Early in the morning on the day the Potter twins first letter to Hogwarts arrives at number four Privet Drive, Dahlia Potter wakes from another strange dream in which she wanders through an old house she thought she recognized only to exit out into a strange forest she knew she recognized if only from her dreams. She turns over in the small bed, blinking through the dreariness of her sleep and pushing out the strangely real feeling she's always gotten from her dreams, and looks at Harry still asleep in the bed just next to her.

The pair of them, even as they got bigger and older with every year, share a bed that was fit into the cupboard beneath the stairs. It had been their room for as long as they've known, despite the fact that there was a perfectly fine second bedroom upstairs that at present was deemed their cousin Dudley's where he kept all his toys. Dahlia sometimes wonders if they'd be forced to share this tiny room the rest of their lives, though she then takes some solace when she remembers that they'll only have to share it until they come of age and can leave.

At least, she thinks as she watches Harry huff a bit in his sleep, they are no longer confined within the cupboard at all times outside of schooling now that summer holiday has begun. The two weeks following the incident at the zoo where they were sentenced within the small space had driven Dahlia quite stir-crazy, a fact she felt very sorry for if only for Harry who'd had to put up with it all.

Their first day of freedom she'd been sure to make it up to him by swiping a bar of chocolate from a shop while they wandered about to avoid Dudley and his gang of friends. She didn't particularly like stealing, and she certainly didn't do it often if only for the risk of getting caught and ending them both in trouble (because the Dursley's rarely thought of the twins as separate entities and thus always punished them together). But she'd felt the need to do something for Harry and she knows they both quite like chocolate and sweets, and they have little money between them for her to be able to rightly procure the gift.

They still have a bit of the chocolate left, deciding to ration it so it lasts as long as they can manage, and so she reaches to the small shelf nearby and pulls it down to snap off two little pieces for them both.

Harry, woken by her movement, blinks blearily at her in the darkness of the cupboard as she sets the remaining chocolate back in its spot and settles back onto the bed. He reaches for his glasses and settles them onto his face while Dahlia pulls the little string that lights up their space. "Chocolate before breakfast?" He asks, his voice hushed as they both could hear their aunt moving about in the kitchen.

"Never a wrong time for chocolate, Harry," Dahlia informs him, handing him his piece before nibbling on her own. "Besides," she frowns, though she's always found that a hard thing to do when eating sweets, "I had another one of those dreams and they always leave me feeling off." She finishes off her piece, "and the chocolate helps."

"The one in the woods?" Harry inquires, having heard plenty from his twin about the strange dreams she's subject to have.

"And the house." She worries a bit at the inside of her lip, "I swear Harry, it's a home I've seen before, I just can't place it."

"Any voices this time?" Harry asks.

Dahlia shakes her head, "no, the house was empty this time around." Sometimes she'd hear voices through the house, usually the same two. A woman's voice that sounded sweet and comforting and always made Dahlia feel warm, and a man's voice that was usually louder and more excited sounding and always made Dahlia feel happy. The voices almost always were paired together in some conversation through the house.

There was occasionally a third voice, not tied to the others. A man's voice that was sharp and threatening and always made Dahlia feel chilled to her core and always woke her up with tears on her cheeks.

Harry laid back down for a moment, Dahlia fussing with her hair which held the same untidy curl to it as Harry's despite the difference in coloring between them. She braids it carefully as Harry thinks and finally once she'd finished he offers, "maybe it's where we lived before?"

Dahlia tilts her head a second before shrugging, "maybe." It was something she'd considered, the familiarity of the house being a pleasant one and she can only imagine that the home she'd lived in before Privet Drive was much more pleasant. "If so," she ponders, feeling a familiar clench in her chest at the thought, "do you think the voices would be our parents?"

"Maybe." Harry echoes and she knows just from the look on his face that he's feeling the same clenching feeling in his chest.

They sit a few more minutes in quiet, but then both their faces scrunch a bit at a horrible smell coming in from under the cupboard door. They head out for breakfast, hoping it's not the source of the smell, and find a large metal tub that seemed to be filled with gray water and what looked like dirty rags.

"What's this?" Harry asks their Aunt Petunia, who gets the same pinched look of annoyance she always gets when one of them deigns to ask a question.

"Your new school uniform," She tells them, Harry moving to look in the bowl again while Dahlia moves about sitting at the table, not particularly wanting to think about the end of summer and the beginning of their time at Stonewall High, a school that Dudley enjoyed making them feel worse and worse about.

