June 1993

"I can't believe we got grounded again! I save a girl's life! Why am I grounded for that?" Harry complained.

"Well," Adhara informed him. "Mum told Daddy that Lockhart didn't count as an adult before the thing. So he couldn't be considered an adult after it."

"Aunt Hest got me on a loophole!" Harry shouted, throwing his teacup across the room.

"That's not how you play tea party, Harry. Do it right or I'll hex you," Adhara informed him crossly.

"You can't hex," Harry said bluntly.

"Yes I can. Marly taught Atria the bat bogey hex, so Atria taught me. So there," Adhara said snottily.

"You have to have a wand," Harry informed her.

"Maybe if you're old like you. I'm 5. I don't need a wand. I'll just use accidental magic. Just like you used to. Is it hard going from accidental to wands?" Adhara asked.

"Yeah…" Harry said slowly, remembering his manipulation of accidental magic to his will. "Yeah, it is. Then they convince you that wands are necessary. Huh."


"Your daughter," Hestia started one day.

"No! When you use that term, she's definitely your daughter," Sirius protested.

"Your daughter got your godson asking questions about wandless magic versus accidental magic," Hestia continued.

"Really. Third year. That sounds about right. Please, Hest, please. It's family tradition," Sirius pleaded.

"Shouldn't you talk to your husband about that? How would Remus feel if he wasn't part of this conversation?" Hestia asked.

"He wasn't part of it the first time, if I recall correctly," Remus said, entering the kitchen.

"We didn't want you to be disappointed if we failed," Sirius said with a casual shrug.


July 1993

"You sent my daughter TO A DIFFERENT CONTINENT without my permission!" Molly Weasley railed. Everyone was at the Burrow for Sunday dinner, but lately it always devolved into a McGonagall versus Weasley grudge match.

"It was what was best for her! Bill is a certified curse breaker. Your daughter had been cursed. It was the only option!" Minerva argued. Sirius ducked his head into his arms to avoid getting into the argument.

"No it wasn't! There were a myriad of other options!" Molly said.

"Name one," Minerva challenged.

"We could have dealt with it right here," Molly said.

"Oh, how? By giving her some hot cocoa and hoping that did the trick?" Minerva said, rolling her eyes. "That was Albus' ingenious solution."

"We… We… We're her-" Molly started.

"Parents," Minerva finished. "Yes, so you've said a number of times. What I am trying to discern is how that information is relevant to Ginny's mental health. Bill and Charlie, as we all know, were better at 'chasing monsters' in her childhood. They are most suited to chase her real life monster away."

The two women stared each other down for a few very long minutes. The argument had been going on since the end of school. Molly was convinced that Minerva had 'kidnapped' her 'overly emotional' daughter. Minerva was standing her her ground, unwavering in her belief that Ginny needed her brothers more than her parents at this time.

"Mum, here's Ginny, right as rain. What are you lot rowing about?" Charlie said, entering the Burrow with his little sister.

"I think I'll go find the others," Ginny said, trying to escape.

"Oh Charlie, just look at that hair. You need a cut," said Molly, ignoring his comment.

"You're not arguing over Ginny staying with me and Bill are you?" Charlie asked, grabbing Ginny's shoulder and preventing her from running away. "She really is back to normal after some quality time with her brothers."

"We're her parents! We should have made that choice! We shouldn't have had to deal with our daughter being possessed by a bloody psychopath!" Molly ranted, making Ginny feel embarrassed in a way that she hadn't since Harry and Ron had drug her out of that sewer months ago.

"Well, it's was that or make her come here where everyone would have just make her feel sorry for herself!" Minerva argued, not a bit guilty for her preemptive actions.

"Or ignore her, and the problem, entirely," Remus commented, scrubbing his face and remembering his own parents.

"Did anyone ever ask what was best for Ginny?" Charlie asked, needling his mother unintentionally.

"We are her parents!" Molly reiterated. "She's 11! We'll decide what's best for her! Not her teacher!"

"Why don't you let me decide what's best for me?" Ginny asked firmly, looking up from where she had been staring at the ground.

"Ginny, go play with the others," Molly said, unintentionally condescending.

"No, Mum! It's my life you're talking about! I should get a say," Ginny demanded.

"You spend too much time with your brothers!" Molly said, causing Charlie to scoff under his breath.

"That's because Aunt Minnie sent me to them to recover from being possessed! Why are you acting like had a head cold, not a head full of Tom Riddle?" Ginny asked, serious.

"Don't say that name, Ginny," Molly scolded.

"Why not? I'm sure I could tell you anything you want to know! Hair color, eye color, defenses for the destruction of muggleborns! It's all been in my head! That's what Charlie and Bill have been helping me get over, Mum!" Ginny shouted, tears of frustration in her eyes.

"Ginny, please stop," Molly pleaded.

"Why? Because you couldn't save me from it? Or because you wouldn't let someone else try?" Ginny queried, voice strong yet wavering.

Molly said nothing to that, as there really wasn't any anything she could. Ginny, seeing her mother's silence, just shook her head and left the room.

Ginny had just returned from Egypt, her trunk was still packed. All of the boys were running around outside, not even noticing she had made it home safely. Except for Draco. He knew what he had to do. The diary was his fault. He was the one who gave her the diary in the first place. Maybe, if she could forgive him they could at least be friends again.

When Draco found Ginny, she was putting a picture of her and Bill down on her desk, and slapped her poster of the Holyhead Harpies out of tradition. The time away had done her good.

Ginny went to close her door and smiled when she saw Draco.

