Chapter Three: Letters by owl

I woke up to the most amazing feeling in the world. Someone was stroking my hair. I knew immediately that it was Pop, and I turned over to see him for the first time in weeks.

He looked tired. His graying brown hair, usually radiant and active-enticing, was limp and sticking up in odd places. His eyes were usually lighter, but now the light had been put out, and he looked older than he really was. But then I looked beyond that and I saw the old humour starting to come out again, and the familiar smile that was beginning to bloom across his face.

"In good health, I presume, Kora?" he said, his voice as strong as always.

I pushed myself up and hugged him as tightly as I could. The hug meant two things. Firstly, it meant that I was more than delighted at his long-awaited return. Secondly, I was furious and never, ever wanted to let go in case he disappeared again. He seemed to pick up both reasons.

"It's wonderful to see you too, Kora, and I'm really sorry that I left you all alone like that. The Department has just been so busy, and everyone expects the Head to manage the whole thing at large, so…" He shrugged, and I interrogated most fiercely, "What are you doing in there, anyway?"

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, now, that won't do. What do you say we go down to breakfast, huh? I've quite overgrown having to eat cold porridge every morning this last fortnight. I'd very much rather have a nice mug of coffee this morning, in just the way you make it."

Pop had reason not to tell me what went on in his Department – he's an Unspeakable, a member of the Ministry who worked in the Department of Mysteries. No one ever knows what goes on in that section except the workers themselves, and they're all strictly banned from telling anybody else, even their families.

In the kitchen, Pop surprised me by saying, "Happy Birthday." I had completely forgotten that it was the first of July, the day I turned eleven this year. I had actually been looking forward to it, but I must had forgotten while I was waiting for Pop to come home from work. Now that he had, I felt that I couldn't have gotten a better gift.

Pop raised a hand, and I halted on the spot. Then he reached high into the air between us and pulled out of it a cloak.

It was a light, flimsy looking thing. The colour swampy green, it felt almost like a fabric made of moss, however the smell of it was pine fresh and it reminded me of mint. I had a feeling that it couldn't be just an ordinary cloak. Things like this could be found in the wizarding world, so I wasn't too sure.

"What is it?" "Do you like it?" "It's wonderful." "It's an Imperceptible Cloak. When you put it on, it works sort of like an Invisibility Cloak, except with this one people can see you. They just don't notice you."

That was strange, even for me, and I'm known to have descended from an evil wizard who's got plans to return and wreak havoc on the world of mankind.

"You mean, I can wear this, and go anywhere I wanted, and people would just ignore me? What if I wear it and walk into a men's room at Diagon Alley?" "They'll simply take a look at who's come in, then they'll go back to their business." "Pop, where did you get this?"

He cracked a smile and ruffled my hair. "I have my sources. And remember that I do a fair bit of traveling when I am doing my duty. It could've come from Arabia, for all you know."

I thought it was a rather useful present, but I couldn't help looking beyond.

"This is good. Now people won't stare at me so much."

Pop froze in the middle of cracking eggs into a pan, so that the eggs too stopped moving and hung in midair for a whole two seconds. Next thing I knew, I was deep within one of his bear hugs. He gave really good hugs actually; they always seemed to make me feel better in the end.

Finally, after ten hours, he released me and said with a troubled smile, "Silly girl. I didn't get you that cloak for such reason as that. I just had in mind that you like going around your own way, after all, I spent half my life hounding you away from Knockturn Alley. I'm giving you freedom without risk of danger, that's what I'm doing." His face took on just a tiny tint of sadness as he said the next sentence. "Lord knows what you have been through while I was gone. I promise that I will make it up to –"

There was a loud screech, followed by an angry hoot that sparked up a torrent of noise and scuffle outside. With a look of bewilderment Pop looked out the kitchen window, then hastily raised it up. In flew a barn owl, feathers flared and looking very disgruntled. I caught a glimpse of Torque's red form swooping about above the front yard, still screaming as loud as she could, before Pop closed the window and drowned her out.

"Really, Kora, that bird of yours has some serious attitude problems! This poor owl's had half his heart up its throat from all the panicking it's had." "Pop, Torque didn't do a thing, it's the owls who provoke her, maybe if you read my bird encyclopedia you'd know." "Yes, yes, Kora…"

He wasn't listening. He had taken the bundle of letters off the irritated owl's leg, had paid the five Knuts for the delivery (the owl took off with an angry hoot) and was already looking through the contents. As he did, he talked about what the other Departments had had to deal with.

" – you know Clemente Odelstroff? The Russian Head of Wizarding Sports? She's trying to sue us for a migrating flock of Hippogriffs that flew into the Quidditch pitch at Tobruk while the game between East and West Middle East was still going on." He threw up his hands in disbelief. "Tobruk isn't even in the Russian Empire! It's up to the Middle East to settle matters within their territory. I tell you, that Clemente Odelstroff…Fudge had it all wrong, instead of getting a universal translator he gets me to stay in Russia for two days going over the case with some Russian representative who couldn't speak English to save his life. The Ministry's barking these days…I didn't get enough time to…finish what I was doing at home base…"

He went on to tell me about Engorgement Charms on a farmer's crops in Hampshire, a troupe of flying cushions over Windsor, and a couple of suspicious earthquakes over in Bristol that was thought to have some connection with a wizard experimenting on old, broken down bulldozers halfway across the state.

Pop is a slow reader at the best of times – he was only up to his second envelope. I took the rest of the junk mail and sat next to him to look through them.

Nothing…nothing…we had to check in for a vulnerability test in account of the Curse of the Bogies going around…a coupon for a ladies' shop down in Diagon Alley, we couldn't use that, obviously…bill…bill…another coupon…

Then I came across an envelope. Without much thought for it I picked it out of the pile and was just about to hand it over to my grandfather when I saw who it was addressed to. It was made out of heavy parchment, a manila type of some sort. It felt grainy for the touch, and written in the address side was:

Kora Rastrick

27 Semillon Ave

Long Willow

Wenlock Valley

I stared at it, then looked up at Pop. He was deep in something marked with the Ministry of Magic emblem, so I knew better than to disturb him now. I turned my envelope over (who was this from? I had never received as much as a message in my whole life) and noted the scarlet crest that had been stamped there to keep the envelope closed, a crest that represented a lion, an eagle, a badger…and a snake. It looked awfully familiar.

I didn't want to open it. I don't know why, I guess I had just been reluctant to do so. I knew for a fact that this was a letter from Hogwarts – I had recognized the crest from the uniforms the students had worn at Diagon Alley the day before. Nobody gets a letter from Hogwarts unless…they'd been asked to enroll themselves into the school for the first of September…

I had to show Pop. I turned in my seat only to realize that he had already noticed, and was looking at me with surprise in his eyes.