A/N: I'm not usually one for forwards or author's notes, but I feel this one needs it.

This chapter pushes the T rating just a bit, mostly in that it features a teenage boy with five pituitary glands (each of which has independently decided it's time for puberty) starting to deal with the fact that he's now got to go through five rounds of puberty at once. I'm going to try to be tasteful about this, but Harry's identities and collective maturity is the theme of this fic; I couldn't quite shy away from it, now could I? But if you're looking for hot dragon sex, you're not going to find it in this story. Sorry.

Our muscles strained and bulged under our skin as we exerted what was, quite frankly, a ridiculous amount of force. With the sound of hundreds of small snaps and a single, mighty groan, the massive tree's root ball broke free of the earth. Blue and Red, their necks wrapped around the trunk, guided the falling tree into the valley between them, while Yellow and Grey pushed the massive pine onto our spine. We flared our wings and snaked our tail into its branches, using all three to stabilize the wooden behemoth on our back. Green, the head furthest from the tree, lowered his head so that he could see forwards, under the dirtball that had come up with the roots.

Slowly, with steps that sank a few inches into the earth under the weight we bore, we turned and trudged back towards the castle grounds, our prize in tow. Once we got it stable, the weight wasn't so bad, and we were able to quickly pick up the pace to that of a comfortable walk.

We passed the time in relative silence, neither speaking nor thinking at each other. We weren't sulking — even Grey had mostly gotten over the fact that we'd let the Rat escape the other day — but between the lingering low to our mood and the focus we needed to keep a tree as large as this balanced on our back, we simply had no urge to think to each other.

Actually, now that we think about it, this is the closest we've been to a singular me than we've been in a long time. It's our consensus doing most of the heavy lifting at the moment, both physically and mentally. Which is actually kind of nice, now that we think about it. Relaxing, even, when added to the exercise of moving trees.

In all honesty, we probably could have moved that tree by magic. Someone like Professor Flitwick definitely could have. But that wasn't the point. We were just a bit antsy at the moment, so doing something by hand (or by claw) just felt good. Was there any need for a better reason?

"Hagrid! We've got the next one!" Green hollered as we approached with the tree. It wasn't the first we'd uprooted from the forbidden forest, nor would it be the last. Now that it was an option, the groundskeeper and future Care of Magical Creatures professor (Yay, Hagrid!) had decided that he wanted to have a bit of forest that wasn't part of Forbidden Forest in order to keep his creatures to show the class. We're pretty sure Hagrid decided to make this little grove because of us telling him about Aragog's kids trying to eat us last year.

Oh, how the tables have turned. Spiders are delicious.

We digress.

Hagrid waved us over to the latest hole he'd dug. His giant's strength lets him wield an enlarged shovel, in turn letting him dig holes large enough for one of these trees in the time it took us to retrieve them from within the forest. This was the seventh one today, and at the rate we were going, we think we'll have twenty more done by this evening.

"Put it here, Harry!" A meaty hand clutched the edge of the hole. With surprising ease, given his size, Hagrid one-handedly hoisted himself up and out. He stood, then balanced the oversized shovel across his broad, meaty shoulders.

Obliging, we aligned our body with the hole and shifted our weight forwards. Heaving with the muscles in our necks and tail, we tilted the tree upright, slotting the root ball into the hole Hagrid had dug. As soon as it was stable and upright, Hagrid used the shovel to spread a thick layer of dirt on top.

That alone wouldn't have been enough to secure the uprooted tree. But Hagrid had a solution: transplant fertilizer. It was a mixture of dragon dung — not ours, but dung from a normal dragon — and a potion from Professor Sprout that encouraged root growth. He spread the muddy, stinky mix atop the tree's roots, and for a second, nothing happened. Then the ground writhed as if a million worms were all digging at once.

When it stopped, we gave the tree a gentle, experimental push. It didn't budge. Satisfied, Hagrid set to work digging the next hole, each scoop of his mighty shovel clearing away as much dirt as a scoop from a muggle backhoe. He'd be done with the hole by the time we were back with the next tree. (Even more impressively, this was only a "light workout," according to him, which made us curious as to what he considered a heavy workout.)

Once more, we turned back to the forest to gather the next tree. As we walked, we hummed an improvised melody, our five voices blending in harmony with each other. It had started as a passing whim, but by the time we'd reached the forest's edge, our harmony had evolved into something surprisingly complex.

"What if we joined the frog choir?" Blue suddenly asked, inspiration striking at that moment. Funnily enough, his question came out perfectly in tune with the rest of us.

