A.N.: I should probably mention, in this universe, Theseus and Leta had a son, Hector, who had eight children, one of whom is Ellaria.

Eldest of the Pleiades

Magical Cooperation

"Are you sure, Harry? You don't have to - "

"No, I want to come," Harry said adamantly, and Hermione hid her triumphant smirk as they strode determinedly to the first-floor corridor where Hufflepuff students usually disappeared after dinner. "But won't they all be working? I mean - won't they be doing dinner - and don't they clean the rest of the castle in the evenings?"

"Yes, but not until the students are all asleep," Hermione said.

"You mean they have to wait around until you've stopped revising for the night before they're allowed to come up and clean the Gryffindor Common Room, before they can go to bed?" Fred asked innocently, giving Hermione a wide-eyed look. She blinked, as if she hadn't thought of that, then looked very annoyed as she reached out and tickled the pear on the large still-life painting of the fruit bowl.

"Harry Potter!" The squeak echoed across the cavernous hall, and Dobby the house-elf came rushing forward, thoroughly winding Harry, who had braced for the impact.

"Hi, Dobby. Thanks for the flowers," Harry said, remembering the Torero marigolds that had appeared on his nightstand in the dormitory his first night out of the Hospital Wing, twirling and flourishing in an elegantly aggressive way, the vivid scarlet petals edged in gold. A handmade and hideous card had read, 'To cheer Harry Potter up after his courageous duel against He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, Dobby is proud to call himself Harry Potter's friend. P.S. Please could Harry Potter visit Winky before he leaves for the summer holidays, Sir? She is most distressed still.'

"Harry Potter! You is come to visit again!" the elf said breathlessly.

"I would've come sooner, but we're back in lessons, and I don't know when your day off is," Harry said honestly. He might have thought about putting the Invisibility Cloak on to sneak down the last couple of nights, for a cup of tea and a snack, just to put off having to try falling back to sleep after nightmares had woken him - the idea of a seven-floor trek put him off.

"And you is bringing Miss Granger and the Messrs Wheezy," Dobby said, beaming up at Hermione, Ron and the twins, who swept the elf an identical formal bow that made Dobby's enormous tennis-ball eyes bug out of his head, giving Harry a shy grin.

"Like the outfit, Dobby," Fred said, eyeing the maroon Weasley jumper that had been shrunk to fit Dobby's tiny frame.

"The jumper goes well with your tea-cosy," George added thoughtfully, as Dobby beamed. "Getting ready for the Leaving Feast?"

"Dobby has never seen such preparations, Master Wheezy," Dobby said seriously, his eyes glowing. "We is cooking from dusk until dawn - but you shall enjoy it all, Dobby is sure, Dobby knows the Messrs Wheezy are partial to the Hogwarts kitchens."

"Six years and we've never been disappointed yet," said George staunchly, as Fred nodded. Beaming elves bowed and curtsied to them.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" Dobby offered, and no fewer than eight elves appeared, bearing a silver tea-service and trays laden with toasted teacakes drenched in melted butter, shortbread, tiny little bite-sized cakes and iced biscuits shaped like Snitches.

"Always appreciated, thanks," George grinned at the elf who offered him a plate of fresh scones generously topped with clotted cream and strawberry jam.

"Dobby, where's Winky?" Hermione asked softly. After being bodily shunted out of the kitchens during their last visit, Harry thought perhaps it was her having arrived with the twins that had prevented the elves from bundling Hermione out of the hall a second time. They clearly liked the twins. The silver tea-service floated after them as Dobby led the way to the brick fireplace, where it seemed like hundreds of polished copper pots and pans were bubbling, simmering, hissing and glugging, too many scents to count bombarding their noses. In a tidy little corner on a tiny stool sat Winky, bleary-eyed, gazing into the distance, and loosely holding a bottle of Butterbeer.

"On the hard stuff, Winky?" Fred asked, frowning at the tiny elf, who didn't jump so much as list to the side and almost fall off the stool, turning bleary eyes on the twins, going slightly cross-eyed before she blinked slowly and tried to focus.

"It can't be as bad as all that," George said. Hermione gave them a questioning look. George murmured, "It's not strong stuff for us, but to house-elves it's like firewhiskey."

"Harry Potter has come to visit, Winky," Dobby declared happily, snapping his fingers so several more stools appeared, and they all sat down. The silver tea-service hovered, and the little plates offered treats around. Harry chose a stool near Winky, concerned by her glazed eyes.

