Harry said.

"Well, of course you'd say that," Hermione shot back. "I think it's better that she resisted violence and let the Doctor solve it."

"Girls," he muttered under his breath.

"Well," she put her hands on her hips, "isn't the show about brains over brawn, anyway?"

"I certainly think so," Emma defended her.

Harry mumbled something and turned away with a very feline look of ignoring them.

"You're not going to start going on about the thrill of the hunt, are you?" Hermione said anxiously.

"Maybe…" Harry said, staring back at her. He focused and tried to morph just his eyes and his teeth to cat form, like the Master, but from Hermione's reaction, he didn't think it was working.

His sister rolled her eyes at him. "I'm just glad you're too small to hunt anything bigger than a squirrel."

Harry grinned evilly at her and hissed slightly, "How fast can you run, sister?"

"Ahhh!" Hermione ran up the stairs with Harry chasing her.

"Kids, behave!" their mother yelled up after them.

The lights flickered from hastily cast wandless magic. It still wasn't very powerful in direct effects, but the spillover could still be strong when the children got overexcited. A moment later a mewling black and white kitten ran flat out back down the stairs.

Emma took the first couple of steps up, then stopped and shook her head. "No, I don't want to know."


April 1990

That Saturday was easily the hardest and longest Harry had ever pushed himself—much harder than his weeks wandering as a kitten long ago, harder than his most rigorous efforts to train himself in magic. He had been specifically preparing for this day for a solid month. It was a full day of demonstrations, assessments, strength tests, and sparring matches. Paul and Tiffany had shown up to cheer him on, and Grandma and Grandpa Granger had come down from Manchester to see him, even though Grandma mostly hid her eyes whenever he was sparring on the floor. Cousins Ted and Andi were there, too, and even old Ms. Wilkins stopped by near the end of the day to see how here one-time case was doing, though no one was sure who had told her the test was that day. Sensei John commented that Harry seemed to be a very popular boy. His family silently recollected that he didn't know the half of it.

The day nearly ended in disaster early on when he landed a badly mis-aimed strike on his sparring partner, and pain shot up his arm. He knew enough to know that a botched strike like that could have broken his wrist, but after a few minutes of recovery, it seemed to be intact. An ankle rolling out from under him nearly floored him again, but he knew how to fall to avoid putting too much pressure on it, and he bounced right back up.

Most of Harry's demonstrations did go well, but it was still incredibly hard work. By the end of the day, his arms were aching from the strikes, and he was sure his legs were going to give out, but he somehow managed to keep his feet.

His final sparring match of the day came up, against one of the other equally-tired candidates who had been running the gauntlet all day—a boy who was four years his senior. Making the grade didn't depend on his winning the match, but it did depend on showing appropriate competence, even after everything else.

They put on their safety gear and bowed to each other, and then the match began, with fists and feet flying. Andi and Ted had been impressed with the children's demonstrations before, but seeing Harry hold his own like that against an equally-trained boy twice his size, moving like a trained Auror, even after a longer day than any battle of the war had been, brought the thought of the Boy-Who-Lived legend back to their minds. The difference was that he had done this himself by hard work. If he couldn't escape the legend, they thought, then at least he could make it his own.

An hour later, the candidates were lined up for the promotion ceremony. Most of them had passed, but not all. Sensei John stood up and spoke to the crowd: "Today, we recognise six students who have completed the mental, physical, and technical requirements for promotion to the rank of first dan, commonly known as a first-degree black belt. This rank is both a sign of skill and achievement and a call to continued study and self-improvement. Please step forward when I call your name to receive your belt and certificate…Sarah Armstrong…Charles Connor…Kathy McCoy…Adam Nicholson…Harry Potter…"

Harry's family and friends cheered as he stepped forward, and his father took pictures as he removed his brown belt, and Sensei John tied a black belt around his waist. "And I will add that Harry is the youngest first dan recipient we've had in three years. Congratulations, Harry." Harry bowed to Sensei John and hugged him in thanks. He returned to the adulation of his family, humming to himself, as "Tyler Spencer" was the last to receive a belt that day.

"Congratulations, Harry," Hermione said, hugging him. "I just hope I can get mine before we go to…boarding school," she said with a glance around.

"Of course you will, Mione," Harry told her. "You've still got over a year."

"But I'm not even at first kyu yet," she said.

"But you test next week, and you'll definitely pass. No one else has the moves memorised as well as you do."

