Disclaimer: I own nothing.

The Most Secretive Family at Hogwarts

"This is nice," Arthur said as he walked arm in arm with his sister Kate down the snowy streets of Hogsmeade, Charity and Scorpius on either side of them. "I almost feel like a Hogwarts student."

A couple times in the last quarter hour, they'd passed gawping first-and-second-years who'd seen Arthur's Muggle magic at Uncle Fred's shop—the children (they seemed like such children to Arthur, who was only a couple years older) pointed excitedly, and one asked for Arthur's autograph. Charity had snickered at him when he pulled a ballpoint pen out of his pocket to sign. He had no skill with a quill and ink: he wrote too rapidly and still couldn't get his hand to keep time with the speed of his thoughts, to think about penmanship.

"That's the thing about the magical community," he told the little second-year boy, who'd looked so eagerly at the foreign pen that he gave it as a gift in exchange for enduring some mild pontification—

"The thing about the magical community is that, unlike Muggle technology, there is no incremental growth and concept of progress. It's a stagnant culture, and all the more so because it's such a small, insular community which because of the International Statute of Secrecy doesn't permit the influx of new ideas that could refresh society. So while Muggles are using practical and efficientwriting tools like ballpoint pens and laptops, witches and wizards are still plucking the feathers off of dead birds."

The second-year boy, who turned out to be clever, and turned out to be Frank Franklin Longbottom, much to Kate's delight, asked why Arthur thought quick quotes quills weren't practical or efficient. Arthur brightened.

"That's a great question!" he exclaimed, in the happy surprise of an intelligent young person who rarely meets other intelligent young people. "It's because they rely on a power we don't understand. Magic has yet to be quantified—even by other wizards and witches—and magical theory is barely more than superstition with a veneer of philosophical terms and references to metaphysics. It's dangerous to trust something that's still so hidden. And even what is known is kept away from the public, in the Department of Mysteries. I doubt we'll ever see any of that."

Arthur smiled at little Longbottom and shook his hand, like they were two adults and good friends. Frank Franklin beamed with a smile so wide that Arthur hoped the tensile strength of the kid's skin was strong enough to hold the strain.

"Thanks!" Frank Franklin said, nearly jumping up and down from the attention. Arthur smiled and waved goodbye; Kate kissed Frank Franklin on the cheek, and when the boy was gone, she kissed Arthur too.

"Do you think he understood half of that?" Scorpius asked, watching Frank Franklin trot away with his new prize and thoughts of metaphysics dancing in his head. "He looks happy, at least."

Kate giggled. "Arthur—you sounded just like dad!"

Arthur scowled. "Did not."

"You so did," she replied. "And Ignatius. You sound like him too."

"Am not!" Arthur exclaimed, all the more shocked because deep down he knew it was probably true.

Edie only giggled harder. "All the Weasley men can give a good speech," she said. "Or at least—all our Weasley men."

Arthur scowled again, knowing he looked like his brother and sounded like his brother, and felt a secret pleasure that Charity hadn't laughed when Kate numbered him among the Weasley men.

"Did you mean all that about magical culture, Arthur?" Kate asked, chewing on the inside of her cheek, which Arthur knew meant she was thinking hard. "You know, about magical culture being stagnant or something?"

"I did mean it," he said with an almost sanctimonious nod of his head. "I never say what I don't mean."

Kate burst into a fit of giggles, this time bringing their new friend Charity into the laughter by sheer power of exuberance.

"Stop it, Katie!" Arthur complained, annoyed.

"Then stop acting like Ignatius!"

That shut up Arthur quick.

"Well," he finally said, ignoring Kate and Charity's stifled giggles and appreciating Scorpius's polite pretense at deafness. "I did lie about one thing…"

They had arrived at The Three Broomsticks, which Arthur had suggested as a very loud place where they wouldn't be overhead. He remembered the stories his aunts and uncles recounted at family vacations, even if they never noticed he was in the room. Scorpius spotted an unoccupied table in a back corner, squished against the wall by a large party nearby and half-obscured by a life-size plaster bust of Aberforth Dumbledore. Scorpius looked at it strangely and opened his mouth as if to ask a question, but just ended up sighing and shrugging and sitting down. He gave Arthur the very look Arthur would have given—what's the point of even asking?