"Winky," he said quietly, and the tiny elf focused glazed brown eyes on his face. "I'm…very sorry you lost your family, Winky." Her eyes filled with tears, but they didn't fall - rare; Harry remembered their previous visits, when she had descended into screaming tantrums of grief and self-loathing.

"Mum told us everything," Fred said grimly, frowning inscrutably at the elf. "Course, we read it in the papers, too. Barty Crouch Jr's testimony…"

"They didn't appreciate you in the slightest, Winky," George said sadly, as he reached out and gently prised the bottle of Butterbeer from her hands. Crouch's testimony had of course included how Winky had cared for him while he was under the Imperius Curse; he had claimed Winky had looked after him all those years out of nothing more than pity, out of duty. Harry wondered if either of the Crouches could see Winky now, whether they would even have cared to see her so devastated; to Winky, she had lost her family, two people she loved more than anyone else in the world. To the Crouches, she had been a servant. "Here, have a cake, soak up some of that Butterbeer."

Winky's enormous brown eyes grew to the size of saucers as George offered her the little plate of delicate bite-sized cakes, which were beautifully iced a pale lilac and decorated with tiny opalescent lavender-blue pearls. Hand trembling, Winky reached for a tiny cake, gazing at George in a kind of trancelike wonder.

She sat up a little straighter on her stool, and Harry saw her neatening up her tiny child's blouse, as Dobby told Hermione some of the history of the Hogwarts house-elves, as he had learned it from his colleagues: Helga Hufflepuff had offered the first Hogwarts elves sanctuary within the castle and its vast kitchens, to escape the brutality of lesser wizards, and traditionally, Hufflepuff students learned of the kitchen's secret entrance first, served detentions under the elves, and sometimes even made gifts to their especial friends. Rarely, some offspring of the Hogwarts elves even bound themselves to their favourites, though the house-elves' first loyalty was to the school.

Hermione was fascinated; even Ron seemed interested. As the afternoon wore on, the house-elves who were toiling away started offering them samples of the dishes being prepared for the Leaving Feast, asking their opinions on this tart, that stew, that cake and, after some rather less-than-covert whispering and nudging from the elves Harry thought were in charge of all the others, Dobby asked Harry, "Please, sir, if you could tell us about the Three Tasks. Professor Dumbledore is wanting some especially wonderful commemorations for the Triwizard Tournament, you see, sir, and we is needing ideas."

"Er…" Hundreds of pairs of eyes swivelled to land on Harry, and the noise and bustle of the kitchen, which none of them had noticed up until that point, suddenly went silent.

"Gather 'round!" Fred grinned, jumping up from his stool.

"Yeah, we'll tell you all about it…" George said, winking at Harry, who relaxed with a great sigh of relief, and contented himself to sit and drink tea and enjoy his fourth Devonshire split and no fewer than six mini treacle tartlets as the twins took it upon themselves to regale the Hogwarts house-elves with breath-taking tales of great daring and courage. Somehow, with the twins telling the story, it almost sounded thrilling, a true adventure…fun… He rolled his eyes a lot, because it certainly wasn't how he remembered the Tasks, but the twins were hilarious storytellers, and while they continued their tasks, the house-elves worked so quietly that everyone could hear.

Somehow they missed dinner in the Great Hall that day; they remained in the kitchens, watching the house-elves work as the twins had the closest house-elves rocking and clutching their stomachs with the force of their laughter, tears rolling down their faces; they gasped at all the right moments; squeaked with fright and hid behind their hands when the situation seemed fraught. They were the perfect audience, and those nearest them kept Harry, Ron, Hermione and the twins well-fed, sampling crème brûlée and dainty lemon macarons and Bulgarian musaka and stuffed pierogi and Russian honey-cake and even Ron groaned at the overindulgence as another house-elf produced a cast-iron skillet filled with what Hermione called tartiflette, setting the whole thing on a little table between them.

The twins finished their story to tumultuous applause, and they were provided with Butterbeers, orange juice and a fork apiece to attack the hissing skillet full of boiled potatoes, salty bacon and melted cheese. Winky, Harry noticed, drank only pumpkin juice, and gave the twins a thoughtful look before getting up, straightening up her clothes, and joining a line of other elves who were hard at work.

Harry might have thought that, when pressed, after steadily eating through the last three hours, he wouldn't accept the handfuls of biscuits and pastries and buttery mini pies filled with chicken and ham-hock - but he did.

