The morning after the acromantula escape, at breakfast, I was surprised to have an owl swoop in to deliver mail to me. I never got mail. The creature had a slightly cross-eyed expression on its face, and an unusual set of markings. After I relieved it of the attached parcel, it stumbled around on the table and then launched itself over to the end of the Ravenclaw table, where Luna gave it an affectionate pat and an owl treat before it went on its way. She turned and gave me a grin and thumbs up. I looked down and realized that this must be my first issue of the subscription to her father's paper that he'd gifted me.

The Quibbler, it turned out, was less of a newspaper and more of a magazine. Well, that was perhaps giving it too much credit, because its production value was not that much better than some of the fan 'zines I'd seen in Chicago music stores. It was actually printed, rather than being handwritten and photocopied, but the layout was just as meandering, and it wasn't particularly thick. Most of the art was line drawings instead of photographs, all of it showing fantastic beasts more fantastic than anything covered in the Hogwarts class devoted to the same.

"The Quibbler's out there, even for my mum," Oliver suggested, seeing what I'd gotten.

"Luna's father writes it," I told him. "Remember when he said he'd give me a subscription to his magazine when we met him on the train?"

"That… makes total sense," agreed Oliver, ruefully shaking his head.

I skimmed through it while we ate breakfast, and I admitted to him, "It's actually not that bad. Entertaining. There's a muggle magazine called the Fortean Times that I think is kind of similar. Runs that line where you're not sure if you're reading something written by actual crazy people or you're just all in on a funny joke."

As I considered the publication for the rest of the day, I realized it might present me an opportunity. I didn't like being complicit in whatever it was that my godmother was up to, but I also didn't want to invite the questions that would arise if I warned any rational authority.

To the Editor,

I understand that the Ministry's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures has spent several months defending against an onslaught of beasts of inexplicable origin attacking wizarding homes and businesses. I believe most of these have escaped through the Veil that protects our world from the home of the faeries. How? Dark wizards are deliberately stretching the Veil until something even worse can escape. The Ministry needs to act to strengthen the Veil before this plot is realized!

A Concerned Citizen

I didn't know whether anyone who could do anything read Mr. Lovegood's magazine, but it couldn't hurt to try. At the very least, it might give him some credibility if people eventually figured out he'd been right. I wrote it up, deliberately trying to keep my handwriting precise and not too similar to my normal style, then sent it with a school owl.

Despite how sneaky I thought I was being, Luna caught up with me a few days later when I was alone outside, enjoying a rare sunny afternoon. "Daddy appreciates the article," she said. When I just gave her a shocked look, not having prepared a poker face for this eventuality, she explained, "The school owls are fairly recognizable, and I mentioned our conversation about the Nevernever. There really aren't many people that know about it."

"I guess he is an investigative reporter," I allowed. "I'd like to stay anonymous, though."

"Dark wizards," she nodded, without explaining what she thought my relationship with those dark wizards was. "Congratulations, by the way."

"For what?"

"You've significantly reduced your nargle infestation since the party. Hardly any of them come near you anymore."

I shrugged, considering, "Could be the Hogwarts wards?"

"No. I noticed it on the train. It's almost as if you're protected."

"Rule of three?" I suggested. "I fought off my third attack by fae beasts in a year not long after the party."

She thought for a second, then nodded, "That could do it. It may only buy you a year and a day, though."

"I'll still take it," I smiled, not sure whether the girl had any special insight but enjoying that she was the only one I could talk to that didn't at least a little bit think what I knew about the Nevernever was children's stories. "Give something else a chance to try to kill me."

"Fenrir Greyback," she agreed, somehow again jumping to the right answer. "Daddy covered the attack in the previous edition, but he heard about it too late to talk to you directly. We aren't sure whether he's an independent or working for the Rotfang Conspiracy. Daddy thinks the latter because werewolves and vampires don't get along."

"He did work with the Death Eaters during the war," I shrugged. "But I don't think he was after me for any organization other than his own." I thought for a second about an explanation that wouldn't reveal Remus' status to someone who was potentially way more insightful than anyone would give her credit for. "I'm friends with someone that he wanted to punish by killing me."

"That will make Daddy sad," she said, wistfully. "He doesn't like it when it's just one person doing a bad thing, instead of a group. He likes it when things make sense."

I almost laughed at the idea, but I got it. "If bad things happen because of a big conspiracy, you can stop the bad things if you can just find and stop the people in charge. But if anybody can do a bad thing, then crime can happen at any time."

"Or accidents," she nodded, sadly.

"Hey," I tried to cheer her up. "But if anyone can decide to do bad things, that also means you don't have to wait on anyone else to tell you that you can do good things."

She smiled, "Like the Quibbler! Nobody told Daddy he could do it, but he did anyway, because people need to know the truth."

I nodded, changing the subject, "How are things going for you, so far?"

"Most of my year-mates have a worse nargle infestation than you did this summer," she frowned. "I haven't told them that, because Ginny says it upsets people, but I think they know that I know because they don't seem to want to talk to me. Prefect Clearwater is helping, though."

