(A/N: Chapter 18 of this story was posted on April 23. Chapter 19 was posted on May 13.

April 23, 2015, and May 13, 2022.

Please be nice?)


Dear Harry,

Congratulations on Gryffindor! I think you and Ron ought to fit in just fine there. Do me a favor and keep an ear out for any rumors about Mal, would you? He's had to be careful for so long that I'm a little worried he might forget to play his part, to keep Uncle Lucius from realizing what we've been up to all this time.

I told you Kingsley didn't say "urgent" lightly. What we got called to was a break-in and fire at St. Mungo's, the wizarding hospital. The wards there are ancient and incredibly strong, stronger than anywhere except Gringotts or Hogwarts, but someone went through them like they weren't even there. And then, too, the fire charm they used, whoever they are, it's called Fiendfyre and it's right on the edge of being Dark magic. So you can see why the Healers would want Aurors to check it out, though there wasn't much we could do. The room where the fire started was full of records, all sorts of scrolls and parchments, so it'd gone past saving before we ever got there. About the only thing we could manage was to keep it from spreading.

Then later, while we were doing the walkthrough to be sure there weren't any Dark wizards hiding in the corners, one of the Healers started yelling that her potions workshop had been cleaned out, and sure enough, bare shelves the whole way around the place. Lots of traces from Vanishing Charms, so Kingsley thinks the workshop might be a diversion and what the thief really wanted was some of those records. I think it might have been the other way around, that the fire was the diversion and whoever broke in either needed potions for themselves or wanted them to sell, and they Vanished whatever they weren't taking so we wouldn't know what they did take. If that makes any sense.

Whoever's right, St. Mungo's is missing about ten years' worth of records and a load of valuable ingredients and potions, and we've got a mystery on our hands. I hope nothing quite that exciting is happening at Hogwarts, but I'd love to hear what is going on there. Have you got the knack of writing with a quill yet? Which professor is giving out the most homework this year? Is the food still as good as it ever was? (Make friends with some of the house-elves if you get the chance. Mal can show you the door into the kitchens, or he'd better be able to by now with all the stories I've told him!)

Plenty to do so I'd better get moving. Write back soon, and I'll be sure and send you copies of your reports from St. Brutus's. Would your relations expect you to fight back at all, do you think, or just plod along and do as you're told? Let me know.

Take care, Harry,

Tonks

P.S. Let me know if the Potions Master, Snape, gives you this great big speech about brewing glory and bottling death at your first class. I've got a theory that he wrote it up the first year he taught at Hogwarts and it sounded so good he's given it word for word every year since.


Dear 'Henry',

Thank you for your note. It was good to hear that you and Ron were both Sorted into Gryffindor. I miss Ron a little bit already, but don't tell him that. It will just make him conceited. You can tell him that I'm sorry Scabbers has gone missing already, but not to worry about it too much. He always turns up again in the end.

It's funny that you picked out the name and place you did, because I tell myself stories sometimes about knowing a boy named Henry who comes from America. Story-Henry doesn't look anything like you, though, and he has parents and a little sister, which I know you don't have. And I know you have an aunt and an uncle, but story-Henry's are nice, and yours sound like they're not. Do you have any cousins? I don't remember if you said. Story-Henry has two, a boy and a girl.

Reading books and telling stories are some of the things I like best when I'm not doing chores or studying with Mum. I also like flying, and sometimes I sculpt with clay. I like listening to music too (except when Mum puts Celestina Warbeck on the wireless) and I wish I knew more about it, but I've never been able to have lessons. What do you like to do?

Write soon and tell me all about what it's really like at Hogwarts. My brothers have told me all sorts of things, and I'm never sure what part of it is true and what's them pulling my leg. But that's what friends are for, isn't it?