The rest of us took a second to mull the idea over in our heads.

"we're going to embarrass our—" "I THINK ITS A GREAT IDEA!" "...selves in front of the whole school. we shouldn't draw attention to ourselves because—" Grey continued as if Red hadn't interrupted him, right until Green bit his snout and pinned his jaw shut.

"Thank you, Green. And Grey? We know you're our self-doubt personified, but please try not to get so worked up over a suggestion. It's bloody annoying," Yellow quipped. Red grinned, while the corners of Green's full mouth curled into an approximation of the same.

"Yellow..." Blue let out a long breath. "Grey, I know you're just looking out for us in your own way, but I think we can handle a little embarrassment. I mean really, why should we care what a bunch of snack-sized idiots think?"

His mouth still held shut by Green, Grey attempted to shrug and nod at the same time. It didn't really work, but his thought came through clearly enough. 'point taken.'

"ENOUGH OF THIS! HAGRID IS STILL WAITING FOR THE NEXT TREE! WE CAN DISCUSS THE FROG CHOIR LATER!"

And that was that.

Branches inevitably broke when we carried the trees, and leaving a trail of wood and splinters was just lazy and sloppy. That evening, after all the trees had been moved, Hagrid asked us to help clean up the mess. Most of the branches we simply levitated away, but on Hagrid's request, we kept some of the larger ones and brought them back to the new grove while he went to fetch something.

To our surprise, when he returned a half hour later, Hagrid was carrying the carcass of an utterly gargantuan pig across his shoulders. The thing probably weighed three times what he did (and looked utterly delicious to boot). Given its size, it was either magical or had been grown by magic; there was no way a normal pig could get that big.

"Where on earth did you get that?" Yellow licked his lips, as did the rest of us. A day's hard work had definitely worked up our appetite, and rocks weren't going to cut it.

"The estate farm, down by Hogsmeade. I thought you boys could use a treat for helping me out." The half-giant smiled jovially.

"THANKS, HAGRID! YOU'RE THE BEST!"

"Go ahead and set up a fire for us. I'm gonna show you how to cook big game animals." Though Hagrid's rock cakes might have been inedible to normal humans and his pastries not much better, his meat dishes were to die for — assuming you got over his taste for more exotic meats. Hagrid loved animals, from the moment they were born to the moment they ended up in his stomach. And with our expanded palette, we were quite eager to learn from him, even if we could just eat the pig like any other dragon.

Hagrid showed us how to rend down the pig and showed us which parts were tastiest. Over the burning branches, we magically suspended the pig to let it cook slowly over the smoky flame. It would take a while to cook, so we settled down next to Hagrid to wait.

"Ssso there are farmsss near here that grow pigsss that big?" Green asked.

"Of course! Hogsmeade's a farming town. Biggest supplier of wizarding foods in Scotland, you know."

"Really? That's actually pretty neat," Blue said.

"Helps the school too. I'm not really sure about the details, but Professor Dumbledore says that the farms help the school and the school helps the farms. Something about money and business." He shrugged. "Their food's good, and that's all that really matters, I think."

"Hear, hear!"

"Indeed," came a new voice, much to our surprise. Walking towards us, having just gotten close enough to hear the tail-end of our conversation, was Dumbledore himself. He was dressed in a different robe than this morning, one much more form-fitting and simple than his normal getup, though no less flamboyantly colorful. Combined with his purple boots, his getup looked surprisingly outdoorsy, if still utterly ridiculous.

A small mound of dirt near the fire suddenly sprang up and shaped itself into a rather utilitarian chair. Dumbledore tucked his wand away (when had he drawn it?!) and sat down. "I hope you don't mind me joining you? I'd been watching your progress all day, and when you set up this campfire, I felt compelled to join." He produced from his robes a plastic bag we recognized from Dudley's constant gluttony. "Marshmallow?"

Daintily, we plucked the sweet from Dumbledore's outstretched hand. Green cast an Engorgio on it, enlarging it to something more our size, before popping it into his mouth. Immediately, we understood why Dudley liked these things so much. "Thanksss," Green tried and failed to say, the word obstructed by the sticky, white mass in his mouth.

"This is a nice surprise, Dumbledore," Hagrid cheerfully spoke. "Glad to have ya join us."

"Indeed," Blue agreed, doing a surprisingly good imitation of Dumbledore's voice — right until he couldn't hold back his chuckles. The two men smiled alongside us.

