In an instant, the darkness melted into light. Harry's limbs bathed in soothing warmth and his aching muscles softened like dough.

He stood still, his thawed body at ease as though cold had never touched it. The gentle light permeated everything, casting no shadows.

And yet there was something. Harry blinked – as if suddenly aware that he could – and already the light had turned a darker hue. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again.

Like a drop of colour expanding on white cloth, a house was taking form, padded with grey and beige bricks. Gabled dormers jutted from the sloping roof and rows of chimney pots shot up along its ridge. More and more trees and bushes protruded through the lawn, its grass a dusty green under the overcast sky.

Harry walked in long, quick strides towards the house as if afraid the vegetation would soon hinder anyone from entering.

As if awoken by the thought, a hedge started growing at a furious pace. It rushed like a Basilisk across the grass, heading for the house, threatening to cut off the path between Harry and the front door.

Harry ran. The hedge kept getting closer, rumbling louder, spluttering roots and leaves in its wake, its branches cracking and swishing. The door was endlessly far away. Harry leaned forwards as his legs thumped harder and harder against the ground. He was almost there. The hedge was so close that the lawn under Harry's feet vibrated and gusts of air from the advancing plant blew his hair to one side.

Without thinking, Harry threw himself towards the door, the hedge roaring past behind him, missing him by an inch. His hurtling body smashed the door open with a bam, and his palms landed flat on a polished wooden floor. Outside, the hedge sped off past the windows, hit an apple tree and then zigzagged its way into a grove of hollies.

Other than the crackles from a fireplace in the sitting room (and Harry's throaty breathing), the house was silent. He got to his feet and closed the door. In front of the fire stood comfortable armchairs and a table and to his immediate left was a wall; to the right, a staircase. Not a soul stirred.

Harry took a couple of timid steps forwards, but stopped. From upstairs came a muffled clicking noise. Only a few clicks at first – then several in rapid succession.

He raced up the stairs and found himself standing in a corridor with a row of closed doors – from the middle one came more clicking.

'You already home, dear?' said a voice from inside.

Harry grabbed the handle and opened.

Behind a desk sat a man engrossed in the glow of a computer screen. He was midway through life, with finely lined lips framed by greying stubble on a steady, triangular jaw. Crevices ribbed the tanned egg of a forehead. The brow was a bit top-heavy, but a prominent nose saved the face from being cut in half by the deep, thin eye-sockets. His receding hair was neatly swept back.

'Let me just finish this paragraph …'

The man's fingers made a frantic clog dance across the keyboard – ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tap, tap, ta-ta-ta-tap – and ended the sentence with triumphant finality: Tap. Tap. Tap.

Leaning back in his chair, the man stretched and yawned, his neck bared in a slightly unbuttoned shirt under a thin, zipped open cardigan. About halfway through a movement – the man was pulling back his elbows, bringing to mind a very thin bodybuilder – he spotted Harry. The man froze, and his eyebrows compressed into a knot.

'Who the blazes are you?' he yelled at Harry, lowering his arms. 'This is private property! You people' – he got up and advanced towards Harry with fierce grey eyes – 'you people have no right to simply walk in here uninvited and th–'

He stopped as if struck by lightning. His lips quivered, but no words came.

'Are you quite well?' Harry said, his face somewhere between concern and confusion.

The man looked up at Harry with dull eyes. He remained speechless; the air was entirely squeezed out of him.

'Can you hear me?' Harry pressed on.

Letting out a sigh and gulping hard, the man answered:

'Yes. I'm all right.' He walked back and steadied himself on the desk's nearest corner. 'You have to excuse my manners,' he murmured, 'I'm not used to … to strangers.'

'But who are you?' Harry said.

'O-oh,' the man blurted, 'me? I'm, er, Jon – I mean, Logan. I don't use Jon much. Logan, er … Erwin.'

'Mr Erwin, I'd –'

'Oh, call me Logan. Logan is fine.'

'Very well. Logan, I'd be grateful if you could help me.'

'Yes! Yes, certainly, anything – anything you want.'

Harry arched an eyebrow. 'Why, thank you. Now, it may sound absurd, but I'm a tad unsure of where I am.'

'This place? It's – er – where I live. It's my home.' Logan lowered his voice, mumbling more to himself than to Harry: 'Though, I'm not sure any longer. This is so strange. So strange.'

