6. He Who Must Not Be Named

Six months later...

Callie stared up at her own ceiling, from her own bed, in her own room. The last six months at Hogwarts had been about the same as her first four. Pansy and Malfoy were still gits, classes were a mixed bag, Snape was as cold as ever. Nobody asked her to lift up her skirt anymore, so there was that at least. But mainly because she no longer wore skirts. Her father had nearly snapped his wand in half when she'd explained her need for twenty new pairs of pants.

"Damn little shits, how dare they!" he had said. Callie assured him not to worry, although she'd appreciated the warning glares he'd given every boy that passed when he dropped her off at the train back to Hogwarts.

It had broken her heart to have to explain to her mother why she had to leave the quilt at home, but the woman had promised to keep it safe for her until she returned. And Callie cuddled up with it every night while she was home, even as the hot summer weather rendered it unnecessary.

Callie now had two and a half months to look forward to, before she would begin her second year. Although being back home meant not being able to use magic, she was grateful for the long break from Slytherin house and it's contemptible inhabitants.

Rising from her bed, she thought about her old friends from home. They were all getting together this afternoon to hang out and catch up. Callie hopped in the shower to get ready.

They met at a park near her house. Margot, Olive, and Heidi had been her best mates before Hogwarts, and the one thing she'd regretted about going away to school was leaving them behind. Of course, they were muggles and knew nothing about Callie's magical status. Keeping it a secret all those years hadn't been too difficult - once in a while she'd slipped and done something out of the ordinary, but most people were quick to believe that their eyes were playing tricks on them.

Suddenly, after having been at Hogwarts for a year, it was hard to explain away things she couldn't be honest about.

"Where is it again?" Margot asked regarding Callie's mysterious boarding school.

"Scotland, near the Highlands," Callie replied.

"What's it called?" Olive asked.

"Um..." Callie hesitated. "I can't really say."

"What d' you mean, you can't say?" Margot asked.

"It's kind of a secret." They all looked at her with puzzled expressions. Callie fibbed, "See, it's so exclusive, the board of governors doesn't want people knowing where exactly it is, so we're not to tell anyone its name."

Heidi raised an eyebrow and said, "That's weird."

"Yeah, I know."

"And what business do you have," Margot asked, "going to such an exclusive school?"

"My dad went there," Callie said, "It's kind of a tradition."

Everyone was silent for a moment, until Heidi said, "Think you're real special, don't you?"

Callie took offense to that. "No!" she said.

"Don't be a prat, Heidi," Margot said. "You sound jealous."

"I'm not jealous. But what, you're too good for Milton or something?"

"When did I say that?" Callie asked. "I told you, it's a tradition in our family. My dad wanted me to go."

"All right, all right," Olive cut in. "Enough school talk, it's summer! Let's just do something fun, why don't we."

Callie and Heidi didn't say much to each other for the rest of the afternoon. As Callie walked home with Margot, the latter said, "Don't pay any attention to her. She's gotten rather bitchy over the last few months."

"So it's not just me?"

Margot shrugged. "Far from it. What can I say, people change. Sometimes not for the better."

"You think I've changed?" Callie asked. "Not for the better?"

Margot studied her. "I don't know. You seem to be so full of secrets all of a sudden. What's that about?"

Callie sighed. "I guess... I guess I've just... had different experiences at Hog-" she stopped herself "-at my new school. It's hard to explain."

They stopped in front of her house and Callie asked Margot if she wanted to come in.

"Nah, I gotta get home. I'll call you tomorrow."

"All right," Callie said, dejectedly. "See ya."

"Bye."

Callie watched her go before heading inside, where her father was sat in his favorite chair reading The Daily Prophet.

"Hey there, love," he greeted.

"Hi, Dad."

He immediately noticed her sad tone of voice. "Anything wrong?" he asked.

Callie shrugged. "I don't think they like me anymore," she said. "Heidi and Margot and Olive."

"Oh, come off it."

She took a seat across from him. "Heidi says I think I'm special, 'cause I went to boarding school."

"Well," he said, setting down his paper, "do you?"

"No!"

"I didn't think so."

"But my friends think I'm some kind of pompous arse, apparently. Margot wouldn't even come in here."

"Maybe they do," David said. "But they've only spent one day with you, so far. Show them that you haven't changed, that you're not 'some pompous arse.'"