"It is a beautiful evening, isn't it? It would be a shame to waste it inside," Dumbledore replied. He pulled out another marshmallow, but didn't eat it. "I want to see your project up close as well, and I must say, I am impressed. Especially since you made it by hand." He chuckled softly. "I'm afraid my body is a bit too frail for that sort of work." Dumbledore popped the marshmallow into his mouth.

"You don't look or smell all that frail, Headmaster," Yellow observed. He really didn't; the outfit he was wearing gave us a surprisingly good inkling of his body shape, which had a bit more muscle mass than we'd have expected for someone his age. He couldn't compete with Hagrid, of course, but he wasn't skin and bones either.

After swallowing the sticky confection, the headmaster replied, "In a roundabout way, I have Hagrid to thank for that."

The man in question sat up a bit more. "How so, Professor?"

"You know how I was the transfiguration professor when you were in school, Hagrid? Well, during that time, I was writing a paper on the application of permanent biological transfiguration to repair musculoskeletal degeneration. Quite coincidentally, that's very similar to how giants build and maintain their strength. Simply observing you saved me months of effort, and allowed me to craft a spell that made exercise quite unnecessary — or so I thought. These days, I feel like I'm almost entirely held together by magic, and I haven't had the time to make a better version of the spell or fix myself the old-fashioned way."

Blue and Green were paying rapt attention, entranced by the story. Given that the rest of us had an outside perspective on their thoughts and feelings, their reactions made the rest of us draw an interesting conclusion. "I THINK THOSE TWO HAVE JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES!" Red bellowed merrily.

Green and Blue gave Red a questioning look, then looked at each other. A flurry of half-formed thoughts passed between the two of them; they nodded in agreement a second later. Turning to Dumbledore, they announced, "We want to be Ssspell inventorsss."

Dumbledore's face practically exploded with joy. "My boys, that is a wonderful choice! You two will enjoy that field so very much!"

"of course they will. they got all the smarts," Grey muttered. Despite his tone, it was a compliment, if a backhanded one that insulted the rest of us.

"Yer all plenty smart," Hagrid countered encouragingly.

"we could be smarter," Grey retorted.

Seeing an opportunity, Dumbledore pounced. "Could you? Do you mean to say that your grades up until now have been you not doing your absolute best?"

Bloody hell. How do we answer that? Say yes, and we admit to being lazy. Say no, and that means we really are only average at best.

Green sighed. "Perhapsss we've been a little lazy."

Dumbledore chuckled. "You're a twelve, no, thirteen-year-old boy. Group of boys. You're allowed to be a little lazy on occasion. But if you really want to invent spells, perhaps it's time to take after Ms. Granger a bit more?"

"Yesss, Sssir." Green's hiss lasted a tad longer than usual. His head slumped a bit more than the rest of ours did. Silently, he resolved to not be like Hermione, but be better than her, such was the insult to his pride.

"Cheer up, Harry. You're still very young and very early into your magical education, and you're by no means behind. You can still get ahead." He paused and sniffed the air. "Now, if my nose does not deceive me, I think that pig of yours is quite nearly done. It's a shame I ate before coming down, because that looks delicious."

True to his words, the pig was nearly done. Dumbledore transfigured a plate and utensils for Hagrid, saving the gamekeeper from needing to venture back to his hut. Once Hagrid had taken his portion, the five of us picked up what was left of the carcass and tore into it with gusto. It was just as good as it smelled.

As Hagrid and the five of us ate, Dumbledore snacked on more of his Marshmallows. The conversation drifted a while from topic to topic; as it turned out, both Dumbledore and Hagrid had plenty of stories to tell. Hagrid's were, unsurprisingly, about the various beasts he frequently handled or wanted to meet. Dumbledore, on the other hand, had all sorts of stories.

At one point, Dumbledore even had a house elf bring us drinks, as in, actual, alcoholic drinks. "You drink petrol. A little alcohol's not going to hurt you in the slightest, especially not at your size," Dumbledore replied when we pointed that out. "Even normal dragons aren't hurt by it."

Interestingly, he got strangely flustered when Hagrid asked what the drink he'd served was actually called. Firewhiskey, heavy whipping cream, cinnamon, and a hazelnut, Dumbledore had described, instead of giving its name. It was thick and creamy, but deliciously spicy with a hint of combustible — ironically the whisky part of Firewhiskey. And once magically multiplied into a quantity that we could enjoy, we quickly downed barrels of the stuff faster than pumpkin juice.