'Listen, I don't want to intrude, but something made me come here and I have not a clue what I'm supposed to be doing.'

'W – well, I guess you could … perhaps you could …' The man's voice trailed off as he cast a furtive eye on a bookshelf standing against the wall. Harry followed his lead.

Rows and rows of thick book spines packed the shelves. Prose and poetry, ancient and modern. Dictionaries and maps. In the middle was a series – each volume about a person called Teddy Baker. Harry pulled out the one furthest to the left.

On the cover was an illustration of a thickset boy standing flabbergasted in front of a purple submarine. Grey eyes peered from under his thin, honey-brown hair and his cheek had a peculiar mark shaped like a spiral. In big, tangled letters the title read Teddy Baker and the Golden Apple, and below it was the author's name, Logan J. Erwin. Harry glanced over the chapters: 'The Voyage from Calfhaven Pier', 'The Grouping Helmet', 'The Telescope of Rougnal' …

He tossed the book to the floor and picked the next in the series. Logan locked his eyes on his feet. His cheeks flushed red.

The cover of the second novel, Teddy Baker and the Hall of the Oracle, had Teddy, a pug-nosed friend and a caged seagull ride an enormous sewing machine across the sea. The copy landed with a slam on the floorboards and Harry grabbed the third book: Teddy Baker and the Phantom of Erebrun, with Teddy riding a Chimaera – slam. Next, Teddy Baker and the Phial of Frost (slam), then, Teddy Baker and the Guild of the Ibis (slam). The Baseborn Duke, the Ghastly Tokens (sla-slam).

Harry was panting where he stood with books strewn around his feet.

'This is me!' he shouted at Logan. 'They're different, but I'm not a complete dunce – these are all about me from my school years! I don't know to whom you've been talking to get all this information, but you're –'

'They're different?' Logan interrupted, his brow creasing.

'Obviously they are ruddy different! I don't look like that' – Harry pointed a quivering finger at one of the covers – 'and I never used any telescope of bloody "Rougnal"! But I imagine you had to change some things. Wouldn't want to be called out for stealing someone's life story, am I right?'

'Steal?'

'Or perhaps you were there? Spying on us as it happened?'

'No, I – I –' Dark stains of sweat formed on the man's shirt.

As though making up his mind on something, Logan coughed and took a deep breath:

'I never changed anything about you. The books are not different – I don't understand where you get that from. See' – Logan exhibited the Tokens novel – 'it's you. I must say, it's a perfect likeness,' he muttered, adjusting his reading glasses as he gave the cover a closer look. 'The artist did an amazing job – can't have been easy to produce a resemblance of something that was just swimming around in my head.'

Harry's arms articulated as to someone deaf. 'That's – not – me! Although, true, it is me, as I said before – but it's n– What do you mean it swam around in your head?'

'I-I mean …' Logan began, placing the book next to him on the desk. 'Some thirty years ago, I came up with, you know, this idea about an eleven-year-old boy in a magical submarine taking him to –'

'Submarine?' Harry yelled in a shrill voice. 'There was no damned submarine anywhere!'

'Surely you remember the submarine, Teddy! How else were you to –'

'Harry!'

'– go to … What?'

'Harry! My name is Harry Potter.'

Logan frowned and coughed: 'Harry Potter? No, no, no; although I'm terrified by the fact, you are definitely Teddy Baker. At first I only presumed you to be somebody playing dress-up – in an unusually good costume, I admit. But when I came near you, I knew. I just knew. God, I wish I didn't, but I do! You look exactly the way I imagined you as a grown-up. Still with the spiral scar on your cheek and everything.'

'Are you blind? There's nothing on my cheek, but I always had the lightning-bolt scar on my forehead' – Harry pulled back his fringe – 'as you can see. And I can noticeably feel it with my finger, and – hm – yes, it's as deep as ever.'

'Nonsense. Your forehead is smooth and the cheek mark is still visible.'

'What's going on here?' Harry said, dropping his arms.

Logan fiddled his thumbs. 'Don't ask me how this works, but one thing is obvious by now – we can't see each other like this.'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'N-no' – Logan held up his hands defensively – 'I mean, it seems we never really see one another, wouldn't you agree? There's always something in the way.'

'Why, I'm sorry, darling, that I haven't been able to visit more often!'

Logan sighed and inspected the ceiling. 'Oh, please. We can't see each other – that must be why things appear differently.'

