Chapter 12

Harry thought that Sadie looked tired at breakfast the Sunday before they were to leave for school. She sat at the table in the tepid light that managed to fight its way through the streaming rain outside and filter in through the window, toying with a bit of leftover toast. As he watched his cousin, he was struck by the strange bubble of isolation that seemed to envelop her. All around, the loud chaos of the Burrow filled the kitchen but somehow she went untouched by it, alone in her silence.

Guilt crept up through Harry. Sadie and he had circled each other shyly this last week, not quite sure how to act. He was certainly excited to have a cousin and he wanted to get to know her, but he wasn't sure how to start. It was easy to get distracted by Ron and Hermione and the worry they all felt as they waited to hear from Sirius. Except now they would be heading to Hogwarts tomorrow and he shamefully realized he could barely understand his cousin any better than the first time they met.

He vowed to fix that.

Still, it took him another hour to give it a try.

00000

"Hey."

Sadie looked up from the spell book she'd been leafing through at the greeting as Harry sat down on the sofa next to her. Hesitantly, she gave him a little wave back.

An awkward silence settled for a moment as he tried to get his brain and mouth to cooperate. "I want to learn more signs" his mind suggested, or "Sorry I haven't gotten to know you like I should have" or even "Hey, cousin, let's talk." But, when he finally opened his lips, what he found himself blurting out was:

"How come I never knew about you?"

It came out accusatory, and he had a sudden insight of personal revelation. He was hurt, and he hadn't even realized it. Hurt by the fact that he'd had an aunt and uncle and whole bunch of cousins that were alive, for at least seven years of his childhood, and they'd never once tried to contact him, check up on him, see how he was. He wanted to get to know Sadie, but he'd been harboring this small bit of resentment inside and hadn't even known until this moment when it just slipped out.

"How come your mum and dad never wrote to me?"

Sadie's eyes narrowed in slightly-stung confusion, his blunt questions startling her enough she answered instinctively with her hands. They flew in a series of rapid motions he had no hope of understanding.

"I'm sorry…I don't get what…" he muttered, his guilt tripling.

Her teeth clenched in what looked like frustration before she glanced around, finding her notebook on the side table. She snatched it up and then dug for her stubby pencil in her pocket.

She did. Mum wrote a letter to you once a month, every month, until –

We all did. I remember sending you pictures I colored and leaves I pressed. You never wrote back. It made her cry.

Harry's jaw dropped. What? He'd never received any letters from family far off in America! He would have remembered that, kept them close, written back. In fact, he'd never received any post at all until that fateful letter he'd had to fight tooth and nail to open when he was eleven…

He suddenly swore harshly, not even caring if Mrs. Weasley heard, his eyes narrowed and his fists tight, as understanding hit him. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. They'd taken his letters, thrown them away without him even knowing they'd existed. Purposefully kept another part of his life hidden from him out of spite and malice.

It made him furious. It was a good thing he was miles away or he knew he would have been breaking the stupid Underage Magic Decree in a big way.

Sadie was staring at him apprehensively and he blew out his breath, trying to shove the intense anger aside.

"My aunt and uncle – the ones I live with – they hate magic. And me," he added truthfully. "They lied to me about how my parents died, didn't even tell me I was a wizard, and just basically love finding ways to keep me miserable. They must have taken the letters and hid them or threw them away. I never even knew you sent any."

Her eyebrows rose and she nodded, before scribbling again on the notebook.

That makes sense now. I always wondered why you never wrote back.

Then she added a line underneath that read: I'm sorry they aren't very nice to you.

"Eh," Harry said with a shrug, not at all in the mood for a conversation about his home life with the Dursleys. "At least I only have to stay with them for a few months each year. That's much better than it used to be."

Sadie nodded, fidgeting with the notebook in her hands as though not sure what else to say which caused Harry to remember the original purpose of this conversation.

"So, Sadie, how about we start this over?"

Her face twisted in the universal "huh?" expression and he grinned, sticking out his hand.

