The owl was named Hedwig. Harry decided the name during the grueling read that was his efforts to complete A History of Magic in the time before it needed to be returned to the Carrow Library. While not an often-read book by the residents – if ever – it was one more predominately displayed and easily missed at a glance thanks to the gold leaf design of the edition. Certainly the nicest book Harry had ever read, it was also the most strenuous and boring, but Hermione had insisted he read it.

The only spells in the books were ones mentioned either because of their creation by some significant witch or wizard, or their use during a pivotal moment in history. Not recent history however, which was what made learning so much about the wizarding world suddenly so much more boring than he'd expected. The book only covered up to the year 1900 and according to Gully the year was 1991. What had occurred in the last 91 years? What was happening now out there in the world that he was missing?

Reading about the creation of Hogwarts and its founders was well and good – but what was it like to go there? What was it like to walk the halls of such a place and learn there and use magic without fear of being caught?

He didn't even get to finish the massive book before Gully was whisking it away to prevent it from being missed. The last entry he'd read was of a first year at Hogwarts joining their house Quidditch team, the youngest ever – unless someone had managed it in the last century. The learning of what Quidditch was just added another thing to the growing list of things Harry wanted to try and experience.

Despite not finishing, he still reported back everything he could remember in a ramble of a letter back to Hermione via Hedwig as requested of him only to receive a scathing review of his work back. She'd spent so much time reviewing his summary of history, she'd once again forgone answering his many questions about Hogwarts and instead suggesting yet another book of history to him. Hogwarts: A History was taking Gully a while to acquire though and after attempting the last history book, Harry was in no rush to read it.

The correspondence between Harry and Hermione was so frequent as to increase Gully's stress exponentially and give Hermione's classmates increasing curiosity to whom her secret pen pal was. Harry had sent his first letter to the address Hermione had given him, receiving a bundle of parchment in reply that Hedwig had seemed most relieved to be free of upon delivery.

Lists of spells, notes on how to cast them and pronounce them, references to books he had no idea even existed for further information on them and then potions and history, herbology and transfiguration, astronomy and charms. It was enough to make up a book all its own. Harry had devoured it all with the assumption he'd always had – that his access to such vital information would be fleeting. Befriending Hermione quickly proved the opposite of that assumption.

Information was not only frequent and steadfast but now came with work not so dissimilar to his chores and the information that was interesting also came with loads of uninteresting information. Harry had no idea what he was supposed to do with so much information about stars or potions. He could barely see the stars yet through the trees until winter came and bared the forest, so the class seemed rather useless to him.

Potions seemed somewhat fascinating at first but quickly became disappointing to read about. As much as it might be fascinating and useful to learn in a class, he could hardly replicate the potions Hermione was learning with the meager ingredients of their kitchen. The best he could do was practice the particular ways of cutting, stirring and measuring Hermione insisted on writing detailed notes to him about.

Things like Charms and Transfiguration he could practice to some extent. Even Herbology could be attempted or pretended at by wandering about what the nearby forest could offer.

What really peeked Harry's interest though was Defense Against the Dark Arts. It seemed the subject Hermione was least interested in despite her notes being no less detailed on the subject, but Harry had been hooked just from the name alone. Everything about the subject resonated with him. He'd read the copy Hermione had sent him of her first essay on the importance of Defense Against the Dark Arts at least a dozen times – perhaps two dozen. Defending one self against dark magic. Against curses and hexes. Against evil witches and wizards.

The class was practically made for him. What else did he do day in and day out but try to survive an evil witch and an evil wizard. But he was stuck with no access to such an education except through Hermione. Faced with the ton of information she bombarded him with, from copies of her notes and essays to assignments she'd given him based on what she supplied, and the slow pace at which students seemed to learn all this – Harry was getting impatient.

He was used to devouring entire books the moment he got them, dedicating himself solely to the study of the information therein until he could replicate it to the best of his ability. Now he had to wait for each return of Hedwig with new notes and assignments and study at the pace he was given. Harry was in no place to complain and yet.

He was impatient and determined. The longer he spent learning from afar through Hermione, the greater his want – his need – to attend Hogwarts himself became.