'What, Dark Magic is tinkering with our vision?'

Logan froze.

'God,' he said, rubbing his forehead. 'A few minutes ago, I would – without hesitation – have called anyone a loony who believed in magic, dark or otherwise. Now I'm not sure about anything!'

'But we both agree your books are about Teddy Baker, and not Harry Potter, right?'

'Ah! That is true. So, we see the same things, except our own appearances look a bit different.'

'And we hear the same things.'

'Right! We wouldn't be able to disagree on what we see otherwise.'

'But for heaven's sake, never mind that!' Harry walked up and down the room. 'You're saying you made it all up. That everything you wrote came true – at least if we don't count the quirky dissimilarities – and that magic made it happen. Even though you're a Muggle!'

'A Muggle?' said Logan, a little offended.

'You know' – Harry flailed his arms trying to catch the definition in the air – 'someone who is … Simply, a non-magical person.'

'Oh, a Boker.'

'Whichever you prefer. In sum, you've controlled my entire life from the start! You had my mother and father killed! You practically murdered several of my friends!'

'I didn't know!' Logan shouted, utterly aghast. 'You can hardly call it "control" if I had no idea my writing came to life!'

'But you must've seen something of the magic around you!' Harry shouted back, smacking his palm to the words. 'Surely, you gave the magical places you created another look! Didn't you? Checking to see if someone suspiciously went through a solid wall in London?'

'London? What on earth is that? I've never heard of it.'

'Never h–? Now you're scaring me, and it's not funny!'

'Well, what in God's name is "London", then?'

Harry stood blinking like an owl. 'What do you call the capital?'

'The capital? Why, Sisermyn, of course.'

'Si– ? Is that even in the UK?'

'The Yookay? That's the name magical people use for this country?'

'No! No, it's what everyone calls the country where us English people live, for crying out loud! Muggles and wizards alike! You speak English!'

'Of course I speak English, but no one ever called our capital "London" and no Englishman has ever lived in – what was it? – Yookay?'

Harry stared at the man in front of him. 'This is just another dream, isn't it?'

Logan gulped. Looking rather disconcerted, his gaze darted around the room as though for the first time. He contemplated the desk, clenched his fist and hit the oak surface: bang, bang, bang. Swallowing and clearing his throat, he said:

'It – it certainly feels alarmingly real. But having my books' main character pop up like this is so altogether nerve-racking that I think I prefer your suspicion.'

'As a matter of fact, I had one of these 'alarmingly real' dreams earlier. But then I woke up. So … this can't be much to worry about, can it? I simply must've fallen asleep again somewhere along the way.'

Logan's voice was anxious. 'Or, rather, I have fallen asleep.'

'Well, in a sense. But if it's a dream, you're only made up. So – er – "we" are both asleep, and, in effect, I'm standing here talking to myself.'

'What the blazes are you saying? I'm me, not someone else's imagination! You're the figment.'

'All right! We're not dreaming. It's a parallel world, or Dark Magic, or –'

'Oh, my God!' Logan cried, hugging himself. 'It must be, after all! Not only does it turn out that magic actually exists – it's bloody sinister as well! And I'm stuck in it! I can't take this, I can't, I –'

'Yes, you can!'

'– can't, I can't, I can't – no, no way, no –'

'Pull yourself together, man!' Harry barked. Logan stiffened and stared at him like a scared dog. 'You wrote about it, for heaven's sake. Now, show the world what you're made of!'

Logan shut his eyes and bit his lip, forcing his breathing to a slower pace.

'You're right. You're right! I don't care what this is – I'll pull through.'

Harry's face softened with relief. 'Well done,' he said. 'You're doing really well.'

Logan wiped sweat from his hairline. 'I'm ashamed of myself. I can't believe my behaviour.'

'It's all right.'

'I'd hardly be doing my story justice if I didn't practise what I preach, would I? I wouldn't be doing you justice.'

'No one is brave all the time. But you know what? We might as well enjoy this singular opportunity while we figure things out, don't you think? I'm rather curious to hear more about this world. And Teddy.'

Something came to life in Logan's eyes. 'I – I like that idea.'

'Excellent.'

'Have I – have I been cleared of all charges, then?'

'Oh! Yes, of course – sorry about that. If you say you didn't know, I believe you. And it could just as well be my life that made your story! Through whatever sorcery is at play here.'