She smiled weakly. She'd been training for her test as much as Harry had been training for his. "Thanks Harry."

"I think this calls for a celebration," Dan said. "What do you say we go out for barbecue?"

"Really? Yes!" Harry yelled, leaping in triumph. With his strong taste for red meat, he always enjoyed the one American-style barbecue restaurant for miles around. The rest of his family had never seen the appeal, but this was a day worth celebrating in his preferred way.


June 1990

The Granger Family strolled past the rides during their annual trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, heading back for another spin on the Wild Mouse (a ride Harry insisted was very aptly named). Dan and Harry were bigger fans of the roller coasters than Emma and Hermione, but they all had a lot of fun whenever they went, and Harry especially couldn't get enough of them. After everything he had heard about Quidditch, he was eager to learn to fly, and this was the closest he was going to get until he could get his hands on an actual broom.

They paid no attention to the gaggle of boys and a couple of adults passing them in the other direction until one of the boys yelled out, "Come on, we have to get to the Avalanche!"

"Hold your horses, Dudley," a stern voice sounded from a woman who was clearly unhappy with having to chaperon.

Harry froze stiff. He knew those voices. And today was the 23rd, wasn't it? "Dudley!" he squeaked out.

The boy who was shouting stopped and turned to look at him. Harry also snapped around to face the boy, who immediately spotted the scar on his forehead.

"Harry?" Dudley Dursley said in shock. Dudley wasn't fat anymore; he was still a little chunky, but he looked to be in decent shape and was dressed up more than was really ideal for an amusement park.

"What? What was that?" A large, dominating woman with shoulder-length blond hair and a slight moustache stepped forward and looked down her nose at Harry: Majorie Dursley. She also recognised the scar and the awful messy hair, and a scowl crossed her face.

Harry hunched over, staring up at the woman, unblinking, bared his teeth, and bent slightly at the knees in preparation to flee. He had to fight his first instinct to change to cat form and run away—and his second instinct to throw out a wild karate kick at the pair.

"Harry, calm down," Hermione ordered, taking him by the shoulder. His family knew that pose too well—the human version of a scared-angry cat pose. It had surfaced a few times when he had first started sparring in karate, and it had never ended well.

Unfortunately, his former aunt couldn't keep her opinion to herself. "Harry Potter!" she said disdainfully. "I didn't think I should ever see you again. You're the little brat who gave my brother so much trouble."

"Aunt Marge…" Dudley said nervously, trying to warn her off Harry's obvious anger. He didn't really know about magic per se, but Vernon had made it abundantly clear to his son that it was Harry's "freakishness" that had got him sent to prison.

"Excuse me, Madam," Dan stepped in front of Harry, looking her straight in the eye. "I'll thank you not to talk to our son that way."

Marge Dursley was not accustomed to people standing up to her. "So you're the adoptive parents then?" she said, taking the same tone with Dan as she had with Harry. "I do hope you're keeping that boy in line. I can't endorse my brother's methods, but the boy was nothing but trouble from the start."

Dan bristled. "The only trouble that boy ever had was how your brother treated him, Ms. Dursley. He's always been the best son we could have hoped for with us."

Marge wasn't backing down. "If that's so, then you're lucky," she said. "Trouble runs in his family. Comes from the mother, of course. I see it all the time in dogs. I'm sure you know about that worthless drunk—died in a car crash, and then her sister—"

"Don't talk about my mother like that!" Harry screamed. The air began to swirl loudly around them.

"Harry, stop!" Hermione yelled, jumping in front of him.

"Aunt Marge, watch out!" Dudley whimpered. "He's gonna use his freakishness!"

Emma wrapped her son in a hug from behind. "Harry, calm down, it's okay."

Hermione felt Harry's magic subside and then whirled around to face his relatives. "Both of you leave Harry alone!" she said.

Aunt Marge was unimpressed. "And just who do you think you are, little girl?"

"I'm Harry's sister, Hermione…and I'm a more powerful freak than he is!"

Dudley went very pale and whispered something that sounded like "Mimblewimble."

Dan intervened again before Marge could say anything further. "And if you won't listen to her, you'll listen to me. Leave. My. Family. Alone."

She finally broke under his stare. "Come along Dudley," she said, grabbing her nephew by the wrist and dragging him back to the group. "There's no need for us to associate with these people. Loons the lot of them."

