Hi everybody! It's been a bit, to say the least, so I wanted to make sure you all knew that I'm still here and I'm still writing! I've had a little trouble cracking the story for Year 5, but I think I've got the hang of it, and I wanted to put out the first part of a very eventful year. Enjoy!

(Also this is your last warning - this chapter has MAJOR spoilers for Puffs, so please please PLEASE watch Puffs! It's so, so worth it, I promise. Now on to the chapter!)

(Disclaimer: See Chapter 35.)

Chapter 40:

Rest and Recreation

"Had they all forgotten what he had done? Hadn't it been he who had entered that graveyard and watched Cedric being murdered and been tied to that tombstone and nearly killed…?
Don't think about that, Harry told himself sternly for the hundredth time that summer. It was bad enough that he kept revisiting the graveyard in his nightmares, without dwelling on it in his waking moments too."

The hottest day of the summer so far was drawing to a close and a drowsy silence lay over the large, square houses of Tumbleweed Road.

So naturally, the Guardians were going out on the town.

"This one's going to do it," Molly said as the nine kids walked through the expansive courtyard to the Regal Cinemas at their local mall. "This album - it's going to get her a number one single, it's going to cross over to pop, it's going to win all the Grammys -"

"We get it, you like Kacey Musgraves," Jonah said.

"Dan Levy likes her music, and that's enough for me," Mackenzie said. "Or have none of you watched Schitt's Creek?"

"Imagine how that sentence would've gone if Molly didn't know it isn't spelled like the curse word," Fred said, which caused Molly to burst out laughing.

"Ben Platt likes her, too," Stella pointed out. "Also, changing topics entirely, can someone please explain to me how I liked the SpongeBob musical? Like, how is that actually good?"

"You got music by John Legend, Sara Bareilles, and David Bowie," Molly said. "There was no way it wasn't going to be good."

"She found it the day after she saw Infinity War, she needed something good to cheer her up," Ava said.

"THEY KILLED OFF TOM HOLLAND!" Stella said. "WHO THE FORK KILLS OFF TOM HOLLAND?"

"Well, I see you've discovered The Good Place, too," Zoë said.

"Molly showed it to me on Netflix, and then I introduced Stella to it," Fred said. "I'm just going to imagine that that's where I'm going to end up."

"You realize that neighborhood was literally torture, right?" Jonah said.

"Torture from Ted Danson," Fred said. "My dad loves Cheers - couldn't get over it when the show finished."

"And Kristen Bell is just iconic," Mackenzie said. "Like, that's Anna. From Frozen. The girl who sang the song Molly wouldn't stop singing the entirety of first year."

"She slid down the banister in Dumbledore's office singing it," Jonah said. "I have video."

Molly's eyes widened. "There's no way you have video."

"We were literally there showing Dumbledore the camera Madison and I got the picture with," Jonah said. "That camera has a video function."

"Okay, I have to see that video," Fred said.

"So do I," Molly said. "If I recall, I had just woken up and my hair was particularly messy."

"Guys?" Stella said.

"But of course, when you're singing a good song, none of that really matters," Molly said.

"Guys?" Stella said again.

"Although, I must say, I was disappointed in some of the new songs for the musical -"

"GUYS!" Stella said, pointing behind the group. Everyone turned around to see five dementors floating in midair, blocking the path out of the courtyard.

"Run!" Molly screamed, and the Guardians obliged, sprinting down the courtyard to the doors to the mall. She could feel the pull of the dementors behind her, tearing away her happy thoughts. The door to the mall had always felt heavy, but she felt an even greater effort opening it now than she ever had before.

They were all in the hallway of the mall now, sliding down the slick tiled pathway. They dashed into the lobby of the movie theatre, which was packed with kids dressed in superhero costumes and exhausted-looking parents.

"They wouldn't attack in a crowded place, right?" Ava said.

As if on cue, the dementors burst through the doors leading into the lobby.

"Apparently they would," Fred said, turning again and running past the ticket booth, past the concessions. Stella looked over her shoulder - then tripped into someone and fell. When she got up, she saw a little kid in a red and blue bodysuit.

"Who do you think you are?" the kid said. "I'm Spiderman!"