'Thank God – I mean, that pleases me to hear. And it sometimes felt as though the story wrote itself, anyway.'

Harry smiled. 'That's what they say.'

'So – Harry,' said Logan in a voice still shivering, but with a more contented face, 'won't you join me for tea downstairs?'

'Never thought you'd ask,' Harry laughed. 'Let me just put your books back. God knows what came over me then.'

'Oh, leave them,' Logan shrugged.

Half an hour later, the two men were still relaxing in a pair of the sitting room armchairs. Each had a cup of tea on the table in front of them and the fireplace crackled softly. They had talked about the curious and sometimes comical differences and likenesses between Logan's novels and Harry's life. They had bantered and laughed and they had gazed at each other in awe.

'But, to sum it up,' said Harry, 'you, and millions of people here, have knowledge about nearly everything that happened to me at Hogwarts? Only in a garbled version?'

Logan could not suppress a giggle.

'Hogwarts,' he said. 'Always gets me. Anyway – yes, so it seems. And we have insight into a few minutes from your adulthood, in an epilogue. Over here, however, you simply don't exist as a living human being at all. You are nothing but my story's protagonist.'

'Good to no know I'm not the bad guy, at least. And you have never written about me before or since?'

'No, goodness me. I'm writing books on gardening nowadays.'

'Ah. Then you haven't learnt about a more recent loss.'

'A – Another death? I'm sorry to hear that, I truly am.'

'Well, not another death, really, I … Forget what I said.'

'As you wish,' said Logan and slurped his tea.

'Coming here puts things into perspective, though. What if someone else is writing what we live? Perhaps someone has authored both our lives, and somehow those lives have made imprints on each other. Haven't you ever felt that something was … pulling everything in a certain direction?'

'Well,' Logan cleared his throat, 'anyone's life will seem to have a fixed path if we summarise it into a few books and cut out all the boring bits. And in your case, the story only happened to include so many things pulling at you: the prophecies, the newspapers, all of that.'

'No. No, I have something else in mind. Something … more.'

'I do sometimes suspect life is predestined, but –'

'I'm not talking about predestination, really.'

'No?'

'It doesn't strike me as such an absurd possibility that things could have been different, you know? My friends could've had different personalities; or, I could have been born somewhere else entirely; or, the laws of nature or magic could've been written differently. Or Dumbledore could've been an outright imbecile!'

'Dumbl– ? You're having me on, aren't you?'

'The headmaster!'

'Sure sounds like an imbecile.'

'My point is that maybe someone or something singles us out and places us in whatever world they fancy. Which means things could have been different. Perhaps my parents didn't have to die so early, after all.'

'Oh, Harry, you're only hurting yourself! Last time I wrote, you had accepted their death and you were perfectly gratified.'

'I know! And I have been accepting and gratified ever since. Well, until today. I saw things earlier that "shook the foundations" a bit.'

'Regardless of what it is, I'd advise you not to think too much about it. It won't solve anything and is only needlessly upsetting to you.'

'Sure enough. It's not helpful.'

'But there is something I wanted to ask you about, Harry.'

'Oh?'

'How on earth did you get here?'

Harry took a deep, preparatory breath. Armed with quick gestures and a firm voice, Harry gave Logan the short, snappy account of his journey, from striking the Pensieve with his wand to trying to outrun a mad hedge.

'And then,' Harry gesticulated, 'I simply took a flying leap, and the hedge raced on through the greenery.'

'And that happened here?' said Logan. 'Just outside my house?'

'That's right.'

'Gosh. But I would've seen it, wouldn't I? Or at least heard it?'

'In this place, you don't even see me. And unlike that demented plant, I'm sitting right in front of you.'

Logan gave a laugh and considered his teacup. 'Yes, that's unquestionably, uh, concordant with the facts.'

'So, catapulting forwards,' Harry said and pointed, 'I banged open that door. And I –'

Harry choked off as though he had swallowed an insect. In the doorway stood a bowed down, old woman. Around her shoulders she wore a white, knitted shawl too large for her. She smiled in their direction.

'Moira!' Logan cheered and rushed to the old lady. 'How are you, dear?'

'Splendid, my boy,' said Moira in a warm voice, taking Logan's hands. 'You are well, I hope?'

'Couldn't be better! Please come in and say hello to a friend of mine.'

'Oh, how lovely,' she said, as Logan shut the door behind them and guided the seasoned lady to the armchairs. Harry stood up.