But how does one get in the school? Where is it? How do you get there? How are you sorted into a House so you can learn?

His questions had all received the reference of Hogwarts: A History barring some brief excerpts from the book itself that threatened to turn into essays he actually wanted to read instead of ones on the importance of cauldron care. Harry was immensely grateful to Hermione for being his tutor, but her focus was near impossible to turn from the subject of education. He began to wonder if she was skipping over anything about what her life at Hogwarts was like for a reason. Like how he refrained from telling her anything else about his home life or family.

Amongst the usual chores and new distance learning that filled his every day, Harry had begun to have restless nights that added to his impatience. His dreams were becoming strange, filled with subjects unfamiliar to him. There were some nights he'd wake to light his hand and hurry to reread Hermione's latest notes to see what had inspired the dream. Surely the things he was seeing had to come from her letters, because there was nothing so unusual or unfamiliar at the manor.

The green light was the only familiarity that haunted him. Always a bright green flash, signaling the abrupt end to his dreams as he'd wake sweating with his heart racing in his chest. The rest of the contents varied in their frequency. The first had been of sitting at the front of a what looked like a huge dining room with several tables all meant to hold far more people than the singular rickety slab in the manor dining room. Surrounded by empty chairs, the only other presence in the room with him always seemed to be behind him, but no matter how Harry turned in the dream he couldn't see who it was. The voice whispered, just at the back of his head, words he could never understand.

But he recognized the tone and considered the specter of his dream must be some relation to the Carrows. It had the same meanness they did. The voice would come with a weight bearing down on him, on his head and shoulders, making him feel off balance.

Other times he'd dream of sitting in front of a mirror in yet another empty room, staring at his reflection until other blurred reflections would appear behind him. Like with the menacing voice, they would not be behind him when he looked, but sometimes there would be murmurs of voices that sounded far kinder than the other. Not that they sounded any clearer than their reflections.

Once he dreamed of the forest. He'd thought it his own at first but felt even in the dream it was foreign to him. Foreign like the taste in his mouth, and the hollow feeling burrowing its way in his chest as he stared down at the animal beneath him with silver spreading like water around his feet and smearing his hands. He felt thirsty and hungry, like he did when he went days without more than a few scraps to eat or less – only with a growing despair each time he had the dream that the sensation would never end. That no matter how long he drank the silver liquid that spilled from the white furred animal he would never have enough.

Harry was glad that dream was not the most frequent as it left him unable to sleep the rest of the night whenever it occurred. It felt too real, like was actually there, drinking straight from the body of the dead animal rather than just imagining the gruesome scene in his head.

He hadn't written to Hermione at all about the dreams. Instead keeping his focus on trying to learn as much about life at Hogwarts and Defense Against the Dark Arts as she'd include in her letters.

"I swear he has to live right outside the castle…" Hermione muttered as she thanked Hedwig for the latest reply from Harry. She could already tell from the thinness of the bundle that he hadn't written the essays she'd assigned him – or at least not to Hogwarts standards yet. He really needed to improve if she was going to have any luck as a student of a true wizarding school one day.

"What was that?" asked Lavender, leaning across the table to try and get a glimpse of the letters when Hermione started to open them.

"Nothing." Hermione quickly replied, tucking the papers closer so the nosy girl wouldn't see them. Harry was the one subject Hermione was short of words on. Every class they went to, Hermione was ready to raise her hand and spout every fact she knew on the requested subject, but her classmates couldn't barely get a word out of her when it came to her letters.

"Oh come on Granger, we all wanna know. What's your boyfriend say this time, eh?" Seamus teased at grabbing the letters over Hermione's shoulder as he passed behind her, earning a fearsome glare and a dash to hide the letters beneath the table till he'd taken his seat on the other side of Neville beside her.

"Leave it alone, Seamus. Don't be rude," scolded Neville, straightening up only briefly from reading his own newly arrived letters before bending back down to hurriedly finish reading.

"What's rude is keeping secrets," countered Lavender, still staring expectantly at Hermione. "Come on – we're all dying to know. It's everyday now. If you're not getting letters, you're sending them, or writing them, or scribbling all over them like Snape when he's grading our papers."

