Hermione stared at her plate, half-hearing a discussion between Terry Boot and Morag MacDougal about the angles of Jupiter's moons. As thrilled and excited as she'd been to embark on the Hogwarts Express, as marvelous as it was to be learning real magic at last, it hadn't dawned on her until this morning that she'd be spending her twelfth birthday away from home.
I will not cry. I will not cry. She bit her lip as the post owls soared into the Hall. Or if I do, I won't let anyone see it.
A sturdy-looking barn owl swooped down towards her, an envelope in its talons, and Hermione smiled, her tears receding as she reached up to catch it. Her name was written on the outside in her mother's prettiest handwriting, and she had no doubt her father had picked out a birthday card that would make her laugh, groan, or both, with good wishes and love for the upcoming year inscribed inside.
Maybe I can't be with them today, but I'm thinking of them, and they're thinking of me. She cradled the card between her hands. That's one way Jeanie and I have always been the same.
A flutter of feathers overhead caught her eye just in time for her to shove the card hastily into her pocket and catch another falling letter—and another—and another—
"What in the world?" Hermione stared down at the trio of tiny envelopes now nestling into her hands. "I wasn't expecting anything else today."
"Do you have a secret admirer?" said Mandy from across the table. "Or three of them, I suppose?"
"It could always be one of those chain owl things." Padma made a face. "You know, pass this along to ten people you know or else all your cauldrons will melt."
"Can we send them on to Professor Snape, then?" asked Anthony Goldstein, sparking laughter up and down the benches.
Smiling for form's sake, Hermione weighed the three envelopes in her palm, then tugged open the one which had landed last, now lying atop the other two. Inside was a small piece of parchment, with a few words inscribed across its center in carefully neat handwriting.
Many happy returns of the day.
"Oh!" Hermione covered her mouth with her free hand. Once she had her breathing under control, she tore open the second envelope.
All the best, and many more, this note read, in a thin handwriting with tall vertical lines.
"Isn't that nice." Hermione laid her fingertips against the note, starting to smile for real. "Someone sent me birthday wishes."
Resisting the urge to turn around and look for a certain pale blond head at the next table over, or a messy black one at the table beyond that, she opened the final envelope.
Congratulations on Ravenclaw, was scribbled messily across the parchment with a backwards slant, and best wishes on your birthday.
"Odd." Hermione traced the letters with a fingertip. "I wonder who this could be from."
Setting it aside as a mystery for later, she tucked away her unexpected notes and took out her parents' card once more. Her earlier homesickness had subsided to the back of her mind, overtaken by her usual fluttering excitement that at least one aspect of her otherwise troubling dreams was both true and wonderful.
Magic was real, and loose in the world, and some of it belonged to her.
As Harry passed the giant hourglasses which recorded House points, he heard a rattle and turned to look. Five rubies had just dropped into the lower segment which meant positive points for Gryffindor, and a moment later five chunks of topaz rattled into Hufflepuff's lower segment as well.
"Nice to see," said Draco, arriving at Harry's shoulder, "but why?"
"Who knows." Harry shrugged. "You secretly a professor, 'Rion?" he asked the red-coated dog beside Draco, who panted a few times as if he were laughing. "Giving us points on the sly, to make up for all the times Snape takes them away for no reason?"
"I wish." Draco hitched his bag a little higher on his shoulder. "We going down to Hagrid's again tomorrow?"
"Don't see why not."
At lunch the following Tuesday, Harry turned his head as two words in conjunction caught his ear from the Ravenclaw table, where several of his yearmates were discussing that morning's Defense Against the Dark Arts class.
"Did they say Professor Lupin's ill?" asked Lavender Brown, craning her neck as if this would help her hear better. "I hope it doesn't last long. He said we'd be having a practical lesson this week, so we don't get too bored with bookwork."
"He didn't look well yesterday either," said Fred Weasley, frowning. "I wonder if he was already coming down with whatever it is."
"Once or twice I thought he was going to shout at someone," George put in. "That's not like him at all."
"If it was you two," said Percy coldly, "I'm sure you deserved it."
