(A/N: Reviews everywhere! And... they're all raves...

I MUST BE DREAMING!

::pinches self, doesn't wake up, squeals with joy::

Reviewer responses:

Tanydwr: Thanks – is this soon enough?

sarah: Your parents too, huh? "But we thought it would be unusual..." Thanks. I will if you will!

Pyro44: Nice work. Keep thinking, and check chapters 8 and 9 for more names! Nalini213, you too!

Lexapendragon: Ummm... thanks... I don't think I've ever been complimented quite like that before.

CapriceAnn Hedican-Kocur: Nice name. And thank you. But remember, Dudley is a moron... he never figures anything out...

Lady Cinnibar: BA in English, eh? I'm not challenging you to a write-off any time soon... Mercedes Lackey fan by any chance?

chubby redburn: In case you read this, thanks, for both the compliment and the sympathy.

Everyone: Thank you a million times!!! My self-esteem is higher than it has ever been! As you can probably tell by the fact that I have written three chapters tonight!

Enjoy!)

Chapter 7: The Word for It

Something in the offhand comment stayed in Helen's mind, newly four years old though she was. "Helen and Ruby are real twins, Harry, or I don't know real twins," one of her uncles had said. She wasn't sure if it was Uncle Fred or Uncle George. They looked so much alike.

She and Ruby looked a lot alike too, but she knew they weren't twins. She and Chester were twins. But she didn't like Chester, and she did like Ruby. Chester was a wimp. He cried if she hit him, even if he had hit her first. And he never shared his toys with her the way Ruby and even Sirius did.

Thoughts like these continued to develop in Helen's mind through the next year. It was an eventful one. She started nursery school, which her mother had insisted on "to get the blasted girl out of the house". She probably would have made more friends if she hadn't had the stigma of being the mean Dursley boy's sister. Chester was well known for his habit of pushing down anyone smaller than him who got in his way. Since he took after his father, there wasn't anyone larger than him in the class, so he got the reputation of a bully, and Helen got the fallout.

Helen learned to read with a speed that astonished the teachers, since she told them (truthfully) that her parents didn't read with her. Of course, thanks to Harry's protective charm, she couldn't tell them about the hours she spent at the Marauders' Den listening to stories and more stories, usually snuggled beside Aunt Ginny and watching the words in the book with fascination, with Ruby cuddled next to her, Sirius on his mum's other side, and Jamie on her lap.

Aunt Ginny's lap was getting smaller, Helen noticed around Halloween. In the first week of November, Uncle Harry put Helen and Ruby through a series of measurements, confirming that they were the same height and had the same size almost everything else, except that Helen was a little skinnier than Ruby. "I think these are big enough to sell, now, Ginny," he teased. "After all, we have another one coming to replace them."

"Another baby?" Ruby squealed. "Can this one be another sister, Daddy, please, please?"

"No!" shouted Sirius. "Two sisters is enough!"

Ruby stuck out her tongue at him.

Helen, jumping up and down with excitement, noticed Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny glance at each other with a funny look on their faces.

-----

Of course they looked funny. Anyone would look funny if they'd just figured out that they thought of someone else's child as their own, and they were being so obvious about it that their own children had picked it up.

Helen smiled dreamily. And then Christmas, my first Christmas at the Den... They left me home the first year, they wanted to give the Dursleys every chance they could, but when it was pretty obvious the Dursleys weren't going to bother about me again that year, Mum and Dad didn't have much compunction about smuggling me out.

We were lucky, for one – the Dursleys always sleep late on Christmas morning. Even presents can't wake Chester up when he doesn't want to be woken, and that was all to the good, it meant I could stay the night and be back before they ever knew I was gone...

-----

Everyone came to the Marauders' Den for Christmas, since it was the biggest house of any in the family. Helen got to meet the last of the relatives and friends who hadn't been able to come to her birthday party. She loved the story Grandpap Hagrid told about the first time he'd met her father and Uncle Harry. She could just imagine her father, or Chester, with a pink pig's tail.

Aunt Fleur taught the children Christmas carols, even some in French, which Helen thought was really neat. You got to make sounds through your nose. Aunt Fleur and Uncle Bill's children, Max and Mollie, could speak French, and they taught their cousins a few phrases.

Helen was fascinated with the idea of another language. She had heard her father talking about foreigners and weirdos, but she had never understood what a foreigner was. Now she did. But something confused her. Aunt Fleur was a foreigner – she came from France – but she wasn't mean or bad, and she wasn't trying to take over the country.

She tried to ask her father about it a little after New Year's, but was confused when something stopped her from saying anything about Aunt Fleur. She finally settled for just asking if foreigners were all bad.

"The only person who would think a foreigner was good was another foreigner," her father said. "Or someone strange, a little loopy. Not quite right up top." He looked at his daughter sharply. "Why'd you want to know, girl?"

"I just did. Thank you, Daddy."

Helen's confusion lasted for three days, until the next time Aunt Ginny came to take her to the Den. She seized the opportunity and asked the same question.

"No, of course not. Why would you think – oh." Aunt Ginny hugged Helen, a little off to the side, as front-on hugging was somewhat hard these days. "Sweetheart, your father's just confused. He's never known anyone from another country who was nice."

"Like Aunt Fleur?"

"Yes. Like Aunt Fleur and Aunt Gabrielle. They're not bad, are they?"

Aunt Gabrielle was Aunt Fleur's sister. She had made two batches of Christmas cookie dough, one to bake and the other for the children (and the adults) to eat raw. "No."

"So, not all foreigners are bad. See?"

Helen nodded.

"Good. Now come on, let's go, unless you don't want to go sledding with Ruby today."

Winter passed pleasantly. In April, baby Evan was born. Sirius and Jamie stole all of Ruby and Helen's dolls to celebrate. Helen and Ruby retaliated by stealing the boys' clothes, so they had to come to breakfast in their underwear.

Then, near the beginning of June, Helen discovered something that would change her life.

Her teacher read their class a book about adopted children.

As she listened, Helen realized that she had never quite understood what Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny had done for her. Now she knew the word for it. They had adopted her, even if she was still living with what the book called her "birth family".

She began to think about her place in the world more seriously. The children in the book called their adopted parents "Dad" and "Mum", the way other kids did. Why don't I do that? She knew she already had a dad and a mum, but somehow they were different than other kids' parents. Obviously, or she would never have been adopted by the Potters.

She decided to ask about it.

-----

"Helen."

She jumped. Her father's voice was unwelcome under any circumstances, and especially when she had just been thinking of her real family. I hope they come soon. "Yes, sir?"

"We'll be there in five minutes. I want you awake."

"Yes, sir." Helen rolled her shoulders, stretching her neck.

I was not quite five. It was a warm summer day...