"Hi, Sadie. I'm Harry Potter, your cousin. I've been a bit of a git this week and have been kind of avoiding you, but I really am excited to have a relative that doesn't curse my very existence, so I was hoping maybe we could be friends?"

She blinked at him for a few seconds before she started silently laughing, the first time he'd ever seen her do that, and then reached out to shake his offered hand.

*Hi* she signed, followed by a bunch of fast, one handed motions. She then gestured to herself and signed a few more fluid ones with both hands.

"Wait, did you just…spell out my name?" he asked. "Followed by signing your own?"

She nodded, grinning.

"You…introduced yourself, just like I did!" he cried triumphantly.

She nodded again.

"But why did you spell my name instead of signing it?"

She turned to the notebook to answer this time.

Because you don't have a name sign yet.

"Oh. Well, how do I get one?"

Someone gives it to you, or you pick one for yourself.

"Cool," Harry said, returning her grin before letting his expression become more serious. "I want to learn this, Sadie. I want to be able to understand what you say, without you having to stop and write it down. Will you sign things, before you write them, so I can start trying to catch on? Please?"

Her eyes searched his, as if scanning his soul, before she ducked her head slightly and nodded, shyness creeping back in.

"LUNCH TIME!" Mrs. Weasley's voice suddenly bellowed from the kitchen, filling the whole house like…well, like magic. "Come and get it now or I'm posting it to needy children in Africa if you don't!"

They looked at each other for a moment before bursting out in snorts of laughter again.

"She probably really would," Harry muttered, shaking his head. "Come on, let's go. You can teach us all more while we eat."

00000

As Sadie sat in the living room with everyone the night before they were supposed to leave for school, she found herself reluctant to have the evening end. Rain still poured down outside but in the room a cozy fire roared, keeping it pleasantly toasty. Everyone was relaxed and enjoying each other's company. She sat on a pile of pillows in the corner with a book, perfectly content to just quietly be part of it all. It struck her that she really had come to love this Burrow and the crazy people that inhabited it.

Hermione's huge cat Crookshanks wandered over and stared at her for a moment. She held her fingers out and he sniffed them, before deeming her acceptable and climbing on top of her book to lay claim to her lap. Smiling, she gave up on reading and instead ran her fingers through his long, ginger fur. A contented purr soon rumbled up from him and she leaned back against the wall, feeling completely safe for the first time in seven years.

Mr. Weasley returned from the office and the conversation ebbed and flowed around her. She really didn't pay it any mind, even when Hermione and Percy's words got a little heated, until Mrs. Weasley started to shoo them all off to pack and Mr. Weasley stopped her.

"Wait, Molly. We need to discuss a few things while everyone is here. About Harry and Sadie," he said and that finally caught her attention.

"What things?" Harry asked, throwing a glance her direction as he sat back down with his broomstick kit, his Firebolt leaning against him.

"It's just that, while everyone in this room knows the two of you are cousins, it might be…ah…wise to keep that knowledge from spreading."

Sadie wrinkled her forehead in confusion at the same time Ron blurted out, "Why?"

It was Harry that answered, sounding bitter. "Because of me, right? Because Voldemort and his supporters are still out there, and knowing Sadie's related to me could put her in danger, huh?"

A shiver crawled up her spine at the mention of Lord Voldemort's name. She knew who that was, had heard the name spoken in reverence and respect, and sometimes even jealousy, more times than she could remember while she cowered in the shadows. What she didn't know was why the Dark Lord would be interested in her cousin. She looked over at Harry, her eyes drawn to the strange scar on his forehead, and she realized that other than the facts her parents had told her years ago – that his own parents had died when he was a baby and he'd been left alone – she really didn't know much about him.

"Well, yes," Mr. Weasley admitted reluctantly. "But it's more than just that. We just feel that…well…" He gazed at her apologetically for a moment before turning back to the rest of the room. "Things are going to be difficult enough for Sadie, showing up out of nowhere to start in Forth Year, two years behind, and being unable to talk. She doesn't need the added scrutiny she would undoubtedly attract if everyone knew she was your cousin, Harry."

