Dear Mum and Daddy, School is going well this term. Classes are interesting; transfiguration is a challenge as we are moving beyond just the simplistic transfigurations that we needed for OWLS towards conjugation and permanent transfiguration. In some ways they are very similar in that they create a permanent change in a state of matter but the origin of that matter varies. Conjuring is effectively tapping into the vacuum energy of the universe in order to create something while Transfiguration is less of a quantum approach to change and more of an approach that Einstein could plausibly wrap his head around. I've not described how I think about these approaches to anyone except for Professor McGonagall as everyone already thinks that I am a bookish swot too frequently. She thinks that I am onto an interesting idea if she understands quantum mechanics well enough to know that she understands absolutely nothing about quantum mechanics. I'm curious. I might want to think about this if I head Cambridge in a few years. Ron and Harry are both in NEWT Potions with me. Professor Slughorn has different standards for NEWTs than Proessor Snape - who is now teaching DADA. Harry is suddenly showing some talent in potions. Perhaps not being harassed every moment in class has allowed him to relax. He is actually studying and exploring and not just getting lucky. Although luck probably helped Ron make the House Quidditch team as the keeper. Trials were difficult but he was confident on his new broom. I was tempted to confound the utter arse of his primary competition but Ron did not need my help. McClaggen has been checking me out and it feels gross like running in the rain and then sitting on a leather seat….

Ellen smiled as she put the letter down for a moment.

The first two paragraphs contained a plethora of information. They had come up with a set of key words and phrases that would act as signals that could be used openly and innocently to share knowledge and keep the information loops frequently refreshed. "Mum and Daddy" as a means of address was a signifier that all was well and she was not writing under duress. A discussion about a theoretical aspect of magic in the first paragraph indicated that there was an invisible second message in the letter while a mention of Quidditch without an immediate modifier before the noun indicated that their plans to set up an intelligence gathering network were ongoing. Ellen reread the next few sentences carefully to make sure she could read between the lines.

Her daughter was safe. Ellen picked up the letter and read the next two pages. The boys were doing well, classes were interesting, Ginny had forced an agreement with Hermione to go shopping at Gladrags in Hogsmeade next weekend to pick up fun unmentionables now that they both had money and there was a seventh year in Hufflepuff who Ellen had never heard mentioned before that occupied a short paragraph of her attention. Her daughter was growing up to be an incredible young woman.

Once she was done, Ellen reached for a cigarette lighter. She lit a small tea candle and held the paper a few inches over the flame. Soon invisible letters became visible on the margins of the letter.

"TAKING ADDITIONAL CLASSES. LEARNING ABOUT THE PAST TO CONTROL THE FUTURE. RIDDLES ARE HARD TO SOLVE WITH INCOMPLETE INFORMATION."

The message was short. It was mainly a test that invisible ink would work. It did. However the amount of information that could be sent was low and the tricks of a reasonably smart ten year old could be picked up by a witch or a wizard reading their mail. Better solutions were needed and Ellen's sister Mary had offered her an idea that would be far easier to implement now than in the seventies.

Ellen turned on her computer and dialed into her local internet provider. The new American website, EBay would sell almost anything. She had seen half a dozen MkV cameras for sale. These cameras that were only slightly larger than a one pound coin could store two hundred or more pages on a dot that was slightly larger than circle of an I or the period at the end of a sentence. She quickly placed an order for all of the available cameras as well as several dozen rolls of film. She would use one to learn the techniques and then teach her husband and her daughter over Christmas before sharing the method with members of the order.

Once she clicked to confirm her shipping address, she turned off her computer and walked upstairs. Grant was hunched over his desk, scratching out a word and then a phrase before scribbling in a new expression. He had lost a bet in bed last night and his penance was writing a trio of personal ads to be inserted into the Times, Guardian and the Prophet. The one for the Times was legitimate. They expected traffic and responses from other people in the lifestyle that they had abandoned weeks after Ellen realized she was pregnant but now that they had far fewer responsibilities, they could indulge in that pleasure again. The other two were more esoteric and far less erotic. Both were intended to be signals that all was well as long as they ran unchanged.

"How are the ads? "

"Guardian is good; 48M seeking 30-33F for discrete adventures and mutual exploration with multiple fetishes including diapers, scat and humiliation… daddy needs his baby."

"Wow, I'm drier than Pythonian wit now." Grant chuckled.

"Prophet - I just don't know what won't get a response. I have a few ads that might work, and I'll need your input- really we need Hermione's input, but we don't want her therapy bills…. And the Times, well, we should workshop those together… we have a few hours before we need to go to work so what exactly are we looking for."

"Even at your age, you are no more subtle than you were when I was twenty three…."

It did not matter as she pulled her husbands head to her and gave him a kiss that was as full of passion and need and desire as it had been twenty years ago. Getting the message just right would require a lot of workshopping and she could do that as an end in and of itself.