A week or so later an owl flew through the cottage window and into the cluttered kitchen where both Minerva and Penny were sat having breakfast. The owl brought two letters, one for each of them. Instead of flying off afterwards the owl stayed with them for a short while, waiting, Penny presumed, to take an answer back to the sender.

Sure enough once Minerva had finished reading her letter she went to the bureau in the living room and took out a new piece of parchment, ink and a quill, whilst Penny opened her letter from Tonks.

Dear Penny

Hope you and Professor McGonagall are alright. It's not the same without both of you here.

We finished our end of year exams today; I think I did alright, just got to wait for the results next week now.

I hope I'll see you over the holidays.

Tonks

Penny smiled a little when she saw her friend's letter, especially when she realised a chocolate frog had been included. She took a few mouthfuls of her porridge when Minerva returned.

'Who was your letter from?' Minerva asked as she sat back down opposite.

'Tonks; she was asking after you, wanted to know we're both ok and she's missing us.'

'Did she say how she got on in her exams?'

'She thinks she did alright.' Penny said, taking a large gulp of juice and watched her aunt write her letter. 'Who was your letter from?'

For a moment Minerva considered not replying, but she knew she would be giving Penny a disservice by not giving her an explanation.

'It was from Professor Dumbledore; he'll be joining us later today, he wants to speak to us both.' She replied, her long hair falling down around her shoulders.

At Hogwarts she would never be seen to have her hair down, but away from the castle she allowed her hair to flow freely. Over the years her once dark auburn colour had faded to a much lighter shade, with grey streaks now forming. With her hair down she didn't look nearly as severe and it framed her face with slight kinky twists.

Penny always preferred seeing her aunt with her hair down, as had her grandmother. She remembered how her grams used to remove her older sister's hair from its bun when she had it up in their company, much to Minerva's displeasure sometimes, meaning she'd have to put it up all over again. Her thoughts at these memories made Penny smile, it was nice to think happy things about her grams.

'What are you smiling at?' Minerva asked her, a confused smile on her own face.

'Nothing, I was just thinking about Grams, that's all.' She replied. 'What does Professor Dumbledore want to speak to us about?'

'I'm not sure, he doesn't say in his letter.'

'OK. Aunt Minerva can you pass the salt please?' Penny asked as she held her hand outstretched on the table; but Minerva didn't have to pass the salt, as it moved of its own accord into Penny's hand.

'I suspect what he wants to speak to us about may have something to do with that.' Minerva replied, sounding a little surprised but tried to make her tone sound as casual as she could when she saw her niece's concerned expression. 'Once you've finished your breakfast I want you to go up and get dressed please.' She added.

Penny didn't say anything further but quickly ate her breakfast, not wanting anything further to happen. She then excused herself from the table and ran upstairs, whilst Minerva attached her reply to Dumbledore to the patiently waiting owl's leg, which then flew off to deliver his post.

Upstairs Penny sat on the window seat in the bay window in her bedroom, staring out at the loch below. Her grams' cottage was near coast in the north of Scotland, not too far from where she had grown up in Caithness. The beach below was their own private sanctuary as no muggle ever knew anything about it.

The cottage itself was quirky; painted a fantastic deep blue with a bright yellow sun painted on the gable end. There were some chickens loose in the courtyard, where Penelope's old Morris Minor Traveller sat. A dry stone wall ran around the outside of the boundary of the property, a blue gate at the entrance and a rose arch.

Surrounding the cottage was a forest and in the distance was Ardnagrask, a small mountain that Penny had often climbed. The view from which really stole your breath.

Inside each room was as cluttered as the last; full of spell books, parchment and potion ingredients. There were photographs everywhere of Penelope's family, most featuring Penny as a small child and a few of her mother Jenny. However, there were no photographs in existence of Penny and her mother together before she died.

Penny had only been a few weeks old when Jenny had been killed. No one in the family talked about Jenny's death as they all found it too painful, so Penny didn't know much about what had happened. All she knew was that her grams had given her a very loving and happy home and they had shared a very special bond like no other.

As she stared out of the window she saw a figure apparate into view; his long white beard tied in the middle, his half-moon glasses perched neatly on his nose and his robes of deep maroon blowing gently in the light breeze.

On seeing Professor Dumbledore arrive Penny realised that she was supposed to have been dressed almost an hour ago. She quickly wrenched open the doors to her closet and pulled on an old pair of jeans and a hooded red jumper, before rushing down the wooden, slightly spiralled, staircase, where she found Dumbledore and her Aunt Minerva sat on the wicker chairs in the sunroom.

'Ah Penny, how wonderful to see you.' Dumbledore greeted her with a large smile. 'Sherbet Lemon?' He added as he offered her a sweet from the brown paper bag in his hand.

She politely took one and thanked him as she put it in her mouth and looked at him expectantly, still unsure as to why he was there, but hoping she may finally get some answers regarding the recent events.

'Before you and your great aunt left Hogwarts, I began to provide some answers to the situation that you have both found yourself in. I knew your grandmother well Penny, she was a wonderful woman and I am very saddened by her passing, but she always knew that this was a possibility; which is why she entrusted me with something shortly after you were born, to give to you both in the event of her death and if she died before she could explain the truth to you.' Dumbledore explained as he took out a yellowing envelope from his pocket and handed it to Minerva.