Sadie blushed, hanging her head. For the millionth time she wished she wasn't like this, broken and useless, messed up in more ways than anyone even knew.

"Oh," she heard Harry say.

"So, what do we say, when people ask, because you know they will?" Hermione asked.

"A different truth. That Sadie is our goddaughter and has come to live with us now," Mr. Weasley answered softly.

Wait, what?

She pulled her gaze back up from Crookshank's fur in surprise, meeting the kind eyes of her father's best friend. He was smiling at her gently.

"We're your godparents, Sadie."

Godparents? she thought, reeling slightly. What did that mean? What did godparents do? Did she have to change her last name? It was all so confusing and there was so much she wanted to ask, but she couldn't. She clenched her fists as around her the conversation continued, leaving her and her questions behind, as usual.

"So, can we count on everyone to help keep this secret for a while, at least until Sadie and Harry are ready for people to know?"

Everyone nodded, and then Mrs. Weasley was shooing them all off to pack before bed. Sadie pushed a reluctant Crookshanks off her lap and stood with the rest, still reeling. The kind woman pulled her into a small hug, smiling at her happily, and Sadie tried to return the expression before trudging off after the others robotically.

She didn't have a trunk to pack – most of the new things Professor McGonagall had purchased for her were already at the school – so once her belongings were returned to the borrowed carpet bag, she just sat on the camp bed watching the other two girls. Suddenly, there was a knock on the doorframe and Bill stuck his head in.

"Laundry service," he called cheerfully, bringing in a basket full of freshly folded clothes.

"Since when do you do laundry?" Ginny scoffed.

"Since I offered to carry it up the stairs for Mum," he replied, smugly.

Ginny rolled her eyes, then started sorting the piles of clean clothes out on the correct beds.

"Sadie," Bill said, turning toward her. "Come here for a second, would you?" He gestured toward the hall, smiling again.

Curious, she rose to her feet and followed him out of the room.

"Here," he said, handing her a very thick book. "This is for you. It just came by owl. I was really hoping it would get here before you lot left for Hogwarts."

She took it, turning it over and studying the cover, reading the gilded writing.

American Sign Language for the Witch or Wizard: A Comprehensive Reference.

She looked up at him in surprise.

"I had a colleague from the States help me out. I figured it would be useful for all of us. You said yourself that you're still learning, and I imagine that Muggle library didn't cover any of the signs related to the wizarding world that you'll need to know. Plus, it can help the rest of us learn faster."

For the second time in ten minutes, Sadie was stunned. Even if she could speak, she wouldn't have known what to say.

"Let me show you how it works," he said, understanding her silence. He took it and opened the book to a random spot.

Each page was divided into six boxes. Inside each box was a word and the image of a woman or man dressed in neutral black robes, his or her hands hanging loosely down. Bill pulled his wand out and touched the tip to the right corner of one of the squares. Immediately, it enlarged to cover the entire page and the image inside sprang to life, going through the motions to sign the indicated word.

"You can tap it two or three times to increase the speed of the demonstration, and then touch the left corner when you want it to shrink back down."

Sadie knew her jaw was hanging open, but she couldn't help it. It was magnificent! So many words to use! That everyone could learn! Right there forever, where she wouldn't have to worry about forgetting them!

Bill closed the book again, returning it to her trembling hands. With tears filling her eyes, she hugged it to her with one hand before signing, *Thank you!*

"You're welcome," he said, giving her a warm smile. "And I really do mean it. If school starts to get you down, or you just need a big brother to talk to, send me an owl. I'm excited to have another younger sister."

He was so much like Archie it made her heart ache, and she honestly couldn't tell if the tears she was trying to hold back were from joy or sorrow. Suddenly, not quite sure what made her do it, she stepped forward and gave the oldest Weasley brother a short hug. Then, knowing she couldn't keep the moister from cresting her eyes any longer, she darted off toward the lavatory.