Chapter 7

October 31st, 1988- Darwin Primary School, Yorkshire County, England

At recess Lucas Hale was being his normal self, which meant that he was making fun of Patricia. When he didn't succeed in getting a reaction from her he would move on to Ava and then either Tracy or Patricia would slap him or cause him to fall face-first into a mud puddle. Then William would make sure that any teachers Lucas went crying to would get the truth about what happened which meant that Lucas would get detention and the others would get a stern talking to. That was how it usually worked, so Lucas began grinning when he realized that Patricia was actually reacting to what he was saying.

"I'd think that a witch like you would like Hallowe'en. I guess you're a freak even for a freak, huh?"

"My likes and dislikes are none of your concern, Lucas." Patricia said icily. Lucas noticed her change in tone and decided to try his luck with pressing on.

"Awww, what happened? Would no one give you sweets?" Patricia scowled and Ava put a hand on her friend's arm, warning her to be careful. Patricia relaxed slightly and reminded herself that this time next year she wouldn't have to put up with Lucas. She still had to tell her friends about going away to Hogwarts…

"Do you think I'm so shallow, Lucas? Are you sure you're not talking about yourself?"

A few of their classmates who were listening in on them gasped like Patricia had just said something really horrible. Tracy 'accidently' stepped on the foot of the gasper nearest to her and caused a chain reaction that had the obvious eavesdroppers stumbling backwards. William sighed. He just knew that this was going to end badly.

Lucas' face began to turn pink. "I'm not the whore without any parents!" he shouted. This time everyone within earshot gasped. A few people covered their ears. One girl looked like she was going to pass out. Patricia turned red. She knew that Lucas didn't know what the word 'whore' meant, but that did make it any less insulting.

You still have to deal with him for the next two semesters, Patricia, she reminded herself. Don't say something you'll regret. It was good advice, pity she didn't take it.

"My parents are dead!" she shrieked. "They were murdered on Hallowe'en when I was one! They were murdered, and it's beyond insulting that you keep using them as common cannon fodder! You shut up about my parents, and while you're at it stop copying your mother and using words that your tiny mind can't understand!"

Patricia pushed through the crowd and ran into the school. One of the supervising teachers finally noticed what was happening and began to yell at Patricia not to go inside. He got a surprise when the words "The cow says moo!" came out of his mouth instead of "Come back here young lady!" A few students laughed, which gave Ava, Tracy, and William time to run into the school after their friend. They found her crying in the back of the library where the encyclopaedias were housed. The librarian had pointed her out to them and then wished them luck because she hadn't been able to comfort the girl in the least.

"That horrible, horrible, horrible…boy!" Tracy sputtered. She had tried to find a word other than 'boy' to use in describing Lucas, but couldn't think of one that wouldn't cause the librarian to wash her mouth out with soap. Ava knelt down beside Patricia and gave her a hug.

"I can't take much more of this." Patricia choked out. "His family doesn't even have that much power; we should be able to get him to stop bullying us!"

"It's only another year." William reminded her. "Then he'll be going to that posh private school in London and we can set the hounds on him from good old Hanson Academy. I've got the files all ready."

Rather than comforting her, William's encouragement only made Patricia burst into tears again. "I… won't… be… going… with… you… to… Hanson." she said between sobs.

"What!?" Tracy, William and even Ava exclaimed. The librarian looked towards the children from her spot near a book cart that was helping to block them from view. As nothing seemed dangerously amiss she when back to work, re-shelving books and making sure that the children weren't seen by any of their meaner classmates.

"What do you mean you're not going to Hanson?" Tracy asked when Patricia had managed to control her tears. Patricia sniffed. Well, she was already up to blurting out two things that she really shouldn't have and some accidental magic, she may as well let it all out.

"I'm going to the private school my mother went to, Hogwarts. I've been down for it since I was born."

"You're going where?" Tracy questioned incredulously. She thought that her friend was joking. After all, who in their right mind would name a school Hogwarts?

"Hogwarts." Patricia said surely. Okay, so she wasn't joking. "I'll write you lots, promise." Tracy knelt down beside Ava and enveloped both of them in a hug. William shifted from side to side uncomfortably.

