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So far... The reborn Hermione befriended Harry and family (Sirius & Hestia,) and with the Lovegoods, discovered the Crumple-horned Snorkack from which she extracted a strange parasite. Luna wishes to meet Harry, who, meanwhile, has overheard about a death due in his first year at Hogwarts and is worried it might be Hermione. Now read on...

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Chapter 17

Run And Hyde Park


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The Non-Magical Event

A couple of weeks were needed for Hermione to think of a wandless, non-magical meeting between Harry and Luna and herself when they could divert their interests elsewhere for an entertaining evening. She was catching up with the Muggle news one evening while her parents, as usual, were sat watching Emmerdale Farm on the television. The answer to her problem was right there on the front page of the London Evening Standard that Hermione was reading. Hyde Park's management team were introducing an annual 'Winter Wonderland' beginning on the first Saturday in November, and this year that coincided with Guy Fawkes Night so would start with a spectacular fireworks display and a huge bonfire, then continue right through to Christmas with funfair rides, an ice rink, ice sculptures, varied restaurants, bars, markets, and other enjoyments. Harry and Luna would be so immersed in the Muggle festivities, they certainly wouldn't be talking about trainer wands!

The young girl frowned. She'd just had a faint recollection of the event in her former life but only remembered as an adult, not as a child in the eighties.

"Mum?"

"Mmm...?" Mrs Granger gaze was still far, far away in her favourite soap.

Hermione considered for a few more moments then murmured, "Nothing." She wrinkled her nose and pulled a wry smile. How could her mum possibly know! Think, Hermione, think!

Traces of an even older memory had come back to her but she could not quite remember clearly... Regulations – that was it, something about changes to firework legislation – but what? In vain she struggled to remember...

Ah yes, hadn't some stupid kids brought their own fireworks into the park and had an accident? She nodded to herself; subsequent years had been cancelled and it was only resumed sometime in the twenty-first century.

Mr Granger sighed as Emmerdale came to a satisfying conclusion. "Right, who's for a cuppa? Hermione?"

The young girl rolled her eyes and the kettle filled itself with water and switched on in the kitchen. The family listened lazily to the rattle of crockery.

"Ah... magic! What did we ever do without it?" smiled Mr Granger to his wife. "Now if we only had half a dozen more children, we need never work again!"

"Edward!"

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Well Met By Moonlight

November was surprisingly clear and cold. Sirius and Hestia, accompanied by Harry, Apparated into the Grangers garden during the late afternoon of the fifth. The sun was already well below the next row of houses and casting long chimney shadows across the path.

Hermione squealed from the backdoor and Harry smiled inside, happily bracing himself as she ran towards him with arms outstretched. From within her eager embrace, he could just about see past her thick, fuzzy hair to examine the new friend she had told him about. Wearing a red knitted hat and mittens, the blonde girl was staring back at him with as much curiosity as he, yet her large bulging eyes conveyed the same dreamy attention one might give a nice book illustration. Her hair, which straggled right down to her waist, wafted out behind her as she came forward.

Hermione stood aside and watched Harry's expression.

"You do wear glasses," Luna said serenely with her head tilting over, examining the spectacles from below, and pointing bluntly with one woolly mitt. "There are those that say you don't. Do you keep them off sometimes? I think you look nicer with them on – they suit you."

"Uuh... yes," replied Harry, glancing hesitantly back at his mother, "and silvery-grey eyes like yours – for a bit of a disguise, you see. But it's secret so that's why nobody's sure."

Luna's mouth formed a big 'O' as she stepped closer. "Your eyes really are green! But you're not as tall as anyone might expect."

Harry pulled himself more upright. "I'm eight. I'm quite decently tall for eight, I'd say."

Luna gazed at him without speaking, seriously considering the matter.

Hermione cut through the soft chuckles from all round, "Luna, this is Mr and Mrs Black, Harry's parents. Sirius, Aunt Hestia, this is Luna Lovegood." Seeing Pandora emerge into the garden, she added, "And her mother, Mrs Pandora Lovegood."

Harry thought Mrs Lovegood looked handsome! as well as rather interesting with her dark scarf and woolly gloves, and piercing colour-free eyes that peered out from under a tea-cosy hat to scrutinise everything new around her. They caught his gaze now and her attention made him feel warm despite the cold air.