"Are you going to tell us, then?" Harry said finally, as they staggered back up to Gryffindor Tower in considerable agony. "Who you were blackmailing?"

"Oh," George said darkly, "That."

"It doesn't matter," Fred said, shaking his head impatiently, biting off the end of a cream horn rather aggressively. "It wasn't anything important. Not now, anyway."

"We've given up," George said, shrugging.

Finally, after much pestering, they reached the Gryffindor Common Room. Sitting down to enjoy sampling their way through the kitchen's best offerings in their favourite armchairs, the twins finally relented.

"Alright, alright," Fred said, "if you really want to know…it was Ludo Bagman."

"Bagman?" Harry said sharply. "Are you saying he was involved in -"

"Nah," George sighed heavily, looking uncharacteristically gloomy. "Nothing like that. Stupid git. He wouldn't have the brains."

"Well, then, what?" asked Ron.

Fred hesitated, then said, "You remember that bet we had with him, at the Quidditch World Cup? About how Ireland would win, but Krum would get the Snitch?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the git paid us in leprechaun gold he'd caught from the Irish mascots."

"So?" Ron prompted.

"So," Fred said impatiently, "it vanished, didn't it? By next morning, it had gone."

"But - it must've been an accident, mustn't it?" Hermione asked, looking scandalised.

George laughed very bitterly. "Yeah, that's what we thought, at first. We thought if we just wrote to him, and told him he'd made a mistake, he'd cough up. But nothing doing. Ignored our letter. We kept trying to talk to him about it at Hogwarts, but he was always making some excuse to get away from us."

"In the end, he turned pretty nasty," Fred said. "Told us we were too young to gamble, and he wasn't giving us anything."

"So we asked for our money back," George glowered.

"He didn't refuse?"

"Right in one," Fred said grimly.

"But that was all your savings!" Ron blurted.

"Tell me about it," George said. "'Course, we found out what was going on, actually it was the night of the Third Task. Lee Jordan's dad had had a bit of trouble getting gold off Bagman too; turns out he's in big trouble with goblins. Mugged him after the World Cup, but it wasn't enough to cover his debts. They followed him to Hogwarts, to keep an eye on him. He's lost everything gambling, hasn't got two Galleons to rub together. And you know how the idiot tried to pay them back?"

"How?"

"He put a bet on you, mate," Fred told Harry. "Put a big bet on you to win the Tournament. Bet against the goblins."

"So that's why he kept offering me help," Harry said. "Well - I did win, didn't I? After everything, I still got the Cup. So he can pay you your gold."

"Nope," George said. "Idiot should've known better than to get into bed with goblins, Bill's always warning us; they play dirtier than Bagman. Cunning. Make Slytherin look like a doormat. They say you drew with Diggory, and Bagman was betting you'd win outright. So Bagman scarpered, right after the Third Task." George sighed deeply, and seemed to console himself with a small apple strudel, as Fred picked apart a cheese straw.

Aching from fullness, Harry groaned and settled into his mattress, giving a mental thanks to the house-elf who had put the warming-pan between the sheets, and settled in for what he hoped was a deep and undisturbed sleep.

It didn't come, and Harry frowned at the ceiling of his four-poster, realising that he was still burning with irritation on the twins' behalf, for their loss, more even than his own, for being wagered on.

So Bagman was a gambler, rather than a Death Eater, but he had still managed to upturn the twins' dreams. His addiction had ruined their ambitions.

As Ron's snores filled the room and Neville snuffled as he turned over, Harry sat up, still irritated, trying to figure out how to get the feeling to stop churning in the pit of his stomach.

Finally, he had it. Careful so as not to wake the others, Harry crept out of bed, unlocked his trunk, and lifted out the small sack that had been dumped unceremoniously on his nightstand by a stony-faced Ministry representative. His Triwizard winnings.

He had never been inside the twins' dormitory; a seam of golden light showed there was someone still awake inside, and when he pushed the door open, it was to find the twins in their identical pyjamas, sat on one of their four-poster beds, poring over a huge and very tactile-looking book stuffed with bits of parchment and stiff card and things that glinted in the lamplight.

"Harry, what - ?"

"Take it," he said, and thrust the money-bag into George's hands.

"What?" Fred looked flabbergasted - a rare expression on his face. Harry savoured it, grinning.