'Harry Potter,' he said and held the woman's bony hand. 'How do you do?'

'Hello, Mr Potter,' she said, beaming at him. A haze covered whatever colour her eyes once had. 'I'm Moira. I can't see you very well, but don't let that bother you.'

'And yet,' said Logan, filled with pride, 'she always manages to find her way here. I persistently tell her she needs to be more careful – don't I, Moira? – but she still walks the whole exhausting way from her house to see if we're at home.'

Moira chuckled. 'Indeed. I heard voices, so I let myself in.'

'As you should, Moira,' Logan smiled down at her. 'Take a seat in this armchair, dear, then we'll all have a nice little chat. Tea?'

'Oh, yes, please, thank you,' she said as she sat, the three of them forming a semicircle of armchairs around the table.

'Now, Moira,' said Logan, 'how was your walk?'

'Marvellous, my boy, marvellous. I heard the wrens singing again. And that curious tic-tic-tic they make.'

'That's charming, Moira,' said Logan. 'Funny how I never seem to hear them.'

Moira smiled at him. 'You will.'

From the fireplace and the light outside, Moira's features grew more distinct. On her head was a pulled-back mane of fine, white hairs, with unruly curls storming over her ears. The eyes were set wide apart and the lips had shrunken into the mouth. Her nose and jowls were fleshy, but otherwise her skin was a weather-beaten landscape with lines, dimples and dents, witness to years of despair and laughter.

'Do you like birds, Mr Potter?'

'Certainly,' Harry said, 'birds are nice. Couldn't tell a wren from a goose.'

'Why, Mr Potter!' Moira giggled, revealing an angelic smile, and turned to Logan. 'What a charming friend you have, Logan.'

'He's very charming.'

'What have you two boys been talking about, then?'

'Um,' said Logan, 'not much. Nothing of interest.'

'Oh, I am sorry, dear,' she said, smiling, 'I should not have asked.'

'No, no! Moira, of course we'll let you in on it. We were – we were only discussing my adventure novels, that's all.'

'About the Teddy boy?'

'Yes, exactly those,' said Logan and held up Teddy Baker and the Golden Apple. Harry shot a confused look at the novel popping up out of nowhere.

'How wonderful. Do you know the books, Mr Potter?'

Harry hesitated. 'I know a little about them. It's, er … it's a good story. Full of brave people.'

'That's true,' Logan said, turning to Moira. 'And love wins in the end!'

'Love,' said Moira, smiling over her teacup, 'how wonderful.'

'It was indeed wonderful,' Harry grinned.

'Teddy and his friends,' said Logan, 'were true heroes, fighting darkness. And they came out of it a little bit wiser. Or so I hope.'

'Yes,' Harry nodded. 'Turns out love does protect us. Like an invisible cloak. Without it, death seems so frightening that we do terrible things. But shrouded by it, we may live well and greet death fearlessly.'

Logan made a grimace at Harry, shaking his head and pointing a surreptitious finger in the old woman's direction. Harry's eyes popped and he put a hand to his mouth, but Moira just sat smiling with her cup of tea.

'How wonderful,' she said. 'Love and death.'

Logan laughed with relief. 'Exactly! That's precisely what it's about, Moira. It's what I intended for my readers: love is always possible and there are things far worse than dying.'

'What a lovely idea, my boy. Dying is nothing to get all worked up about. You only have to let go.'

'You are so right,' Logan said. 'Everyone will die one day, but the tales chronicling our fortitude are eternal, inspiring every new generation. Like you do, Moira! I should've known you were always this courageous, you sly woman.'

Moira tittered. 'Oh, dear me.'

'And you, Harry – I know for a fact you are just as brave.'

'Why, thank you, Logan.'

A knocking came from the front door.

'Oh,' Moira exclaimed, 'that must be Niall. I told him to come here in case he found I was not at home. I trust you do not mind, Logan?'

'Absolutely not!' said Logan, who left his seat, cheery as a jingle, and marched to the door.

Outside stood a tall man in his early forties, seemingly arriving straight from a pre-war tailor and a seventeenth century barber. He wore a hunting suit in brown tweed and flowing, black hair hung down to his shoulders. A tidy King Charles beard pointed from the chin to a red tie tucked into the waistcoat over a yellow chequered shirt.

'Hello, my god man!' he said. 'I'm Niall. Awfully sorry to disturb you, but my dear grandmother told me to look for her here and –'

Moira giggled in her armchair.