Your friend,

Ginny


Dear Mum and Dad,

You remember I'd been wondering how students at Hogwarts got put into their Houses? Well, now I know. There's a magical hat, the Sorting Hat, and when you put it on it looks into your mind and sees where you'd be happiest. I know I was saying at home that I wanted to be in Gryffindor, but after I thought more about it and listened to what some of the other kids were saying, I decided Ravenclaw would fit me better, and the Hat agreed with me.

So I'm a Ravenclaw now, and it's really quite lovely! Our dormitory is in a great big beautiful tower with the most amazing view of the mountains where Hogwarts is, and there are books everywhere, just like at home. Rowena Ravenclaw, who was one of the Founders of Hogwarts, had a crest of a bronze eagle on a blue background, so our House colors are blue and bronze. I share a dorm with four other girls and we all have four-posters with blue bedcurtains. I'm sure they'll come in handy this winter. Some of the older students have been telling us how cold it gets, and how nice it is to stay inside and read by the fire.

Classes are going to be very interesting. Casting a spell is partly about the words you say and partly about the movements you make, but a lot of it is also what you think about while you're casting it, and with some of my classmates, I'm not sure they think at all. A few of the Slytherins (that's the terribly stuck-up House where all the kids who've been magic for ages and ages go) don't look very bright, and one or two of the Gryffindors seem a bit dense as well. But it's only been a couple of days so far. We'll see how things look around Halloween, or even Christmas.

It's almost time for lights-out, so I'll send this tomorrow morning and ask the owl to wait for your answer. If you want to show it the back garden to do its waiting, you shouldn't have any more problems with mice or moles out there pretty soon. Also, can you send my E. Nesbitt books along with your letter? Some of my Housemates are starting a book club, all about the different things Muggles believe about magic, and I think those would fit right in.

Love you bunches and bunches,

Your very own

Hermione


My dear Draco,

I was pleased to see from your letter that you have been Sorted as you wished. Remember to comport yourself at all times as befits your breeding, and you will never step too far wrong.

Your father wishes me to remind you that if anyone questions your right to have Orion as your companion animal, you should insist on the matter being taken directly to the Headmaster. I would add that Severus Snape should also be considered an ally, though one to invoke only at need, given that you are not a member of his House and his jurisdiction where you are concerned is therefore limited.

Be sure to eat your vegetables at dinner and do your homework promptly. Enjoy your newfound friendships, and explore the castle as thoroughly as you wish. Only, if you choose to break the rules while so doing, kindly do not embarrass us by allowing yourself to be caught. Your father's patience is not inexhaustible.

Write often, my Draco. Be well, and we will see you at the Christmas holidays.

From your loving

Mother


Neville,

I'm not sure I approve of your taking up with the son of Lucius Malfoy. If he's had the sense to be Sorted into Hufflepuff, I don't suppose he can be much like his father, but steer clear of the family all the same if you can. Bad blood on both sides there, as I'm sure I don't need to tell you.

Study hard, and don't let yourself get distracted with all sorts of clubs and activities. You're there to learn magic, not to have a social hour. Though if this Cedric Diggory you wrote me about is Amos Diggory's son, that's a good connection for you to have. He might be able to help you get a job once you've finished school.

I'm expecting a great deal from you, Neville. Don't disappoint me.

Gran

P.S. Be sure you're remembering to feed Trevor.


My friend,

I wonder if you might be available to join me for lunch at the Three Broomsticks tomorrow? I have a proposition I would like to lay before you. Please reply by return phoenix.


Thank you for the invitation, Headmaster. I look forward to seeing you.

RJL


"So how'd Potions go this morning?" asked Draco as he, Harry, Ron, and Neville meandered across the lawn towards Hagrid's hut, Orion loping beside them, his tongue lolling out. "I know you were worried about it, with Professor Snape hating Gryffindors the way he does."

"He's got something specifically against Harry," said Ron, shaking his head. "Don't know what it is, but Snape picked on him right away and wouldn't let up. Asked him all these high-level questions, stuff I didn't have the first idea about. Backfired like a broken wand, though." He grinned. "Granger'd better watch out. You'll be coming for her swot of the year award any day now."