"Take it," Harry said firmly, as the bag clinked and clattered with the sound of gold coins. "I don't want it."

"You're mental," George said, staring at him, even as he tried to push the sack back on Harry.

"No, I'm not," Harry said adamantly. "You take it, and get inventing. It's for the joke-shop."

"He is mental," Fred said, in a tone that sounded almost awed.

"Listen, it should've been Cedric's. If you don't take it, I'm throwing it into the lake," Harry said stubbornly. "I don't want it, and I don't need it. But I could do with a few laughs, I think we could all do with a few laughs. We're all going to need them more than usual before long."

"Harry, there's got to be about a thousand Galleons in here," George said weakly, weighing the bag in his hands.

"Exactly a thousand," Harry grinned. "Think how many Canary Creams that is."

The twins stared at him.

"Do us a favour, buy Ron some new dress-robes, and tell him they're from you. And - just don't tell your mum I gave you the money…"

"Harry," Fred began, but Harry pulled his wand out.

"Take it or I'll hex you," he said fiercely, backing away to the door. At the threshold, he warned them, "I know some really good ones now."

Very few times could anyone claim to have left the Weasley twins speechless: Harry would savour the rare moment for decades to come.

He was climbing back into his own bed when he heard the mini-explosion coming from the twins' dormitory, Fred and George whooping and yelling with so much enthusiasm, letting off the last of their supply of Dr Filibuster's No-Heat, Wet-Start fireworks, that an intense and short-lived party started in the boys' tower. Everyone was so used to the twins' end-of-year enthusiasm that they didn't bother to ask what had set the twins off this time: People just enjoyed the party. Lee Jordan tuned the wireless to Radio Rock, playing the late-night punk programme; Harry and Ron returned from a quick trip to the kitchens laden with enough food to leave a small militia in agony from indigestion, courtesy of Dobby; games were played; and a contraband bottle of something very strong, produced by one of the Durmstrang girls, was passed around.

When Professor McGonagall appeared in her tartan dressing-gown, she seemed torn between punishing them for their enthusiasm, the contraband alcohol and the number of students out of bed listening to punk-rock at two a.m. packed into the sixth-year boys' dormitory like sardines, and letting them get away with it; because among her notorious Gryffindors were the Durmstrang students, bright-eyed from potent drink, wrapped around Gryffindor students, stifling grins and hiding food behind their backs as Radio Rock announced that the next song would be from the Muggle punk studio-album, 'Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols'.

The impromptu Wednesday-night party ended without loss of House points: Professor McGonagall made them pay for it at dawn the next morning, however, helping Professor Sprout by de-gnoming the kitchen gardens before breakfast.

Though no-one seemed to have the nerve to approach him, all anyone seemed to be able to talk about until the end of term was Lord Voldemort; what Harry had endured in the graveyard; Cedric's death; and Magical Law Enforcement walking out on the Ministry.

The brief flurry of intense interest in Neville's parents fizzled out, mostly due to the fact that Neville did not rise to the bait. Neville handled everything, Harry privately thought, with a dignity he, Harry, did not possess. Neville spent a lot of time in the greenhouses; and people left him to his plants.

With an enthusiasm bordering on religious zeal, Hermione pored over The Phoenix morning and evening, which further investigated on the goings-on at the Ministry, including Fudge's apoplectic reaction to the coup: and reaffirming Madam Bones' determination to bring about justice, egalitarian reforms in Wizengamot law, and the removal of Dementors from Azkaban, for a start. It was speculated that with the new Wizengamot ruling on the use of Veritaserum, retrial of the most notorious convicted criminals might occur to harvest intelligence against the new threat.

The students of Hogwarts learned that Mad-Eye Moody had discharged himself from the Hospital Wing only when The Phoenix announced that the paranoid wizard had created a ruckus at the new Auror Headquarters when he broke in and caught half the junior staff unprepared - just to prove a point.

Elementary Wand Safety was a sensible little article published by Mad-Eye in the newspaper the next morning; and following the admission of several Auror Office administration staff to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, a larger article on basic Healing charms and Dark remedies was written up and published by Head Healer Lark of the dedicated Hit Wizards Ward.

The section at the back of the paper named Letters to the Editor featured letters sent via owl that reflected the deep polarisation of the nation - on the one hand, some believed that Harry was every inch the hero they all believed him to be, and called for Madam Bones to take over the position of Minister for Magic with immediate effect. On the other, some believed that Harry couldn't stand not winning the Triwizard Cup and had made up Lord Voldemort's return to cover up a duel gone wrong; they thought Madam Bones should be arrested for collusion and all those who supported her stripped of their positions and authority.