Harry eventually joins Dahlia at the table, along with Dudley and Uncle Vernon who both held wrinkled noses at the smell of the twins uniforms. Vernon opens his newspaper and Dudley bangs his smelting stick on the table, both doing exactly what they always do.

The click of the mail slot reached their ears and Uncle Vernon says without looking away from his paper, "get the mail, Dudley."

Dahlia doesn't know why Vernon ever tells Dudley to do anything, because as is expected Dudley immediately says "make Harry get it."

Which Vernon always responds with, "Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it," Harry responds, though Dahlia sees him already moving from his seat to go get the mail.

Which is good because Vernon then states, still not looking out from his paper, "Poke him with your smelting stick, Dudley." Dahlia frowns at her eggs as Harry dodges Dudley's stick and wonders how much trouble they'd get in if she hid the thing away for the rest of the summer.

Dahlia was considering the best places to hide the smelting stick when Vernon shouts, "Hurry up, boy! What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" Dahlia glances up from her eggs and towards Harry where he walked back into the kitchen, holding two letters in one hand separate from the ones he hands over to their uncle.

She continues to watch him as he sits down slowly, his green eyes glancing over at her before handing her one of the yellow envelopes. She peers at it curiously and feels her eyes widen just the slightest bit at the realization that its a letter for her, with no mistaking it as it was addressed as such:

Ms. D. Potter

The Cupboard under the Stairs

4 Privet Drive

Little Whinging

Surrey

Dahlia glances at Harry's own letter quickly and sees a similar addressing, the only difference being the name atop it. They lock eyes for a second, both never having received a letter in their lives, before turning the envelopes over.

They were sealed with wax, a purple seal that bore a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake all surrounding a large letter H. They both started breaking the seal and pulling out the letter while Uncle Vernon read his own bill and post card, making some comment on Aunt Marge apparently being ill that neither of the twins paid much of any mind to.

They'd very nearly gotten the letters open and ready to read when Dudley ruins it as he's oft want to do. "Dad!" he says suddenly, "dad, Harry and Dahlia's got something."

The letters were each jerked out of their hands by uncle Vernon one after the other, Harry jumped into action reaching across Dahlia to try and snatch the letter back while saying, "those're ours!"

"Who'd be writing to you?" Uncle Vernon sneers, shaking one of the letters open with one hand and glancing at it. Dahlia watches as his face goes from its often red to a sickly green and then finally landing on a pale white before he stammers out, "P-P-Petunia!"

Dudley attempts to grab one of the letters to read it himself but Uncle Vernon holds it high so none of the children can get at it. Aunt Petunia comes over and grabs one of them to read herself, she looks for a moment like she might faint, clutching her throat and making a choked noise. "Vernon! Oh my goodness— Vernon!"

The two of them stare at one another, seeming to have forgotten the children in the room. Dudley, who wasn't used to being ignored, gave his father a sharp tap with the smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he whines loudly.

"I want to read it," Dahlia snaps, "as they are Harry's and mine."

But Uncle Vernon wouldn't have it, croaking out "get out, the three of you."

Harry didn't move from his spot beside Dahlia, "I WANT MY LETTER!" He shouts at Vernon, and Dahlia glances between her aunt and uncle, each with a letter in hand and ponders which would be the easier to snatch from.

"They're our letters," she repeats harshly.

"Let me see it!" Dudley demands in a way that makes Dahlia want to smack him, because truly he had even less right to the letters than their aunt and uncle did.

"OUT!" Vernon roars before he stands and grabs Dudley and Harry by the scruffs of their necks and throws them into the hall, he stops by the door and points at Dahlia. "Out!" he shouts again at her and she glares fiercely before moving, not wanting to risk getting grabbed and dragged out as well.

The door slams behind her. Dudley, Harry, and her all scrambling over who'd listen at the keyhole, though Dahlia decides instead to not fuss with fighting and instead drops to her stomach and listens at the crack between door and floor, where after a second more of fighting Harry joins her.

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia's voice was quivering, "look at the address— how could they possibly know where they sleep?" Dahlia wonders a second at that, having been a bit stunned at the arrival of the letter itself to not notice that it had listed quite specifically the cupboard under the stairs. "You don't think they're watching the house?"

"Watching— spying— might be following us," mutters Uncle Vernon wildly, sounding more paranoid than Dahlia's ever heard the man before.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want—"

Vernon was pacing, Dahlia able to see his shiny black shoes through the crack, "no," he says after a few pacing lengths, "no, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer…. Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…"

"But—" Petunia did not sound so sure of the plan.