'I would like your great aunt to read it first if you don't mind, as I have a few things I would like to explain to you first. However, I must warn you both that the information I am going to give you today will be hard for you to hear and will be harder for you both to understand.' He added as Penny silently nodded at him.

'I know Penny that you are aware of your family's heritage, aware that you come from a long line of dark wizard hunters and demon catchers. I am also aware that you have never been told the truth surrounding your mother's death, but I will leave that for your Aunt Minerva to explain to you in a moment, as I think it best it comes from her.

'For now I shall explain that your recent developments in your powers come from who you are. They are nothing to be ashamed of or to fear as you come from a strong and powerful bloodline; you come from Godric Gryffindor himself.'

Minerva looked up sharply from the letter she was reading and Penny stared at him open mouthed, neither of them were aware that they were descendants of Godric Gryffindor, one of the four founders of Hogwarts and the founder of Penny's house, the house Minerva was head of. They were both stunned at the news, but neither realised that that was just a fraction of the information they were about to receive.

'Over the course of his life Gryffindor fought some of the world's darkest wizards and witches and evil entities. He formed meetings with elder wizards and witches who, like himself, wanted to banish evil from our world and who had proved themselves worthy. It was during one of these meetings that one of these elders came to him with a prediction. They had foreseen a child born into our world who would be more powerful than any other, with powers that others could only dream of. This child would be the light in a world of dark, Aurora the Angel of Adustum.'

'Aurora?' Penny exclaimed with astonishment. 'But that's one of my middle names. I'm named Penelope after Grams, Minerva after my Aunt Minerva and Aurora, but I never knew why.'

She sat in silence for a few moments trying to grasp what Dumbledore was saying to her, but it was too much to even begin to comprehend.

'This can't be right Professor; I can't possibly be the Angel of Asto…Asta…'

'Adustum Penny, it means light.' Minerva said quietly as she finished reading the final words of her sister's letter, tears clearly visible in her eyes.

What she read shocked her to her core and on top of what Dumbledore had just said her mind exploded with confusion.

'Albus, I'm not sure Penny's ready to hear the rest yet. It's too much for me to even comprehend, let alone an eleven year old child!' She explained, desperate to protect her great niece.

'But she must hear it Minerva, for her to truly understand what is happening and what is to come, she must know the truth.' He explained to his friend before turning back to Penny.

'There are so many secrets to your life Penny that have to be revealed to you today and of course your Aunt Minerva is right; it is unfair to expect a child to understand them and appreciate them, but please understand this; your great aunt and I are going to be with you every step of the way, to help you and to answer all of your questions. As long as you have us, you will never be alone.'

Penny prepared herself for what was to come next and nodded her head, holding out her hand for the letter previously read by Minerva.

'Before you read that Penny, there is just one more thing I want to explain to your first.' Dumbledore said and smiled as Penny gave him her full attention.

'During their meetings each elder learned to become an Animagus so that they could become an animal familiar to new witches and wizards or to those who needed a little help and guidance.

'Over time they located others to continue their work, training them to be Animagi too. Each familiar would find their charge in their animal form first of all and then, when the time was right, reveal themselves in their human form to continue together in their fight against evil. And now I think it time you hear from your aunt.' He said finally as he looked at Minerva, who still didn't look convinced that this was a good idea, but she continued none the less.

'You should have been told about Jenny long ago Penny, we should have told you.' She began to explain, her voice shaky and catching in her throat. 'Like many of our family your mother decided from a very young age to become an auror and she was incredibly skilled at it. But she joined at the height of You-Know-Who and the auror office was constantly taking hits.

'The day your mother died she had received intelligence that a muggle family with a muggle born witch had been captured and were being tortured. So she went with your grandmother to the location they were advised, but it was a trap; there was no muggle family, but there were death eaters. They wanted to stop them putting away any more of their army and wanted to use them for information.

'I won't go into detail about what happened next, but your mother and grandmother fought valiantly, but it wasn't enough; they murdered Jenny and after seeing her daughter killed Penelope only just escaped from them, badly injured and mentally scarred for years after.' Minerva explained with great difficulty, it took a lot to talk about something her family hadn't brought themselves to discuss in over eleven years.

However, Minerva chose not to continue. Regardless of what her sister had instructed or what Dumbledore wanted, she could see that Penny had had enough for one day. If she was perfectly honest, they both had.

'That's enough for today Albus. She needs to rest after that; it's not fair to bombard her with all of that information and expect her to be alright with it. I will tell her the rest in a few days' time when she's ready.' She said forcefully, leaving Dumbledore in no doubt that her decision was final, a wish he respected.

Although Penny wanted to know what her grandmother had written, her brain was so full that she didn't think she could cope with anything further and she was grateful for her aunt's protection. She still couldn't understand how anything she'd heard today was true and she also couldn't help think about her mum on the night she'd died.

She handed Minerva the letter, who then placed it into the pocket of her robes for safe keeping and then nothing further was said about it. The three of them sat and talked about everything but what had been talked about that day, until, finally, Dumbledore decided it was time for him to head back to Hogwarts.

He bade them farewell before disapparating into the night, leaving Minerva and Penny to their evening hot chocolate beside the fire, both of them drinking in complete silence as they contemplated the day's events.