'Why, there she is, the little crumpet!' Niall beamed.

'I'm Logan,' Logan chuckled and shook Niall's hand. 'Please, come in and have a seat.'

'Terribly kind of you, sir,' said Niall and hopped into the sitting room. Moira stood up, her knees making cracking sounds, and Harry got to his feet and greeted the man.

'Mr Potter,' said Moira, 'this is my grandson, Niall Lennox. Niall, this is Harry Potter.'

Niall gasped. 'Harry Potter? Not the Harry Potter, surely?'

Harry's jaw dropped.

'Oh, Niall, you lout,' said Moira. 'You must stop doing that.'

'I'm sorry, Harry,' Niall smiled, 'I can never help myself. I have no manners. If it's any consolation, I do it to everyone. "Not the John Smith, surely?"'

Harry laughed. 'You got me good, Niall.'

'See?' Niall said to Moira. 'People can handle a harmless joke.'

Moira smiled, uttered a 'Yes, dear', and sat down.

Niall unbuttoned his jacket and took a seat in the last armchair, correcting a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He had eccentric, even contradictory features. His broad forehead's skin poured between the eyes into a long, thin nose, ending in a bulbous point over the moustache. Smeared across the face, the elevated eyebrows and the droopy eye sockets displayed such complete aloofness that it turned all the way around to sincere cordiality.

The group of four sat comfortably in their seats. Logan had put another cup on the table and filled it from a rustic clay teapot.

'Ah,' said Niall, 'thank you ever so much.'

'Niall,' Moira piped, 'we were talking about Logan's novels.'

'You're an author?' Niall said, eyeing Logan and slurping drops of hot tea. 'Splendid, splendid. I love books.'

'He wrote the books about that Teddy Baker boy.'

'Splendid, spl– Not the Teddy Baker, surely?'

Harry and Moira snickered together. Logan looked away, making an awkward gesture, and said:

'I – I did write the Teddy Baker series, yes.'

Niall put his teacup down. 'I swear, sir, I am not joking. I had no idea you were someone famous – swear on my life.'

'Niall is a little behind the times,' Moira told Logan. 'Much like me.'

'I understand perfectly,' said Logan, turning pink. 'I don't expect everyone to know who I am.'

'But you really wrote those stories, then?' said Niall. 'Very impressive! I obviously do know who Teddy Baker is – of course I do. Only I haven't come around to reading the books yet.'

'You're missing out,' said Harry. 'He's an excellent writer, that fellow.'

'No doubt he is! He should be, given the success. Something about a magical boarding school, correct? How I'd love it if magic were real!'

'Thank you, yes,' said Logan, 'there's a school where Teddy and other boys and girls learn magic.'

Inspiration building, Logan shifted his centre of gravity in his seat, cleared his throat and then spoke with a sturdier voice:

'But in that world, there's good magic and bad magic. One of the wizard founders of the school, it transpires, had the opinion that true magic is only found in certain families. He worried that the wizarding community was dying, that all magic would dwindle unless someone called to action. Not everyone in the story agrees with him, of course, so the plot develops into a battle between good and evil. With this as a backdrop, Teddy learns about things like love and death. And also destiny and free will. Even sacrifice.'

Niall clapped his hands together. 'Superb! Sacrifice is, perhaps, the greatest love.'

'Yes!' said Logan, nodding.

'Remarkably wise wizard, that founder.'

'No!' Logan frowned. 'Absolutely not! He's a wizard gone bad! He doesn't believe in the value of the individual, of imagination, of –'

'But what he said is true! I'm convinced destiny chose me to live and thrive because my family had, well, magic coursing through their veins.'

Logan's eyes ballooned. 'That's positively perverse!'

'Come again?' said Niall, a crease forming between his eyebrows.

'Your family is really that important?'

'Why, yes! Only by way of their loving sacrifices – of which I'm awfully proud – am I here today.'

'Loving sacrifices?' said Logan in a voice seething with sarcasm.

'Yes!' Niall snapped. 'What about it?'

'Is that what you call people enslaving others? Forcing serfs to toil day and night?'

'We were the serfs!' Niall barked, smashing his hand on the table.

'We were not!' Logan shouted back.

'I'm not referring to you, you pretentious metropolitan!'

'Oh, so you were landed gentry? I bet that was rough.'