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Let alone two of them!" Vernon sounds positively flustered, and Dahlia knew he was likely red as a tomato in the face. "Didn't we swear when we took them in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?"

Dahlia's brow furrows, and Harry met her gaze. She wonders what dangerous nonsense it was that had their uncle so concerned, but they didn't get to hear more because Uncle Vernon noticed the time and left for work. Dahlia and Harry retreated themselves into the cupboard, though not before Dahlia asked Petunia for her letter only to be shooed from the kitchen where her aunt spent most of the rest of the day.

When their uncle returns from work that evening he does something he'd never done before in their life; he visits them in their cupboard.

"Where's our letters?" Harry asks the second Uncle Vernon squeezed through the door.

"Who's writing to us?" Dahlia asks after.

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," Uncle Vernon says shortly, "I have burned them."

"It was not a mistake!" Harry shouts angrily.

"It had our cupboard on it." Dahlia points out rather sharply as well. Though her voice was more controlled in its anger.

"Silence!" Vernon yells, which shook a few spiders loose from their spots on the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths, seeming to try to reach some place of calm before forcing a smile upon his face which looked quite painful.

Dahlia would really rather he didn't try to make it seem nice, like he was actually friendly. So she simply glares as he cleared his throat and says, "er— yes, well— about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… the two of you are getting a bit big for it, as well as a bit old for sharing a bed… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom."

"Why?" Dahlia inquires, "why now?"

"Don't ask questions!" snaps their uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now. We'll be getting a second bed for the room tomorrow." Then he left them in the small space that had been their bedroom for ten years.

Dahlia, feeling cross, snatches up the chocolate bar and breaks another two pieces off despite them having had some this morning already. She eats hers quickly and hands the other to Harry, who was frowning as hard as she was.

It doesn't take long for them to get their things up into the second bedroom. They sit together on the bed and take in the surroundings, which was primarily filled with toys that Dudley had gotten, and broken, over the years. They could easily hear Dudley downstairs bawling at his mother, "I don't want them in there… I need that room… make them get out…"

Dahlia wants to shove her face in a pillow and scream, that or scream at Dudley who had always been spoiled to the point of disaster. She wonders if he'll ever grow out of it and decides that even if he did she'd likely still want to scream at him for the years of suffering he's inflicted upon her and Harry.

Harry sighs beside her before laying back on the bed, an action that Dahlia follows in. "You know yesterday I'd have given anything for us to be up here." He spoke softly, though the tone of annoyance could be heard just barely laced in. Dahlia nods, and he continues "but now I think I'd rather be in the cupboard if it meant we could have those letters."

"Yeah," Dahlia sighs, turning over on her side to face Harry. "Me too." She curls up against him and shuts her eyes. Wondering if she thinks about it hard enough if she could see in her dreams what was in those letters.

More letters arrived, the address changed to reflect Dahlia and Harry's new room, and as the week progressed their uncle got madder and madder. Sleeping under the mail slot, nailing it shut, and staying home from work to keep the twins from getting even a single letter in their hands. He nailed any slot in wall or window that a letter could fit through. By Saturday they got even more out of hand, showing up in strange places, Uncle Vernon calling the post office and dairy furiously and Petunia shredding letters in her food processor. Dudley, seemed for his part equally amazed and confused by whoever was wanting to speak to the twins so badly.

Then, on Sunday which had brought a smile to Vernons face at the assumption that no post would arrive on Sunday, letters flew down the kitchen chimney. The Dursley's ducked out of the way of the whizzing paper, but both Harry and Dahlia shared only a look before leaping to try and grab at least one before they could be taken away again.

"Out! OUT!" Vernon shouted, grabbing both of the twins about the waist and tossing them into the hall. Once Petunia and Dudley were out of the kitchen themselves he slammed the door but letters could still be heard streaming into the room, and his face grew more flushed. "That does it," he'd said, trying to sound calm but failing. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!"

Dahlia very much had wanted to argue more, but Harry dragged her along up the stairs where they packed.

The Dursley's and the Potter twins then drove and drove, Vernon occasionally changing direction as though they were being trailed.

Which, Dahlia supposed, it was possible they were. Especially when the next morning found them in a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city, and the letters still found them there with the address updated perfectly.

They drove around more, Vernon seeming absolutely mad in his search for a place where the seemingly omniscient senders of the letters would be unable to find them. Dahlia, from her spot in the car, wondered how far he'd go to avoid this. At a certain point she figured he'd have to admit there was no escaping it and just let them have the letters.