"It's none of your business," Hermione reminded Lavender for the umpteenth time. "It's just a friend I study with."
"But not someone from here. You don't have any friends here."

Hermione winced at that, gripping her letters so hard in her lap that started to crumble. Making friends at Hogwarts had proved unexpectedly difficult. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but Hogwarts hadn't turned out much different from her previous schools. Well, in subject matter it had of course, but the social structure was familiar. Hermione had thrown herself into her studies whole heartedly before the semester had even begun and never slowed her pace – just as she had done with every school subject before.

Only much the same as her muggle school, her classmates failed to share her level of enthusiasm. It didn't deter her. Much. She knew she was appreciated for always taking the pressure off volunteers for questions in class, and having notes ready for copying should someone miss something, but she'd made no real connections or friendships with anyone yet.

There were acquaintances sure, but Hermione's free time was consumed with studying or corresponding with Harry. It made it difficult to answer his questions about what life at Hogwarts was like. What was she supposed to tell him? That her version of life at Hogwarts was exactly as she'd already shown? Classes, notes, homework, studying – Hermione was already sharing exactly what life at Hogwarts was like with him. Only much like her classmates, Hermione feared she'd lose the one person of the wizarding world she considered a friend to eventually lose interest in her.

Already she sensed his impatience and urgency but had little to give him. Perhaps if she'd gone to Ravenclaw with others as focused in their studies… no, Hermione was sure she was in the right House if only she could connect with her fellows.

At the end of a truly appalling attempt at an essay based on Hermione's Herbology notes, which included a scribbled drawing of a shrub nearby his house Harry thought seemed relevant, was another round of questions about Hogwarts. Are there many other Gryffindors our age? Do they take the same classes? Do you have any other friends?

Hermione fidgeted at that last line, glancing up around the table. Lavender had lost interest, wandering off to talk with Parvati instead. Seamus was showing off a new spell likely to explode soon to Ron and Dean. Everyone outside their year was even more unfamiliar than her classmates except the obvious Weasely twins, Fred and George all the way at the end with a group of friends entranced by some performance of theirs. The closest attempt she could make was…

"How's your family?" Hermione asked Neville, the suddenness of the question making him jump.

He folded his own letters in his hands quickly, and then unfolded them, and refolded them, before shrugging at last. His anxiety was obvious and infectious. Hermione felt bad for him, knowing from her readings on the more recent history of magic that Neville was one of the two most famous young wizards of their time. In Hermione's opinion, what little official text there was citing Neville into history read like myth rather than fact. All of it putting far too much pressure on the boy just for a good story.

A decade ago, the more famous of the two young wizards of their age, Harry Potter had been murdered by a powerful and dangerous dark wizard. That should have been the end of it and in some texts it was – the only texts that mattered to Hermione as the war was obviously over with the death of the opposing side's leader. Except somewhere along the way after Potter's death, a rumor had taken hold of seemingly both sides of the war that resulted in aftershocks that still effected the wizarding world a decade later.

The texts less reputable in Hermione's opinion for their contents stated that the Dark Lord would one day return because the true Chosen One, the one destined to defeat him for good, was actually Neville Longbottom. They foretold a future where the war would begin again with the Dark Lord's return and Neville would be the only one able to stop him.

Neville, the eleven-year-old boy in front of her who so often forgot his robes and jumped a foot into the air at any call of attention to him. "They're fine," He muttered, clutching the letter in a way that spoke of anything but. "Just… worried. As always." He glanced around for any listeners before asking, "And your… friend?"

"Fine." She agreed in a tone much the same to his. "Just impatient. I can tell he really wants to be here."

"Funny," Neville chuckled rather humorlessly. "I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind us trading places."

That piqued her interest. "Why's that?"

He shrugged again and stared down at the letter with a growing look of what might be guilt, she thought. "My parents aren't… well they… They get very worried you see and aren't always rational about it. There was a lot of argument between them and my grandmother about whether or not I should come here or be homeschooled because… well the whole…"

"Chosen One destined to destroy a dead, evil wizard part?"