"We'll miss you." Ava murmured.

"I'll miss you to." Patricia said. They all heard the bell ring. Patricia shifted her arms and wiped away the last of her tears. "Come on, we're going to be late."

October 31st, 1988- St Catchpole Cemetery, Ottery St Catchpole, Devon, England

Just like when she had to take the Knight Bus, Patricia felt sick after her first time using side-along apparition. She had been too young to use it in the years before and even though her uncle insisted that he was an expert she was not looking forwards to taking it back.

"They're right over there." Remus pointed. They had landed underneath a willow tree at the back of St Catchpole Cemetery. A silvery white half-moon was beginning to rise over the hills and stars were appearing one by one. It was a nice night for trick-or-treating with mere wisps of clouds in the sky. It wasn't a good night for visiting the cemetery because some older kids liked to pull pranks on younger children and they usually used the cemetery to do that but Patricia and Remus were there anyway.

Patricia had to visit her parents.

She walked towards their grave with a bunch of roses clutched in her hand. She crouched down and leaned the bunch of flowers against their headstone which read:

HERE LIE STANISLAV AND PYTHIA STIMPSON

JAN. 19, 1957-OCT. 31, 1979

MAY 3, 1958-OCT. 31, 1979

FROM THE ASHES A FIRE SHALL BE WOKEN

Patricia always found it a bit funny that whoever had commissioned the headstone had chosen to quote Tolkien in saying that "from the ashes a fire shall be woken". She supposed that it had been a Muggle who had thought that that would be something that a twenty-two and twenty-one year old would like to have on their gravestone, like they wouldn't be ashes forever even though they had become so too soon.

She cleared her throat. "Hello Mum and Dad. Here we are again, another year. I'm eleven now and I'll be going to school soon so this might be the last time I get to come and see you for a while. Nothing much has changed since last year. Lucas Hale is still being a poisonous little beast." She let out a small choked laugh. Remus walked up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. He had been putting up silencing spells and notice-me-not charms so that Patricia could talk freely to her parents without being bothered or having to worry about eavesdroppers.

"Uncle Remus and I are both well, apart from the usual. Oh! I got our family heir ring when we went to Diagon Alley last month. You and Yellowfang sure put a lot of magic into it, Dad. I could probably have a mountain dropped on me and come out just fine. I won't test it though, promise. Better safe than sorry, right? I got an owl that day to. His name is Benvolio and he was just a little heap of feathers when we brought him home. He's grown since then and he's getting a lot stronger. I always tell him that he's going to be a very handsome owl and I'm starting to see that now.

Mum, we met your friend Bathsheda Babbling. She's teaching Runes at Hogwarts, Dad, and she's been writing letters to me talking about some of her classes. They sound fascinating but I feel bad for the sixth year student that turned his nose into an owl's beak. I'm not quite sure how he managed it since they were working on animation spells but that's just magic I guess.

Dad, I know what I want to be when I grow up. I want to be a Rune Master, just like you and Bathsheda. She asked me to call her by her first name, Mum. Just until school starts and I have to call her "Professor Babbling", she thinks she'll be better used to her title by then. It's her first year teaching you see.

I got this book called British Wizarding Houses of the Twentieth Century. It's got a lot of information about a lot of wizarding families in it, including ours. It says I'm dead though, and Uncle Remus wouldn't let me write to the author to correct them. He says they probably wrote the book under a fake name anyway because there's a lot in it that would offend powerful pure-blood families. The names of some of your family members are in there and I am allowed to write to them as soon as Benvolio can manage long flights. I didn't know that I had any other family before. It's a bit of an odd feeling to be honest.

I guess I wasn't right when I said that nothing's changed since last year, there's a lot that's different, but there's a lot that's the same to. Everything in the Muggle world is the same for me and my friends except we're going to be going to different schools next year. Muggle nurses went on strike in February and postal workers in August. Margaret Thatcher is still prime minister and she went to Africa in January. There was something in the news about a kid being Britain's youngest chess master but I can't really remember details. Something happened with a BBC broadcast but I'm not really sure about that either…

I could stand here and talk to you all night but I've got to let Uncle Remus have his turn. Bye Mum, bye Dad."

