Disclaimer: I am not making money from this story. I don't own Harry Potter or any characters you recognize. Some of these characters I completely made up. Not like that will help…

Chapter 1

Harry Potter awoke to the sound of a small, beautifully white owl tapping on the window of his office. He normally didn't sleep here, as he and Ginny had taken up residence in Hagrid's old hut (now completely different inside, of course), but today had been really hectic. He stifled a huge yawn and stretched while grudgingly slipping out from behind his desk, a mess from where he had lost consciousness on about 40 boggart essays. It was the first day of the term and he had been grading summer assignments all day, even through the feast. Damn procrastination. Maybe he should have listened to Hermione all those years ago…nah.

Half awake and regretting Ron's decision to ever put Hedwig and Pig in the same cage, Harry slid his way over to the window. Gunnar, the impatient little owl, tapped incessantly and started zooming around when he noticed Harry's approach. Harry, having had a lot of practice at this, slowly opened the window a crack and caught Gunnar as if he was a furry snitch.

Harry pried the letter away from Gunnar's leg and recognized the seal immediately as his son's. 'Crap! Probably missed Darcie's sorting,' he thought to himself, 'I am never going to live this one down."

He slid his finger over the seal and felt the magic warm and tingling underneath his calloused skin. It always amazed him how much magic Andy could put into anything, let alone a tiny blob of wax. He muttered to himself and the wax slowly melted away from the edge of the parchment and cooled again, allowing him to open the letter and see an exact replica of his own hurried handwriting.

Dad,

You missed the weirdest sorting ever… and although I want to say that it's because it was Darcie's (and yes, she's in Gryffindor with me), it got more exciting then even my Drama Queen sister could make it. Just as the new first years were almost done being sorted, everything went quiet and this evil looking man and a slightly less evil-looking girl walked into the Great Hall like they sodding owned the place. I didn't like the looks of them at all, but Aunt Hermione recognized whoever the man was straight away and ushered the girl over to the sorting hat. She didn't look short enough to be a first year, though. She had the most beautiful hair, like spun silver- the whitest blonde I've ever seen. Her face also sort of reminded me of that old newspaper clipping Grandma kept of you from your fourth year when you were in the Triwizard Tournament with that woman that Mom always calls Phlegm. It seemed like I already knew her. Anyway, to make a longer story short, she's in Slytherin. Like you couldn't tell she'd end up there by the smirk on her face. I'm just telling you this to warn you, Dad, because you will probably have her in one of your classes, the witch.

Andrew Ronald Potter

Harry scanned his son's letter twice more before he sunk onto the floor and, in a very frustrated breath mumbled two words… not again.