Seeing Hagrid and Dumbledore get slightly tipsy was funny.

Sometime later, when evening had transitioned well into the night, the fire had dimmed down a good bit. But rather than letting it go out, Dumbledore replaced the mundane flame with a magical one that burned brightly despite the lack of fuel. The flame was odd, though; its light didn't seem to impair our night vision as a normal flame did, for when we rolled over onto our back, we were greeted to the sight of a far greater number of stars than we'd expected to see.

"Wow. The sky is just beautiful tonight." The whole Milky Way glowed softly in the sky. We'd seen it a thousand times during astronomy class, but just simply looking up.

Dumbledore looked over at us. "Harry, out of curiosity, do you know how an unplottability ward works?"

Hmm? That's an odd question. "No, why?"

"Unplottability wards twist space and filter those who can move through it. For those who are allowed, they see everything as normal. For everyone else, they find that the hidden area is far too small and completely the wrong shape to house whatever is hidden such that it's actually quicker for them to go around the hidden area than for us to go through it. But when you twist space like that, the sky twists as well. The unplottability ward compensates by bringing in an image of the sky from somewhere else. If you track the angle of the stars and the sun from inside Hogwarts specifically, you'll find that Hogwarts appears to be twenty kilometers south of where it actually is, at a different loch. Interesting, no?"

Wait, did that mean that there was a false sky over the entirety of Hogwarts?! Is that what we could do once we'd learned enough magic? We mean, we knew that there was some really complex and powerful magic affecting the school, but that the sky itself was affected just drove home how extreme that magic was.

Blue whistled. "Bloody Hell, that's an impressive piece of spell work. Does Hogwarts even teach magic on that scale?"

Here, Dumbledore looked rather prideful, almost smug, even. "Hogwarts is one of the best magic schools in all of Europe. By your seventh year, I expect you'll have the foundation you need to cast any magic you desire, should you put in enough time and effort."

"AND BECOME A HUMAN ANIMAGUS?!"

"Ha! Even that."

We liked tipsy Dumbledore. He was really fun.

Hagrid's unexpected snore cut through the night air. Figuring that we had a better solution than letting him sleep on the ground, we gently scooped up Hagrid and set him on our chest. He was almost doll-sized compared to us, and we barely felt his weight anymore. "Night, Hagrid."

"Mmm... he's worked hard today, hasn't he?" Dumbledore asked, his voice softer than before.

"Did you know, he told us that he wanted a dragon so he could lay against it? Like it was a big dog or something." Yellow smiled, twisting his neck around until he was looking right at Hagrid. "This is surprisingly comfortable."

"I'll leave you to your rest, then. I fear I've kept you up too late as it is."

"No," Blue argued. "It was fun. We should do this again."

"If we have the time," Dumbledore agreed. "Though speaking of time, could you five come speak with me tomorrow morning? I have a rather sizeable list of things I wish to discuss with you, mostly about the immediate future."

"Isss there a problem, Headmassster?" Green probed.

Dumbledore shook his head, sending his long, silver beard swinging. "One or two, but nothing so urgent that it can't wait until the morning. Your condition presents a couple challenges, but nothing we can't plan around easily enough. And the Ministry..." He trailed off. "No. It can wait. I'll be in my office all morning; visit as soon as you're reasonably awake and refreshed."

"We sssee. We'll be there." Green gave a polite nod, which came out awkwardly because we were currently upside down on our back.

Dumbledore stood from his makeshift chair, which collapsed back into the dirt a second later. "Then I leave you to your rest. Good night, Harry."

"Harry! Harry!" Something poked us softly in the chest. "Wake up, Harry!" The thing poked us again. It kind of tickled, annoyingly so.

Grumbling, we slowly opened our eyes. At first, we couldn't see what was poking us, jut the orange-blue of the morning sky and the thin, cool mist that surrounded us. But, upon raising our heads, we found Hagrid forcefully elbowing us in the chest. During the night, we must have grabbed onto him. Oops.

And, to make matters worse, that dream we'd had last night was perhaps a bit too vivid. Our body certainly thought so.

In a single movement, we pulled the slime-covered Hagrid one way and rolled the other way, stopping when our underside was firmly on the ground. "So!" "God!" "Sorry!" "I'M!" "hagrid." The jumble of words — a very butchered sentence — came out of all five of our mouths, making a mockery of our apology. Two of us tucked their heads under our wings while the middle three tangled up with each other, trying to hide their shame under each other's coiling necks.