"What do you think, Harry?" She waved her hands at herself. "Do I look like a Muggle?"

"Erm... I think so..."

He turned to Hermione who answered for him, "I'd suggest you shorten the coat to well above the ankles – almost to the knees, Mrs Lovegood – then you're perfect."

"Thank you, Hermione."

While the adults were getting acquainted, and gravitating slowly to the backdoor, Harry pulled Hermione aside. "I've been wanting to ask you some–" He became aware that Luna had been forgotten and was on her own, gazing around at the neighbouring gardens as far as she could. Was she really disappointed in his stature? Was the girl being stand-offish or simply polite? Harry hadn't made his mind up about her yet, but for the moment he decided she looked lost. He dropped his voice to a whisper. "Will Luna be one of us? Is that what you meant before when you owled me about her? She'll be In our circle of friends?"

"Definitely," said Hermione.

"Good," Harry heard himself say, and nodded as if his agreement had only just occurred to him and he was still enjoying the flavour of it. "What about secrets? You know... special secrets?"

"Most of them, bit by bit – but remember, nothing about the wands yet."

"Right. She's quite... unusual, though. Is she alright?"

"She stood by you through thick and thin in your other life – and saved you at least twice, one of them during a big battle – saved me as well, actually."

Harry was staring at Hermione, adjusting to the enormity of what she had said so casually. "So, I... I owe her my life?"

"And she owes you hers – but she doesn't know it."

"Wow," he said very softly. "This is better than pirates. This is real."

There was a soft whoosh in the next street as an early rocket shot skywards midst a stream of sparks, and Harry became aware that the sky had quite darkened in the west with the moon already silently hanging there as if observing them. Luna was jumping up and down with excitement and waving at the firework's curving glory. With three loud cracks it burst high overhead into slowly-descending colours to herald the commencement of bonfire night proper.

"Wow," Harry repeated, half to himself.

"Luna!" Hermione gestured for the other girl to come over. She did, her young, upturned face full of wonder, and expectancy, and delight at the prospects for the evening.

Harry clutched her gloved hand the moment she was within range and was surprised how tiny her fingers were inside the fluffy mitten. "We've got secrets bit by bit," he said seriously, "but we want you to be best friends with us first – is that alright?"

Luna's mouth gaped. Harry could see the almost-spent skyrocket still sparkling in her eyes.

Hermione smothered a wince at Harry's childishly-worded invitation but nodded her head vigorously in agreement with him. "You and I are already good friends, aren't we, Luna? But for really big secrets we all need to be really, really, big friends."

"Yes, like life-saving-type of friends," Harry added solemnly. He paused, looking at the girl and still holding her hand, trying to perceive that amazing virtue in her that Hermione had informed him of, and wondering about the immensity of his indebtedness to the girl as he waited for her answer.

"With all my heart I wish, more than anything in all of existence," began Luna, eyes now swimming with light and thinking out her words carefully as befitted such an historic and important promotion of her life, "to be best friends. Should I swear?"

"No, you don't need to for this," said Harry, asserting the authority of one who had already experienced the procedure.

Hermione very much wanted to see Luna's happy tears spill so she added, "It's what's in our hearts that matters."

Luna blinked little trickles of moonlight. Hermione smiled. So did Harry.

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The Man in the Fire

Not wishing to break the Statute of Secrecy by suddenly appearing in the midst of a huge throng of Muggles, the entire party Apparated to Harry's home in Grimmauld Place then Flooed to a small block of public toilets in Hyde Park. Remembering a similar Ministry incursion in her former life, Hermione grimaced and held her breath when she arrived, but finding herself in a well-lit, neatly-tiled cubicle with a cheerful fireplace instead of a toilet, she chanced a sniff.

The delicious aroma of chestnuts roasting nearby drew her eagerly outside. Only a few hundred paces away stood a row of braziers where sausages, baked potatoes, and other hot snacks were also on offer. Other stall-holders were selling mugs of hot beverages, sparklers, grinning Guy Fawkes masks, Puritan hats, and even Harlequin masks and cloaks probably left over from the Halloween festivities the week before – all over-priced but adding to the festive atmosphere.

"Over here, you two," Sirius was already on the nearest path, surveying the lights across the park.