"Have a good summer?" He asked her, looking away.

"Yeah," She told him, wrapping him up in a hug, surprising him. "Bill and Charlie were great. I almost feel like my old self again. I haven't been having as many nightmares and can sleep through the night, unlike the dreamless drought potions I started with this summer.

"That's that's great." Draco smiled. "I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" She laughed. "Sorry for what?"

"For giving you the diary." He told her, grabbing her hands. "I didn't know. I didn't mean-"

"I know," Ginny whispered softly. "You would never do anything to hurt me."

"Oh." Draco said, wrapping his mind around her words.

"Yeah," she blushed. "Hey, Draco?"

"Hmm?" Draco said, still processing her words.

Ginny closed the distance between them and kissed his warm lips gently. "Oh."

"Oh? Oh what?" He asked exasperated.

"Just wanted to know what that would feel like." She told him, walking down the stairs.

"And?" He questioned following her.

"It's good to know." She blushed before walking into Fred and George's greeting arms.

Oh, Draco thought. Oh, indeed.


Lucius Malfoy was screaming at the top of his lungs. It was something that happened every night. Once the guards made their rounds and left was when the real day started. Once the time came, the screaming on the floor stopped, and the real talk began.

The dementors left them alone, after all, there were little to no happy memories to feed off of.

"Bella, we're ready," Lucius said, leaning against the cool wall he had finally gotten to fit his back.

"Rodolphus," Bella yelled. "We're ready!"

The banging commenced, while the other Death Eaters got ready for the meeting.

"Let's make quick work of this," Lucius bellowed. "The Dark Lord is reaching out to us! Twice he has tried to kill the boy, Harry Potter. Now, he needs us more than ever!"

"That's great, Lucius, what do you suggest we do, while we're stuck in a cell?" Rodolphus Lestrange hollered.

"Well, do we know anyone who could seek into a guards bag? Someone who has attempted to escape again?" Lucius smirked.

"Someone who still needs to show his allegiance to us and the Dark Lord." Bella evilly smiled.


"Ah, Prongslet, there you are," Remus said, cornering Harry.

"I did all my homework, I swear," Harry immediately said. "I didn't finish off the chocolate pudding, I've never been outside to Moony and Padfoot romping around the forest, whatever it is, I swear I didn't do it!"

"You not in trouble, Harry," Remus soothed, putting his hands out. "Although, we'll have a talk about that last one later. With Sirius."

"Uh, Sirius had a talk with me last week. We don't ever, ever have to have one of those talks ever again," Harry said, scratching the back of his head.

"Not that kind of talk," Remus assured him. "Although, I should probably talk to Sirius about that. If this was anything like fourth year with…. well, let's just say there was a reason the Rat Bastard never had luck with women."

"Then, what are you here to talk about?" Harry asked.

"Actually, I had a question for you. I have been offered a position as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Will it bother you in any way to have me at the school?" Remus asked.

"Well, Aunt Minnie and Snape are there all the time anyway. It might be nice to have a professor there who'd listen instead of brushing me off. I mean, you'd listen if we told you there was a giant snake in the girl's lav, yeah?" Harry asked with all of the one sided righteous indignation of youth.

"I would, Harry, but only because it's too unlikely a lie not to be the truth. I have no idea why Minnie didn't listen to you last year," Remus said.

"We didn't get to her. I mean, we tried, a bit, but she was so busy trying to get everything handled in case Dumbledore got sacked that she wasn't available to us," Harry explained, shrugging his shoulders.

"And you thought Lockhart was the next best option?" Remus questioned incredulously.

"Well, no. But he was the closest option. Ginny was going to die down there. I saw it. I saw her cold, lifeless body just… she didn't …. How? How did you and Padfoot…. My parents were…. How?" Harry asked, swiping at his eyes the way teenagers do when they want to hide their tears.

"Harry, come here," Remus encouraged, hugging the boy. "We've spent so much time arguing over whether or not Ginny would be okay that we forgot you almost watched your friend die. You shouldn't have been grounded. Your father and godfather did worse for their friend in need. Padfoot still does worse. That doesn't mean I'm grabbing a time turner and changing things. No one your age should play with those. It just means that Padfoot, Hestia, and I will have a talk about empathy. And to answer your question: We handled it by raising you. We raised you all day, then put a silencing charm outside your room so that we could still hear you but not the other way around, then we yelled, screamed, and raged all night long."

"You, um, also got drunk every Halloween," Harry said, staring at his foot making patterns in the carpet.

"Yeah… not our greatest moments, those Halloweens," Remus said, suddenly interested in the ceiling.

"But, it's okay now. Aunt Minnie yelled at you and now you behave, I guess. Adhara or Rigel would tell me otherwise," Harry said, still not looking at Remus.

"That they would. That they would," Remus smirked.


Gabs: Yeah, yeah it's short. We know.

Kat: Sorry about that. We've been busy. Having a life sucks. The score is now what? Harry: a zillion, Draco- 3? Anyone keeping track?

Gabs: I don't know what the score is. I don't ship Drinny … or Hinny really. I prefer Hermione fics.

Kat: I love both Hinny and Drinny… good luck, reviewers. You won't know the winner for a loooong time. Speaking of reviewers. We love you! Truly, Madly, Deeply!

Gabs: Like, book 5. Or is it 7. I can't remember.

Kat: Please, at least my ships aren't on slow burn for all of eternity!

Gabs: I will slow burn the hell out of it! Please review. Maybe I'll speed up my ship. As always, we own nothing.

XOXO

Gabs and Kat