'That's how you see me? Well, no wonder; the single reason you come here is to buy our land before you fly back to your convenient cities!'

'The cities! In which I was poor like my parents had been poor? With hardships and humiliations at every turn? But I lifted myself out of it! Because I believed greatness was possible in anyone, not merely in old families scanning the Peerage for fictional supremacy, scared out of their wits they'll go extinct unless they have peasants beneath them.'

'The only thing beneath us was the ground we toiled! Superiors were pressing my people's faces in the mud or displacing them at a whim. Of course they feared being wiped out! Some families were! Most of my ancestors went through hell to survive, with only themselves to lean on.'

'But that's in a feudal past! You're romanticising suffering you know nothing about!'

'Romanticising?' Niall exploded, his forehead flushing red and a fat vein bulging on his throat, while Harry leant forwards further and further like a referee preparing for an altercation. 'You are the one thinking today's countryside is merely grand estates with pretty lawns! I tell you no! It's acres of barren scrub, it's snow through cracks in the bedroom ceiling, and it's old people dying alone in their cottages while their young abandon ship.'

'It is true,' Moira murmured. 'Life was never easy on us.'

A compact silence filled the room. Niall glared at Logan like an affronted lord misplaced in time, and Logan himself did not know where to look.

'You, er …' Logan started, scratching his head. 'You are not old money?'

'Me? Old money?' Niall chuckled. 'I've made my fortune in computer software! First in my line with a university degree. I spent my childhood in a farmer's cottage without electricity or hot water. We've never been anywhere close to landed gentry. Have we, Moira? Or maybe you're sitting on heaps of old money you've never told us about – and never used, seeing as life isn't challenging enough.'

Moira chortled. 'That would have been lovely. A few wrinkles less, I believe.'

Logan bowed his head and raised his hands in surrender.

'I. Am. So sorry. I apologise for my presumptions.'

'Apology accepted,' said Niall. 'Think nothing of it.'

'I mean, I do understand how important loyalty and intimate bonds can be and I'm sure your ancestors were courageous in their misfortune. That's something I value very highly, believe you me.'

'I thank you. And I am sorry for calling you pretentious. I must seem a right ass – all jealous of your success and beautiful house. With those books, you obviously proved your diligence. Imagination can go a long way.'

'And now you've both switched sides,' Harry teased.

Niall and Logan whipped around and looked at him with half-witted faces. Then at each other. Niall burst out laughing, jerking his head back and guffawing as if aiming at the ceiling, while Logan bent over and snickered and coughed at his teacup.

'I admit,' Logan sighed as they calmed down, 'one or two romantic ideas are close to my heart. Traditions are lovely.'

'Oh!' said Moira. 'That reminds me.'

Moira rummaged in her cardigan and then put two wrapped pieces of sweets on the table.

'I give him these every time we see each other,' Moira grinned at Harry and Logan's puzzled faces. 'Ever since he was a boy! Oh, here is another one.'

'You are a darling,' said Niall with a flustered chuckle and pocketed the three sweets. 'She was always there for me,' he said, turning to Harry and Logan. 'Sturdy as a rock. As long as I knew that, I also realised I would overcome any obstacle life flung at me.'

'Now, that's inspiring!' said Logan. 'Perhaps everyone would be braver if they only had a Moira in their lives.'

'To Moira,' Niall proclaimed, raising his cup.

'Goodness,' Moira tittered.

'To Moira!' Logan and Harry chimed in, and they sipped from their teacups. With heart and fervour, they put the cups down again, all fairly pleased with the development.

Moira smiled at them through her winkles. 'You are all very brave boys.'

'Oh, hush,' said Logan, feigning embarrassment, to which the other two men offered pleasant snickers.

'Now,' said Moira, 'prove it.'

The men fell silent. They looked at one another and laughed nervously.

'W-what's that, love?' said Niall. 'You want us to –'

Moira raised her hands above her head.

Clap!

Her palms smashed together and her milky eyes pressed back into their hollows, leaving merely a pair of dark pockets under her brow. With a throaty gasp, her entire body shrunk into nothing. Only the white shawl lay crumpled in the seat.

Flashes of green, red and yellow exploded from the empty armchair; the table and the teacups vanished in puffs of smoke, and a pit opened in the floor. Harry, Logan and Niall yelped as their chairs disappeared from underneath them, and they fell headlong into the chasm, swallowed by darkness.