The twins assumed an expression of great innocence, sending a wave of snickers around the table, and Harry ducked down to pull a particular textbook out of his bag, flipping it open to a certain section and running his finger down a chart. If he remembered right—
Shutting his Astronomy text, he slid it back away and sat up. "It's probably nothing too bad," he said. "My uncle used to get these nasty headaches every so often. We just had to stay quiet and keep out of his way until he was better."
"And goodness knows, there's enough of the castle to keep out of anybody's way in," said Angelina Johnson, a third-year witch who played Chaser for Gryffindor's Quidditch team. Tryouts had been held the previous week, though it was a subject of academic interest only to Harry and Ron, since first years, lacking broomsticks of their own, couldn't participate in the sport. "Professor Dumbledore's probably already assigned him a room in one of the far towers, and put up some good Privacy Charms on it…"
Harry sat back with a little smile, running a finger around the top of his goblet of pumpkin juice.
XXXXX
Ryan lit his wand, peering down the narrow tunnel which led to the Shrieking Shack. "Chronic headaches? We're still going with that?"
"Why waste a perfectly good story?" John stopped, bracing himself against the tunnel's side with a hand. His joints were already starting to complain about the nearness of moonrise. "Besides, it's the one the children are all used to. They can honestly say that I've always been like this." He smiled one-sidedly. "And in fact, this month will be better than it ever has been before."
"I'm just sorry we never knew about that stuff until now." Ryan offered his arm, but John waved him away. "Pretty recent development, though, isn't it? Probably somebody's passion project, and they've been poking at it for years until they finally got it right."
"Now the next question is, how can it get to the people who need it?" John blew out his breath, trying to focus past both the slowly mounting pain and the waves of memory which seemed almost tangible in this place. "Most of them live day to day, with minimal or no family support. They won't have the space or the wherewithal to brew something this complicated, never mind the money to buy some of those ingredients. And distributing it free, or at a reduced cost, would be fantastic, but then we run into the problem of trying to keep it anonymous…"
"How about we get through tonight before we start trying to solve the whole world's problems, huh?" Ryan reached upwards to undo the latch on the trapdoor into the Shack. "You thinking about them too?" he asked softly over his shoulder.
"Only a lot." John accepted his friend's help to climb up and out of the trapdoor, and sank down gratefully onto a battered, dusty couch as Ryan shut and latched it behind them. "Why did he do it, Padfoot?" he asked, gazing at the far wall with its peeling paint as though it held an answer to the question he'd never stopped asking. "Why did Peter turn against us?"
"We'll never know. At least in this world we won't." Ryan pulled a miniature bag from his pocket and returned it to normal size before sliding his wand back into its holster up his sleeve. "But if I had to guess? I'd say fear. The war scared Wormtail right out of his ratty little socks, and he latched onto what looked like his best chance to stay alive." For a moment, another man's darkness peered out of the silvery eyes. "He never stopped to think there are worse fates out there than death."
"By that standard, you showed him mercy." John closed his own eyes, remembering the shy, painfully eager boy he'd met on his first day at Hogwarts, whose choices he hadn't yet known would shape so much of his life. "And who knows? Maybe someday I'll dream up an answer for us."
"Here's hoping." Ryan set the bag down on the floor with a thump. "All right, let's see what the house-elves put together for us. How come they like you better than me, anyway?"
"Raw sex appeal."
"Moony, do you have any idea how disturbing that sounds?"
"Of course." John opened his eyes to grin at his friend. "Why else would I have said it?"
XXXXX
Harry stepped through the door of the Defense classroom and stopped in surprise. The desks had all been stacked neatly against the far wall, and translucent partitions jutted out from the side walls every few feet, giving the room the look of a shooting gallery. And leaning against the teacher's desk, looking tired and worn but smiling nonetheless—
"Professor Lupin!"
"You're back!"
"Is your head feeling better?"
"Should we stay quiet today?"
Lupin chuckled. "Is that something you can do, Finnigan?" he asked, making Seamus grin self-consciously. "Thank you, everyone. I'm quite all right now. This does happen to me from time to time, but it's nothing you need to be concerned about. Now, if you'll all set your bags down in the back corner there, you'll only be needing your wands today…"
Harry set his bag next to Ron's and returned to the middle of the room, his wand tucked into the side pocket of his robes.