For his part, Hagrid merely wiped the white gunk off his face. "Harry! It's fine. Been covered in worse," he replied nonchalantly, waving his hand as if to dismiss the issue.

We believed him, but Christ, this was too embarrassing for us. We whimpered.

"Really, I'm fine. It's perfectly natural," he insisted.

Still not helping, Hagrid.

The moment of silence stretched on for far too long. Eventually, Hagrid said, "Look, if—"

Grey cut him off. "we know. aunt petunia gave us the talk. go wash off and let us be embarrassed alone."

Without a word, Hagrid nodded and turned to do just that. Maybe it was because we didn't look human at all that he wasn't concerned about it, but God, that was embarrassing. If that had happened with anyone else, it would've been so much worse.

Once both Hagrid was out of sight and we were sure that everything was tucked away again — and wasn't that a useful feature for someone without clothes? — we got up and slunk down to the lake to clean ourselves off.

Stupid hormones. Stupid sexy dream people. Stupid sexy dream dragon (dragoness?). Stupid Green and Red; it was them that did this to us.

Or maybe it was that drink that Dumbledore gave us. That drink that looked suspiciously like... ugh. Gross. Maybe that's why he never said the name.

We bathed off in angry shame. The cold water wasn't nearly refreshing enough.

Unfortunately, while our scales lacked the ability to blush, the human transfiguration definitely could. And while we weren't sure if it was showing by the time we made it up to Dumbledore's office, it felt like it was. We hoped we weren't. And for the sake of making sure our blush wasn't showing, we put Grey in charge of our single human face.

He wasn't in charge of our feet, though. If Grey were, we definitely wouldn't have come here. He wouldn't be making us climb the stairs behind the gargoyle to Dumbledore's office. That was all Red.

As we entered his office, Dumbledore was there waiting for us. We couldn't bring ourselves to look him in the eye. "Good morning, Harry. I trust you slept well?"

Wait, did he know? Doesn't sound like it, but...

"mmm..." Gray made our head bob slightly. A lie, but as small of one as we could get.

"Good. I am glad you're well rested." We could hear the smile in his voice, but it was gone the next sentence. "I must apologize, though. Hagrid and I often drink together over the summer, but drinking in front of you, a student, and offering you a drink was poor form on my part. Especially that drink..." That last bit was muttered under his breath so quietly and so quickly that we were sure that we weren't supposed to hear it

We shook our head. "It's fine. We had fun..." We think our consensus spoke that, rather than any of us in particular.

"I'm glad, but this is still Hogwarts, and a certain amount of decorum is warranted from its staff," Dumbledore replied.

Not that it stops Snape from picking on us, we didn't say. Instead, Red grumped, "SEAMUS AND RON'S DADS HAVE TAKEN THEM DRINKING BEFORE!"

"While I will not comment on what their fathers have done with them, they are still Mr. Weasley and Mr. Finnigan's fathers. I'm only your guardian in loco parentis, Harry. There are things a real father can do for his sons that no teacher ever could."

Why? Why did that hurt so much? We mean, that's not surprising that he said that, but why did it feel like a slap in the face?

"But given your very unique situation, I doubt that there is anyone who could fully give you the childhood you deserve. Loathe as I am to admit it, I doubt even James Potter could be what you need right now, never mind an old man with no sons or nephews of his own." Dumbledore let out a weary sigh, and for just an instant, he looked as old and weary as he actually was. "Still, help is always given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it, whether about magic or..." He paused and glanced towards the large window to the side of his desk. "...anything else."

Dumbledore turned back to us. In a very deliberate voice, he asked, "Is there anything you'd like to ask?"

'He knows,' Blue suddenly deduced. He yanked our eyes to the window — the very window Dumbledore had been watching us from last night and could have seen us through this morning.

'But he didn't mention it at all!' Yellow argued. Only, as soon as both Blue and Yellow were thinking about it, they together realized why he hadn't said anything. 'He's trying to be polite? Kind? Oh.'

In the span of a single thought, our personal respect for Albus Dumbledore, the man, not the professor, shot up immensely. We were still far too embarrassed to actually mention our little incident this morning, but much of the fear evaporated. "No. But thank you anyway," we eventually replied. We meant it, too.

"Of course. Now, that brings us to the actual first thing on my list. Regarding our efforts to give you a more stable human form, we've been corresponding with a couple of other trustworthy transfiguration masters across the country, and we think we've nearly cracked it — at least, at a theoretical level. There might be one or two major stumbling blocks we have to cross, but if those can be surmounted, we might be able to begin training you in the necessary magic shortly after the term begins. With luck and hard work, perhaps by this time next year, you'll be able to take on a human form under your own power."