Rain fell on the car, and Dudley said something about TV and it being Monday. After a second Harry turned to her and nudged her, "tomorrows Tuesday." He whispered it, but Uncle Vernon was out of the car looking around outside where he'd parked them on the coast, and Aunt Petunia was distracted by her own thoughts and Dudley's whining to pay them any mind.

"Yes," Dahlia remarks, not quite catching onto what he was on about yet. "Often comes after Monday, Tuesday does."

"Our birthday." He clarifies with a twinge of smile at her sass. And Dahlia can't help but return the expression. True, their birthday was never exactly fun as the Dursley's hardly put any effort into it, having gotten them each a coat hanger last year as well as an old pair of Uncle Vernon's socks for Harry and a much too long and old dress of Aunt Petunia's for Dahlia. But it was still their birthday, and they tried to at least make it nice for each other.

And you only turned eleven once after all.

Uncle Vernon found his place, sending them across some water to a shack on a rocky island. The location, despite it's decrepitness and the chill to it, seemed to bring Uncle Vernon a lot of joy as he spoke cheerfully and almost seemed to have a bounce in his step as they got ready for bed. A storm blew up around them and Dahlia would have sworn the shack shook a little with every gust of wind. But still, Vernon was happy, which only made Dahlia hope more letter's came if only to ruin it for him.

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon went to sleep in a small bedroom, and Dudley was in a bed his mother had made up on the moth-eaten sofa. Harry and Dahlia on the other hand we left to find themselves a soft bit of ground and ended up curled together under a thin and ragged blanket.

The storm raged ferociously outside and kept either of the twins from finding sleep. It was cold and loud and both of them were rather hungry. Harry rolls over onto his side, and Dahlia lays quietly on her back, after a few minutes Harry pokes her side and she glances at him where he is facing her. "Five minutes." He informs her and she smiles though she didn't feel very happy.

Though she supposes she should try and still be happy for their birthday. If only because it meant one year closer to leaving

There was a creak of something outside, and Dahlia wonders how structurally safe the house really was here. Harry pokes her again but doesn't speak, and she knows that means four minutes.

She wonders vaguely if she would dream of the house when she eventually finds sleep. If she finds sleep at least. She'd like that, she believes, at least if it was with the pleasant voices and not the bad one. It wouldn't be so bad a dream for her birthday, especially if the voices are their parents like Harry thinks.

Harry pokes her again, three minutes, and she wishes she could share the dreams with him.

There was a weird sound of slapping outside, like something hitting a rock she supposed. Harry pokes her again, two minutes, and she looks at him again and smiles. There was a crunching sound and Harry's face scrunches worriedly with confusion.

He pokes her again, and she silently counts down in her head so she could beat him to saying happy birthday.

She was on three… two… one.. And about to speak when the whole shack shivers and both the twins sit bolt upright, turning to look at the door which was shaking as someone outside knocks upon it.

Whoever it was knocked again, it was really quite loud and Dahlia wondered if it was a giant or something knocking so heavily. Dudley jerked awake upon the sofa.

"Where's the cannon?" He says rather stupidly.

A crash comes from the room their aunt and uncle were in, and Vernon comes skidding into the main room. He is holding a rifle in his hands and Dahlia frowns as he shouts, "who's there? I warn you— I'm armed!"

There was a pause, and then the door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges before landing with a crash upon the ground.

Dahlia stares with Harry at the figure in the doorway and wonders if she'd been right in wondering if it was a giant knocking upon the door. The man, truly a giant of a man, fills out the doorway, his face was almost completely hidden by a long and shaggy beard and mane of hair, but Dahlia could see his eyes, glinting black in the low light.

He squeezes his way through the door and into the hut, having to stoop a bit so his head just brushed the ceiling. He then bends down and picks up the door, fitting it easily back into its frame and Dahlia thought rather puzzled that that was rather polite for someone who'd just technically broken in.

The giant man looks at them all in the room, "couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey…" He moves towards the sofa, where Dudley sits frozen with fear in a way that if Dahlia wasn't so confused at the situation would have made her chuckle even just a little. "Budge up, yeh great lump." Dudley squeaks, and Dahlia smirks even in her state of confusion, before he rushes to hide behind his mother who was crouching behind Uncle Vernon.

"An' here's the two of yeh!" Says the giant who was looking at the two of them with what must be a smile if Dahlia were to judge from the crinkling around his eyes. "Las' time I saw you two, you was only babies," he says, "yeh both look the images of yer parents. Though, yeh've switched the eyes between yeh." Dahlia glances at Harry and saw he was as confused, and enraptured, as she was. She wonders, vaguely, if what the giant was saying was true. The Dursley's didn't have any photos of their parents, and neither of the twins had much memory of them either.

