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Now, I take you to December of the year 1990. The war against You-Know-Who was firmly in the past, or, as Mr. Weasley might have enthusiastically offered, "in the rearview mirror." Beaded hats and purses were all the rage in London and Edinburgh. Honeydukes had just tentatively released a new product, the sugar quill, and it had made a delicious debut.

Lucius Malfoy was installed on the board of Hogwarts' school governors. Narcissa Malfoy's Christmas party was the event of the season, exclusive and (if rumor was to be believed) exquisitely indulgent.

In Godric's Hollow, the wreck of the Potters' house slowly filled up with snow. Well-wishers came by, and they didn't stay long, but they left behind wreaths, bouquets, oranges by the basket and amaryllis in pots. Bathilda Bagshot cleared the offerings away after a respectful amount of time.

And Fenrir Greyback? Who knows where he was? The Sycorax prison of London had failed to keep him, and the authorities had generally relaxed their search. Let Old Man Winter hunt him down. How much harm could he do, anyway, twenty-seven days of the month? He's just a Muggle, when you get right down to it.

In the Lovegood house, the Christmas lights were strung haphazardly about. No decorated tree, but pine and fir boughs added scent and color to the place.

The staff of the Quibbler had dwindled something awful—the Lovegoods lost their focus and they forgot to pay their reporters and photographers, until the newspaper was a skeleton of what it once was.

In the Lovegood house, Luna (speaking of skeletons, why doesn't she grow? Why is she so dreadfully thin?) lay on her stomach in front of the fireplace, making sketches with colored pencils. Xenophilius was rereading a book about the Peverell bloodline, and keeping an eye on his girl. The kettle was on.

Pandora was upstairs, in the attic, rifling through her old notebooks. She was looking for a story. Something to fluff up the Christmas edition. Something happy, because it was Christmas and happiness would sell better.

Her gloved hands (it was very cold up there) found a particularly battered notebook, stuffed to the brim with scraps of additional paper. When she opened it, she realized it covered a brief period in time: early November, 1981.

Pandora sat on her heels, looked through the pages, and remembered. After Harry Potter had vanquished You-Know-Who (a mystery still unsolved), Pandora had gone to Godric's Hollow to investigate. Most of their Quibbler staff had been too happy and too hungover to go, so Xeno managed the main office, and Pandora went west.

(Yes, my keen observer, I am going to take you backwards in time again. Thank you for your forbearance.)

Godric's Hollow had been crowded that morning. The Daily Prophet had sent a team of five (though it sounded like more, because they kept arguing)—the editor-in-chief of the Hogsmeade Herald had come herself—and Dublin, Edinburgh, even Brussels and Paris had sent journalists. For a small neighborhood it was quite the event. And everyone wanted to know, how? How in the world did Harry survive?

Pandora spent only a few minutes at the wreckage of the Potter house. She avoided all the neighbors who wanted to talk, wanted their name in the papers. She paced through the streets until she found a woman who was sitting on her front porch, looking at everything but seeing nothing. Her postbox was labeled "B. Bagshot."

Bathilda Bagshot herself, the renowned magical historian. Pandora felt herself in the presence of a kindred spirit. History, like news, is full of things that can't be known, bigger trends to notice, mysteries and imagination and facts and truth—and that's before you bring magic into it.

Pandora managed to sweet-talk Bathilda Bagshot into a short interview. Her secret weapon? A photograph of wee baby Luna. The photo made Bathilda coo and cluck and remark, such eyes that child has!

It was just about tea time. Bathilda served Pandora some tea on the porch. The cake was rather stale. Bathilda admitted she hadn't been herself since word had come that the Potters—that bright and happy family—had been destroyed, the parents killed and the baby taken away. Pandora tried to step lightly on the subject.

They had drunk black tea, seasoned with fairy-bell flowers and lemon. Pandora had begun, "Regarding the events of Halloween night—"

"I don't know why You-Know-Who disappeared," Bathilda had said, interrupting. "How did the boy live, I don't know. The neighbors think he's got the makings of a great warlock—Harry, I mean—but magic doesn't show in babies, not that young."

Pandora's next question had been rather leading. "The Potters—are they one of those families with a particular gift? The Sight, or Weaving…?"

"Generations ago," Bathilda muttered. "You might have called it Crafting. You can still see the foundations of the forge out back—they didn't get the name 'Potter' out of a hat, you know. But that's faded now. James' father, Matthias, had a healing touch, but he would have gotten that from his mother's people, the Thornes." She glanced up at Pandora. "The answer is no."

"Another person in the house, then?" Pandora asked.

"I often saw a stag bounding from the back garden," Bathilda replied, smiling as if at a private joke. In a more serious voice, she said, "If you look in the remains of their house, you'll find lots of books. They were brilliant, those two. A little Eyebright Potion will show you all the Charms that Lily set around the house. Her potions chamber off the kitchen was—well, she was as clever as Cerridwen over the cauldron. Maybe together they could make something. I don't know."

"A potion…" Pandora scribbled that in her notebook.

"Not a potion!" Bathilda had snapped—Pandora's quill had started in her hand, and the page still bore the mark. "There's not an answer! There wasn't some clever plan!" She fell back, and mumbled an apology for her outburst. Pandora accepted the apology… as she drank quickly to finish off her tea, she almost missed Bathilda's next remark: "I never had babies of my own, but I understand there's supposed to be a very old magic there. A mother's love for her child. Sacrifice, a knowing and willing sacrifice. That bond…I don't know. I wasn't there." She started to cry. Pandora changed the subject, finished writing in her shorthand, and thanked Bathilda for revisiting such a difficult subject.

Now Pandora read her notes once, and again. This fragmented excuse for an interview hadn't make the Quibbler's pages. It was all too vague, for one. The readership in those days wasn't interested in shapeless magical theory. They wanted spells and charms and diagrams that worked right away, and page space was short.

But…

Here. 1989. Pandora stared at her own handwriting, forgotten all these years: Knowing and willing sacrifice— Mother's love for her child—

And the idea broke over her like a tide.

To be continued! See you in 2019!