"As every wizard and witch knows, the wand is the basic tool with which we perform our sort of magic," said Lupin when the class had come to some semblance of order. "Most of your classes rely on wandwork, and even subjects like Potions occasionally have wanded elements to them. Now, I want you to think back over what you've been learning in Charms. What are the three basic elements of a wanded spell?"
Hands went up around the group. Lupin pointed at a stocky Hufflepuff boy. "Macmillan?"
"Visualization, incantation, and wand movement, Professor."
"Correct. And yet, not entirely complete." Lupin drew his own wand, the movement smooth and practiced. "If, for instance, I decide I want to levitate my desk…" He swirled the wand through a swish and flick. "Wingardium leviosa!"
Draco, near the front of the group, yelped in surprise as his feet left the floor. Orion cocked his head to one side, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
"I don't think that spell was entirely successful," said Lupin mildly over the laughter of the rest of the class, and lowered Draco back to the ground. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Malfoy."
"That's all right, Professor." Draco shook his head briskly. "So you're saying we need to learn to hit what we're aiming at?"
"Precisely. The best technique in the world won't do you any good if you can't get the spell to its target. Speaking of which." Lupin waved his wand once more, in a graceful curve down one side of the room and up the other, and bulls-eye targets appeared along the walls, one in each cubicle. "Everyone pick a place, and when I tell you—and only when I tell you—start shooting sparks towards these. Your friend will need to wait in the hall, Malfoy," he added to Draco as the other students started towards the cubicles. "Burning fur smells worse than wet."
"Understood, sir." Draco started for the door, Orion at his heel as usual.
Harry chose a cubicle about halfway down the right-hand wall, in between Ron and Hannah Abbott, who was gripping her wand so tightly Harry was surprised it hadn't squeaked. "I never tried to do this before," she whispered. "What if I mess it up?"
"Consider this a placement test, to see where your current levels are," Lupin called over the sound of the last few students finding a spot. "There is no possible way you can fail this exercise."
"Has he seen Neville's wandwork lately?" Ron murmured to Harry.
"Wands at the ready." Lupin's voice filled the room, and Harry turned to face the wall, pulling his wand from his pocket. "And…begin."
Dear Tonks,
We had the best Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson ever yesterday. It was actual target practice, and I was good at it! Just shooting sparks, but I still hit the target almost every time, and Professor Lupin said I had a good eye and I'll only get better with practice. I guess all those times you let me mess around with your wand paid off. Harry was pretty good at it too, and Ron was okay. Neville…well, the only thing he set on fire was himself, and Professor Lupin was able to put it out. Got exciting for a minute there, though.
Harry said you recognized Professor Lupin from his parents' wedding picture. (Harry's parents, not Professor Lupin's.) His given name's Remus, and I guess he was friends with Harry's parents and our crazy cousin Sirius way back when. I'm super curious about that, but I'm not really sure how to ask him, or even if I want to. It might be kind of rude, especially after everything that's happened.
My other classes are going all right, mostly. Transfiguration is confusing, and History of Magic is boring, but I'm not too bad at Astronomy and Potions, and for Herbology I just keep an eye on Neville. He always knows what he's doing with plants. Charms wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have it with the Slytherins. They love to miss on purpose so other people get nailed with their spells, and Professor Flitwick just keeps saying that's to be expected from beginners. Maybe that's why Professor Lupin held a class on hitting what you're aiming at, so they won't have that excuse anymore.
My friends and I go down to Hagrid's place most Friday afternoons (that's where we are right now). It gives Orion and Fang a chance to play together, and Hagrid can tell us all about what's happening in the Forest. Harry has his stories about growing up with the Muggles, and this other thing he was working on over the summer, though I think he had to stop when we got to school, but he might pick it up again soon. Ron has some good stuff to tell from Bill and Charlie's letters. Neville and I mostly listen, but maybe that'll change one of these days.
Diggory said to say hi if I was writing to you, so hi from him. Speaking of, the Hufflepuff Quidditch matches this year are 14 December (Ravenclaw), 21 February (Gryffindor), and 18 April (Slytherin). Think you can make any of them? Be great to see you if you could.
