Chapter 2

Seven-year-old Mari could hardly sleep, but it was not because of the pounding rain. Her head was filled with so many thoughts for such a small person. This was a sleepover! A real sleepover! After the first one, she did not think that her parents would allow her to sleep over at the Potters' again; but here she was, tossing and turning in Lily's bed. They had had so much fun, all day, and Mari could not stop thinking about it. The elephants at the zoo were HUGE, and her cousins James and Albus made a bet that she couldn't roar like a lion, and she did! And her cousin Lily loved the monkeys and they both acted like monkeys together, and afterwards Uncle Harry got everyone ice cream, which of course is the yummiest treat to eat in the summer. If only Lenny could come along. But alas, her parents had reminded her that Lenny was just a newborn baby, and that it would be better if he stayed with Mummy for now.

Mari turned over in her sleep, expecting to see Lily sleeping beside her. But there was only a wrinkled set of blankets where Lily had been. Where had she gone? Mari swore Lily had been beside her a minute ago. She had even heard Lily's funny-sounding snores.

She slipped out of bed and tiptoed to Lily's bedroom door. She opened the door a crack and peeked down the hallway, expecting that perhaps there would be a little light coming out from the bottom of the bathroom door down the hall. There was a light on in the house, but it was not from under the bathroom door. Mari could see two streams of light shining dimly downstairs. It sounded like Lily was crying, and she could hear Auntie Ginny and Uncle Harry murmuring to Lily and themselves, but she could not hear what they were saying.

She snuck down, step by step, hoping that the old wood would not protest under her feet, until she was close enough to peer into their living room, but far enough to be hidden in shadow. She was greeted with an odd sight: Lily was hugging Auntie Ginny's legs and wailing softly, and Auntie Ginny and Lily looked soaking wet, as if they had taken a bath in their clothes. Behind them was a trail of wet footprints that led from the back door, which looked to be theirs. Mari found this all to be quite odd. Why would Lily and Auntie Ginny be splashing in the rain so far past bedtime? Was she not invited?

Uncle Harry pointed his thin torch away from Lily and Ginny, so that the light did not shine in their faces. "It's okay, Lils." His voice sounded like a hug. "You can tell me: how did you end up in the tree in the yard?"

Lily's wailing subsided, and she turned her face out from her mother's wet sweatpants to look at her father. "I thought about the zoo, Daddy. Like how we acted like monkeys."

"So you were lying in bed, and you thought about the monkeys. And you wished you could be one?"

"For a second, just a second," she sniffled

"And you ended up in the tree?"

Lily nodded.

Mari was intrigued. She had heard that people sleep walk, and sleep talk, and sleep dance, and all sorts of sleep things, and how those people don't even know they are doing it because they are asleep. That was probably what Lily was doing.

"Were you awake or asleep, Sweetheart?" Ginny asked

"Awake," Lily mumbled.

Ginny kneeled in front of Lily."I know this seems scary, Lily Bud, but you're going to be just fine. This is normal for a young witch your age, sending yourself to places you never meant to go. Mummy and Daddy both did it at your age."

Lily looked to her father. "You did?"

He smiled, "Oh no, I actually didn't transport myself for the first time until I was ten. You know what that means, though, right? It means you're going to be a very powerful witch when you grow up!"

Lily's eyes lit up, and so did Mari's. Lily was a witch, and so were Auntie Ginny and Uncle Harry! Their entire family must have been a band of teleporting witches! It was the only explanation that made sense to Mari, more sense than sleepwalking, because Lily had said she was awake the whole time. She looked harder at the gleam of Auntie Ginny and Uncle Harry's torches, and realized that they were, in fact, not torches at all, but rather long wooden sticks. Magic wands, obviously! Mari could not wait to tell her parents that the Potters were magic and they could send themselves places and shoot pretty light from their magic wands!

"Mari?"

Her heart dropped in her stomach. Uncle Harry was staring up the staircase at her, shining his magic wand in her direction.

"Mari?"

Fifteen-year-old Mari woke up with a very unattractive snort, rubbing the ghastly kink in her neck that she always developed when sleeping in odd positions. She looked across her spot in her grandmother's floral print armchair to Lenny, fast asleep in a wooden rocking chair, then to her grandmother and father sitting on the couch opposite. Gran had been crying for hours, it seemed, and Mari and Lenny had been subjected to the uncomfortable position that they had been in for years: the children who look on as the two adults in the room have a deep, personal conversation. Except now, she was not sitting in her dad's living room, listening to her parents discuss their marriage in full view of their children. She was watching her grandmother sob, as her father comforted her. Not that Mari was not sympathetic, but for some reason it did not seem proper. After all, her grandmother was obsessed with appearances, and she had never seen her cry such ugly tears.

"Mari," Dudley said, "Could you brew some tea for your Gran?"

"BuhImsleeping," she mumbled.

Dudley raised an eyebrow and dropped his head. Mari assumed that was the look he once used to intimidate his opponents in his old boxing days.

"Fine."

She blew some stray hairs out of her face and dragged herself to the kitchen. Under normal circumstances, her Gran would be looking over her shoulder, ensuring that Mari did not spill a single drop of tea on the immaculate kitchen counter. Now, though, Mari was left alone. Sometimes it was better that way.