Hermione glanced behind her; Harry was emerging from the Floos which she now saw looked derelict from the outside and were heavily signposted, 'OUT OF ORDER'. A distinct tang of Muggle repelling charms was evident to her keen senses. The others soon joined them, Mr Granger spluttering ash as he came and Hestia quickly counting heads.

"And stay close, children," Hestia said, "no wandering away." She turned to Pandora. "Harry can be rather... venturesome at times. I think he often forgets we're here when he's intrigued by anything nearby." She sighed. "What about Luna?"

"Luna's the opposite: a mummy's girl – and a daddy's girl too. We'll have to gently push her out of the nest when it's time for Hogwarts."

While Hermione explained to her parents why they must resist the magical compulsion to move away from the area because if anyone became separated they'd all meet back here, Luna whispered to Harry, "She knows things, doesn't she?"

He nodded. "Those are the secrets I told you about and nobody must ever know except us. Promise?"

"I promise." Luna's head nodded. Quite a lot of times.

"Then the first thing is, thank you very much for saving me two times in a big battle. That must have been very brave of you."

Luna thought about that for a while as she walked along beside him. "I'm very happy if I saved you but I don't remember it – does that still count?"

"Yes, it still counts because you're still you. I'm the same – can't remember it, I think I mean. It's awfully confusing. Only Hermione understands and knows what happened."

Luna glanced around to see who was near, then whispered in Harry's ear so close that it tickled on the 'S's. "Ssstrange thingSss happened on our Sssnorkack Sssafari."

"Like sometimes she's there but not really?"

Luna nodded very firmly. "And she can talk to her owl using pictures."

"I know – and that's not all, she can..." He decided not to mention the raven. "She can do different things but she says we should be cautious about what we can do. I mean she told me, suppose you had an invisibility cloak, you'd keep it secret wouldn't you, else everyone would know and they might reach out and grab you."

"Have you got a magic cloak?"

"No, I wish I did – but just suppose."

Again, Luna nodded. "I'd like a cloak of royal blue streaming twenty paces behind me one day and exotic jewellery fit for a queen with a solid-gold throne but Mummy says we can't afford real ones so I'm going to make my own – they don't have to be expensive jewels, you know, anything will do, flowers and suchlike."

Harry tried to imagine Luna with a daisy chain around her neck. "You're too young. Kings can chop your head off, you know, if you're too little to be queening for them."

"Oh." Luna dipped her head on side for a few moments as they walked. "No, I don't think that's so." She thought some more before conceding, "Well, I suppose they might. I'll have to be careful and only be a duchess or something. They don't chop heads of duchesses do they?"

"Come along, children," cried Hestia, and the group began to follow the thousands of people who were walking across the grass to get the best view of the night sky from the dark centre of the park. The Grangers were adding generous amounts of butter to the jacket potatoes they'd bought, and were handing them around. "No, keep your gloves on, they're really hot."

Hermione scurried to join Harry and Luna. "The display will be amazing, you wait and see!" she said excitedly. "Look!"

Far off to one side, parallel to their march, several huge bonfires were being lit in a row that pointed to and revealed the dark glittering waters of the Serpentine.

"Hurrah!" cried Luna. "Look, Mummy! They're... oh..."

"It's not a real man they're burning, Luna," said Hermione, "just a dummy dressed up in clothes and a funny mask – like those children are wearing too, see? That's Guy Fawkes. He plotted to burn down parliament, so every year, Muggles burn his effigies to celebrate the successful thwarting of the evil plan ."

"Like when Harry heroically vanquished You-know-who?" said Luna, "Hurrah! Hurrah! Burn Guy Fawkes's curs'ed jeans!"

While the adults roared with laughter, Harry squirmed a little, and busied himself salting his hot potato. He didn't much like the idea of anyone being killed, let alone...

A small orchestra struck up the rousing start of Haydn's Fire symphony across the lake and the crowd cheered. Mr Granger peered at his watch with the aid of a little keyring light. "Won't be too long now, just a few more minutes."

While they waited, Harry inched Hermione and Luna aside. "Hermione, I need to ask you a big secret but..." He leaned his head in Luna's direction. "It's about, you know... the big secret."