Some part of Dahlia though knew he was being honest.

Uncle Vernon made a funny rasping noise before speaking, "I demand that you leave at once, sir!" Dahlia wonders where Vernon thought he had any leverage against a man who had just broken down a door. "You are breaking and entering!"

The stranger didn't look much affected by Uncle Vernons words, "Ah, shut up, Dursley, yeh great prune." The giant reaches over the back of the sofa and jerks the gun out of Uncle Vernon's hands before he bends it into a knot as though he were just tying a shoelace before tossing it into a corner. Uncle Vernon makes a noise but the giant stranger just turns back to the twins, "anyway— Harry, Dahlia— a happy birthday to yeh. Got summit for yeh here— I mighta sat on it at some point, but it'll taste all right."

Harry and Dahlia both watch as he pulls from inside a pocket of his black overcoat a slightly squashed box and presents it to the two of them. Dahlia's brow furrows and Harry, with trembling fingers, opens it to reveal a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday written on it in green icing.

Looking at it, Dahlia felt a tightness in her throat and when she looked up at the giant she felt instantly that she liked him very much. Harry seems to feel the same way as he looks up with the same struck look to him, "thank you." Dahlia whispers while looking back at the cake and realizing they'd never had a birthday cake, at least not that she can recall.

"Who are you?" Harry asks and the giant chuckles.

"True, I haven't introduced meself." He extends his large hand to them, "Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts." Both Harry and Dahlia shake his hand, though it was more like he shakes their arms. He then says something about tea, and starts a fire in the fireplace which warms the room up considerably, but Dahlia was stuck on what he'd said.

Hogwarts. It was a rather strange sounding thing, or place as it sounded like it was. She found— as he prepared tea and sausages and Vernon told Dudley to not touch a single thing given by the giant— that she very much wanted to hear more about whatever Hogwarts was.

He passes three sausages to both Harry and Dahlia, who both eat the sausages and find them tasting more wonderful than anything else in their hungry states. When they finish with the food, Harry glances just fleetingly at Dahlia and they share a look of confusion. Nothing had been really explained and Dahlia knew they both were very much wanting to know more.

"I'm sorry, but we still don't really know who you are." Dahlia speaks up.

The giant takes a big drink of tea and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before saying, "call me Hagrid, everyone does. An' like I told yeh, I'm keeper of Keys at Hogwarts— yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, o' course."

"Er— no," Harry says, looking a bit sheepish as he does.

Hagrid, for his part, looks quite shocked.

"Sorry," Harry says quickly.

"Sorry?" Barks Hagrid who turns his gaze to the Dursley's, Dahlia follows his gaze and sees them shrink under the look. "It's them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren't gettin' yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn't even know abou' Hogwarts, fer cryin' out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?" Dahlia wasn't sure what he was on about, but she did know looking at the Dursley's and hearing his ranting that something had been kept from them. And if Hagrid was to be believed it was something rather important and to do with their parents. As well as something to do with the letters they were supposed to have gotten, which made her frown and glare towards the Dursley's.

"All what?" she asks, her voice rather sharp.

"ALL WHAT?" Hagrid thunders. "Now wait jus' one second!" he leaps to his feet, and in his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut even more fully. The Dursleys were cowering even more against the wall. "Do you mean ter tell me," he growls towards them, "that these two know nothin' abou' — about ANYTHING?"

Harry was frowning beside her, and he speaks up "we know some things," he says. "We can, you know, do math and stuff."

Hagrid waves his hand and clarifies, "about our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents' world."

So it did have to do with their parents, which stokes a bit of the anger towards her aunt and uncle more so. She'd always hated how they never talked about them to her and Harry. When she was little she wrote it off as Petunia not wanting to talk about her dead sister because she was sad, a thing Dahlia could understand because she knew she'd be devastated if anything ever happened to Harry. But as she grew older, and bold enough to ask after their parents, she learned it was nothing to do with sadness. Or at least, it mostly seemed to do with something akin to hatred.

"What world?" she asks.

Hagrid looks fit to explode. "DURSLEY!" he booms. And Uncle Vernon, who had gone even more pale than when he'd read their letters, he mutters something that Dahlia couldn't hear and Hagrid turns back to stare wildly at Harry and her.