"Good. Just keep in mind that most wizards seem to have a weirdly hard time with things they don't understand. Probably because they think they know more than anybody else." I basically gave her the same advice I'd given Hermione the previous year, "Just try to talk to them about stuff they think is important, and don't act like you're not taking it seriously. They'll be more inclined to let you talk about what you want to talk about if you meet them halfway.

"Besides, the way things are going with the Veil… I'm worried that pretty soon everyone's going to find out that a lot of the stuff you can see but they can't is all too real."

She nodded, was about to say something else, then suddenly twitched her head and looked into the distance, whispering, "Ginny's in trouble." She immediately stood and started walking off, so I quickly grabbed my own things and followed.

After a few moments I realized we were heading toward the quidditch pitch. I vaguely remembered seeing a couple of redheads on brooms in the air earlier, and maybe heard that Ron was going to take Ginny to practice before Oliver let her try out for seeker. They weren't in the air, now, and Luna was charging ahead toward where I thought there was a shed behind the pitch that stored school brooms. The girl's legs were so short compared to my own that I only had to jog slightly to keep up as she broke into a full run.

As we rounded the stands and could see the shed, I saw three very familiar backs in Slytherin-colored robes: Flint, Montague, and Pucey, the three chasers that I'd run into when they were trying to intimidate the Gryffindor team's girls on the train a year before. "...do you know what degloving means?" I heard Montague ask someone trapped inside the shed, in a repeat of his last year's performance.

Figuring we were repeating the same performance, and they'd notice me running up in a second anyway, I shouted, "Hey, assholes!" The three boys turned to frown at me and I could make out two small redheads inside the shed. As I slowed down to stop about twenty feet away, I asked, "Don't you three ever get tired of being sports movie cliches?"

"Dresden!" growled Flint. "We still owe you." Apparently, they did not. He glanced behind me and gave a toothy grin when he realized we were well out of sight of anybody else. "Just you and a bunch of first-years now, Dresden."

"I'm a second-year!" Ron complained from inside the shed.

"You're right," I told him, planting my staff and shaking my shield bracelet free of my sleeve. "You need to go get some more guys?"

While I had apparently managed to convince everyone the previous year I was too risky to bully, I'd learned from other people that the staff was very bad at punishing bullying in general. Without a teacher, prefect, or a ton of witnesses, they were generally inclined to pretend there was nothing they could do. Given how backwards British wizarding culture was, it wasn't a surprise that their attitudes to bullying were those of a boarding school from the 19th century.

Which meant that the Slytherin boys finally saw their opportunity to get me back for embarrassing them the last year, and had their own wands out ready to start throwing hexes. I noticed Luna had orbited the confrontation when I stopped, and was moving to get to the shed while staying out of my line of fire. Good girl. For their own part, the Slytherin chasers were starting to move away from the shed and spread out slightly, barely acknowledging the little kids.

That was a mistake, since from inside the shed there was a pair of shouts that blended together, but I later learned were "Chiroptera Mucosa!" from Ginny and "Slugulus Eructo!" from Ron. Blasts of light hit Montague and Pucey in the sides as they started to turn and put up shields. With a groan, Montague covered his face as wings of snot began to rip their way free of his nose, and Pucey grimaced as slugs began to ooze out of his mouth.

Not to be left out, as Flint turned and considered something to take the kids he'd ignored out of the fight, Luna reached the side of the shed and yelled, "Lumos Speculum!" A shimmering haze of light appeared in front of her, extending wide enough to obscure the door of the shed. Vague shapes in the light seemed to match the boys in front of the shield, like a holographic attempt at a mirror.

Smirking at how this clearly wasn't going to be less of an embarrassment for the boys, I hissed, "Ventus!" and angled my staff down, shoving a burst of air at their legs which caused all three, off balance, to stagger and take a knee. "And that's the gentlest spell I know," I lied to them. "Maybe you should go find someone your own speed to bully, like five-year-olds."

They stumbled back to their feet, scowling, but realizing they would have to turn their backs on me to take out the kids, or take more prank spells from the kids to focus on me. And Montague was currently being assaulted by bats made of his own snot while Pucey had invertebrates rolling down the front of his robes.

Flint started to say something and I interrupted with, "I know, I know, 'Next time' and 'Watch your back' but never 'This time' or 'I challenge you to a duel to show I'm better.' Bye, guys."

Alternately sneezing, burping, and grumbling, the three boys grudgingly walked away. I heard Flint trying to dispel the jinxes once they rounded the quidditch stands, so I kept myself faced in that direction just in case they made another attempt from a better angle. But they were apparently shamed enough for the day to just head out.

Once it was clear I relaxed, the kids lowered their wands. "Thanks, Harry," Ron said.

"Thank Luna, she knew Ginny was in trouble," I told him. "I was just tagging along. And you three did most of the work, so good job. Just keep an eye out for bullies when you're off alone."

Ron nodded, worked up his courage to say, "Thanks, Luna!" to his sister's weird friend, and added, "That shield was awesome, too."

"It was my mother's," the girl said, sadly. "Very easy to cast. I liked your slugs."

"The twins taught me that," he nodded.

"And my bat bogey hex!" Ginny added.

As we headed back, the kids excitedly chattered about winning their first big magical skirmish, totally bouncing back from being cornered by bigger boys.