"Right now?" Hermione stopped chomping her steaming spud, and looked up.

"Er... well it is important."

Something in his tone caused Hermione to lower her hot snack and wipe her mouth with the back of her glove. "What is it, Harry?"

"Well, uuh... it's about erm... memories..." Again he gestured towards Luna. "Is it alright if I...?"

With a nod and a frown, Hermione consented. This was not quite the occasion she had planned to reveal to Luna the truth about her previous life. "Harry means I see things, Luna. Things that haven't happened yet and might not."

"Oh, like my saving Harry's life!" said Luna in a stage whisper.

Hermione stared at Harry who looked a bit sheepish as he explained, "I had to thank her didn't I? I only said you see things."

With a sigh, Hermione said, "You might as well know, Luna, the things I see – they're really... well, they're like memories from the future."

"Exactly," said Harry, "and that's what I needed to ask. At Hogwarts, in your first year, you couldn't have died, could you?"

"Died? No, of course not. Why are you asking?"

"But did you nearly die? Did someone... did anyone try to... murder you?"

"Murder me?" Hermione was about to laugh, but then remembered. "Actually, yes, someone let a troll loose and it almost killed me."

Luna gaped in wonderment and beneath the shine on his spectacles, Harry's eyes widened. "And was it a lady troll?"

"Harry, what's this all about? What have you heard?"

"I bet it was a lady troll, was it?"

"Uuh... Harry, one troll is much like another, and I was too busy trying to–"

"It was! I know it was!"

Hermione threw her potato away and wiped her gloves together as best she could. "Harry, you must tell me what you've learned."

"Mum and Dad – they know about the troll. I heard–"

"Impossible."

"– I heard them saying it would kill you but they don't know you like I know you! You made the bad troll run away crying!"

Luna giggled.

Shaking her head slowly in disbelief, Hermione said, "No, Harry, I was the one cry–"

"And saved the whole school, that's what happened," said Harry, who wasn't listening at all while his imagination was working overtime. "You saved everyone! You saved..." – he paused – "you saved me, didn't you?"

"NO!!" Hermione glanced around but fortunately her cry had been swamped by the summit of the music's crescendo coupled with the approving roar of the multitude gathered there, and the first screeches, whizzes, and bangs as the pyrotechnics began.

Diverted, the young children's faces lit up as colours streaked the sky, and the park became wondrously illumined by its radiance. The organisers had prepared well and not the slightest pause diminished the swirls and rushes, cracks and crackles, nor the radiant tapestry of patterns shining not only across the sky but doubled – reflected on the glorious Serpentine's surface below.

A cacophony of squeals and shouts, waves of overlapping cheers, all raised the excitement. Harry and Luna were jumping up and down. Hermione – the not-completely-a-child – felt her mother's arm around her shoulder and glanced up at Mrs Granger's smiling face. But above her head, across the ever-changing fiery heavens, it seemed a strange, dark smoke was passing. Anne must have seen an alteration in her daughter's demeanour, for she too looked upward. Other faces too, tilted like a pale, slowly-moving wave to scrutinise the ominous cloud.

Abruptly, the surf broke, for several long moments, silence flooded the entire field then terrified screams crashed upon the ears of everyone there.

"The man on the fire!" shrieked Luna, pointing at the figure struggling to clamber out of the conflagration. Too late. The bonfire exploded, spraying those nearest with burning embers and flaming logs. Most macabre of all, a youngster in a dangerously-long Halloween cloak had caught ablaze and was running in circles, blinded by her own melting-plastic Guy Fawkes mask. Gruesomely cavorting amongst them, other masked arm-waving figures added to the general panic.

Uproar. Bedlam. Terror. Heaving, pushing groups were pressing in upon each other, unsure which way to run, for commotion could be heard and seen in every direction.

Sirius took charge. He'd wasted no more than a few seconds staring at the sinister black rainbow cloud which obscured and disfigured the shining firmament like a colossal thrusting claw. "Everyone to me! Hestia, I'll Apparate the Grangers straight home. You take Harry and Hermione and GO! Pandora, take–"

"Where's Hermione!" bellowed Mr Granger, wildly shoving people aside in his efforts to find her.

"TO THE FLOO INSTEAD!" shouted Sirius. "ALL MEET UP AT THE FLOO!"

