A/N: Thanks to Amanda for beta-reading. This chapter hasn't been Brit-picked yet, and so is subject to future revision.

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Chapter Two: The Homefront

Porpentina rose later than usual on Saturday morning, awakened by a sharp rap on her door. Pulling on her dressing gown and fishing her well-worn slippers out from beneath the bed, she hurried to meet her visitor. Not surprisingly, it was Jocunda, fist poised ready to knock again and wearing a Muggle frock.

The girls lived down the hall from one another in a boarding house on Diagon Alley, nestled between an apothecary and a milliner's shop. It was the proper dwelling for young women of their station, providing a suitable resting place between school and marriage while affording a bit more privacy than the former allowed--and the latter, too, some might say. An elderly widow, Mrs. Mildred Askew, was the proprietress of the establishment. She was kind but firm, an ideal surrogate mother for the ten ladies she boarded, and was liked far better than the twelfth resident, her own twin sister, Miss Edwina Cronk, who was a spinster and looked it.

"Good morning!" Jocunda said briskly. "Now get dressed, Penny. I'm dragging you out into London today, and no objections. We haven't left Diagon Alley in weeks."

Frowning and mumbling something about breakfast, Porpentina let Jocunda into her quarters and began to search the wardrobe for her own Muggle clothing. She'd received the outfit from Jocunda as a birthday present the previous year, precisely so she could accompany her friend on such outings. Jocunda tossed her hat onto the bed and sat down at Porpentina's desk, flipping lazily through a book of eighteenth-century Wizarding poetry that lay open upon it.

"Still fishing for inspiration?" she said, glancing at the furiously scratched-out notes that had been left on a nearby piece of parchment.

"Yes," Porpentina admitted as she put on her stockings. "I'm afraid the muse still refuses to return from her summer holiday." She wanted desperately to be a writer--of prose, or poetry, or even of plays, it truly mattered not--but she found herself quite completely lacking in subject matter. It was beginning to look as though she'd be editing her whole life long, if ideas continued to remain just beyond her grasp.

After several minutes, Porpentina presented herself for approval, grimacing down at her feet. "Do I look all right? I really do prefer robes, you know. It's always so odd to have my ankles showing like this."

"Oh, stop, you look perfectly fine. Just get your hat and be happy we can get away without corsets, the way they're dressing these days."

Porpentina looked doubtful. "Well, shall we go to Gringotts first, or do you have some Muggle money? And are you sure it's safe to go out there? We're not going to be blown up, are we?"

Looking in the mirror, Jocunda positioned her hat on her head and said matter-of-factly, "Don't be silly. You know very well there haven't been any daylight attacks in months, and we'll be home long before nightfall. And of course I have money. You should, too, you know. What would you do if you were ever stranded in the Muggle world without your wand?"

"I still don't see how anything of the sort would ever happen," Porpentina replied, standing beside Jocunda as she put on her own hat.

Jocunda was right about the bombings, at least. Surely they would be safe, but even so, she couldn't help feeling nervous. All these years now, they had been able to hear the German bombs dropping first from Zeppelins and now, since June, from the Gotha planes. Diagon Alley might have been physically protected from the Muggle attacks, but that didn't stop the noise, muffled all around and overhead. It reminded Porpentina of being at school, where the loud arguments between two older girls could always be heard through the dormitory wall. She couldn't have avoided listening, but still, she had felt guilty for knowing what she shouldn't and had harbored an irrational fear of being discovered and dragged into the fray.

A short time later, the girls had left their boarding house, walked up Diagon Alley through the hustle and bustle of morning shoppers, and finally stepped through the front door of the Leaky Cauldron into Muggle London.

"So, how long did the Snitch retrieval effort take?" Porpentina asked as they made their way down Charing Cross Road. She made a concerted effort to speak naturally and to ignore the discomfort she always felt outside the Wizarding world.

"Oh, it was horrid," Jocunda said, being sure to keep her voice low, lest any Muggle overhear talk of Quidditch. "At half past ten there was still one missing, but Otto finally gave up for the night and sent me home. And he never did catch the little brat who did it; apparently he cleared out before I even made it back downstairs. Thank goodness I'm off today, though. I'm sure Patrick will have that last Snitch caught before noon." She sighed. "So, how was your evening? Surely more pleasant than mine, I presume. Are you engaged yet?"

Jocunda spoke with amusement and an unintentional sense of superiority, for she'd determined long ago that she would never marry. Marriage, her logic went, endangered a woman to a loss of freedom and the bearing of children. Of course, certain lifestyles might lead an unwed girl to the latter, anyway, but Jocunda possessed a talent for turning a blind eye to such inconvenient thoughts.

"No, of course I'm not, but my evening was just fine," Porpentina replied. "It's awfully easy to talk to Valerius, at least. Do you remember that one chap my mum once set me up with, the one from the Department of Mysteries? He barely spoke two words to me the whole evening. Took his job far too seriously, I think."