"Hello Stanislav. Hello Pythia. I don't think there's much left for me to tell you. Patricia is doing well in school. She got all As on her last report card. Everyone at the Nest is still helping to take care of her; you did a good job Stanislav. Charles Turpin isn't drinking as much as he was right after his wife died but he still goes and gets drunk some days after work. Pythia, Patricia is still using those Tarot cards I gave her so you don't have to worry, she takes after you to." Remus smiled a little. "I haven't found Harry, but Patricia always reminds me not to give up hope. So, really everything is as it should be. I'll come see you next year, even if Dumbledore and her head of house won't let Patricia out of school. Goodbye for now."

Remus stepped back from the grave to let Patricia have some time alone with her parents. It really was a good thing that she had found the names of some of her family members, and that she had met Bathsheda, because having only three people that she could actually talk to about everything with two of them being dead would not have been healthy in the long run.

After a few minutes Patricia went over to where Remus was waiting. "I'm ready to go." she told him. "Are we going to visit Lily and James to?" Remus shook his head. He didn't feel like visiting his friends' grave just to say again that he hadn't made any progress in finding their son.

"Let's go home, Patricia."

Remus waved his wand and removed the spells that he had put up. Almost immediately the sound of a child screaming came from the front of the cemetery. Remus, being the reckless Gryffindor he was, ran towards the screaming with his wand still clutched in his hand. After a moment of hesitation Patricia ran after him.

The little redheaded boy by the gate running around with what looked like a large spider on his head while his two equally redheaded brothers were doubled over laughing at him made it obvious that there wasn't any real danger. One of the boys had sparks flying from his fingers which made both Remus and Patricia sure that they were wizards.

"Reducio." Remus intoned. A burst of purple light burst out of his wand and hit the spider, which shivered and shrank to the size of a penny. "Accio." The spider flew through the air towards him and he leaned to the side so that it flew over his shoulder and landed safely in the graveyard. The two laughing boys, who turned out to be twins when their faces were visable, had started looking around as soon as the spider started shrinking and when it flew off towards the graveyard their eyes landed on Remus.

"Wicked!" the twins said in unison.

A redheaded man came puffing up the hill. He looked at the boys, looked at the wizard with the little girl, and sighed. "I do hope they haven't been giving you too much trouble." he said to Remus.

"Not at all." Remus replied mildly. He held out his non-wand hand and the other man shook it. "Remus Lupin." The man's eyes widened.

"Remus Lupin? Why, don't you remember me? I'm Arthur Weasley, from the—We must have a drink. I haven't seen you in years!"

"Arthur Weasley!" Remus exclaimed. He hadn't recognized him. Well, he had gained weight since the last time they'd met. "Of course I remember you! How's Molly?"

"Well, well." Arthur had gotten distracted with gathering the three boys together. "Ah, you haven't met our children, have you? This is Ron." He patted the shoulder of the boy who had had the spider on his head. "He's eight. And these are Fred and George, they're ten." He nodded his head at each of the other boys.

"Hey!" Fred exclaimed.

"I'm Fred-" said George.

"- and I'm George!" Remus thought that Arthur had gotten the names the right way around but now he was confused.

"Er, hello boys." Patricia tugged on his sleeve. "This is Patricia, she's eleven."

"Hello." The Weasley boys looked at Patricia. Patricia looked at the Weasley boys. For a moment nobody moved.

"Dad," George said at last "did you and mum loose our sister and not tell us about it?" Ron had a different question which he quickly demanded of Patricia.

"If you're eleven why aren't you at Hogwarts?"

"I turned eleven this September." Patricia said matter-of-factly. "And I'm not your sister."

Remus and Arthur looked at each other. "Is she your daughter?" Arthur asked. Remus sighed, rolled his eyes up to the star-specked sky, and wondered how the night had become so complicated. He obviously couldn't tell Arthur and Molly the whole truth about Patricia. It wouldn't do her any good to have the story get out.

He'd just have to make something up; the former Marauder was good at that.

He gave Arthur a half-smile. "How about that drink?"

Disclaimer: I do not own the words from Tolkins "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter".

A/N: Next chapter: Hogwarts!

-Cynder2013