August the Thirtieth was a balmy, sultry night across the British Isles. Lyra had flung open the large windows of their Oxford flat, in an attempt to entice a non-existent breeze into the stifling rooms. She had even brought the fan from her bedroom and plugged it in, only for it to blow warm air around the living area. In the end, she'd resorted to pulling off her halter-top and lounging on the window sill, half in and out of the frame, and cooling herself off by allowing melting ice cubes to drip down her neck and into the crook of her bra.

"If Malcolm sees you like this, he'll have a heart attack," Pantalaimon warned, as he stretched out near the fan.

"I don't care," Lyra huffed. "If I don't get cool, I'm sure I'll die! It's so hot, Pan! I don't think I can stand it!"

"It's nothing like as bad as the Levant," Pantalaimon reminded her. "You're being melodramatic as always."

"Is Hermione asleep?" Lyra demanded. "All that packing was very stressful for her."

"Yes, for the third time," Pan replied blandly. "That was good stuff ... what was it called again?"

"Horlicks," Lyra reminded him. "As soon as Mal gets home, I'm brewing a cup and heading right to bed. Maybe this heat wouldn't hurt so much if I was unconscious!"

"You're such a diva!" Pan chuckled. "Sometimes I forget how much, then you overreact like this and it all comes flooding back!"

"Shut up, Pan!" Lyra laughed.

"I cant ... we need to talk, now that we're alone."

Lyra sighed heavily. "Yes, I know we do."

"What are the chances?" Pan began. "Not only that we'd find him ... but that he'd be here with Harry Potter?"

"Billions to one, I reckon," Lyra huffed. "Dust works in funny ways, Pan. Annoying ones, too, sometimes."

"Annoying? How?"

"Well, if Sirius is Harry Potter's guardian I wont be able to torture and kill him," Lyra replied resentfully. "I was so looking forward to cutting off a certain appendage and wearing it as a necklace!"

"Lyra! Don't be disgusting!" Pan fake admonished with a deep laugh. "Then again ... you could still do that. He doesn't need it, after all!"

"True. Though I much preferred it when I had his balls in my handbag, metaphorically," Lyra mused. "Maybe having bits of him under my nose might be a little unpleasant."

"Yes, quite unhygienic," Pan quipped lightly. "Though, lets be honest, you never had Sirius Black under that kind of control."

"No, I doubt any woman ever has," Lyra agreed bitterly. "How many others do you think he's had?"

"How high do numbers go?" Pan laughed. "But don't act all scorned and mistreated. You loved it at the time ... and you never loved him. You're just cross that he kept more lovers from you than you did from him!"

"Sometimes I wish you didn't know me so well," Lyra smirked. "But that's what I'll do when I see him again. I'll list them all, in alpha-numeric order ... then tell him he was the worst of the lot!"

"But he wasn't ..."

"No, he was right up near the top," Lyra grumbled. "But he doesn't need to know that. Yes, that will do very nicely for me. I'll do it in public for maximum effect."

"No you wont," Pan warned. "It will humiliate Hermione. Think of her, instead of your savage self."

"Yes, I will. You're right," Lyra agreed. "But I will tell him ... and I'll add that he 'didn't touch the sides' either ... or does that reflect worse on me?"

"I am not having this conversation with you," Pan returned flatly. "When you meet Sirius, I'm going to be far, far away."

"You are? Where?"

"Anywhere!" Pan chuckled. "Just so long as I don't have to listen to your gutter verbiage!"

Lyra laughed. "That's fair. I'll give you advance warning, okay?"

"Deal," Pan replied. "You know you'll probably just end up sleeping with him again, anyway. So ... what are we going to do? After all that, I mean."

"We are going to have work with him, aren't we?" Lyra huffed. "There's no way around it. Mal has met with Harry's parents, and they told him Sirius is looking after their boy."

"Asta told me that Mal had no choice but to tell Harry's mother about Hermione," Pan confessed to her lowly. "She hunted him down, threatened him at wand-point."

"Cant say I blame her," Lyra mused. "If some random man turned up and suddenly knew all about Hermione ... I'd have him under my gun before he could even say 'don't shoot'.

"I know you would ... and my teeth would be in his throat, too."

Lyra raised her eyebrows at him. "You've certainly changed your tune."

"Well, lets just say Hermione has grown on me," Pan replied plainly. "Papageno too. I hate to think how feral I'd become if anything threatened him ... threatened them. I ... I was thinking about something. But I'll understand if you refuse."

"What is it?"

"Do you remember that witch we met in Senegal ... the one whose dæmon could still change?" Pan began slowly. "Do you remember her?"

"Yes, I remember," Lyra replied cautiously. "She said her dæmon had learned to change again ... but that it hurt her like separation every time he did it. Why ... what are you thinking?"

"I don't like the idea of Hermione and Pap going out of our sight for so long," Pan explained. "And I was thinking about what Alice said, about how owls are used in this world for communication."