"Will not." Harry shoved Ron companionably. "It was just luck that I remembered seeing that stuff at the Apothecary in Diagon Alley, the bezoar and the wolfsbane." He shot a brief glance at Draco, who grinned once. "And I still didn't know the first one he asked, about mixing asphodel and wormwood."

"Isn't that the Draught of Living Death?" Neville flushed as everyone turned to look at him. "Granger answered that one when we had our first Potions class, earlier this week," he said. "And then she stopped me from melting my cauldron when we were doing the practical. She's not so bad, really."

"I guess not." Ron shoved his hands into his pockets. "She just reminds me of Percy, and he's been driving me mad for years."

"She's nervous." Draco turned to look back at the castle, its towers soaring into the sky. "Afraid that if she doesn't do everything right, she'll lose her chance to…I don't know, be taken seriously?" Orion whined under his breath. "Easy, boy. But that's what it looks like to me. Of course, I've only seen her on the train, and then in the Hall for meals and Potions class, so I could always be wrong."

"I don't think you're wrong." Harry shook his head. "She acts like some of the kids I used to know at my old school, the really smart ones. They're so used to getting everything right the first time that they panic whenever they make a mistake, because it feels like the end of the world to them." He smiled a little. "I almost wish Miss Gray was here. She was one of my favorite teachers."

"What'd she teach?" Neville caught Trevor as he wiggled free of his confining pocket.

"English and creative writing." Harry's smile broadened. "So she'd be able to help us figure out what the different professors want to see in their essays. But what she was really best at, beyond any school stuff, was knowing what everyone around her needed most. Whether that was information, or encouragement, or even a hat."

"A hat?" Ron and Neville said together.

"Remind me when we get back inside. I'll show you." Harry dropped back to walk beside Draco. "You know who else I wish was here," he said quietly, as Orion picked up a quill which had fallen from Ron's pocket and nudged the red-haired boy's hand.

"Dad." Draco sighed once. "At least we have a name for him now, or part of one. But how we're meant to get in touch with him, when he's just some random wizard, no connection to either of us—"

"He is connected to me, though." Harry glanced back at Gryffindor Tower, where the picture frame Professor McGonagall had given him was tucked into the top drawer of his wardrobe. "I could always write him a letter, once we find out his last name. Say I'm looking up old friends of my parents', to see if they have any stories they can tell me. That wouldn't seem too weird, right?"

"It's worth a try, at least." Draco rubbed his temples, watching Ron and Neville walk ahead of them. Judging by Ron's hand gestures and the hesitant look on Neville's face, they were discussing something to do with flying. "How come getting what I've always wanted keeps on making my life more complicated?"

"Magic," said Harry with a straight face, and took off running as Draco lunged at him. Orion let out a gleeful boof and gave chase as well, matching Harry's pace with a dropped-jaw grin. A series of booming barks echoed out the open windows of Hagrid's hut, as Hagrid himself opened the door, one hand around the collar of a giant boarhound, which seemed desperate to get out and investigate the new people—

"Would you like me to hold Fang, Hagrid?" called a tenor voice from within the house, and Harry skidded to a halt. Orion, too, checked at the sound, and Draco's face lost what color it had. Ron kept moving, but Neville stopped, looking worriedly from Draco to Harry.

"Take yeh right off yer feet, he would!" Hagrid laughed, dragging the dog backwards. "Back, Fang. Back. C'mon, you lot, inside with yeh, someone here yeh oughta meet…"

Shaking off his momentary disbelief, Harry followed Orion up the steps and into the house. It doesn't have to be him, he reminded himself firmly, just because it sounds like him doesn't mean it will be—

The slender, sandy-haired wizard standing near the fireplace nodded politely in greeting, frowning a little as his green eyes fell on Orion. "Good afternoon, Harry," he said, his voice slightly hoarse but otherwise warm and pleasant.