"Yeah, exactly!" His face brightened towards her for only a moment at not having to say it himself before the grimness of the subject matter returned. "My grandmother won out and I got to come here, but my parents still send me letters all the time checking in on me like they think You-Know-Who will return any day now and come for me… They're a little paranoid."

"Are you worried about it?" It hadn't occurred yet to Hermione that despite her confidence in the evil wizard being dead as fact – someone more closely related to the situation like Neville might be effected by the rumors surrounding him.

"No… yes… I don't know."

"He is dead," Hermione assured. "Its history. Fact. Plus, you're at Hogwarts. There's no safer place you could be."
"Yeah, I know. My Gran knows that too, but my parents worry."
Hermione vaguely remembered reading something about the Longbottom family post the wizarding war, but the book on the war had been brief in its post war events. She could look into it further, but thought that might be invasive to the privacy of someone she was attempting to be friendly with.

"Why doesn't your friend attend school here? Do their parents worry about evil wizards coming back from the dead too?"

They both chuckled a little at that. "No… I'm not sure exactly why. Just that his parents won't let him come. He has to homeschool, but they don't seem to care at all about his education – which is completely ridiculous! I mean, why wouldn't you want your child to have the best possible education? I can't imagine what I'd have done if my parents had said no to my attendance here."

"Some wizarding families are a lot like my parents I think – less so now it's been so long, but the war really shook them up for a long time. At least, that's what my Gran says. What's his family?"
"Carrow," Hermione replied and blinked immediately after with the realization she perhaps shouldn't have said that.

Neville's face paled considerably, eyes bulging for a moment before his head whipped around in all directions to look for anyone being nosy once more. At the all clear, he leaned in close anyways to whisper anxiously, "Carrow? You're friends with a Carrow? How did you become friends with one?"
"What do you mean how? We met in Diagon Alley, at the Owl Emporium. What's wrong with the Carrow family?"

"The Carrows sided with You-Know-Who in the war. Some of them even sided with Grindelwald back in the 20s. They're one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight but they still haven't exactly made their way back into the good graces of the wizard world, Hermione. My Gran says the only good ones are those too dull to hex you."

"Neville," Hermione scolded. "That's not fair to say of a whole family." She felt a surge of defensiveness rise up. Harry certainly wasn't dull, and he was good… She thought. He'd never given her any reason to think otherwise except… "But why wouldn't they send their children to school still? It's not like a child our age could have participated in the war."

"No, but some of their family is still on the run from the Aurors. There's wanted Death Eaters among them. They probably don't want him getting caught up in the Ministry looking for them."

Hermione's head spun with new pieces to the Harry puzzle in her mind. Was it possible Harry knew Death Eaters? Were his parent's ones? Had they fought in the war on the losing side and were now on the run? Was that why he had some strange protection illusion charm over him?

Neville leaned back, looking suddenly out of breath. "I can't believe it… you're friends with a Carrow… But… doesn't he… I mean…"

"Out with it, Neville," Hermione muttered not unkindly.

"He doesn't say anything… mean about you does he?"
"Mean about me? Why?"
"Because your parents are muggles?"

Once again, Hermione was left rather stunned, mulling that question over in her mind. It took a few turns before she shook her head of the very notion. "No, he knows my parents are muggles. He never said anything bad about them or me. He's my friend… my only friend."

A conflicted expression crossed Neville's face at that. He glanced behind him, not for listeners this time but to stare at the group of boys laughing over Seamus' latest backfired spell. If memory served her right, and Hermione knew it did, they were all his roommates in the dormitory.

"Well, we can be friends too, right?" Neville asked as he turned back to her. Perhaps he was feeling just as excluded as she was. Her by her studies and him by a rumored destiny. They both stood out among their otherwise normal classmates.

Do you have any other friends? This time Hermione was going to take the time to write back yes, she did have friends. And perhaps a few other details of what life at Hogwarts was like. The Halloween feast to come that evening would surely be of some level of interest to him.

