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The Hogwarts letter's arrival was, in retrospect, Benedict Bones' saving grace.

Two Hours Earlier

The harsh, persistent beep of his alarm, audible to him alone, startled Ben out of sleep. His eyes flew open and he sat up fast.

His room was cold and grey in the early morning light filtering in through the window, the magical creature posters covering his walls lacking their usual colour. The grey oak floorboards only added to the feeling. Even his bright yellow bedspread looked paler than usual.

Ben swung his feet over the edge and winced at the cold floor. He quickly pulled on jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie.

Then he knelt and pulled off his rug, and wiggled the loose floorboard until it came out. It came of with a loud scrape, and he stiffened, worrying that he would wake his parents. Inside the floor were several sacks. It emanated an icy cold, and Ben rubbed his hands together and shivered.

He quickly pulled out a sack lying inside and put it into his backpack, replaced the board and rug, and hoped to Merlin nobody had heard.

Ben paused, ruffled up his hair a little out of habit, and crept downstairs with the terrified surreptitiousness of kid doing something they weren't supposed to. Nobody woke up. He crept through the house, grabbing an apple on his way out.

He slid his sneakers on, glad that he usually kept them in his room so their absence wouldn't look suspicious, and left through the back door. The forest backing their house loomed up, looking grim and forbidding, but Ben walked into immediately, with no hesitation. The walk took around twenty minutes, by the mechanical watch on his wrist. Then he reached the border - marked by a pink cloth on a branch that could easily be explained as made by conservationists.

He was glad for the silence barrier - he'd had buy an old wand from Knockturn Alley to cast it, and it had taken several days, but it was worth it.

He stepped through, and was immediately greeted with a thousand whines, growls and yaps, and Percy burst through the underbrush, halting as his chains yanked his heads back, and stared at him three pairs of eyes full of happiness.

Ben dashed forward.

"Hello, boy! Hello! I'm so sorry boy, I really, really am, I know my special boy, I miss you too! Yes I do! Yes, hello! Do you want some yum yums? Do you?" he cooed, bringing out the bag of meat and throwing it to the three headed puppy, whose heads fought over the prize as his tail whipped back and forth in blissful happiness.

Percy was four months old now, and getting bigger every day. You could already tell he was going to be much bigger than most dogs - even without the obvious addition of two extra heads and necks. Two slabs of meat a day was barely enough now, but Ben was running out fast and had to buy it from muggles in secret. He'd been a vegetarian for over a year now, but he could hardly tell Percy it was wrong to eat meat - he was a dog, after all.

Ben sighed. He didn't know what he'd do with Percy when he had to go to Hogwarts - after all, he could hardly bring him on train, could he? His parents couldn't know about Percy, that he knew for sure - Ben was banned from having pets ever since his hippogriff, Buster, had lived up to his name and destroyed the roof and Ben had to let him go into the wild. There was no way they would let him have a hamster, never mind a three headed dog. But when Ben had found Percy lying in a plastic bag on a riverbank, clearly dumped there by a breeder who had rejected him since his white chest and tail tip showed Percy was a mutt, Ben couldn't help himself. He could hardly have left him to die, after all.

Benedict Bones knew better than anybody that owning an unregistered dangerous magical animal constituted an offence worth a fine, the destruction of the animal, and up to six months in Azkaban. His mother was an Auror, and he had wanted to be a politician for as long as he knew what that was, to have the power the help people.

But he'd wrapped the puppy up in the coat, chained it up with food in the forest, said it was a neighbor's dog visiting until he'd finished the charm, sneaked out at night and bought food from a muggle supermarket, and used the same wand he'd used for the silence charm for preserving food. That was months ago, and despite weekly night excursions to buy food, Percy was growing more and more demanding.

Percy finished the steak in seconds, and then attacked Ben's leg, playfully, but viciously all the same. Ben sighed, drew out a pipe and played Percy to sleep. It was the only way to deal with him sometimes - he knew Percy needed to hunt properly and get more exercise. The soothing tune (well, to Percy at least) drifted over the clearing, and Percy collapsed at Ben's feet, sweet and docile once more.

Ben gave him a pat, played tug of war later, and finally realised how much time had passed. He ran back, hoping against hope to get there before his parents woke up.

The moment he stepped out of the forest, he knew something was wrong. He could feel it in his bones, no pun intended. That moment, his mother opened the door dressed in full auror gear, and Ben knew he was in trouble.

"Ben! What are you doing here? I got home at four thirty, went up to see you, and you were gone. I've been looking everywhere. Don't you dare just tell me you were out for a walk, where have you been? You used to be such a good kid, Ben, but this is too far. Too much. You can't just sneak out at night. Where have you been? Some party, I suppose? Come here."

Ben walked up, dragging his feet miserably but secretly elated that she hadn't guessed the real reason he'd been gone.

"You're a Bones, Benedict. Start acting like one already. I don't want to see you get into Slytherin." she barked harshly, with a sharp glare.

"There's nothing wrong with Slytherin!" Ben protested, but secretly he felt ashamed. What if he was in Slytherin? What if all this sneaking around was his Slytherin side coming out?

His mother checked him for alcohol, ranted on loudly, woke his father up, who soon joined in, and finally they sat him down and demanded he explain himself.

And then the post came. A beautiful snowy owl, like an angel from heaven, bearing his redemption in shiny black claws.

"My Hogwarts letter!" he said excitedly, and the matter was immediately forgotten in the following excitement - for the moment, at least.

At Diagon Alley, his punishment finally came - no extra things, nothing from Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, just the essentials and a few educational things, and worst of all, no owl. Ben didn't mind though - he got what he really needed: a suitcase with an expansion charm so big one compartment was an entire room, and a wand that could do a silencing spell. He had everything he needed to carry Percy with him, and release him into the Forbidden Forest. He had a plan.

Ben put a musical charm on his pipe, managing after hours to get it right, and a silencing charm that took even longer on the room in the suitcase. The magic left him frustrated, drained and exhausted, but after a couple of weeks everything was ready for Percy. He sang him to sleep, put him in, made the spells, and snuck back to pack normal things.

Merely hours later he was on the train, smuggled puppy in one hand, looking for a compartment. The train was crowded with students in black robes and normal muggle clothes, chatting with friends and finding compartments. Ben tried to find an empty one, but it was impossible, and he was pushing against the crowd. Eventually, he gave up and slid open one with only one girl in it.

"Hey, can I sit here? It's all full up." he asked, with a smile and a shrug.

The girl turned - she had bright red wavy hair tied up in a ponytail and was wearing an Emerald Parade t-shirt - clearly she had good taste in music.

"Sure! I'm Rose Weasley, by the way."

Ben grinned. "Wow, I've heard about you - progeny of the famous couple and all."

He put his suitcase on the rack, being as careful as he could, and sat down. This was perfect. He could turn the conversation immediately round to her and only seem like a fan.

The conversation soon turned to music, and above them a puppy snored to the sounds of a pipe and dreamed of Greece heroes.