"Huh?" Ron, on the threshold, stopped short to stare. "How'd you know—"

"Probably 'cause he's famous, Weasley," Draco drawled, poking Ron in the small of the back to get him moving forward. "You wouldn't know what that's like."

"Eat dung, Malfoy." Ron punched Draco in the shoulder before moving aside, allowing Neville to slip inside past him so that Hagrid could close the door. Fang, loosed from his master's grasp, bounded immediately to Orion's side and began to sniff him all over, which favor Orion returned in kind. "Besides, that wouldn't really explain it. It's not like Harry's got a Chocolate Frog card or something."

"Did you know Harry's parents, sir?" Neville was looking intently at the sandy-haired wizard. "At Hogwarts, or afterwards?"

"I did, rather well, as it happens." The wizard smiled, and Harry bit his lip rather than say something he shouldn't. "And I believe I also knew yours, assuming your name is Longbottom?" He chuckled at Neville's startled nod. "You favor your mother quite a bit. As Harry does his father. But you two, I'm afraid I don't know," he said to Ron and Draco.

"Couldn' help yeh," said Hagrid, shaking his head as he measured tea leaves into a squat brown pot. "Harry jus' said he was bringin' friends."

"Oh, right. Sorry." Harry shook off his momentary paralysis. "Hagrid, this is Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom. You already know Mal, and the dog is Orion." Watching from the corner of his eye, he saw the other wizard's eyebrows ascend at the sound of the latter two names. "Thanks for letting us all come down like this. It's kind of an invasion."

"Eh, more the merrier." Hagrid set the teapot on the table. "Remus, would yeh mind? Kettle's just up. Although that'll be Professor Lupin t'you lot," he added with a chuckle as the other wizard unhooked a cloth pad from its place near the fire and lifted the kettle from the hob. "He's jus' been hired on, as an adjunct fer Professor Quirrell."

"A pleasure to meet you all." Lupin poured the steaming water onto the tea leaves, as Hagrid piled shapeless rock cakes onto a plate. "I'll be taking over your Defense classes, I believe, if you're all first years?"

"That's right. Sir." Draco spoke for the first time since he'd arrived in the cottage, and Harry looked over sharply at the odd note in his friend's voice. The gray eyes were fixed on Lupin with a challenging air, hints of bitterness and fear lurking in their depths.

"I look forward to getting to know you, then." Lupin met Draco's gaze squarely as he finished filling the teapot. "Perhaps we can start now. Is the Hogwarts Music Society still active, do you know?"

Draco went momentarily very still, then smiled. "I saw a notice for it in the common room yesterday," he said, his hand resting on a side pocket of his robes. "Maybe I'll join up, if I can fit it in around my homework."

On the floor, Orion huffed a few times, as though he were amused.


"Hermione! Did you hear?"

"Hear?" Hermione looked up from her scroll as Lisa Turpin, one of her dormmates, flung herself into a seat in the Ravenclaw common room, Mandy Brocklehurst and Padma Patil just behind her. "Hear about what?"

"There's a new professor! An adjunct for Defense Against the Dark Arts!" Lisa craned her neck to see what Hermione was doing. "Is that the Charms essay? I thought that wasn't due for another week."

"It's always better to be ahead than behind." Hermione blew on the ink to dry it, then set down her quill and capped her inkwell. "So what's happening? An adjunct Defense professor?" Firmly she informed her heart that it had no need to race, her hands that they would stop trembling immediately. "Why would he be starting now, and not at the beginning of term?"

"Professor Dumbledore likes to give people a fair chance at things, I think," said Padma thoughtfully. "So he wanted to try it out for a week, and see if Professor Quirrell could handle all of his classes without overworking himself."

"But he couldn't." Mandy glanced disdainfully in the direction of the Defense classroom, several floors away. "Not that we really need Defense anymore. The war with You-Know-Who's been over for years, and it's not like anyone would try that again, not when we've all seen what happens to the people who followed him."