She kept muttering under her breath, but Dudley looked back to them and nervously called out, "Harry, I'm…sorry…about before…" He turned away and kept walking. He might not like his cousin, but he couldn't help but feel a little solidarity with him since Aunt Marge was always so fond of insulting both of their mothers in the same breath.


December 1990

"This is the last easy chance we'll have to tell them," Dan said whilst pouring himself a cup of tea. He was sure he was going to need it.

"I know," Emma replied.

"I wish it didn't have to be at Christmas, too, but it's getting harder for them to come around at any other time."

"Dan, we have this conversation every year. I know it'll have to be Christmas if we tell them at all. It's just…it's going to be hard to spring on them. You know how hard it was for us."

"How could I forget? But I can't stand keeping secrets from my parents anymore. They deserve to know their grandchildren are magical."

"You're not going to tell them everything, are you?" Emma said. "About Voldemort and all that?"

"No, I don't think they need to know all the details. But it's bad enough the kids won't be able to use wands outside of school—according to Andi. Mum and Dad should at least be able to know where they're going to school and why."

"And are we going to have the kids demonstrate their wandless magic for them?"

"Well, that was the idea…Look they haven't destroyed anything in months, and they're good enough at it now to do it convincingly."

"Isn't that about what you said last year, Dan?"

"Maybe, but…but you can't deny they've got better, Emma. I think they're ready."

Emma sighed. "I'm sure they are, but I'm worried about how your parents will react. You know they're more traditional than we are about that kind of thing. And with Harry's history…"

"I know, dear, but I really think if we explain it, Mum and Dad will understand."

Emma sat down and took a sip of tea. "Well, you're right; it is the last Christmas before they go to school. I guess we can warn the kids, and if they're okay with it, we'll tell them."

Dan kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you, dear. The only other question is do we tell them before or after Christmas."

She laid her forehead on her hands. "In other words, do we risk ruining Christmas or pull a bait-and-switch on them?"

"Or you could say, do we get it out of the way early or wait until the holiday stress is over?"

"Not helping, Dan."

"Well, the kids are old enough to make their own decisions, now. Come on, let's go talk to them."

The headed out to the living room, where the kids were watching the tail end of whatever the television show du jour was, which didn't seem to have impressed them.

"I still can't believe they haven't made any more Doctor Who," Hermione complained.

"Well, there was that Search Out Science episode," Harry said.

"Which was completely ridiculous. Honestly, why wouldn't the robot be able to figure out the puzzles? And Ace doesn't make sense on a quiz show either. I just hope they get the show started again before we go to Hogwarts."

"Don't worry, we can always tape it," Dan interrupted. "Hermione, Harry…we need to talk."


The children decided, even after their mother's warning, to tell their grandparents before Christmas on the evening they arrived. After dinner, they all sat around the living room, with a few candles lit for the season, and Dan turned off the telly for a serious discussion.

"Mum, Dad, listen." he said, struggling to meet their eyes. "There's something we've been keeping from you…Something pretty major."

"Dan, what's wrong?" Grandma said.

"Nothing's wrong, Mum. That's not what I meant." He took a deep breath. "The truth is that Hermione and Harry are…magical."

Grandma and Grandpa both broke into an uncertain laugh. "Magical?" Grandma said. "What do you mean?"

"I mean Hermione is…" He still thought the term was unfortunate. "…a witch, and Harry is a wizard. They can do magic."

"Magic?" Grandpa said. "You mean like a stage show…"

He stopped as Hermione waved her hand towards an empty teacup in small a swish-and-flick pattern, and it rose into the air. Harry followed suit with the saucer.

"Oh…my…goodness…"

The children floated the teacup and saucer around the room. Grandpa frantically ran his hands all around them to check for wires. Even after all this time, these were still about the largest things they could levitate, but they could at least do it on command, now, and Hermione reasoned that if it was enough to pick up a wand, that was the most important skill they could learn.

"How…but that's impossible."

"No, it's magic," Hermione said proudly.

Grandpa sat open-mouthed. He tapped a finger against the teacup, and it drifted away. "You did that just by…just by waving your hand?"

"We'll be able to do more when we get wands," Hermione said. "We'll be old enough to buy wands next summer."

"So this is…real magic?" Grandma said. "You can wave a wand and say abraca—"

"No!" four voices shouted. The teacup and saucer fell. The saucer hit the corner of the coffee table and cracked in two.