"You were thinking of changing again ... and going with Hermione?" Lyra hushed.

"Not necessarily with her, but I could certainly travel to Hogwarts," Pan clarified. "If I pretend to be the family owl, or something, I could go regularly and check on her, make sure she's doing okay."

"Well, that would certainly put my mind at rest," Lyra considered.

"But could you go through the pain again?"

Lyra stared at him like he was a fly in her tea. "For Hermione? ... I'd take pain between my teeth and bite it till it bled for me! The suffering would be nothing for the benefits. And it wouldn't hurt you, would it? It would just be me."

Pan swooned at her. "When did you become so noble and considerate? No ... you don't have to answer that. I know the answer already. I never thought I'd say this, but ..."

"What?"

"Motherhood suits you, Lyra."

Lyra beamed at him, the blush covering her entire body making her hotter than ever. She was still held, all full up with love like this, when the flat door clicked open and Mal entered. He stood in freeze-frame as he clocked eyes on Lyra's slender, semi-naked form, the moonlight falling over her pale skin in a way that decimated his mind a moment.

He had never been more rueful that he'd never found a way to properly seduce her.

"D-do you want to cover up?" Mal asked quietly as he entered the flat and laid his rifle on the table.

"No, it's boiling in here," Lyra complained. "You've seen plenty of women in less clothing than this. Stop being all complicated."

"We both know you aren't plenty of women," Mal retorted bluntly. "Can you cover up ... please?"

"Why? Not sure you can control yourself, are you?" Lyra purred vampishly.

"Lyra ..."

"Oh, fine," she huffed. "There's a thin shirt in the dryer. Throw it to me, will you?"

Malcolm complied and soon Lyra was decent again. Well, as decent as Lyra Belacqua ever could be.

"So, what did you learn?" Lyra demanded briskly.

"Nothing good," Mal replied. He went to the fridge, opened a beer and drunk deeply. Then he offered the rest to Lyra, who took it as Malcolm cracked open another bottle. "It's as we suspected ... the Magisterium has their claws deep into this world, too."

"How deep?" asked Lyra, wiping the beer foam from her lips like a heathen.

"The Church isn't what it was in that form here, but it has branched out into politics, media, the very social fabric," Malcolm explained. "It has as much control here as I've seen anywhere. Only here ... it's harder to see. It's almost like their influence is invisible. But it's no less potent ... and equally as nefarious."

"Then Thomas Riddle has his support network already in place," Lyra snarled.

"So it would appear," Mal agreed. "Things are far more advanced on this side, too."

"Explain," Lyra ordered.

"Lily Potter and I had a very frank discussion," Mal began, but Lyra cut across abruptly.

"Yes, I heard," she hissed. "You didn't say you'd told her about Hermione! I'm not angry - Pan explained the circumstances - but why didn't you tell me?"

"I was afraid you'd be angry," Mal explained, so fairly that Lyra's protest died in her throat.

"Okay, I'll allow that," Lyra smirked. "But you can tell me now, first."

"Lily wanted to know how I knew about Harry," Mal started. "It turns out that he's not always been as well known as he is now."

"But ... that crowd?" Lyra argued. "And the newspaper articles ... the magazine exposés ... he has chapters about him in those books Hermione hasn't stopped reading!"

"All new developments," Mal explained. "It turns out Harry was raised in an underground city ... and only surfaced about a year ago. He knew as little about this magical world as we do."

"Really? That makes things interesting," Lyra pondered.

"It gets better," Mal continued. "It transpires that the reason the Potters went underground was to - get this - escape Lord Voldemort!"

"Wait ... isn't that what Thomas Riddle is called in this world?"

"The same," Malcolm grinned. "And not only that, but they were partly responsible for weakening him enough to allow Sirius Black to banish him in the first place."

Lyra frowned. "We need to find out much more about this, Mal. Where do we start?"

"Those books of Hermione's," Mal replied. "Once she goes off to Hogwarts I'll give them a read, see what the propaganda says about him. I doubt very much it will be the truth, but it will give us a start. But, as much as I hate to say it, I think Hermione may be right ... about this being serendipity."

"How so?"

"Well, what are the odds, Lyra?" Mal asked. "What are the chances that a couple of magical people here help defeat a Dark Lord, and the wizard who tries to do the last part becomes your ... er ... lover."

Malcolm said this last part through very gritted teeth.

"And that he came to our world in the first place," Lyra agreed. "And that it would lead me to know about this world -"

"- so that you could help Hermione now -"

"- and that the boy she is going to love happens to be the son of the very couple who started it!" Lyra cried. "Yes ... I see what you mean. It certainly has a ring of divine design to it, doesn't it?"

"I don't know about divine," Malcolm argued. "But Dust may certainly have an unusual interest in these two."