"Defense is part of the Hogwarts curriculum, though." Padma pleated a bit of her robes between her fingers. "We ought to be trained in it, even if we'll never use it."

"Although we might someday. Need to use it, I mean." Absently Hermione began to stack her books together. "Just because the war is over, doesn't mean all the bad people have gone away. Even Voldemort—" She sighed at her Housemates' small, simultaneous squeaks. "You-Know-Who, then, if it bothers you that much. But you might have to get used to saying the name someday. My dad…"

She froze in place, but the word had already escaped.

"Your dad?" Mandy frowned. "Isn't he a Muggle?"

"Yes, of course. But he likes to read, and learn, and think." Hermione exhaled in relief as a reasonable explanation unveiled itself before her, unfolding inside her mind as though she were reading a letter in a familiar half-tidy handwriting. "And he wanted to find out all about my new world, he and Mum, so they had a look through the magical history books I ordered. He says, they both say, that anyone as powerful as Vol—as You-Know-Who," she corrected with a mental eyeroll when Padma made frantic shushing motions and Lisa clapped her hands over her ears, "isn't likely to have been truly stopped by whatever happened with Harry Potter. And I'm quite sure not all the Death Eaters were caught."

"That is true. And some of their children are here, with us, at Hogwarts." It was Padma's turn to look in a particular direction, this time straight down. "Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode, Theodore Nott…"

"And one who isn't a Slytherin, though he probably ought to've been." Lisa made a face. "I wish my father were a school governor. Maybe then I could get away with bringing my dog to Hogwarts."

"Does Orion bother you that much?" Hermione swept her books into her bag. "It's not like he's badly behaved. He acts rather like a service dog, really. Some Muggles have trained dogs who assist them," she added to Lisa and Mandy's blank looks. Padma was nodding in understanding. "Help them find their way if they're blind, or fetch things if they can't move around very much, or keep them from panicking if they've been through something terrible that might change the way they react to things."

"That's all well and good for Muggles, but I don't think any of those things apply to Draco Malfoy." Mandy flipped one hand in dismissal. "He's just spoiled and selfish and used to getting his own way."

"Is he, though?" Hermione closed her bag. "He seems rather nice. What I've seen of him, that is." She forced a smile. "And it doesn't really matter anyway. We don't have to care what he does, just like he doesn't care about us. So we can all get on with living our lives, the way we want to, and not bother our heads about things that have nothing to do with—"

A loud croak cut into her words, making Lisa squeal and Padma gasp. Mandy looked down, her eyes going wide. "Is that a toad?" she asked. "Who in the world would actually have brought one of those to Hogwarts?"

"They're on the approved list for pets, aren't they?" Hermione bent down and scooped up the warty amphibian, regarding it closely. "Why are you so surprised?"

"Just because they're allowed, doesn't mean they're normal." Padma covered a giggle. "Who could care about something that ugly?"

Hermione bit down hard on her temper and stood up. "I'm going to take it to Professor Flitwick's office," she said, starting for the door. "He'll be able to tell whose toad it is, and get it safely back to them."

Even if I think I already know.

"Suit yourself." Mandy tossed her hair and turned back to the other girls. "So the new Defense professor. I heard he and Professor Snape have history together…"

Stepping into the corridor outside the common room, Hermione exhaled sharply, battling against another surge of fearful gladness as the door closed behind her. "That could mean anything," she chided herself. "For all you know, it's some crazy pureblood snob!"