"Yes, well, Valerius does seem like a rather smooth talker." Jocunda laughed. "Pity you can't write a story about that other one, though. You'd be rather short of dialogue, I should think."

"Oh, but do you know who else I saw yesterday evening? Newt and Henry were there. It was such a surprise; it's been months. And you'll be pleased to hear that Henry asked after you."

"I'm absolutely shocked. I take it Hank's still the sad little puppy he always was?"

"The poor boy," Porpentina said. "You always treated him dreadfully. He's so devoted to you."

"I did not treat him dreadfully. You just can't hold someone who grovels at your feet in such high esteem."

Two uniformed ladies--members of the Women's Police Service--passed by then, and Porpentina glanced back at them as they disappeared in the crowd of Muggles. "Did I ever tell you," she whispered, "that I used to be so afraid you'd do something drastic and join that lot, or sneak off to the front lines somehow?"

"You're joking!" Jocunda laughed loudly enough to attract the attention of other pedestrians. "You should know I'd never mix business with pleasure, dear."

"Yes, that coming from an employee of Quality Quidditch Supplies."

"But, Penny," Jocunda teased, dropping her voice to a whisper, "Quidditch isn't pleasure. Quidditch is everything!" After a moment, she continued more soberly, "Muggles, however, are merely a hobby. That's part of the benefit of being in our position. We can take just as much of an interest as we like--we can read their books and listen to their music and visit their shops--but then when they start doing terrible things to each other, we don't have to be a part of it. They, on the other hand, have the misfortune of having to take the good and the bad, all together in one messy package."

They walked on in silence while Porpentina considered this. "But don't you find it a bit unfair," she said finally, "that you can steal their culture, more or less, and then, when they've hit a spot of trouble, it's 'Ta-ta?' Not to be house-obsessive, but doesn't that offend your Gryffindor sensibilities?"

"What, and go against centuries-old Magical policy? Look, if Britain was fighting a dark wizard, you know I'd do what I could to protect her in a second, although I don't know what a lame Beater could do in the face of Unforgivables. But bravery doesn't always have to come before common sense, you know, not even for Gryffindors. And besides," Jocunda concluded, her voice growing emotional, "we already know what good comes from going off to fight."

That spring, a pure-blood Gryffindor in the year below them had gone bravely out to the trenches and returned home only weeks later. For days afterward, the Daily Prophet had been filled with articles and editorials and letters to the editor, and the obituary had nearly been lost entirely amidst the uproar.

"He was a dashed good Chaser, too," Jocunda muttered, mostly to herself. "What a shame."

* * *

For well over two hundred years now, the Scamander estate had been tucked sleepily away in rural Dorset, a stone's throw from the Wriggle River. A thick growth of ivy covered the main house, behind which a sloping lawn led down to an old barn that appeared more than a mite sturdier to wizards' eyes than it did to any Muggle ones.

Within this structure and its adjoining paddocks, Newt's mother, Agnes Scamander, raised her fancy Hippogriffs, which had the reputation of being the most domesticated individuals of their species in all of Britain. Her love of the animals had long preceded her marriage, and the estate's facilities had only served to hasten the transition from hobby to lifelong passion.

Now in her mid-fifties, Agnes was still a woman of a vibrant nature, and though crow's feet crinkled the corners of her eyes, her blonde hair had not yet given way to silver. Like clockwork, every morning she dressed in functional, if not particularly attractive, robes and a pair of Wellington boots and performed the required Disillusionment Charms on her Hippogriffs to ensure any curious Muggles woudld believe they had observed nothing more than a dozen stout and entirely unremarkable ponies.

As a child, Newt had adored assisting his mother with these chores, and once he'd left Hogwarts, he had gladly resumed the work that for seven years he'd only been able to do during the summer and Christmas holidays. His job at the Ministry did interfere during the weekdays, but he spent a large part of his Saturdays and Sundays mucking happily about the barn with his mother's Hippogriffs.

"So, dear, have you heard from the Pringle girl recently?" Agnes Scamander inquired of her son that Saturday morning after the charms had been performed and the row of large box stalls had been mucked out.

"Oh, well--Might I have that hoof pick, please?--actually, I did see her at the Leaky Cauldron yesterday," Newt said as he bent down to inspect a Hippogriff's hoof. Agnes had named this particular beast Wormwood; she had demonstrated a knack for potion-making during her years at Hogwarts.

"How is she doing? It's been ages since you last mentioned her." Agnes handed her son the requested tool and stepped around to the Hippogriff's head, offering a pan of dead rabbits to distract it from Newt's work.

"She, ah, she seemed quite well. Easy, easy," Newt muttered, lifting the hoof with some difficulty. Wormwood balanced unsteadily on his other equine leg, and an eye looked warily back at Newt even as the beast devoured the rabbits. "We didn't speak for very long, though. She was with some MLE chap." He grimaced at the large, muck-filled hoof.

"Your father knows a few of those MLE men, you know. I've met them, I think, once or twice, and they seemed very nice."