"But yeh must know about yer mum and dad," he says. "I mean, they're famous. You're famous." And that puzzles Dahlia more than most else Hagrid had said, because surely if their parents were famous it would be impossible to not know anything about them.

"What?" Harry asks, clearly as puzzled as Dahlia, "our— our mum and dad weren't famous, were they?"

"Yeh don' know… yeh don' know…" Hagrid was running his fingers through his hair and fixing them with a bewildered stare. "Yeh don' know what yeh are?" he asks finally.

Uncle Vernon seemed to suddenly refound his voice because he commands, "stop! Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell them anything!"

"You don't have a right to keep anything from us!" Dahlia speaks up with a fierce glare directed at her uncle.

Hagrid seems to share her sentiment as he gave Vernon Dursley a furious look and speaks with a voice trembling with rage. "She's right that one!" He shakes his head a second, "you never told 'em? Never told 'em what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer 'em? I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An' you've kept it from 'em all these years?"

"Kept what from us?" Harry asks eagerly.

"STOP! I FORBID YOU!" yells uncle Vernon in panic, Petunia gasping in horror behind him.

"Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh," is all Hagrid says in response. "Harry— yer a wizard. And yer a witch yerself, Dahlia."

There was only silence in the hut after, the only sound being that of the ocean and the wind. Dahlia's own brow furrows while Harry's eyes widen in disbelief. "I'm a what?" he gasp.

"A wizard, o'course." Hagrid says, sitting himself back on the sofa. "An' a thumpin' good'un I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit." He looks at them both, "with a mum an' dad like yours, whet else would the pair o' yeh be? An' I reckon it's abou' time yeh read yer letters." Hagrid pulls out two familiar looking yellow envelopes, and holds them out to them both. Harry takes his while Dahlia takes hers and they each pull out the letter to read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore

(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,

Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)

Dear Ms. Potter

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress

Dahlia stares rather shocked at the letter, and tries to let it sink in. Witches and Wizards were real. Okay. Thus magic was real. Okay. She and Harry were apparently a witch and wizard because their parents were a witch and a wizard. Okay. And apparently they've been accepted at a school for this all. Okay.

And apparently the Dursley's had known about this and had seen fit to keep it from them. Not okay.

A few minutes pass and Harry asks the first question, "what does it mean, they await my owl?"

Hagrid claps a hand to his forehead with a startling amount of force and exclaims, "Gallopin' Gorgons, that reminds me." He pulls from yet another pocket of his overcoat an owl— an alive, and rather ruffled looking, owl— along with parchment and a quill. He then scribbles a note that both Harry and Dahlia read upside down.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Harry and Dahlia their letters.

Taking them to buy their things tomorrow.

Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.

Hagrid.

He then rolls up the note and gives it to the owl before going to the door and throwing it out into the storm. He comes back and sits down again acting as though this wasn't such a strange thing, which Dahlia supposes maybe it isn't all that strange for him.

It certainly isn't the strangest thing that's happened in the last week.

"Where was I?" Hagrid muses, but before he can continue Uncle Vernon steps forward looking still pale but quite angry as well.

"They're not going," he states.

Hagrid grunts. "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop them."

"A what?" Harry asks, clearly interested.

"A Muggle," Hagrid explains, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck that you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

"We swore when we took them in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," Uncle Vernon states, confirming to Dahlia that he knew and kept it from them, making her angrier with each word. "Swore we'd stamp it out of them! Wizard indeed!"

"You knew?" Harry says, "You knew I'm a— a wizard?"

Dahlia scowls, "Of course they knew, and they kept it from us like they've kept everything else!"

"Knew!" Aunt Petunia shrieks suddenly, her head shaking. "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that— that school— and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats." Dahlia fumes, and she knows Harry is too from how stiff he is beside her. "I was the only one who saw her for what she was— a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!"

She stops to draw a deep breath before continuing to rant on. Dahlia realizes this was the most her aunt had ever spoken of their parents.

"Then she met that Potter at school and they left and got married and had you two, and of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as— as— abnormal— and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you two!"

Dahlia felt like screaming, and Harry had gone very white and still beside her. It was him who spoke, "blown up? You told us they died in a car crash?"

"CAR CRASH!" Hagrid roars, jumping up angrily enough that the Dursley's scurried back to the corner. "How could a car crash kill Lily an' James Potter? It's an outrage! A scandal! Harry and Dahlia Potter not knowin' their own story when every kid in our world knows their names!"

"But why? What happened?" Dahlia asks, Harry nodding urgently along.