"Oh if only I had Mary Malone's Amber Spyglass," Lyra rued. "She'd know right away. Oh, Mal! Maybe that's what I could do! Find Mary! She might still be here, in Oxford!"

"She might not be," Mal pointed out. "She might not even still be alive."

"But if she is, I might be able to find her!" Lyra cried. "She was ever so clever ... and she's bound to know loads more by now. She might even know where ..."

Lyra let her voice tail off. The air in the room congealed until it was like tar. It was a good minute or two before Malcolm spoke again, and his voice was very strained when he did.

"You ... you do what you think will be most useful," Mal spoke lowly. "I'll take Hermione to Kings Cross tomorrow. You begin your search."

"Mal ... I ... I didn't ..."

"We both know you did," Mal volleyed back sharply. "I'm going to bed. You're welcome to finish my beer."

Then he went away, leaving Lyra feeling truly awful in the sultry night.

In the darkness of her bedroom, Hermione couldn't sleep at all.

It wasn't just the oppressive heat, which was choking in the little box room. No, it was more the weight of expectation she had about the coming day. All things considered, Hermione wondered at her going to bed at all. After all, she had so much going on in her head that she rated her chances of sleep at zero to impossible.

So she just shifted her position every five minutes or so, turned her pillow to the cooler side every ten, and tried to work out if she was more nervous about starting at a new school than she was about introducing herself properly to Harry Potter, when she finally met him again.

For this was something she was determined to do right away, to make a better impression than she had on him the first time, for she was quite certain she'd made a fool of herself. Even though her ever-rational brain couldn't quite work out how. But she was convinced of it. Either she hadn't said the right thing, or hadn't smiled enough, or hadn't been as friendly as she could be. It was all sorts of wrong in her fraught mind and Hermione was just desperate to make amends.

She had been dwelling on little else for the past month. On every nuance of the meeting. Every look, every inflection of his voice, every word he chose ... and she'd been pleased with all of it. But she thought that all her responses had been silly and forgettable. He had been kind and friendly and everything she'd hoped he would be ... but she was convinced she'd come across as the village idiot who didn't know when the next rocket to the moon was due at the bus stop.

Hermione couldn't help but be a little disappointed that Harry Potter hadn't recognised her name from the Hogwarts letter. It had put a serious dent in her girlish hopes for a fairytale romance. But then Pap had come to her rescue, reminding her that Harry hadn't had a chance to voice his recognition, as that ginger girl had screamed his name and sent him running for the hills.

Hermione was seriously cross at that, and considered hunting the girl down and poking her in the eye with one of her magic wands.

But the thought of that only stirred Hermione's irrational fear about forgetting something. So she had to get up and check her trunk again, just to make sure both wands were safely packed and ready to go.

Which they were.

So Hermione went back to bed ... and back to feeling anxious over Harry Potter. She had decided to impress him by being true to her word and memorising Hogwarts: A History as she'd promised. Harry had said it was his favourite book, and Hermione quickly found that it became her favourite, too. Though whether this was by chance or design was best left to Dust to decide, Hermione reasoned.

She wondered which fact Harry would be most impressed with. The one about the enchanted ceiling was a good one ... and he would surely be curious about that when he saw it. Or should she start earlier, by telling him that the carriages - which shuttled the Second Years and up from the train station to the school - were pulled by creatures that could only be seen if a person had witnessed death? No, that was a little bit morbid. Not the kind of impression to make right away.

Perhaps she could tell him about the Four Houses, but she might accidentally say that she really hoped they were Sorted into the same House, which he might think was being weird. She could mention the Great Lake, but would he think she was asking him to visit it with her? In fact, that could be said of any landmark at the school. And she didn't want to come across as all obsessive by demanding his time and attention.

For she didn't think he seemed to like that very much. He had run away, at some speed, from the crowd at Flourish and Blotts. He didn't milk the limelight at all. Hermione actually really liked that about him. It said he was down to earth and not arrogant at all, which pleased her.

And that raised a curious possibility ... maybe he would be happier with limited company, more comfortable with a smaller circle of friends. Hermione found she could definitely get on board with that idea. And if she could show him that he had all the close friend he'd ever need in just her ... well, that might be quite something. Quite a lovely something, actually. For her too, funnily enough - as she shyly admitted - for he had been very pleasant to be around, even when he wasn't being all kind and friendly.

For Harry Potter was actually quite pleasing to look at, in a way Hermione hadn't found in another person before. A way she didn't really understand at all just yet. It was like sailing on a new ocean, one never before charted, and Hermione had discovered a most breathtaking view.

It was a little bit like that.

And it did take her breath away strangely, and made her pulse speed in her neck, and her palms go all clammy. That was odd, too. She just hoped none of this would happen tomorrow. For what would Harry Potter think of her, if she turned up like a tongue-tied, sweaty oik and tried to say hello?

Hermione couldn't settle to that thought, so she got up to take another shower, just to be ready for her very big day in the morning.