The Greens are mine. Ralassar is mine. Everything else is J. K. Rowling's.
WARNING: this contains cheese!
Emelus and Graìnne Green were surprised, in early December, to receive an owl carrying the following note from their eldest daughter:
Dear Mum and Dad,
If you don't mind, I'd like to stay at Hogwarts for Christmas. I haven't stayed before and I've heard that it's very nice, so I thought I'd see what it was like. Also, I've been making a lot of new friends lately, and I've got a boyfriend. You'd like him. Maybe you can meet him one holiday.
Term is going well. The holidays start in a couple of weeks so the work is winding down. Draco Malfoy is still being a pain, but I'm used to him and I don't spend as much time in the Slytherin common room as I used to. (A lot of my new friends are in Gryffindor.) I have been doing well in Defence Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy and Transfiguration, not so well in Herbology or Potions. I've also been getting much more into Quidditch. Can we go to a match some time?
Write back before the holidays and tell me whether I can stay at school.
Lots of love,
Andromeda XXX
'Well!' said Graìnne, looking flustered. 'I was never expecting that.'
'I'm pleased for her,' smiled Emelus. 'I'll miss her at Christmas, of course, but she sounds so much happier than usual! And she's getting involved with Gryffindors as well, which is good. I never took An for a Slytherin.'
'Nor me,' said his wife, 'but I'm glad too. Though I was rather hoping we'd go to me sister Eimear's for the holidays.'
'We can still go,' said Emelus, scribbling a quick note to his daughter. After all, they had another daughter and two sons to take. 'And Eimear won't mind. Your whole family's been waiting for our An to find some people she really gets on with, it's all we ever talk about when we get together. Here, do you want to sign this?'
'What? Oh, yes please.' She took the parchment and quill from his outstretched hand and scribbled her own quick message, before tying it to the little owl's leg and watching it fly off into the rapidly darkening afternoon sky.
Andromeda Green was sitting at the breakfast table a couple of days later when her owl, Percy (short for Perseus), dropped a light note right on top of her jam on toast. She wiped it off and opened it eagerly, recognising the Green family seal on the back. What would her parents say?
Dear Andromeda,
Your mother and I were glad to hear you've been making more friends at Hogwarts, and we'd be glad to meet your boyfriend too! It's fine if you want to stay at school over Christmas, write often though! We'll send your presents soon, I don't know how long it'll take them to get there so don't open them until the day, OK?
Have a nice end-of-term, love Dad
Your mother wants to add something:
Andromeda,
I'll write again soon, we wanted to send this as soon as possible. Glad you're making lots of friends.
Love from Mum x x x x x
Andromeda beamed. Looking over to the Gryffindor table, she saw Harry looking expectantly at her. She gave him a thumbs-up sign, and he grinned.
Smiling into her toast, Andromeda started eating, but was nudged vigorously by Helena on her right and Rebecca on her left simultaneously. 'Well?' they chorused.
'Well what?' She was still grinning. She must look like an idiot. To her delight, she didn't care. 'All right. I'm staying!'
Her friends shrieked and hugged her. Malfoy gave them a dirty look. 'Well, that's me decided. I'm going home.'
'Oh, shut up, Malfoy, you git,' Andromeda waved her hand vaguely at him and Helena cackled, remembering that morning a while ago when Andromeda had unintentionally called him the same thing. He flushed and frowned.
'At least I date inside my own species.'
'Yes, it must be hard for you,' Andromeda said, trying to keep calm in spite of the anger she felt. 'Trying to find other apes at Hogwarts must be very difficult.'
'Mudblood,' muttered Malfoy. He often gave up trying to argue with Andromeda – she was rarely bothered by what he said to her, and he never quite knew how to react.
Andromeda's fury was short-lived. She couldn't be upset at anything right then. She was happy. She had finally found friends she wanted to be with all the time, she was comfortable as herself again, she was in love, and she didn't have to leave for Christmas. What could go wrong?
It was still dark somewhere. It was winter always here, and the sun had not yet circled around to where the residents of Ralassar wanted it to be, so the dawn would not come on time. The morning was eerily like twilight.
Something was terribly wrong in Ralassar. It was a small village, bare and sparsely populated. Mountains, low but wide-based, loomed to its eastward border and to the south, houses jostled for the space closest to the nearest town. This was where almost everyone lived, all but one of the few residents of the north-west having moved away. The north-west was where things had started happening – horrible things. No one knew what had arrived, but a sickening dread had set into everyone who lived in Ralassar, and they knew it would not be long before whatever it was would spread.
This was where the forest began, a great mass of trees so dense that the villagers had never penetrated it further than about one hundred metres in. It became even thicker that far in, and most felt it was too much trouble to try. The local children had their stories of witches and monsters, and even the adults told of escaped criminals and wild animals. There was an understanding throughout the generations – as long as they did not venture into the forest, the things that dwelt in it would not harm them.
But deep inside the wood, where an unnatural warmth pervaded because of the enclosedness, somebody plotted to dispel this universal belief. The Ralassarans had never imagined an evil of this magnitude. For this, a quiet forest in the far north of Europe, had seen in the past few months more horrors than ever in its previous thousand years' existence. Lord Voldemort had chosen it for his home.
At Hogwarts, Harry Potter and Andromeda Green were sitting in the Gryffindor common room looking at one another. This was a pastime they had indulged in rather a lot lately, and one that had caused much bewilderment for the rest of the Gryffindors. Neither could explain why it held such appeal, and as none of their friends were presently in love, it was unfathomable to absolutely everyone.
They were sitting in armchairs side to side, but had turned in the chairs to face one another. Ron, Fred, George, Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were assembled around them, listening to (and laughing at) Lee Jordan's commentary.
'And they're looking at each other – something's going to happen very soon, it has to – looking – Potter blinks – ooh, Green blinks twice! – Potter's smiling – still looking – and yes, we have a twitch of the head from Potter, ladies and gentlemen! The crowd goes wild! Never before has such a twitch been seen!'
'Shut up, Lee,' said Harry, not removing his gaze from Andromeda's eyes. Her eyes were very interesting, he had decided, flecked with little tiny shiny stars. They could all be in someone's eye, couldn't they? Just imagine if the whole solar system and the planets and stars were all little tiny silver flecks in the blue-black eye of a very large person. It wasn't hard to imagine a whole galaxy or even a universe in Andromeda's eyes.
Slowly the others began to lose interest, and dispersed one by one to finish homework or chat with their friends. Hermione, oddly enough, didn't seem to find their engagement in staring particularly funny. Hermione had become quite close to Andromeda lately, something Harry and Ron were glad about – their friend had all too often given the impression that she felt left out.
Hermione was not working, though to the casual observer it would have appeared that she was. In fact, she was supposed to be. A book of basic Animagus forms was open on her lap. But Hermione was staring into space, thinking.
Hermione didn't know it yet, but Harry and Andromeda were not the only ones in the Gryffindor common room that were in love.
Aha… the plot thickens! Is Hermione in love? Is someone in love with her? You will find out. I am presently writing chapters eight and nine.