But that's not who I want it to be. Alone with her thoughts, she could acknowledge the truth. And how sad is it, that I want so much to see, to talk to, someone whose real name I don't even know? Someone who certainly won't know a thing about me? Mal—no, Draco, I have to call him Draco, I'll go mad otherwise—Draco and Harry, then, they seem thick as thieves already, even being in different Houses, but that doesn't mean any of the rest of it is true, and some of it can't be true, it's impossible, wouldn't I know it if I had a—

The toad wriggled in her hands, bringing her back to the present moment, and she shook her head and began to walk. "Should I even bother taking you to Professor Flitwick?" she asked it, half-jokingly. "Or should I just return you to the Hufflepuff common room? I know where it is, if not how to get inside, and someone ought to come along soon enough who can take you in for me…"

But I can't be certain this is Trevor. And besides, I told the girls where I was going already. If I do anything else, they'll never stop teasing me about being able to recognize a toad, and calling Neville my boyfriend. Which is stupid, and petty, and I hoped I'd be leaving that sort of thing behind when I went away to Hogwarts, but no, here it is again, because apparently having magic doesn't change the basic ways that human beings behave—

From somewhere to her left came the soft thud of a body colliding with stone, and several gusts of nasty-sounding laughter.

Like that one. Stuffing Trevor into the pocket of her robes, Hermione pulled out her wand and flattened herself against the wall, briefly allowing Jeanie Reynolds' training to surface inside her mind. Games of hide-and-sneak, through the house on Tudor Lane, Aunt Amy's apartment, the woods down the hill in the back, were common occurrences in her other life, and not just because they were enjoyable, although they were.

We first came together, turned into a family, because of a war. And wars don't usually have a simple and clean ending. People hold onto their ideals, recruit others who agree with them, raise their kids to try again…

She peered around the corner with one eye and exhaled silently through her teeth. Neville was struggling to his feet, his face set in determined lines. His wand was clutched in the meaty hand of a first-year Slytherin boy, whose beady eyes showed a fearful lack of anything resembling thought. He and his counterpart dwarfed the third boy who stood between them, his chest poked out as though he were trying to convince the world (or himself) that he mattered.

"Give it here, Crabbe," instructed Theodore Nott, holding out his hand for Neville's wand. "Bit of an antique, this, isn't it?"

"It was my dad's." Neville braced himself against the wall, his eyes starting to spark with anger. "Get your hands off it."

"Make me." Nott snickered. "Oh, that's right. You can't. Goyle," he said to the other boy. "See what he's got in his pockets, will you? I think he ought to pay a toll for being out in the halls this late…"

A flare of anger filled Hermione's mind, and she threw herself around the corner, bringing her wand to bear on Nott. "Expelliarmus!" she shouted, her two lives merging momentarily into one as motion and pronunciation flowed effortlessly from her.

Nott yelped as Neville's wand flew out of his hand. Taking advantage of the distraction, Neville rammed his shoulder into Crabbe's gut, making him grunt and fold up over himself. Hermione yanked Trevor from her pocket and flung him into Goyle's face, snagging Neville's wand as it flew towards her, and strode forward to stand beside Neville, scorching Crabbe's wrist with a spray of sparks as he attempted to grab Neville's arm. "Bit cowardly, aren't we?" she commented, Neville going to one knee beside her so that he could scoop up Trevor from the floor. "Three against one?"

"This doesn't concern you, Granger." Nott attempted to look down his nose at her. Hermione bit back the impulse to suggest he take lessons in this art from one of Neville's Housemates. "It's a private matter, between pureblood wizards."

"That's funny. It looks like garden-variety bullying to me." Hermione poked Neville in the arm with the grip of his wand, and he shifted his hold on Trevor to take it back from her, though she could see his hands shaking as he accepted it. "I was just thinking how nothing had changed between Muggle school and Hogwarts, and here you are proving it again for me."

"You take that back." Nott plunged his hand into his pocket. "Comparing me to some stinking Muggle—"

"My goodness," said a soft tenor voice, and its owner stepped around the corner, his own wand already in his hand and shedding a beam of light over the little tableau. "Whatever seems to be the problem here?"


(A/N: Please note that I'm not active on Facebook or social media any longer, so reviews are the best way to let me know what you think. Whatever you have to say, I do request that you use polite language to say it. Thanks in advance.)