The word irrefutable appeared a lot in The Phoenix articles. At every turn, the Phoenix staff seemed determined to drill into their readers' minds that everything they put into writing was true, and backed up by overwhelming evidence.

While he remained in the Hospital Wing, Harry was spared the morning post. His first breakfast down in the Great Hall with the rest of the students - lessons had resumed for the final week of term, though the teachers did not seem to anticipate they would get any real work done - a flurry of owls descended upon the Gryffindor Table - and, interestingly, the Hufflepuff Table, where Susan Bones and her brothers had gained a certain celebrity status as Amelia Bones' niece and nephews. Perhaps wisely, Professor McGonagall confiscated all post sent to either Harry or the Boneses, and McGonagall informed them both in the Entrance Hall before lunch that day that two of the letters sent to Harry had nasty jinxes on them from non-believers who thought him a troublemaker, while one parcel for Susan had contained a box of chocolates filled with Draught of Living Death.

With her aunt's new celebrity, the poisoned gift and a gruesome sort of reflected fame from the school learning that most of Susan's family had been murdered by Death Eaters, or by You-Know-Who personally, Susan admitted to Harry during their last double-Herbology lesson of the year that she now had a pretty good idea how it felt to be Harry.

"And I don't know how you stand it, it's horrible," she said bluntly, dumping far too much dragon manure on her tray of Screechsnap seedlings, causing them to wriggle and squeak in protest.

"Yeah, well…you learn to just ignore it."

"Has anyone ever sent you poisoned sweets?" Susan asked dubiously.

"No…but earlier this year someone sent Hermione an envelope filled with Bubotuba pus," Harry said. "Because of what Rita Skeeter wrote about her being my girlfriend…" He rolled his eyes to show his disdain, and her lips twitched toward a smile. "Have you told your family about the chocolates?"

"Oh, I don't want to worry them, my aunt has enough to be getting on with, and she'll need my parents' support," Susan said, shrugging slightly. She made an elegant little move that sent the shining coils of her long braid over her shoulder. "Anyway, Professor Sprout says all post is going to be searched before its passed on to us, just to be sure. So they're going to have to be a lot cleverer if they want to target me." Harry sighed to himself, gently tamping earth around his Screechsnap seedlings; they shouldn't have to worry about that sort of thing. Surprising Harry, Susan said, a few minutes later, her cheeks colouring delicately, "I'm sorry for the badges, Harry - you know, when the names were drawn for the Tournament. The Potter Stinks ones…"

"I know it was Malfoy who made those," Harry shrugged, though the memory of them did sting.

"Yes, but we all wore them," Susan said shamefacedly. "Cedric still had to ask us not to wear them…" As Harry went cold, a very stark look flickered across Susan's face, and she doused her tray of Screechsnap seedlings with so much water, Neville had to swoop in and deftly rescue them from drowning, shrieking and wailing indignantly all the while. Professor Sprout chalked it up to overheating in the vast, humid greenhouse, and gave Susan a dose from one of the irrefutably beautiful, exotic and magical pitcher orchids colloquially known as the Helga's Slipper, which excreted a well of bubbling sap that tasted like their favourite hot meal and gave a confidence-boosting burn like a shot of firewhiskey when diluted properly.

The professor and Head of Hufflepuff House squinted at Harry in the sunlight, and gave him a healthy dose, too. He was reminded of the way he had felt under the influence of the Imperius Curse, slightly; a little more relaxed, full of an easy confidence. The Herbology teacher patted Harry's shoulder, and moved on to instruct Ernie Macmillan in how to properly repot his seedlings - she called Neville over to show Ernie, leaving Harry and Susan to their own seedlings.

It was probably one of the first real conversations Harry had had with Susan, but he liked talking to her; their backs bent, sweating in the heat of the humid greenhouse, he kept having to tuck her long braid back over her shoulder, and she pushed his glasses back up his nose when his hands were full of manure; they talked about their dreaded Herbology summer assignments, and their gardens at home - Harry told her that he was basically the live-in gardener for the Dursleys, where everything was manicured and clipped and unnaturally orderly. He preferred the Burrow, or the Hogwarts greenhouses - he was surprised to learn that Susan had visited Neville, who had a beautiful garden and greenhouse at his grandmother's house.