"Spiderman dies in Infinity War," she said. "I wouldn't have spoiled you if Tom Holland hadn't already spoiled it himself."

And she ran away, just before the dementors could reach her.

"Is there anyone in the bathrooms?" Jonah asked.

Molly veered to her left into the women's bathroom. "All clear," she shouted, and the rest of the Guardians followed her inside.

A few seconds passed by, the cold feeling in the bathroom getting colder and colder. Suddenly, the figures floated into the room. Fred ran up to the front of the group and held his arms out, a human shield between the dementors and the kids.

He drew his wand, just as the dementors started to breathe in and the world started to turn fuzzy. "Expecto Patronum!"

A beautiful bird, a magpie, soared forth from his wand and pushed the dementors out of the bathroom. Molly wanted to fall on the floor with exhaustion.

"Are they gone?" a voice said.

The group froze - it wasn't one of them.

The stall door to their right opened slowly to reveal a girl crouched on top of a toilet, her feet on the seat itself. She got down. "I'm rather good with a Patronus Charm myself, but I'm still underage, so…"

She stood up, staring at Molly.

"Caitlyn?" Molly said.

She nodded. "You know, Molly, I was very surprised when you didn't show up on the first day at Ilvermorny."

"So you two knew each other?" Fred asked as a trailer for a Christopher Robin movie played on the screen in front of them.

"Molly and I were in the same class," Caitlyn said. "We were in such a small school that it was pretty much the same group, from kindergarten to fifth grade."

"Not all of them were the nicest, either," Molly said. "Remember the Dance Moms game at recess?"

"Oh, God, that was the worst," Caitlyn said. "Remember when they backed you into a snowbank?"

"Up until recently, it was what I heard whenever a dementor attacked," Molly said.

"Well, what do you hear now?"

Molly clenched her teeth, her eyes subconsciously darting over to Fred and Mackenzie. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay," Caitlyn said. "Speaking of the dementors, why do you think they showed up at the Regal Cinemas?"

"Maybe Delphi's trying to take us out before we can mess up another one of her plans," Jonah said.

"Jonah!" Stella said. "That's very sneaky!"

"My dorm room is across the hallway from Draco," Jonah said. "I think it's osmosis."

Caitlyn shook her head. "That is, like, the craziest thing - like, you guys know some of the most famous figures in modern fantasy literature. I wish I could meet a character from the Harry Potter books."

Ava gave Fred a look, and he motioned near his neck, as if to say "Don't say a word."

"But that makes sense," Caitlyn continued. "If your souls are sucked out of your body, you can't interfere in the year anymore. How is she doing all this, anyway? Like how did she get around to bringing you guys back?"

"Well, at the end of Cursed Child, they say they're going to bring her back to Azkaban, but then Draco just Flipendos her into the unknown," Stella said. "God, why do I know that?"

"So maybe she did go to Azkaban," Beatrix said. "Just not at the right time. And who's in Azkaban in the early eighties?"

"The Lestranges," Jonah said. "So she learned at her mother's hand, and then she probably snuck into the Department of Mysteries and stole a Time Turner."

"Then she snuck into Ilvermorny," Caitlyn said, "and looked at the roster of children in a specific year and found the most powerful ones, the ones that could mess the most up if given the chance."

"And now...we're here," Molly said.

"Yep," Fred said, and then the room was silent, except for "Castle on the Hill" by Ed Sheeran playing over a trailer for the third How To Train Your Dragon movie.

"We can't stay here, can we?" Mackenzie said, looking towards the screen but not really at it. The silence gave her the answer.

"We'll get everything set up at home," Fred said. "And Molly's parents will kill us all if we don't go and see that play in New York City, now that they've already paid for all our tickets."

"Cursed Child?" Caitlyn asked.

"No," Molly said. "Better."

"It's called Puffs!" Stella interjected. "It's about my house and my friends are characters and I'm so excited!"

"Also, Cursed Child's sold out for months," Mackenzie said. "And it's a two parter, and we can't risk spending that much time in NYC. And Stella would kill us if we chose Cursed Child over a play about Hufflepuffs."