Write back soon and let me know how Auror-ing is going. And yes, I know that's not a word, but you understood me anyway.
Yours,
Mal
P.S. I got into the Music Society. Our first concert is 25 October. Do you know any spells to get rid of stomach butterflies?
P.P.S. Harry says hi too.
P.P.P.S. Do you know anything about the burglary attempt at Gringotts? Weird that it happened the day we were all there. The Prophet said the vault that was broken into had just been emptied. I wonder if we saw whoever did it…
Dear Mal,
Got those dates marked down on my calendar. Short of death, destruction, or an Azkaban breakout (which, Merlin's boxer briefs, I hope not), I'll be there. No spells for stomach butterflies as far as I know, but I'll send you some Ginger Gems. Got me through N.E.W.T.s, so they ought to help with a concert. What're you playing, or is it secret till day of? And tell Diggory I say hi back, and he'd better be practicing hard. Who's Seeking for Ravenclaw this year, do you know? I thought they might be scouting that little Chang girl, but I could be wrong.
Even if I knew about the Gringotts break-in, why do you think I'd tell you anything, you cheeky git? I'm not getting chucked out of my apprenticeship (which is going fine, thanks) just because I have a nosy little cousin. Figure it out for yourself.
So Cousin Sirius' friend is one of your professors now? And a good one, it sounds like. Try and get in some practice whenever you can if you want to keep improving, though you should know that already. As for asking him questions, I'd let it lie for the moment. You aren't wrong about being rude, though it was quite a while ago by now, so maybe he'd be okay talking about it. Can't be sure from here.
For everything else, it sounds like you've found a good routine, and some good friends. I'm glad to hear it. Take care of Orion, and behave yourself, if that's possible.
See you soon,
Tonks
P.S. Say hi to Harry and Ron for me, would you? Also, remind Harry I'm going to need his help with a certain report one of these days, so he'd better be thinking about it…
As Harry was leaving the Herbology greenhouse on Monday, he heard someone call his name, and turned back.
"You dropped this," said Hermione Granger, holding out a piece of paper folded into fourths. Her face was carefully blank, as though she were afraid to show even a trace of emotion about what she had in her hand.
"Thanks." Harry accepted the paper and looked down at it, then back up at Hermione. "Was there something else?"
"I wrote to my mother." Hermione had her arms wrapped around her bag, her eyes fixed on the paper in Harry's hand. "After our first week of school, I wrote to her. And she says…" A deep, shuddering breath. "She says I've always been an only child. My parents thought they might never have children at all. I was a surprise, coming so late as I did." She looked up at Harry, defiance and misery warring for place in the brown eyes. "So, now you know."
Before Harry could say anything, she had pushed past him and was running towards the castle.
"What's with her?" asked Ron, stepping out of the greenhouse with several smudges of dirt across his hands and face (the class had been studying the proper moisture levels for various types of plants).
"I dropped something. She was just giving it back." Harry slid his web of names into his pocket, making a mental note to put it away in the pouch under the lid of his trunk once he got back to the dorm.
After I add in that Aunt Gigi might not even exist on this side of things…
XXXXX
At breakfast on Wednesday, Mal's whoop of delight as he scanned the first paragraph of a letter startled several owls into flight. "Postseason!"
"Postseason?" Henry turned around eagerly, and Mal held up the letter for him to see. "Let's go Trucks!"
"Let's go Trucks!" Mal agreed, making a V-shape with the first two fingers of his right hand and poking them forward horizontally twice. "Would have to be the year we leave the country, though."
"It's like going to the ballpark with Aunt Gigi." Henry waved cheerily at his aunt, who waved back from the teachers' table, then repeated Mal's gesture with a smile. "All the good stuff starts happening as soon as she heads for the bathroom."
"What're the Trucks?" asked Ron, taking another spoonful of eggs.
"They're our crosseball team, back home. The Pittsburgh Bowtruckles." Henry demonstrated the gesture for himself. "This's how you cheer for them, like how actual bowtruckles try and poke people's eyes out if they think you're threatening their trees."