Susan's grandmother had been friends with Neville's grandmother - before Voldemort had killed her, and Susan's grandfather. Susan's parents and Neville's grandmother had thought it good to introduce the children and encourage them to play when they were little; Susan confessed to Harry that she had been disappointed that Neville wasn't Sorted into Hufflepuff - "He's so hard-working, I always thought he should've been, but then…well, with what everyone's learned about his parents, I'm not surprised he's in Gryffindor, now. I thought they'd been killed, but…I can't imagine going on knowing my mum and dad don't even recognise me, and then to be bullied at school all the time, just for being quiet and kind…"

"Yeah," Harry sighed, staring across the greenhouse at Neville, who was in his element amongst the lush greenery, content and confident, and, Harry noted grudgingly, he seemed to have grown taller since Harry last looked at him properly.

Professor Sprout ended the lesson fifteen minutes early so they could clean up, refine their notes on their summer assignments, and the students who wanted to could take cuttings to take home and care for over the summer, declaring they would be learning all about Helga's Slipper next year, when they would also be revising the past four years' worth of course-material in preparation for their O.W.L. exams.

Harry left the greenhouse feeling sweaty and panicked as Hermione fretted about getting her summer revision schedule organised.

When she dashed off to the library clutching a long list of titles she wanted to check out of the library for the summer, Harry turned, anxious, to Ron, whose expression alone reassured him that Ron, at least, hadn't given any thought to summer revision, or even remembered that next June they would be sitting their Ordinary Wizarding Level exams.

Somewhat relieved, Harry tucked into his strawberry tart, and gaped when Viktor Krum appeared, broomstick in hand, asking if Harry wanted to play a game of Quidditch with him…

So it was that the last week of school ended on an extraordinary high - considering the week prior - with nearly the entire school turning out after dinner to watch from the stands as an impromptu game of Quidditch brought three schools together as nothing quite yet had. In a lingering sunset that painted the sky pink, violet and plum, everything vividly gilded by a rare Scottish summer sunset, students, ghosts and professors alike gathered in the stands.

Harry, Krum, the twins, and anyone with a broom and an enthusiasm for Quidditch drew names out of a pot, no-one denied, their t-shirts Transfigured different colours to denote teams, and it had to be the first game ever played with three Quaffles, four Bludgers, and an International Quidditch Player teaching the Hogwarts' favourite Seeker how to execute his signature moves faultlessly as they searched for the tiny Snitch, glinting delicately in the dying sun.

There were no Houses, no schools, no language barriers or culture clashes; only the game.

The sunlight glowed off Dumbledore's beard as he sat amongst his students, eating sweets, Fawkes perched on top of a familiar tea-cosy, Dobby gazing avidly and cheering with the crowds; Madam Hooch was too distracted crying with delight as she watched Krum fly to properly referee the game, so it was McGonagall who took to the air with a whistle and an unbridled smile people rarely saw. Harry heard Hagrid's roars of encouragement and delight over the tumult of the crowd; and there, standing with Hermione and Neville, transformed into a man, unrecognisable as the mass-murderer who had escaped Azkaban to kill him, and cheering more enthusiastically than anyone, was Sirius.

The impromptu Quidditch 'friendly' that occurred that afternoon, instigated by a Durmstrang boy who missed flying more than anything, and who wanted to play against Hogwarts' youngest Seeker in a century, the game that excluded no-one who wanted to play, and united everyone in the stands, screaming for their friends, became, forever after, the final celebration marking the end of each modern Triwizard Tournament.

Krum's team won; but Harry caught the Snitch.

A.N.: Because that's how it should've ended…

In this fic, Ginny is gay, but not for Luna. Draco has younger-siblings. Also, I'm going to flesh out Susan Bones' character. I love that her name is descended from the Hebrew name Shoshanna, which means 'a lily, a rose'. A flower name, people! And she's a Hufflepuff, and we all know how badass, patient, creative, wonderful, kind, powerful Hufflepuffs are (I'm looking at you, Newt, and you, Tonks. You both do Helga proud). Plus her aunt just staged a political coup just to help the British people prepare for Voldemort's rise to power: Even though I made her do that, I love her for it!

I can't remember if I've addressed this yet, or not, but I categorically and ferociously and will eternally deny that Cursed Child is anything to do with canon. We have all read better fanfictions! So, ignoring that.