Arthur would never understand wizarding aesthetics.

"So what did you say you lied about, Artie?" Charity reminded him.

Arthur was fairly sure no one had invited Charity Burbage II along to conspire with them, but there she was, looking as cool and comfortable as if she were a member of the family. But then, so did Scorpius, and he wasn't family either.

Squibs, Slytherins, and general misfits were a family of sorts, Arthur supposed. In a strange, strange way. And so, in a strange way, he didn't find it strange to lay sensitive family history on the table, in front of two strangers and a sister who'd been reporting to the arch-manipulator Ignatius Weasley for fifteen years.

The world had turned upside-down.

"So you know about our mother, Audrey Stevens," Arthur began, addressing Scorpius. The Malfoy boy nodded. Charity smiled.

"I don't know, but it's all right—go on. I'm a quick study," she said casually.

Arthur did go on.

"Well what none of you know—no, not even you, Kate—is that I've known for years that mum, who we've all called Audrey Stevens our whole lives, really isn't Audrey Stevens."

The other three all spoke up at once: Charity, Kate, and Scorpius.

"This is such a better weekend since I met you, Artie—"

"You knew already? Mum and dad told you? I always said you were her favorite, Arthur, no matter what you say—"

"And all this time I thought I came from the most secretive family at Hogwarts."

"All right, all right," Arthur said, trying to get them quiet. Not even Aberforth Dumbledore's plaster head could divert attention for long, now that the sun had started to peek through the cloud cover and the chilled crowd inside started filtering out of the pub. "Let me finish!

So he did.

"Back when you went to school one year, Katie, when we came to say goodbye to you on the platform, I was angry and jealous. I'd be alone in London until I went off to school myself, and even then I'd be alone. I was always alone. And then, naturally, I hear Albus Severus and Rose talking, terrified that they're going to get Sorted into Slytherin—no offense to you, Scorpius, of course. I didn't agree with them. And then instead of telling them that it didn't matter where they got Sorted, Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron laughed and joked and said that of course they wouldn't. And I ran off and cried somewhere, like a baby.

("Oh Arthur!" Kate cried, reaching her hand across the table to comfort him. He shook his head and sighed. "Will you let me finish? Please?")

"I heard Mum and Dad asking where I was—it was all foggy on the platform that day, and no one knew where I was because I hadn't said goodbye to Albus Severus and Rose, and you were off with Ignatius, and it was all rather distressing.

"But Dad found me—I was sitting behind someone's luggage, if I remember right—and asked what was wrong. I said what I still think, that it's absurd to complain about which House when some people don't get any. I'd've taken Slytherin—no offense meant to you, Scorpius, but it's the family culture, you know? I'd have taken any Sorting. They were selfish to complain.

"So I told him all that, I'm sure with a lot more sobbing and sniffling involved—

("Oh, don't be so self-deprecating, Arthur," Kate said. "I don't remember ever seeing you cry about that." Arthur skewered her with a cold look. "Well I'm good at hiding in the smog, then, aren't I?")

"So I told him that. And Dad said that, in his opinion, there was a lot to be said for being a Muggle. That Muggles are innovative, and creative, and sharp—not like so many wizards think and impugn them for ignorance and blindness. Dad told me that he'd met Mum at the Quidditch World Cup, which she'd snuck into completely by accident. And then she got tortured by Death Eaters, but ran away and kept the Ministry off her trail for months, and then ended up at Diagon Alley again, and eventually St. Mungo's. That they wiped her memory there, but it didn't completely work, the charm didn't, so she ended up remembering little things… And she found her way to the Burrow, where she Floo'd herself to Hogwarts. She found Dumbledore's penseive, and talked to his portrait, and got Sorted by the Sorting Hat.