"No, Mum, this wasn't one of them. Henry remembered him being several years ahead of us in school. Oh, looks like this one had a rock. Anyway, he was a Slytherin." Newt tossed the stone onto the straw-covered floor, straightened, and walked around the back of the Hippogriff, trailing his hand across the animal's gleaming bay rump.

"You know better than to be so biased, Newt," Agnes replied calmly as she stroked the feathers along the Hippogriff's neck.

Newt sighed. "Yes, yes, I know." He leaned down to pick up the other hoof. "After all, Great-Grandmother Quirke was a Slytherin, as was her father before her. Still, there was something about this fellow."

"Well, dear, just how long was it since you'd last spoken to Miss Pringle?"

"I don't know, six months or so, and Henry asked me that exact question, but I don't see what it's got to do with Porpentina's boyfriends." The Hippogriff ruffled its feathers impatiently, having made quick work of the rabbits.

"Dear, do be careful down there. And perhaps if you'd paid more attention to her, she wouldn't be seeing 'some MLE chap,' as you put it."

"Oh, Mum." Newt stood up and looked at her, gesturing with the hoof pick as he spoke. "Look, I haven't anything to do with that, and I don't know where you ever got any such idea."

"Well, dear, all of your friends have been marrying, and you did speak of one girl for all seven years of your schooling. I can't quite help making assumptions. You're not bringing any other girls home, either."

"Henry's not married, and he doesn't have a girlfriend. I'm not the only one." Newt turned back to the Hippogriff, adding lamely, "Besides, we're focusing on our work."

"Fine." Agnes watched Newt work, patiently holding the bloody food dish. "But how is your job, anyway? You don't speak of it very often. Your father would always tell me about what happened at the office."

"Mum, please. Dad worked in Improper Use; there's no end of anecdotes from that office. I work with house-elves. And I'd rather spend my Saturday mornings not thinking about them."

"All right, all right. Don't talk to your mother, then. But will you please make the old woman happy and brush Belladonna when you're through here? I should go back up to the house and see about lunch."

"Yes, Mum. Don't forget to tell Pippy to set a place for Henry." Newt released the Hippogriff's hoof and brushed some dirt from the animal's flank. "And Mum, you're not old at all."

Agnes smiled, stepping out of the stall and closing the door behind her. "Thanks, dear. Take care with the roan; she's been a bit tetchy lately."

* * *

"Jocunda, are we going anywhere in particular?" Porpentina thought to ask as they turned the corner onto Greek Street. Her stomach grumbled unhappily, and she remembered for the first time since leaving home that she hadn't yet eaten.

"The tobacconist's," Jocunda replied. "Though would you mind terribly if I were to tell you this was merely a nice, long morning constitutional? Good for the health, and all that?"

"The tobacconist's? But Jocunda, I thought you were only smoking those Muggle ciga--cigarettes on a whim," Porpentina said, stumbling a bit over the long word. Cigarettes hadn't been adopted into the Wizarding world yet, though pipes were smoked enthusiastically by witches and wizards alike. "It's such a very inconvenient habit, don't you think?"

"Nonsense. Pipes are such a bother, really, and they look ridiculous used by anyone as young as we are. Cigarettes are just lovely, though, and I can still laze about the sitting room with Miss Cronk while she has her pipe." Jocunda was, in fact, the only boarder who had taken a liking to the old woman, who spent most of her afternoons doing needlework and producing billowing clouds of smoke that lingered in the ground floor of the house.

Porpentina found that smoke of any sort made her cough terribly, but she held her tongue and her breath as they stepped into the tobacconist's shop. She wavered just inside the threshold, looking very much as though she expected someone to detect that she was hiding a wand underneath her perfectly respectable, if slightly out-of-fashion, Muggle suit. Jocunda, however, stepped confidently up to the shop counter, asking the clerk for two packets of Three Castles. Opening her handbag, she sorted through her Muggle money and paid for the cigarettes with ease.

Despite Jocunda's attempts to teach her, Porpentina had never quite been able to understand Muggle money. Not only were there pounds and shillings and pence, but guineas and florins, and so on and so forth. She assumed that if she'd any practical use for the knowledge, she wouldn't find it so difficult to understand. It frustrated her, but really, why couldn't the Muggles have developed something as simple as twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle and seventeen Sickles to a Galleon?

On the street once again, Porpentina's stomach grumbled audibly.

"Hungry, Penny?" Jocunda said, oblivious to the fact that it was she who had come between Porpentina and her breakfast in the first place.

"Famished. "

"There's a nice little place--"

"Home? "

"--just up the street." Jocunda sighed the sigh of a person who cannot comprehend why her interests are not shared by her friends. "Oh, all right. Home, then. But you ruin all my fun."

She was further dismayed when Porpentina looked nervously about them and slipped into a nearby alley. Wishing to walk back, Jocunda followed reluctantly to find Porpentina fumbling with her clothing in order to remove her wand. A few moments later, a fire engine went careening up the busy street, creating a great din and distracting passers-by as Porpentina and Jocunda Disapparated back to Diagon Alley with a pop.