Mrs Lovegood and Luna vanished with a loud crack that was smothered by the general pandemonium,.

"NO!" shouted Anne but she and her husband had already been seized and in only an instant of stomach-churning blackness, they found themselves once more at the public toilets. Both the Grangers immediately stumbled off in the direction of where they'd abandoned Hermione. Sirius was ahead of them, blocking the way.

"Stay here," he said, drawing out his wand, "I'll find her much faster than you can. And she's smart, she'll be heading this way. Wait for her here. She'll be badly frightened and will need you to be here."

Then he was gone.

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The Battle by the Bonfires

Sirius was right; Hermione was badly frightened yet had deliberately allowed herself to be swept away by a surge in the panicked crowd. Harlequin masks came in a variety of styles but those wide eye bands she'd glimpsed near the main bonfire reminded her far too unpleasantly of Death Eater masks. Were they stirring up the chaos? And was the swathe of cloud above inspired by the Dark Mark? A warning to Muggles?

As she ran through the commotion, she shot a quick look upwards. The mark was not fading or drifting like random smoke but had formed a black archway that...

Hermione stopped and stared hard, wondering why that reminded her of something she'd read...

"Aaaahhh!" The scream came from a man being flung backwards into the largest of the bonfires next to the lake. Instantly invisible, Hermione ripped a massive gout of water from the Serpentine and hurled it at the inferno. She could spare no time inspecting the flow of wet steaming logs that resulted nor the thunderous implosion of the lake's waters closing the deep whirlpool left behind. Immaterial now, she sped through frantic Muggles in the direction of the three masked forms who were scanning around to find a wizard who could have summoned such an unheard-of mass of water. The one on the left failed to dodge either of her two stunning spells and fell very badly across a bench hidden in shadow beside a concrete dumpster. Surprisingly fast for a tall man, the central figure ducked low and flung a killing curse through the legs of the scattering, wailing crowd towards the source of the jet of red light. But Hermione, already speeding straight through the green glow, angrily blasted him backwards at point blank range. CRACK! The remaining masked man Disapparated just in time to evade Hermione's slashing spell, else he'd have lost his potatoes.

A cursory glance at the big man's body indicated he was dead, back broken against the side of the heavy dumpster. Hermione summoned his mask and hood to one side. The bloodied, blond hair and muscular shoulders left no doubt.

"Thorfinn Rowle!" She'd spat the words out loudly without realising it, then growled her rage at the pointless deaths and suffering, "I wish you weren't dead. I just wish you weren't."

The noise of the crowd came back to her then. Still unseeable, she looked around. A group of valiant teenagers were helping the man from the remains of the flooded bonfire. One Muggle woman lay dead on the path behind Hermione, no doubt a victim of Rowle's uncaring curse. The young girl's shoulders sagged and she turned to inspect the masked form sprawled across the bench. There was just enough light to tell it was a woman, short and stocky with her breath still rattling in her wheezy lungs, and a wand still clutched limply between stubby fingers.

Hermione sensed some of the remaining crowd moving in, snatched the wand, grabbed the female's arm, and Disapparated – there could be only one destination for the likes of this dark witch. While Hermione rested for half a minute in the bell tower, her eyes fell upon the woman's mask. It was fuller than a typical Harlequin mask, being a wider black band that curved over her forehead and right down over her eyes and upper side cheeks. In contrast, the skin of her lower face was pallid, the mouth just as cruel and ungenerous as Hermione instantly remembered it.

Bracing herself against one of the remaining timber pillars that once support the bell structure, Hermione took deep breaths to calm herself. Sickening images of Neville's and Hannah's heads were forcing for attention in her thoughts but she knew she must master her emotions.

The mask she left in place while she completed her journey. Deep under the mountain, Carrow was deposited in a temporary receiving cell, and Hermione, not ready or prepared yet for her first inmate, pressed the rim of a potion vial between those vicious lips, unashamedly forced into that foul mouth the Draught of Living Death, then burst into tears.

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Black is Black

There were still tears shining in Hermione's eyes when Sirius's revealing charm found her wandering in a curve roughly in the direction of Hyde Park's abandoned toilets only a few minutes later.

"Couldn't remember 'thactly where the Floo wasth," she sheepishly explained.