"Sorry," Harry muttered in embarrassment. He picked up the two halves of the saucer and set them together on the table. He ran a finger over the crack, and the pieces fused together again. Grandma's and Grandpa's eyebrows shot up.

"No, I'm sorry," Dan explained. "I should explain. We uh…we told you that Harry's birth parents were killed in a terrorist attack. But the truth is that it was a magical terrorist, and he used a dark spell that sounds a lot like that word…He's gone, now…" Basically. "But it's still not a word that you want to say around magical people."

"Oh, my! That's terrible. I'm so sorry, Harry," Grandma said.

Harry blinked at her slowly and then nodded, snapping back into human etiquette.

"Luckily, as far as we know, alakazam, bippity boppity boo, hocus pocus, open sesame, presto chango, and sim sala bim are all complete nonsense," Emma said, trying to lighten the mood. Cousin Andi had been quite amused by that list.

"We have been working on some other real spells, though," Hermione said eagerly.

Grandma and Grandpa looked rather uncomfortable, but they nodded for the children to continue. Hermione pointed at one of the candles, and it blew out. Harry repeated her action with another candle, though noticeably slower, and between them, they extinguished all of the candles in the room. Then, Hermione extended her hand toward the first candle and, with a look of concentration, snapped her fingers. The candle lit up. They didn't get all of them on the first try, but all of the candles in the room were soon burning again. Their grandparents sat silently.

Hermione then held up a sheet of paper from a notebook and, with a two-fingered swipe, cut it in half. Harry successfully repeated the feat.

"With a little more practice, that'll be great for chopping vegetables," their mother said.

"Okay, that's enough," Grandpa said sharply. "Look…Dan…I don't fully understand what's going on here, but this…this isn't safe. I mean, dabbling in the occult, conjuring spirits…"

"Dad, it's not that kind of magic." Dan was silently relieved that his father's reaction wasn't any worse. "They're not conjuring spirits or anything like that. They were born with it."

"It's genetic, Robert," Emma admitted. "Harry's birth parents were magical, and so were my grandparents on my mother's side."

"But this defies the laws of science. It's not natural," Grandpa insisted. Harry stiffened, but said nothing.

"Only as we know them," Emma countered. "You know Dan and I are trained in the sciences. Believe me; we were as shocked as you are. But electricity, television, computers—they all would have been called magic two hundred years ago. We still don't understand how the brain works or how life began, but we probably will one day. Everything we've seen so far seems to suggest that there's nothing really supernatural about what wizards call 'magic'. It's just science that we don't understand yet."

"She right, Dad," her husband said. "We've seen some magic ourselves, and we've read a lot about magical history, and it reads a lot more like inventions and machinery and computer programs than it does mediums and occult rituals. We honestly believe that it could be broken down scientifically if we had the opportunity."

Grandpa leaned back and his seat and closed his eyes, trying to process what he had just seen.

"But—why didn't you tell us?" Grandma exclaimed.

"We wanted to, Vera," Emma explained. "We very nearly did last year. But wizards have laws to keep magic a secret from mu—from non-magic people." She was amazed at how easily she fell into the jargon after this many years. "Technically, we're not even supposed to tell you, but they'll look the other way because you're close family. You certainly can't tell anyone else."

"And more to the point," Dan added, "we wanted to wait until Harry and Hermione were good enough at magic to demonstrate it to you," Dan added. "It's taken them all this time just to get this far, and believe me, they've barely got started."

"Wait, laws?" Grandpa said.

"There's a whole society with its own government, Dad. There's about ten thousand of them in Britain."

"That's why we wanted to tell you," Emma said. "Next fall, the kids will be going to a magical boarding school in Scotland to learn actual spells. It's supposed to be the best in the world. You deserve to know where they're going and what kind of education they're getting."

Grandpa sighed heavily. "A school? A government? Magical science…?" He was silent for a long time. "Well, you're right about one thing…it will be great for chopping vegetables."

The tension broke. The other adults started laughing, and the children broke into broad smiles and leapt up to hug their grandfather. Dan and Emma all but collapsed into tears when they went to bad that night over how well Robert and Vera had taken the news.

The next few days were filled with wonder and laughter as the two of them we regaled with tales of the magical world. Dan and Emma told them the "official" story of how they had met Harry, and about his cousins and the few other magicals they had met. The children shared the more humorous episodes they had read in A History of Magic and their favourites from The Tales of Beedle the Bard that Cousin Andi had sent them last year. And of course, they answered the older Grangers' many questions about Hogwarts and the magical world in general.