She was a bit ruffled at her dad for waking her up. She had been in the middle of good dream. It was hard to remember all of it, because she was kicked out of it as deeply as she had been in it, but she knew it was a recollection of her second sleepover at the Potter house. The memory was a bit hazy, but her dad had retold the story so many times it was not hard to pick up the pieces: Mari and Lily were both seven at the time. That day, her parents had let her go to the zoo with the Potters, and that night, she had been allowed to sleep over. She realized Lily was not in her bed, and found her with her parents downstairs, soaking wet. As the story goes, Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry had forgotten to lock the back door, and Lily had sleep walked into the pouring rain. According to her dad, Mari had been so frightened by the entire experience that she was not allowed to have sleepovers again until she was twelve.

Mari waddled over to her Gran in the living room, regretting having filled the mug so high. Her grandmother sniffled, took a sip, and murmured, "too much sugar."

"It's all so confusing," her grandmother said quietly, after stirring her tea for a little while, "I've felt overwhelmed with the organization of it all: the funeral arrangements, the financial matters, not to mention going through your father's old things...so much to decide. The funeral director is even asking me for pictures for the slide show, and obviously I want the guests to see photos of Vernon at his best."

"We can help, Mum," Dudley murmured, "I can help with the funeral arrangements and look through Dad's old things, and Mari and Lenny can pick out some nice photographs for the slide show."

Mari would have missed it if she had not been looking: her grandmother issued a sharp look in her father's direction. Mari was almost sure that her Gran had no intention of giving any of the responsibilities away. If she did, then how on earth would she be able to continue to lament about the enormous weight on her shoulders?

"Thank you, Duddykins," Petunia said, "So helpful, I always said that Vernon and I raised you above the rest-"

"Exactly," Mari interjected, "You've been working so hard, Dad, trying to help Gran with the funeral and all. How about Lenny and I find some good pictures and look through Grandad's things?"

Petunia hesitated, "Well, I suppose there are a lot of Vernon's old things in the attic-"

"Great, we'll start there!" Mari practically grabbed Lenny, who was now awake, and hurried upstairs.

"Don't throw anything away until you've asked us!" Dudley shouted after them.

The two of them hopped their way up the stairs to the attic. Or rather, Mari hopped her way up the stairs and half-dragged her brother behind her.

"Stop it! You're hurting me!" Lenny whined

"Shut up," Mari whispered. The stairs to the attic were steeper and older, covered in shadow. Mari let go of him as she opened the attic door. When they were both in the quiet of the attic, surrounded by cardboard boxes on the floor and dust floating in the air, she closed the door. She thought she looked rather like she did as a child, whenever she would steal snacks from the fridge. She turned to her brother and exhaled.

"What are you lying to Dad and Gran about?" Lenny asked

"What do you mean? I'm not lying about anything."

"Yes, you are. Whenever you lie, you go into another room and you let out a huge breath, like you just went swimming."

"When was the last time I did that?"

"That time you went on a date with Artie, and Mum asked what you had been doing, and you said you were studying for your exams-"

"Well, I'm not lying to them this time." Mari's cheeks were glowing a bright red. "We are going to look through Grandad's things...except, I'm looking for something. A key to Uncle Harry's past."

"Why Uncle Harry? We already know everything about Uncle Harry!"

How could he not realize? The reality was eating through Mari's brains, maddening enough to scratch, and her brother truly wanted to accept, to digest everything that the world had given him. But that was what young children did, she supposed, just like she did. She was Lenny's age when she accepted and digested until the absurdity of what she had consumed gave her the greatest stomach ache of her life. No, not a stomach ache: an itch.

"Right then, what subjects do they teach at his old boarding school?"

"I dunno, like the usual? Maths and English and stuff?"

"And is that because you know or because you guess?"

"What kind of school doesn't teach Maths and English?"

"Here's another one: what department does Uncle Harry work for? Or Victoire and Teddy for that matter?"

"They're police, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but for what department? Police officers work for different departments, Lenn. How do we not know what department of law enforcement he works for?"

Lenny grumbled and shrugged. It was a shrug that clearly said, 'I'm only eight. Stop harassing me.'

"I dunno, 'cause not everyone remembers what police department their uncle works for?"

"It's not that we don't remember, Lenn. It's that we were never told. You don't think that's a little weird?"

"Maybe, a little."

"And here's my biggest question: why did Grandad not get on with Uncle Harry?"

"Because Grandad is grumpy and only likes certain people?"

Is. Likes.

After everything Mari had ever thought or said about her grandfather, she still felt like she had missed a step down the stairs.

"Grandad 'was' and Grandad 'liked', Lenny. He's not here anymore."

Lenny sank next to a cardboard box. "I miss how Grandad would get us gifts whenever we would come over."

Mari nodded. "He used to get me these porcelain dolls. He knew that I liked the ones from different countries, so he would get those the most."

"I remember."

"Just because Grandad was good to us doesn't mean he was good to everyone, Lenn," Mari murmured. "Do you ever get the feeling that you're the exception to the rule? That the world works one way and you're just being kept in a bubble that works another way?"

But, like every time she had tried to have a philosophical conversation with the eight-year-old, he was in one place: not in front of her. Lenny seemed to dive head first into the nearest box, and Mari was worried he would fall in, not because the box was large but because Lenny was so short. Mari rushed to hold him in place, and after several scratchings and scrapings of cardboard Lenny resurfaced holding a large black binder emblazoned with the Grunnings logo.

"Do you suppose Uncle Harry's top secret spy files are in here?" he asked.

"We can find out."