Standard disclaimers apply!

I do not own Harry Potter. I have nothing to do with Scholastic, Warner Bros or Bloomsbury. I'm not JKR and I am certainly not making any profit out of this.

25th August, 1997

Wilfred couldn't believe this was happening. He'd been extremely wary of signing the Muggle-Born Register; but there hadn't been much option, considering he'd had a personal visit from several "Ministry Officials", who had essentially insisted that he sign the damn thing.

Ministry Officials, indeed. He'd never seen them before, and he'd been in and out of the ministry for years now. It wasn't until he'd perceived a veiled threat toward his daughters that he'd finally capitulated.

Still, he'd though he'd be alright. Supposedly the hearing had been to establish wizarding heritage in his ancestry ... and he had that! His paternal grandfather had been a wizard, who had fallen in love with – and married – a muggle girl from the village. It had been a bit of a scandal at the time, and Wilfred had been quite sure that there were still some alive today, in Godric's Hollow, who would remember gossip about the whole affair.

He'd been right about that. Old Bathilda remembered it all quite clearly; she'd written at statement to that effect and even found a few old diary entries from the time, recalling the to-do. He also had photographs of the grave of his great-grandparents; along with birth, marriage and death certificates clearly proving his lineage.

But she wouldn't listen.

Why wouldn't she listen?

Dolores Umbridge had accused him of stealing another wizards magic. Frankly, it was physically impossible to do so. You either had magic or you didn't, there wasn't any in-between and it certainly wasn't possible for a muggle to steal magic! The very idea was ludicrous!

26th August, 1997

They hadn't even allowed him a proper good-bye. Audrey and Hannah's stunned, horrified expressions remained with him. All he had managed was to call out "I love you!" before the Dementors had dragged him away.

27th August, 1997

Cold. Cold and dark and dank. Over and over he relived his worst memories. His father's lingering death to cancer. His mother's body swinging from the rafters in the attic a few short weeks later. And his Lucy ... it always came back to Lucy.

Cold and lifeless in the front room, porcelain perfect among the chaos of smashed furniture.

This would never have happened if Lucy had still been with him. She would have fixed it. Lucy could fix everything. Lucy was well respected in the ministry, and she knew the laws backwards. Maybe that's why they'd killed her.

He wondered how Audrey and Hannah were coping without them.

31st August 1997

Holy hell the screaming. He really couldn't stand the screaming. They never shut up ... especially at night. He tried to shove himself into the corner of his cell, wrap the blanket around his head, hide from it all ... but he couldn't block it out, it permeated everything and his even his bones were ringing with it.

Lucy's hair was brown like Audrey's, and there were shards of glass glittering in the curling ends as her blue eyes – so like Hannah's – blinked up at him. They'd never blinked at him before. He wondered how that could work, when her neck was at such mistaken angle.

He didn't care how it worked, as long as he didn't have to look at his Mum's dangling feet anymore.

His jaw ached, and why did his throat hurt so?

3rd September 1997

Lucy always had the answers. She took Mum down from the rafters and told her not to be silly; Dad was just around the corner getting the paper and some milk. Lucy made everyone tea.

Wilfred liked tea.

So that's the second half. Cheerful, aye?