"THAT'S FANTASTIC!" Red bellowed. The window rattled with the power of his voice.

Green, however, was more cautious. "And if we can't crossss thossse ssstumbling blocksss?"

Dumbledore nodded. "We have options to get around them. Professor McGonagall is working on a list of tests that we can perform in order to draw us a road map, so to speak. At this point, however, I am almost entirely certain that we can eventually grant you the ability to split into five smaller bodies while remaining mentally connected; what those bodies are and how much control you have over their eventual form depends on the results of these tests."

"And how soon can we do them?" Blue demanded.

"As soon as McGonagall is done. I expect that will be in the next two or three days, maybe even as soon as tomorrow."

"Brilliant!"

Dumbledore nodded. From behind his desk, Dumbledore pulled out a surprisingly muggle-looking file folder. On it were two distinguishing marks: the Gryffindor crest, and our name, written in the loopy handwriting of Professor McGonagall. "Now, the next most pressing issues all regard your future education here. They all stem from the same core question: how do I treat you academically?

"Education-wise, do I treat you as a singular entity, with any head being interchangeable with the others, ultimately considering you to be one student?" We bristled a bit at that, but Dumbledore kept going without stopping. "Do I treat you as a collective, allowing you to each attend classes but keep your grades, points, and punishments together as one? Or do I treat you as five independent people that coincidentally to all have the same record for their first two years? There are pros and cons to all three."

"We're different people," we declared. The idea that he'd just treat us as one person offended us.

Dumbledore made a placating gesture with his hand. "I am aware. I am merely referring to the paperwork involved and how your schedule works. If we treat you as one, all five of you would be expected to attend classes together. You'd follow one schedule, submit one set of assignments, earn one grade, collectively earn and lose points, and share all detentions. In essence, we pretend you cannot be in five places at once — or, more practically, during the school day, we do not let you divide apart with the cloning spell. This is basically what you did when you were a single person."

But the cloning spell was fun. It was nice to be able to split apart physically even if we were all still mentally together. "None of us really like that idea," Yellow said.

"Understandable. The next option is to consider you a collective. Like the first, your overall grades and points would be unified, but we would allow you to split apart and attend classes that would otherwise be at the same time. Each head would get its own schedule and be assigned its own work. While I think this might be the best for you if you all want to pursue a single career and the most efficient in terms of education, it also means that your grades are dependent on the work ethic of individual heads. If I haven't missed my guess, I suspect Blue and Green might be a bit displeased with that."

The two named heads both commandeered our human head and made us nod. "Yesss, definitely." A mental poke shot across our collective, jabbing at both Red and Grey, who we knew wouldn't pull their weight if given the chance to slack off. Yellow snickered in the sidelines, but shut his trap when Green mentally glared at him.

"That brings us to the third option. Harry Potter is unenrolled from Hogwarts while the brothers Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, and Grey Potter are transferred in. You each get your own schedule and are required to do your own assignments, but you are all completely independent of one another. Five students following five different educational paths. You might be taking your core classes multiple times, but I doubt extra lessons would hurt anyone. And, in the future, I suspect you'll each enjoy having the ability to pursue your own careers on your own merits."

"That option sounds the best, we think," we spoke.

Dumbledore nodded, but asked, "Are you sure? I do agree with you, but I'd rather you take some time to think it over. You five know yourselves and each other better than anyone else on Earth; I want you to pick what you think is best for yourself."

Grey didn't care, save for a desire to do as little work as possible. But in a strangely kind-hearted gesture, he also told us that he didn't want to drag us down and was therefore willing to put in the minimum required work for the third option. Red was offended at the first option, while the third option sounded enough like a challenge to get his interest. The promise of succeeding on individual merit snapped up both Blue and Green's attentions. The only one of us entranced by the second option was Yellow, the most communal of us, but he was outvoted.

It didn't take us long to really figure out where we stood, and upon tallying up our thoughts and feelings, we came to the same conclusion the consensus reached a few seconds before. "We're sure," we announced. "We'd like to be individuals."

"Of course, my boys." Dumbledore beamed at us. "Now, does that mean you also wish to be sorted? Harry Potter was sorted; you five have not been. You could continue as Gryffindors, but from what you have told me and what the Sorting Hat has said, I doubt all but one of you consider yourselves Gryffindors. Am I correct?"