Sirius crouched down and gave her a big hug. "You're safe, that's all that matters. All this commotion is enough to scare anyone much older than you – nothing to be ashamed about."

He pulled a large handkerchief from his top pocket, and said soothingly, "Come on now, dry your eyes before we join the others. I don't suppose you want Harry to see you like this, eh?"

Hermione gave him a tearful smile and pretended to gather herself together with a deep breath. "You won't tell him what a thsilly little baby I've been?"

"Of course not," grinned Sirius, "and you're not a baby at all. You're very brave. Most kids your age would have been bawling their eyes out."

Police sirens began wailing in the distance. Sirius murmured, "We'd better go."

Not long after they began walking, Mr and Mrs Granger dashed forward at Sirius's holler and greeted Hermione with open arms.

"We were so worried, darling," said her mother.

"Oh, it was nothing really," said the dry-eyed Hermione nonchalantly, and observing Sirius's encouraging wink, "I got dragged to one side of the park so it took me a bit longer to find the Floo. Is everybody alright?"

Harry and Luna met them as they all returned. He grinned to see Hermione safe and well. Luna looked more serious. "Did you see anything, Hermione? I have to report this to Daddy for The Quibbler."

"Now, now, Luna," said Sirius. "Hermione's–"

"It's alright, I don't mind," Hermione cut in quickly. "I saw some bad wizards in masks cast another man into a fire but some Muggle lads got him out in time. Then those wizards killed a woman with a green light and just disappeared."

Hermione's parents gasped but Luna had a notebook out and a tiny quill was writing in it. "Did you identify any of the villains? Who were they? What was their motive?"

Hermione shook her head but Pandora said scornfully, "They were members of the Black Arc is who they were. No doubt about that. The most scurrilous gang of hate-mongers since You-know-who's lot!" She turned to Sirius. "And we all know who's behind it, don't we?"

"We do not!" barked Sirius. "And that's the difficulty! Nobody knows who's directing them! Most of their own members don't know!"

"Bellatrix Black and your cursed brother to name the two most likely!"

"Pandora!" Sirius took her arm and drew her aside, hissing, "My brother made mistakes but was never a leader!"

"They're all Blacks at their head. All their recruits follow them without question! Rotten to the core, all of them – oh, present company excepted, of course." Pandora added hastily. "Sorry, Hestia. Sorry, Sirius." She looked around. "Sorry, Harry."

"I've told you before, Pandora, that Harry is still a Potter."

Pandora shook her head. "They won't see it that way, as you well know! Magical adoption made him a Black. A change of name certificate from the Ministry is only paper."

"It means it's legal and therefore binding," insisted Sirius. "Enough of this. He's a Potter through and through!"

"Pandora, please – the children..." said Hestia.

Mrs Lovegood looked around at the pale, upturned faces and relented with a few nods of her head. "We must all leave. The Ministry will be here any moment if not already. Then there's the Muggle police. We don't want to have to explain ourselves to either of them. Come Luna."

With that, she and Luna walked towards the Floo entrance.

" 'Bye, Harry! 'Bye Hermione!" cried Luna, waving sadly.

"Goodbye, Luna!" called Harry.

Hermione ran up and gave her a hug, whispered in her ear that she would send Farrimond with a full report, said her goodbyes, then the Lovegoods were gone. One by one the others followed and soon all that remained of the drama was a silent derelict building of which Muggles never took any notice.

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—oOo—

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Author's Notes

I had a late surge of inspiration and this chapter was finished just in time for my usual weekly delivery. I was afraid it might be mostly pithy filler but it's worked out much better than expected and is one of the better chapters, I think. It's been a rush so let me know if you see any bad errors. I've also made good progress on the next chapter so perhaps I might be able to catch up and get ahead again. We'll see.

In case any non-Brits are still confused, Guy Fawkes night (also known as Fireworks Night and as Bonfire Night) is celebrated ever year on 5th November in the UK. The Winter Wonderland annual event did not really begin until about 2007 but we know better now don't we? It really had a false start in 1988. :)

Thanks to everyone for comments and reviews. These are most welcome and very encouraging. Let me know of any weaknesses or faults – I'm always trying to improve my writing so feedback is really useful. :)

– Hippothestrowl

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