Callie nodded, hoping that in time they'd see she was just the same as always. But all thoughts of her old friends disappeared when she spotted the paper her dad had been reading.

Hogwarts Teacher's Inexplicable Death, was the headline.

"Quirrell, of all people," Callie mused. "You should've seen him, Dad, he was this jittery, nervous thing. I almost felt sorry for him."

"See how people can surprise you?" David said. "All over a silly stone."

"Silly? You could live forever with that thing. Can't really blame him for trying to steal it."

"Really? Why anyone would want to live forever is beyond me."

Callie did a double take. "It is?"

"Yes. Think of it this way - if you could never die, then you'd never see Gran-gran again."

Callie's maternal grandmother had passed away six years ago. She was a good woman who'd always brought Callie a treat or small present when she visited. The girl had great memories of the woman.

"Yes," she agreed, "but if we all had a piece of that stone, none of us would have to die."

"Muggles would."

A chill went up Callie's spine as her mother's face flashed in her mind. "Oh," she said softly. "Right."

David smiled at her. "You know who else wanted to live forever?" he asked.

"Who?"

The man paused as if for dramatic effect. "He Who Must Not Be Named."

Callie shuddered at the name - of lack thereof. She'd been ten before she learned what the dark wizard had actually called himself, and her father hadn't even spoken it out loud, but had shown her in a book.

"Well," she said after a moment, "didn't work out too well for him, did it?"

"No, I suppose not," David said. "Then again, there've been rumors."

"What rumors?"

"The idea that Quirinus Quirrell hadn't been acting entirely of his own accord," he replied.

Callie furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I don't know all the details. Nor do I completely believe everything I've read. But there's been talk of Quirrell working on behalf of You Know Who, to get at that stone."

"But... You Know Who is dead."

"He's believed to be dead, but that's never been proven. His body disappeared the night he killed the Potters."

Callie considered that. "Well," she said, "if he were alive, don't you think he'd, ya know... try to finish what he started?"

David stared at Callie for a long moment, then said, "Perhaps he did. It was Potter in that room with Quirrell, when he died. Maybe You Know Who, somehow, was with them too."

Callie stared back at her father, unable to believe what he was saying. Unable to believe that he believed what he was saying. "You don't... really think he could be out there, so you?" she asked.

He thought about it and replied, "That man - thing, I should say - was unstoppable. Nothing and no one ever got in his way, he was too powerful. I do find it hard to believe that a baby brought him to his death. It's too easy. I think are lot of people are too willing to accept that his reign is over."

He was no longer looking at Callie, but staring off into the distance, lost in his own thoughts. Eventually though, he seemed to snap back to reality, and he said, "Callie, I want you to be careful. If you see anything... odd while you're at Hogwarts, let somebody know. Professor Dumbledore, especially."

"I will," Callie agreed.

That night she lay in bed thinking about the possibility of You Know Who's return. The next day she climbed up into the attic and started going through old boxes of books and papers. She knew her dad had papers that went back to the nineteen twenties, documenting decades worth of magical history. He even had a Daily Prophet with a front-page picture of Dumbledore, right after his infamous duel with Grindelwald.

Eventually she found what she was looking for. In a photo album labeled The Great Wizarding War, Callie flipped through pages and pages of newspaper clippings detailing events of the conflict. For nearly two hours she sat and read through almost half of it, horrified at all the killings of muggles and muggleborns, as well as anyone who tried to fight against You Know Who. Entire families had been taken out, in some cases.

"Pureblood supremacy" was a term she came across several times.

"Merlin's beard," she breathed, thinking about her pureblood housemates, how proud they were of their status and how they were so hostile towards muggle-borns, and even half-bloods like herself.

"Give my regards to your muggle - er, mother!" Pansy had said that day on the train. At the time it was annoying, but now...

Callie was disgusted.

She slammed the photo album shut, replaced everything she'd taken out, and climbed out of the attic with the album in hand.

That night when her father came home from London, she asked, "Dad, what if You Know Who is out there? What if he comes back?"

David thought about it and said, "Then I suppose there'd be another war. But don't worry, love. If something like that were to happen again, we'd leave England."

Callie wasn't so reassured by that answer. "But how would he be stopped?" she asked. "You said he was unstoppable."

Again, he pondered her question. "Well," he said, "perhaps the solution would, again, lie with Harry Potter."