"Well, I won't keep up any more of your time," Caitlyn said. "It was good to see you, Molly."

"Good to see you, too," Molly said. "Enjoy Ilvermorny this year."

"Thanks," Caitlyn said. "Hey - I'm glad you finally read the books."

"Me, too," Molly said. "But shut up."

"Gladly," Caitlyn said, a bittersweet smile crossing her face.

The group filed out of the theater. Molly texted her parents that they were done early.

"You don't think anything would attack in New York City, right?" Fred asked.

Molly sighed. "God, I hope not."

"Wayne dies?" Stella cried as the group walked out of New World Stages.

"I mean, he wasn't even mentioned in the books proper, but I honestly don't know," Beatrix said. "People are staring."

"Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!" Stella said. "I'm never going to be able to look at him the same way again - he dies?"

Mackenzie groaned. "Sorry, Stella," she said. "Maybe he won't die."

"You realize you're acting the same exact way I did when I learned Lavender dies," Molly said.

"And we all joked about that," Ava said.

"A lot," Jonah said.

"I guess," Stella said. "It's just...like, I know this kid, in real life, and he is just as adorkably nerdy as he is in this. It's like, for the first time, I actually know someone who's going to die."

"I'm literally right here," Fred said.

"No, I mean someone who doesn't die in the books," Stella said. "Obviously it's a war, there are people besides you and Lupin and Tonks who die...and Lavender...and I've been scared this whole time to learn about who some of them will be."

"Well, you reckon it's time to go back and spend some time with them before they kick the bucket?" Zoë said.

"Smart," Molly said. "Let's go and kick Umbridge's butt."

"For the last time, you can say -" Stella began, but before she could say the word, a dark cloud formed above them.

"Here we go again," Beatrix said as the group huddled together, ready for their next adventure.

Thanks for reading! Here are this chapter's behind-the-magic fun facts:

1) The title of this chapter is a song from the musical adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is a really good musical that you should listen to right now. (Yep, I'm back.)

2) We get a plethora of pop culture references in this opening conversation - Schitt's Creek, The Good Place, the SpongeBob musical, Kacey Musgraves's Golden Hour, even Avengers: Infinity War! I realized it had been a while since a pop culture conversation that puts us firmly in the "present" of sorts, so I wanted to bring that back.

3) I'm very proud of the dementor attack - it feels very cinematic in nature. I was picturing my local movie theatre when I wrote it, and I can see the entire thing super clearly in my mind's eye. Recently, I've actually been imagining what a movie and/or TV series of this fanfiction would be like, and I think it's one of the reasons I keep being drawn to this story - it lives so firmly in my mind and I can think of so many ways it can be told and told well.

4) I knew I wanted to bring Caitlyn back at some point - I just wasn't sure when. When I was writing the Disney World scenes at the beginning of Year 4, I thought of maybe including her - then I thought about saving her for a full-circle thing in Year 7 - then I thought about bringing her in during a thing I'm planning for Year 6 that I can't tell you about yet. But when I was writing this scene, I knew I needed to involve her somehow.

5) In trying to figure out what trailers to mention during the Guardians' conversation with Caitlyn, I realized that 2018 was a very weak year for family movies.

6) Another use of Stella's "God, why do I know that" joke! I keep coming back to that one cause it's just so darn funny, and it's exactly what Stella's inspiration is like in real life when it comes to Cursed Child.

7) The Guardians seeing Puffs is one thing that did not happen in real life. I didn't discover Puffs until the summer of 2020, and even then, I wasn't seeing it live. But in breaking the story for Year 5, I realized I needed to spice up the story in some way when it came to certain characters' storylines, and I decided that including some connections to the play would be helpful.

8) The inclusion of Puffs also allowed for the "Wayne dies" joke, which is very much a callback to the "Lavender dies" moment in Year 2 - to the point where I copy-pasted the dialogue I wanted from the original scene. After a pretty dramatic chapter, I thought a bit of humor would be good - and there's some drama coming up in the next chapter as well, so it worked out as a nice little bit of humor before some serious material to come.

Feel free to review, but please no negative reviews or cursing. (And please, NOTHING POLITICAL!) Thanks!