We nodded. "We think we could sort ourselves. Mostly. We actually don't know where Grey would end up."

"A mystery for the sorting ceremony, I take it?"

We answered the real question behind his words. "Yeah, we want to be re-sorted as well." It would mean putting Green in the same house as Malfoy and Snape, but ironically, we think he'd be the best of all five of us to deal with them.

"Then you will be sorted after the new first years," Dumbledore agreed. He picked up a quill and noted something down on a small pad of paper. We didn't try to see what it said. When he put his quill down, Dumbledore spoke again. "Onto the next topic: your dormitory. You are more than welcome to continue sleeping down in the Chamber of Secrets until such time as you can permanently maintain your transformation on your own. We can worry about your future sleeping arrangements when the time comes, but I thought I'd ask now, since we're on the topic. Would you like to stay down there, would you like a private room in the castle to yourselves, or would you like to bunk with your respective housemates?"

"The Chamber, definitely," we replied almost instantly. "WE BEAT THE BASILISK THERE. WE CLAIM IT FOR OURSELVES!" Red boastfully added. Then Green threw in his two cents. "We're the only parssselmouthsss in the ssschool. If we're not down there, it'sss going to sssit empty."

Plus, that meant we wouldn't be tempted to eat Malfoy every time we saw him sleeping only a bed away.

"A good point. Very well. I shall have the house elves attend to it as if it were any other room." He added to the note he'd written, then wrote a second note. The first he slid off to the side of his desk, while the latter he slipped into our folder. "Now, the rest of the stuff I had to talk about still regards Hogwarts, but not your education specifically.

"First, in a week, Hagrid will be heading down to Diagon alley to pick up a few purchases for the school. You should accompany him to pick up your supplies. Since you've elected to be five students, you'll need five sets of consumables — potions supplies, parchment, ink, and the like. You may, of course, share textbooks, and since your current transfiguration includes clothing, you may skip the robes if you so desire. I do suggest, however, that you figure out if you will be needing a new wand or a set of new wands. Your wandless talent may be impressive, but I think I'd feel safer if you five each had the best control you could get."

Red snickered as he suddenly pictured our human body chaotically trying to wave around five wands at once. It was absurd, and it got the rest of us laughing as well — enough that our laughter bubbled out into the real world. As we calmed down, Blue said, "Sorry, funny thought. But yeah, we'll do that."

"Good. Now, the next matter regards your aunt." All four-and-a-half of our smiles vanished. "Several days ago, I went out to visit your aunt to inform her of your condition. From what I gather, you ran off without telling her where you were going or why?"

We scowled. "She wouldn't care."

"That... was not quite the impression I gathered from her. I suspect your disappearance did hurt her. Or rather, re-opened Petunia's decades-old wounds." He let out a long breath.

"Perhaps this isn't my story to tell, but for you to understand what I'm about to ask, I must tell it. When Lily Evans was accepted into Hogwarts, I received a set of letters from Petunia asking if she too could be admitted to Hogwarts. With each refusal, her letters became angrier and more desperate. At one point, Lily herself came to me, asking on behalf of her sister. It was the last time Lily ever spoke of Petunia to me; I fear I might have unintentionally broken a family."

...what?

Aunt Petunia... was envious of Mom? But... she thought Mom was a freak! Like us! She hated mom. She hated us. She didn't love us. She couldn't love us. She loved Dudley. Dudley was normal. We were a freak. We were a monster. Would she have loved us? Could we have grown up loved like Dudley? Why couldn't we—

"Harry!"

The five of us snapped to attention. "...Professor?"

"Take a breath, please." We did so, and a splash of calm partially quieted the thoughts bouncing between us. "Harry, boys, I must apologize. It seems, in my age, I misjudged the relationship between the two, no, six, of you. I knew of Petunia's envy, but I mistakenly believed you would see it too. I believed you would understand your aunt, and that she would have matured enough to take pride in your abilities."

"ᴍɪsᴊᴜᴅɢᴇᴅ?!" Red growled dangerously. Despite being merely human and him speaking in his version of a whisper, our voice still shook the room. "SHE DESPISED US!" he spat.

"And yet she nearly collapsed when I told her you'd nearly died saving the life of Ginny Weasley," Dumbledore replied calmly.

"Why do you tell usss thisss?!" Green hissed, venom tainting his voice.