("Wait—what?" Scorpius asked. "This is infinitely better than our textbook's account." "I'm going to get my Muggle Studies NEWT in two years," Kate said encouragingly. "You should do it too, Scorpius!" "Everyone says it's a soft option, you know," he replied. "Everyone says stop interrupting me," Arthur said. They fell silent. Only Charity coughed a little, a cough that sounded suspiciously like Mr. Weasley.)

"It Sorted her into Muggle, if that's of any interest. Apparently, it had some very flattering things to say about Muggles. In any case, she fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, and saved a girl. But then she was attacked by dementors and by a Death Eater—not in that order, I think. The Death Eater got called away, thank God, but while he was torturing her… the second time she was tortured by Death Eaters, which should be enough for any Muggle not to want to remember anything about magic, you think?... he broke through the memory charm and she got everything back.

"And then she and dad married.

"Well I thought this all very, very interesting, and decided to do some research. I couldn't find any record of an Audrey Stevens involved in Ministry hearings regarding dad's legislation, but there was mention of an Edie Filbert and a Sharon Filbert. It didn't take much digging to find that Edie's Audrey, and Sharon Filbert's our aunt."

Kate gasped. "We have an aunt? On mum's side?"

Arthur nodded. "They had a falling out."

"How do you know?" Kate asked, crestfallen.

"Because I hacked into mum's email account and went through her archives. Sharon Filbert knows that dad's a wizard, and she went in front of the Ministry too, but she doesn't like the secrecy at all. She thinks it would kill our grandparents to find out."

Kate whispered, "We have grandparents too, on mum's side."

"That's right. A retired surveyor and a social worker. Interesting, isn't it?

"In any case, once I learned all this, I wondered what else I could find. So I hacked into Dad's computer and found his archives."

"Your father uses the Internet?" Scorpius asked. "Isn't that a bit taboo at the Ministry?"

"There's a bit of a stigma, true," Arthur agreed. "But think of the security benefits—the encryption's nothing a teenage computer science geek couldn't crack on a lazy afternoon, but a grown wizard wouldn't know where to start. And if said wizard tried to magick his way into Dad's files, the hard drive would fry. An obvious tip-off."

Scorpius, trying very hard to follow the conversation—which was more than either of the girls could say, both of whom were still occupied by earlier parts of the story—asked: "But… if the hard drive was… destroyed. Would he lose all his… his… information?"

Arthur beamed with the look of an intelligent young man thrilled to meet another intelligent young man.

"No, but the wizard 'hacker' might think so—making him complacent. Or it would tell Dad that someone was trying to get into his files. But the files themselves would be intact, since he stores everything in the cloud."

The three looked at Arthur, completely and utterly lost. He laughed, the first genuinely amused laugh Kate had heard in a long time.

"You don't understand anything I'm saying, do you?"

The three shook their heads in unison.

Arthur shrugged. "Well, suffice it to say—no one can mess with his computer now, even when he takes it to the Ministry. He put a magic-repelling spell around his office. Around certain parts of the house, too."

"That seems like a contradiction," Charity said, bemused. "A magic spell to repel magic?"

"You're think so, wouldn't you?" Arthur exclaimed, warming to his subject. "But it works! Dad invented it himself."

Scorpius whistled, impressed.

"Er… Arthur?" Kate asked timidly. "This is all really interesting and everything, but… you said you had some sort of hard proof that would help us?"

Arthur gave his sister his widest, brightest grin, and thought of Frank Franklin's self-satisfied smile. Arthur heaved his backpack up onto the table, and let it drop with a satisfying smack. He unzipped the front pocket, and pulled of one of half a dozen reels of what looked like a strange iridescent film.

"There's one closet in Mum's office that he keeps out of the magic vacuum. I knew that meant something magic was in there, and I found these."

"They look like home movies," Kate said.

"Or microfilm reels," Charity guessed.

Scorpius leaned close and looked at the shimmering green and blue film. "It reminds me of some sort of amphibious membrane."

"Well you're all close, but it's a little more frightening than any of those," Arthur said. "Don't faint, Katie, promise? Because these are Mum's memories."

"Shite," Scorpius muttered. "Your family's definitely stranger than mine."