"Cool." Ron grinned once. "And you already know how to cheer for the Cannons."
"We know how you cheer for the Cannons, Boom Boom," said Mal over his shoulder. "That's very different than knowing how a sane or normal person does it."
Ron shrugged and went back to smearing ketchup across his eggs.
"So how come the Bowtruckles?" asked Ron later as he and Henry made their way towards the stairs, Jeanie cutting across the stream of students to join them. "Are there a lot of trees where you live or something?"
"There really are." Henry nodded. "Half the town names near us have something to do with that. Forest Hills, White Oak, Edgewood…"
"And some of the best wand wood in America comes from the Allegheny National Forest, which is right next door to us." Jeanie pressed her two fists together. "Bowtruckles hitched a ride with the earliest wizarding settlers, and they've been there ever since. But that's not the only reason." She reached over and plucked a bit of lint from Ron's shoulder. "Did you ever notice, when you and Henry were writing back and forth, the biggest difference between us?"
"You mean apart from an ocean?" Ron shook his head. "No idea. What is it?"
"We went to school. Muggle school, I mean." Jeanie whisked her fingers around herself and Henry. "We did activities there, clubs and sports and things. Dad and Aunt Thea had Muggle jobs, even if Aunt Thea had a magical one too. And we lived on a mostly Muggle street, and played with the neighbor kids a fair bit. We'd get together with other magical families on special occasions, but most of the people we saw on any given day were Muggles."
"Where we mostly keep ourselves to ourselves." Ron let his hand trail along the stones of the wall as they walked. "It sounds weird to me. Not being able to use magic whenever you want, having to hide it away all the time."
"There's plenty of places we can use magic. Sometimes they're even pretty obvious." Henry traded a grin with Jeanie. "The Ministry of Magic is underground in London, right? So they have space to put everything and the Muggles won't notice it?"
"Never been there myself, but that's what Dad says. Why?"
"Because in Pittsburgh, it's right out in the open." Henry drew his wand and sketched a towered structure in lines of light. "This giant glass castle in the middle of downtown. And the Muggles don't think anything of it, because they've all been told it's the headquarters of a company that makes glass!"
"No way!" Ron laughed out loud. "I'd love to see that."
"You'll have to come and visit sometime." Jeanie nodded matter-of-factly. "Maybe over the summer, or even at Christmas. But what I was saying is, because we live so closely with Muggles, it's best if things like our sports teams sound similar to theirs. That way, if they hear us talking about them, they'll think they just heard it wrong."
"The Muggle baseball team is called the Pirates," Henry took over, "but that doesn't shorten up very well. So instead, if you want to cheer for them, it's 'Let's go Bucs', like buccaneers."
"And the crosseball cheer is 'Let's go Trucks'. You could mix those up easy." Ron made the eye-poking gesture for himself. "What about, what's it called, Quodpot? With the exploding Quaffle?"
"The Streelers. Big venomous snails that change color," Jeanie added before Ron could ask. "And that's only one letter away from the Muggle football team, so hardly anyone can tell."
"Watching the Streelers play is pretty great." Henry waved a hand towards his robes. "The bits of their uniforms that aren't black? They change color while they're flying, gold to blue to red and back again. And the closer the ball is to blowing up, the faster the changes go."
Ron scowled. "Your lives sound like more fun than mine."
"I think everybody feels that way sometimes." Jeanie smiled. "But we're all Hogwarts students now, aren't we? And what could be more fun than that?"
(A/N: A shorter chapter than some, but this seemed like a good breakpoint. All the places Henry mentions are real, although as far as I know no wizarding institutions exist there, and "we need to score, go to the bathroom" is my family's running joke with me at baseball games.
Please remember that it's very encouraging and helpful to me if you, O readers, can take a few moments and leave a response. Let me know something you enjoyed, or a question you have, or, yes, a criticism if you have one of those, though I do request that you phrase it politely. I will never make new chapters contingent on receiving a certain number of responses, but knowing that you are still reading and enjoying helps me keep my motivation up, and the reverse is also true. A big thanks to everyone who has already chosen to respond, thanks in advance to all my readers, and I hope to post more soon!)