"Because I want to give you the opportunity to extend the olive branch to her. She only thinks you were ill. I wanted to invite her here, to reunite with her nephew as well as to get closure on her sister's life," Dumbledore replied. "If you want, I can invite her here. If not, I ask you to at least write to her. Please, don't let this wound fester in your heart."

We'd almost entirely stopped listening when he suggested inviting Aunt Petunia. The idea was almost sacrilege to us; Hogwarts was our safe haven, our sanctuary from the Dursleys. Our thoughts were almost incoherent with anger and confusion.

Almost, because Grey's mind was terrifyingly cool and orderly. He knew exactly what he was feeling: malice. An idea bloomed in his head.

"how much did you tell aunt petunia about us?" Grey inquired.

"Only that you were ill and had come to us seeking aid. It was, unfortunately, a very short conversation."

"then invite her here. in fact, invite all the dursleys. we might as well settle things with the whole family at once." The face on our transfigured body and the tone of our transfigured voice said "reluctant acceptance," despite Grey's emotional chant of HATE-RAGE-MALICE-HATE-RAGE-MALICE!

Grey, it seemed, was scarily good at lying, for Dumbledore immediately relaxed and agreed. "I'm glad you're willing to put such things behind you. It speaks well of your character, boys."

Stab us in the heart again, why don't you? But we have to do this. Grey's right, for once. Humoring Aunt Petunia's childhood envy is not going to make things better for us. Scaring the crap out of the Dursleys, however, just might.

"Thank you, Professor," Grey continued, switching to a good imitation of Blue's normal tone. "And thanks for telling us. Even if the truth hurts, I'm glad we know why Aunt Petunia is the way she is. The others are glad too."

"Of course, Blue." The real Blue balked at that. Almost nobody had addressed us individually when we were like this, and somehow Grey had done his imitation so well that it fooled Dumbledore! "I'll contact them and set up a visit soon enough."

"Was there anything else, Professor?" the now-recovered Yellow asked.

Dumbledore nodded. "Just one more thing, and unfortunately, this is the worst news I have for you today. An unidentified body was found in Hogsmeade a few days ago. Rather than investigating it, our esteemed Minister has decided to blame it on Sirius Black and has decreed that there will be even more Dementor guards out of a misguided attempt to protect you. They will be arriving later today."

"Bloody hell! Really?"

"Unfortunately. Were you a normal student, I'd advise you to stay inside by the fire. Considering your nature and the time you spend outside, I have a different suggestion. Allow me to place a tracking charm on you, and then go explore the world for a few days. Give me time to see if I can talk Cornelius down again. McGonagall can meet you anywhere to perform the tests on you, the house elves can bring you food if you can't find enough for yourself, you can meet Hagrid for your trip to London if it takes that long, and your family's visit can be arranged for a later time."

"Oh, um...? Thanks, Professor," we said, surprised and pleased with the suggestion.

"Of course." He pulled out his wand and gave it two lazy flicks. The first sprayed a blue mist across us that otherwise didn't seem to do anything, while the latter sent a ripple through the air. As it hit our transfigured body, our robes shifted to a muggle t-shirt and jeans, like what we wore at the Dursleys. The black t-shirt had the Gryffindor lion on it, right near where the Gryffindor emblem had been before, but otherwise, it was passably muggle. "And if you happen to make it to London before Hagrid, Gringotts can exchange Galleons for Pounds, while standing on a street curb and raising your wand will summon the Knight Bus to take you wherever you need to go for a few sickles."

Odd. "You're just letting us run wild," Blue remarked curiously.

"Hogwarts isn't a prison, and it is currently summer break. Even if I did have the authority to stop you, could I? Could your family? Hogwarts soon will be unpleasant for you, and I suspect that wherever you end up, it won't be your relatives home. I trust you'll be wise regarding the Statute of Secrecy, especially after last year's car incident, but at the same time, I strongly doubt that there'll be a situation you can't reasonably get yourself out of. At least, one that's worse than being swarmed by hungry dementors."

"Point taken. And with the tracking spell," Blue began.

"I will know where you are at all times," Dumbledore finished. "I'll check in on you on occasion if I can't get the situation resolved quickly enough."

We were still reeling a bit from the news about Aunt Petunia, and the news about the dementors had only soured our mood further. But Dumbledore was willing to let us go off on our own. That almost made up for it, and it made us respect the man that much more.

"We'll take our invisibility cloak, just in case."

"A wise choice. Now, I do believe that's all I had for you. Do stay safe, my boys."

We ran off in a hurry.