"Yes, friends," Hermione held out her hand for them to shake. It was awkward but no less satisfying as cementing their agreement to at least try at a friendship.

"Are you going to… tell him?" Neville nodded his head towards the letters. "That you're friends with… me?"

"Should I not?"

"No! I mean – its not important its just… nerves about someone related to Death Eaters I guess…"

"Right…" Hermione winced. "But he isn't close with his family at all. He'd never tell anyone if I told him not to."

Neville paused. "So what's his name?"
She opened her mouth to say and found the name stuck in her throat, refusing to let a sound escape. Hermione closed her mouth, clearing her throat and tried again only to start coughing and need a drink.

"Are you alright?"

That was strange. Hermione didn't know why she'd be able to mention the name Carrow but not say Harry's first name. The best she could think was that portion of whatever protections surrounded Harry was as imperfect as the rest of it. Like the way it reset his appearance every time you lost concentration on him despite being right in front of you. She was coming to understand that spells that complicated often had flaws like that unless you were extremely talented and careful in their application. Even then things slipped through the cracks.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said when she felt she could speak safely. "His name is…" Hermione's mind scrambled through different names in recent memory looking for one that was unique enough in the surrounding student body that it wouldn't be an obvious lie. Her pause lasted too long and she panicked. "James."

Hermione closed her eyes for a brief second to inwardly scold herself. Her mind had jumped from Harry Carrow to Harry Potter and then James Potter in a rush of name association. Thankfully, Neville didn't seem to catch the lie or be suspicious of the name.

"James…" His eyes flickered down to the letters, catching on the shrub. "Oh! Is he interest in Herbology? That's my favorite class."

"Oh… well, sort of. I've been trying to get him to learn to write essays so I can put them all together for him to show he has potential. I thought if I could show it to Professor McGonagall or even Headmaster Dumbledore, they might think he's deserves to be at the school enough to try and convince his family to let him come but since his family might not let him come due to reasons regarding the last war well… that might have been a foolish notion."

Neville was quiet for a moment and then smiled. "Well, how's his Herbology essay going?"

He gave no sign or word of doubt that Hermione's idea was a foolish one, and that alone she greatly appreciated. "Not great. Would you like to see?"

"It can't be any worse than mine," He took them and quickly amended, "Or not."

Harry expected the next letter he received to be much like each before. Plenty of new notes, and likely a return of his last attempt at "homework" with notes about all he needed to improve. He waited as patiently as possible throughout a long day tending to Alecto's every whim. The witch had threatened to hex him at least once an hour throughout the day and had sent him writhing in pain to the floor twice before he was finally freed to flee for his attic room that night.

Hedwig was waiting for him on the little perch he managed to fashion, the attic window always at least ajar for her convenience. The letter waiting for him was much thinner than he'd come to expect, immediately peeking even his tired interest. He'd been considering falling straight to sleep and reading in the morning, but the unusual length of correspondence kept him awake.

"Lumos," he whispered as he collapsed onto his bed of flat pillows and old blankets. His wand lit at the tip, shining light enough to read the letter without blinding him and Hedwig both.

Dear Harry,

I am regretfully not sending any new study material to you with this letter so expect plenty next time. However, I thought you may wish to know that I've made two new friends and fought a troll.

Harry paused at that line, stunned for a minute before reading through the rest of the letter so fast he processed none of it and had to start again – twice.

By the end of the tale of Hermione's encounter in the girl's bathroom post insult from one Ron Weasley she described a new friendship forming between herself, a boy named Neville Longbottom, and the previously mentioned insulter himself.

There was one thing Harry was certain of while staring at the postscript of the letter about how she'd also told Neville his name was James Carrow and she'd write again tomorrow with more information about that subject.

Harry needed to find a way into Hogwarts. Letter or no letter, if his only friend was in danger in the one place he wanted to be more than any place else anyways well… he would find a way.

That night he dreamed not of trolls or mirrors or dead animals with silver blood, but of a massive three headed creature lunging at him in the darkness – the sinister voice hissing just behind him with increasing rage until hands grabbed at his shoulders to pull him back from the three headed beast. The green light flashed him awake before he could see who had grabbed him.