Hagrid's face lost the anger very quick, replaced with a rather anxious look suddenly. "I never expected this," he says, his voice low and worried. "I had no idea, when Dumbledore told me there might be trouble gettin' hold of yeh, how much yeh didn't know. Ah, now, I don' know if I'm the right person ter tell yeh— but someone's gotta— yeh can't go off ter Hogwarts not knowing'."

He throws a dirty look at the Dursley's and Dahlia felt rather like doing the same, but she noticed Harry shifting anxiously beside her and decided instead to reach and grab his hand. Holding it tight the two of them steadied themselves to hear what really happened to their parents. Dahlia had a feeling it would be worse than a car crash.

"Well, it's best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh— mind, I can't tell yeh everythin', it's a great myst'ry, parts of it…"

He sat down and stares into the fire for a few seconds rather than look at the twins huddled close together. Finally he says, "it begins, I suppose, with— with a person called— but it's incredible yeh don't know his name, everyone in our world knows—"

"Who?" Dahlia asks.

"Well— I don' like sayin' the name if I can help it. No one does."

"Why not?" Harry asks.

"Gulpin' gargoyles, Harry, people are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went… bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was…" Hagrid gulps but no words come out.

"Could you write it down?" Harry suggests but Hagrid's head shakes.

"Nah— can't spell it. All right— Voldemort." Hagrid shudders and Dahlia blinks, her hand tightening in Harry's because suddenly she felt as though she'd heard the name somewhere. But before she could try to remember Hagrid was continuing and she had to listen. "Don' make me say it again. Anyway, this— this wizard, about twenty years ago now, started lookin' fer followers. Got 'em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o' his power, 'cause he was gettin' himself power, all right. Dark days, you two. Didn't know who ter trust, didn't dare get friendly with strange wizards or witches… terrible things happened. He was takin' over. 'Course, some stood up to him— an' he killed 'em. Horribly. One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway.

"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before… probably knew that they were too close ter Dumbledore ter want anythin' ter do with the Dark Side.

"Maybe he thought he could persuade 'em… maybe he just wanted 'em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you were all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You both were just a year old. He came ter yer house an'— an'—" Hagrid pauses, pulling out a dirty spotted handkerchief and blows his nose loud like a foghorn.

"Sorry," he says. "But it's that sad— knew yer mum an' dad, an' nicer people yeh couldn't find— anyway…

"You-Know-Who killed 'em. An' then — an' this is the real myst'ry of the thing— he tried to kill you, Harry, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin' by then. But he couldn't do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer forehead? That was no ordinary cut. That's what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh— took care of yer mum an' dad an' yer house, even— but it didn't work on you, an' that's why yer famous."

He looks between the two of them, "No one ever lived after he decided ter kill 'em, no one except you two, an' he'd killed some o' the best witches an' wizards of the age— the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts— an' you was only a baby, an' you lived."

Harry's hand was stiff in hers, gripping tightly and she glances over at him and sees him wince a second and his free hand reaches up to touch the scar on his head hidden beneath some hair. She squeezes his hand and he meets her gaze. Hagrid sits watching the pair of them sadly.

"Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledores orders. Had to sort through some mess teh find yeh Dahlia, hidden away. Suppose that's how he missed yeh." Hagrid pauses, "brought yeh ter this lot…"

"Load of old tosh," Uncle Vernon says and Harry jumps beside Dahlia, apparently having forgotten that the Dursley's were here as well. Uncle Vernon's courage has returned it seems and he glares at Hagrid with clenched fists before saying, "Now, you two listen here, I accept there's something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn't have cured —- and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world's better off without them in my opinion—" Dahlia glares and nearly gets up if not for Harry's hand tight in hers. "Asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these wizarding types— just what I expected, always knew they'd come to a sticky end—"

Hagrid didn't have a twin brother holding him down and so he leapt up from his spot on the couch and pointed a battered pink umbrella that he pulls out from his coat at Vernon. "I'm warning you, Dursley— I'm warning you— one more word…"

Vernon, in danger of being speared through with an umbrella by a man who'd knocked down a whole door, once again lost his courage. Flattening himself against the wall and falling silent. Once again Dahlia finds she very much likes Hagrid.

"That's better," Hagrid states, breathing heavily and sitting back onto the battered sofa.

"What happened to Vol-, sorry— I mean, You-Know-Who?" Harry asks, bringing them away from Vernon and back to the questions both twins had.

"Good question, Harry. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That's the biggest myst'ry, see… he was gettin' more an' more powerful— why'd he go?

"Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough human left in him to die. Some say he's still out there, bidin' his time, like, but I don't believe it. People who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of 'em came outta trances. Don' reckon they could've done if he was comin' back

"Most of us reckon he's still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. 'Cause somethin' about you finished him, Harry. There was somethin' goin' on that night he hadn't counted on— I dunno what it was, no one does— but somethin' about you stumped him, all right."

Dahlia notices that Hagrid looks at Harry with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes. But when she glances at Harry from the corner of her eyes she sees that he didn't look pleased or proud at all, rather he looked rather unsure of what Hagrid was saying. "Hagrid," he speaks up quietly and Dahlia squeezes his hand again, disliking whenever her brother got quiet like this. "I think you must have made a mistake. I don't think I can be a wizard."

Hagrid chuckles, which seemed to surprise Harry.

"Not a wizard, eh?" Hagrid leans just a bit forward, looking at them both now with a smirk to his face. "Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?"

Harry looked away and into the fire, likely thinking of the same things Dahlia was. The strange incidents that had happened around them and made their aunt and uncle furious. Keeping out fo reach of Dudley's gang when running, Harry's hair growing back overnight when Petunia cut it, Dahlia knowing and stopping Harry from falling and breaking his leg once. Even just a few weeks back, when they'd been at the zoo and Harry had apparently spoken with the snake.

Harry looks up from the fire. Looking first at Dahlia, the two of them coming to the same conclusion that Hagrid was right. And when they both looked back to the giant man he was positively beaming at them.

"See?" Hagrid says, "Harry and Dahlia Potter— not a wizard or witch." He scoffs in a teasing way, "you wait, you'll be right famous at Hogwarts."

But it seems Uncle Vernon wasn't going to give in without a fight. "Haven't I told you they're not going?" He hisses, "They're going to Stonewall High and they'll be grateful for it. I've read those letters and they need all sorts of rubbish— spell books and wands and—"

"If they want ter go, a great Muggle like you won't stop them," growls Hagrid. "Stop Lily an' James Potter's kids goin' ter Hogwarts! Yer mad. Their name's been down ever since they were born. Their off ter the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. Seven years there and they won't know themself. They'll be with youngsters of their own sort, fer a change, an' they'll be under the greatest headmaster Hogwarts ever had, Albus Dumbled—-"

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH THEM MAGIC TRICKS!" Uncle Vernon yells.

But apparently he'd finally pushed too far as Hagrid seizes his umbrella and whirls it over his head, "NEVER — INSULT — ALBUS — DUMBLEDORE — IN — FRONT — OF — ME!" Hagrid thunders as he brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley after which there was a flash of purple light and a sound like a firecracker. Dudley squeals and in the next second Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his bottom, howling in pain. Dahlia could see a curly pig's tail poking through a hole in his trousers and brought her free hand up to her face to muffle her laughter.

Uncle Vernon roars, clearly not finding it funny like Dahlia does, and pulls Aunt Petunia and Dudley into the other room. He cast one terrified look at Hagrid before slamming the door behind them.

Hagrid looks at his umbrella and strokes his beard before saying ruefully, "shouldn'ta lost me temper, but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do."

"I thought it was brilliant Hagrid," Dahlia says still smiling from the sight of her cousin with a tail.

Hagrid casts a sideways look at the two of them under his bushy eyebrows, but she can see he smiles a second at her words before he coughs a second awkwardly. "Be grateful if yeh two didn't mention that ter anyone at Hogwarts," he says, "I'm— er— not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin'. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an' get yer letters to yeh an' stuff— one o' the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job—"

"Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" Harry asks.

"Oh, well— I was at Hogwarts meself but I— er— got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an' everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore."

"Why were you expelled?" Dahlia asks.

"It's gettin' late and we've gots lots ter do tomorrow," says Hagrid loudly. "Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an' that." He shrugs off his large coat and tosses it towards them. "Yeh two can kip under that," he tells them. "Don' mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o' dormice in one o' the pockets."

Harry and Dahlia slowly settle back onto the ground, hands still clasped and now with a significantly warmer coat over them. They lay there, facing one another as the sound of Hagrid upon the couch slowly turns to snoring. Harry's own eyes eventually drift mostly shut, but before he slips completely to sleep Dahlia whispers. "Harry?"

"Yeah?" He replies, half-asleep though he reopens his eyes to meet hers.

"Happy birthday." She says, remembering she'd wanted to say it before him.

He smiles, sleepily and she returns it. "Happy birthday, Dahlia." He squeezes her hand and soon enough they've both drifted to sleep.

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