A/N: Short chapter to get me back into things.


First year continues in a similar fashion and then, just like that, it's over. The journey back to London is uneventful, if you don't count the mild commotion caused by a packet of Filibusters going off in the next compartment.

"Weasley," I say, popping the lid on my butterbeer. The trolley witch came by just in time to avoid the mayhem.

Violet rolls her eyes. "Yes, very clever, Annie. It's always a Weasley."

"Bet you don't know which one."

"Are you going to go off about Ja- about you-know-who again?"

"Actually, Vi," I counter, keeping a straight face. "I don't think Voldemort is responsible for this one."

Violet chucks a Chocolate Frog and I duck. She has a shockingly good arm.

"I still can't believe," Violet grumbles, "that you didn't know about the Wizarding War until Binns told us."

"I knew a bit," I say, unwrapping the frog. "He's been droning about wizarding wars since September. How was I supposed to know which to pay attention to?"

"Well, maybe if you read a book once in a while…"

I raise her an astonished glance and Violet grins, pleased with herself. "Just checking that you're paying attention now."

"I'm always paying attention," I say, untruthfully. "Hey, look-" I dig the card out of the frog box. "There's You-Know-Who now!"

Violet executes an odd movement somewhere between a double take and a shudder. "You're joking."

"Yes. I am." I hold the card up to the light. "It's Harry Potter."

The black-haired figure on the card waves his wand and grins at us, looking indecently like James.

"First time you've gotten him," Violet comments, biting the head off her own frog. "Still, enough war jokes."

I catch the tone and relent. "Sorry. Exploding Snap?"

Vi acquiesces, sniggering. "I always thought wizard's chess ought to be more your thing."

"Nope," I say, shuffling the cards with extreme caution. "Chess is all my stuffy relatives will play. I'm kind of over it."

Violet takes two hair elastics off her wrist, snaps one of them in my direction. "I've never heard you talk about them," she says with interest, pulling her curls into a thick ponytail and out of harm's way.

I dive beneath the compartment table after the elastic. "There's not much to tell. I'm in for a dull summer if you don't come take me out of my misery."

"Of course. We'll talk with our parents at the station."

"You may need to step into King's Cross with me. I'm not sure Mum will be on the platform."

But she is. I'm trailing Violet and two of her many brothers towards a distinguished-looking man in silk robes when I catch a familiar whiff of perfume.

"Mum?"

"And here I thought I'd sneak up on you in the crowd," she teases. "Still impossible."

Mum's as beautiful as ever, in an understated way: white blouse, jeans, chestnut hair pulled back in a low ponytail. She makes no move to embrace me until I step forward, signaling that touch is okay, and then she squeezes until I think I'll never breathe again.

When we break apart, she tucks a singed lock of hair behind my ear. "That brings back memories. Is there a story behind it?"

"Just a card game," I grin. "My friend Violet- Violet!"

"Your friend?"

"Just a sec, Mum." I call out again, and in a moment Violet appears, dragging the distinguished wizard I saw before out of the crowd. His dark skin is precisely the same shade as hers, and his smile, when he sees us, is the same familiar grin that splits Violet's face so often.

"Mr. Asaju?"

"Indeed. And are you the Andrea who fills up so many of my daughter's letters home?"

Mum, meanwhile, takes one look at Violet and sweeps her into a huge embrace.

"Yes, sir. I'm afraid that between us we've put some miles on the school owls."

"Well, if you don't mind stretching a few more wings, my daughter has told me in no uncertain terms that you're to spend some time with us this summer."

"Yes, sir!" I say eagerly. "But we live in Muggle London. I can't answer for what the neighbors might notice."

"Most of them notice very little," Mr. Asaju reassures me. "But I have some understanding of how to use a telephone…"

He must note my surprise, because he adds, "Some of my work in the Ministry, you understand…"

"Of…of course." I've suspected before now that the Muggle and wizarding ministries keep tabs on each other. Before I have time to lose myself in thought over this, Violet nudges me.

"I thought you said your Mum was shy!"

"I thought so, too," I mutter back. Mum's begun a conversation with Mr. Asaju and one of his elder sons, not a trace of apprehension on her face. This is a far cry from the timid woman who left me on the platform in September.

"She looks like you," Violet decides. "Except for the eyes, of course."

"Is your stepmum here?"

"No. It sounds like Remi has billyfever." She makes a face at me. "I'll be sure to have you over once he stops scratching and hovering."

"Here," I say, hurriedly scrawling my phone number and address on a scrap of parchment. "I'll get on Mum about the owl, okay? But in the meantime…"

Violet scrutinizes the parchment with interest. "Muggles sure are fond of numbers, huh? Bet they'd be great at Arithmancy."

"You don't know the half of it. But your dad knows what to do with them. Find an old-fashioned phone booth if you can. Modern phones are stuffed with so many electronics that I don't know what being in your house might do to them."

"Oh…right." Violet glances involuntarily at my wrist. "Do you want your dead watch back?"

"No, it's yours. Come over this summer and I'll show you cooler things than that."

"I echo the invitation, Violet," says Mum, who has wrapped up her conversation with Violet's father and stepped toward us. "Any friend of Annie's…"

Violet smiles, plans are made, and when Mum and I step into the cab outside King's Cross Station, silence doesn't follow us home.

"Well?" she demands, turning toward me with a sly little smile I don't know the meaning of. "How was Hogwarts?"

I can't help rolling my eyes a little at this. "Mum, I wrote you every week."

"Yes, and there are the feathers on the windowsill to prove it. Took some getting used to, let me tell you. One of your letters came by when the landlady was visiting, did you know that?"

I stifle a giggle and venture the question that's been resting on my mind for months.

"So, do I get my own owl next year?"

"Maybe…with conditions."

"Two letters a week?"

"Done," Mum says, squeezing my shoulder. "And you show me around Diagon Alley."

I whip my head around. "You really mean it?"

"Yes. I've decided even I can wrap my head around this. Your power…well, it's hardly the strangest thing that's ever happened to me."

I don't question this. I'm not even the strangest person she's ever lived with.

"So," she says, after a pause. "Tell me about Violet."

What can I say that she hasn't heard already? I'll start at the beginning, the things I noticed at the start of term before Violet and I exchanged so much as a greeting, and move on from there.

"Four foot one," I say. "Six siblings, all boys, and one half-brother. Shoe size 9.5. Deceased mother, good relationship with stepmother; slight friction caused by the latter's overenthusiasm at raising a girl. Hair curlers and the like. Fond of Bertie Botts, for some unholy reason. Technology nerd-in-training, thanks to me."

Mum's shaking her head.

"What?"

"I've missed you," she says into thin air, and I'm not sure whether the sentiment is directed at me or not.