When Christmas morning came, two owls appeared outside the kitchen window. Ted and Andi had sent Hermione an autographed copy of Hogwarts, A History by Bathilda Bagshot and had sent Harry an autographed copy of Quidditch Through the Ages, which was somewhat more impressive considering they had never even heard of Kennilworthy Whisp. Dora had sent each of them a box of Honeydukes chocolate, which even Harry had to agree was some of the best he'd ever had. An attached note said that the candy was "safe for muggle consumption," prompting some concern that there might be some out there that wasn't. In the end, it was universally agreed in the Granger household that this was the best Christmas ever.


January 1991

"Today, we recognise three students who have completed the mental, physical, and technical requirements for promotion to the rank of first dan," Sensei John repeated the standard speech. "This rank is both a sign of skill and achievement and a call to continued study and self-improvement. Please step forward when I call your name to receive your belt and certificate…Hermione Granger…"

Hermione ran forward eagerly, barely containing a squeal of glee that really ought to be beneath her maturity level, she thought. She also very nearly bowled over Sensei John when she hugged him after he gave her her black belt.

"Hermione is the second black belt in her family," he said. "Her brother, Harry Potter, made first dan last year. Sadly, Hermione and Harry will be leaving us this fall when they go to boarding school in Scotland. They have been two of the most dedicated students I have ever had the pleasure to teach, and while we'll be sorry to see them go, I'm sure they will be continuing their training with the same enthusiasm they've put into the last five years."

"Yes, Sensei John," Hermione said firmly. Her family smiled knowingly.


July 1991

"Why, Professor McGonagall, what a surprise."

"Good morning, Mrs. Granger. I hope this is not a bad time," said the witch who was uncharacteristically dressed in muggle clothes that, if a little old-fashioned, looked perfectly normal.

"Not at all. Please come in." Emma led her to the kitchen, where the rest of the family was eating breakfast.

"Oh, good morning, Professor," Dan said when he saw her.

"Good morning, Professor," the children echoed.

"Cup of tea?" Emma asked.

"No thank you. I'm afraid I can't stay for long. Harry, Hermione, I'm here because I have something very special for both of you." She drew two envelopes from a sheaf of parchments. "These are your Hogwarts acceptance letters."

Both children gasped in delight and rose from their seats. They waved their hands toward McGonagall, and the letters levitated out of her hand and across the table, where they snatched them out of the air. Her eyebrows rose in surprise. These two were becoming entirely too proficient for their own good.

"Children! That's…not polite," Emma scolded.

"Sorry," they mumbled.

McGonagall lapsed back into her stern professor voice: "Mr. Potter, I am certain that you and your sister are going to be just as much a handful as your father and his friends were. Merlin help us all." A nervous laugh circled the room as Harry and Hermione read their letters.

"We await your owl by no later than 31 July?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Oh, you won't need to worry about that. I had to remind the Headmaster that you don't actually have an owl," McGonagall said. She turned to the rest of the family. "There is an orientation to the magical world for muggle-born students on Saturday beginning from Kings Cross Station in London, which I encourage all of you to attend. You will be able to do your shopping at that time, and I will of course accompany you personally to fend off Harry's admirers."

Dan and Emma quickly looked over the letters. "Thank you, Professor. That's very generous of you. We'll be there, of course," Dan said.

"Excellent. I apologise for cutting this short, but I have five more visits to make today, and all of those will require a great deal more explaining."

The Grangers all nodded knowingly, thanking the fates that they had got their introduction to the magical world out of the way when Harry first showed up on their doorstep.

"We'll see you Saturday, then," Emma said.

"Indeed. Good day." She showed herself out.

"I can't believe we're finally going to Hogwarts!" Hermione exclaimed.

"I can," Harry teased her. "We've known about it for years."

"But we never get to see it. And Hogwarts, A History says it's unplottable, so we couldn't even find it without using magic. And we haven't even been to magical London yet."

"Well, we'll all get our chance this weekend," Emma said. "We should probably send a letter to Cousin Andi. I'm sure she'll want to know about this…Dan?"

Her husband was still looking over the letters. "Is it a bad sign that this supply list actually makes sense to me?" he said.

Emma laughed. "Get used to it, Dan. We're in this for the long haul, now."

"Yes, dear."