I love love love writing Ariel and Peter, they are just the most precious cinnamon rolls. Here's the latest chapter. Also, the next chapter for my other story is probably going to take a while. I had a lovely snow day yesterday, and the entire college campus was shut down, so I have a bunch of stuff i need to make up for in my classes. Sorry :(

*02-03-16 Edit* For some reason, the formatting was really screwy with this chapter. It has been fixed.

Dear Peter and Ariel,
Happy Birthday! I hope that you've had a good one so far. Twelve is a good age to be, in my opinion. You're going to really enjoy second year. Oh! I've been made Prefect this year, so I won't be able to spend much time with you on the train. Sorry about that.
I'm sorry; I'm not very good at letters. I hope my owl got your presents to you in one piece.
I'll see you in September!
Adam
P.S. My mum wishes you a happy birthday as well, and says that you are invited to Christmas again this year if you want.

Peter read the letter from his friend aloud, a smile on his face the entire time. His mother, Loren, gave a thin smile as her son read. Her newest boyfriend – Chad or whatever – had left an hour earlier, and she was probably glad that he wasn't here to hear mentions of the Wizarding World. She and the twins were sitting in the living room of their flat in New Castle opening the gifts that had been sent to them by family and friends.

"What did he get us?" Ariel asked, peeking over Peter's shoulder. "Mum! Make Peter give me the letter so I can see!"

Loren stroked her daughter's back.

"Dearest, just open the packages, don't be greedy with your brother," she scolded lightly, and Ariel scowled briefly before grinning and ripping open the brown paper packages that Adam's owl had painstakingly delivered.

Peter had received a leather-bound sketchbook and a brand new quill and ink set, and he smiled happily at the sight of them. Sometime near the end of term, Adam had discovered that his young friend had a passion for drawing. Peter was actually surprised that he had remembered that little fact.

"Yes!" he heard Ariel shriek in triumph, and he shifted his position to face her and see what it was that had got her so excited.

It was a book on magical creatures, the pictures of which, naturally, were moving. Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw his mother wince, though she put on a bright smile.

"That's lovely, Pet." She said, placing a kiss on her daughter's head and pulling Peter in for a hug, which he melted into. He had always enjoyed physical contact.

The rest of their birthday – a lovely day in August – was spent helping their mother make cookies to bring to their grandparent's house an hour drive away. Ariel was excited, she was very close to her grandmother and grandfather, and was always eager to play with their two Dalmatians.

Peter absently sketched a picture of Ariel and the dogs as he sat in the shade of the back porch of their grandparent's home, and nearly jumped out of his skin when his grandfather approached.

"Now that's an interesting way to draw." Calvin said, standing behind the bespectacled boy.

Peter looked up at him.

"My friend from school sent it to me for my birthday," he said by way of explanation. "He's really nice."

"Is this the same friend that you spent Christmas with?" his grandfather asked him, sitting down next to him with a soft groan.

Peter nodded, his focus back on the page. He was just glad that he hadn't used the ink that Adam had sent along with the quill – it had been enchanted to make the drawings move, which would be fairly hard to explain to anyone.

"Yeah. He knew that we didn't want to meet Mum's girlfriend from then, and his parents were really cool about it. They even invited us back for this year." He grew quiet before asking softly, "Grandpa, why does Mum always have a different boyfriend or girlfriend?"

Calvin considered this for a brief moment before answering.

"I think your mother doesn't know what she's looking for in a significant other. She married your father on a whim, and really only stayed with him for as long as she did because she was pregnant with you at the time."

"Do you think my dad really was – is – a bad person?" Peter asked.

His grandfather shrugged.

"Son, I really don't know. I only met him a few times. He didn't seem like the type of person that could harm a kitten, let alone another human being, but stranger things have happened. All I know is that your mum started acting stranger a few months after she had you, and he was arrested in the States not much later."

Peter considered telling him Ariel's theory that their mother had left the man because of her aversion to magic, but his grandparents were still kept in the dark about the twins little secret, and he didn't want his them to be scared of him and his sister like his mother was.

He sighed and shut his sketchbook – after allowing the ink to dry – before standing up and stretching.

"It's getting a little too warm out here," he mumbled. "I think I'm going to go inside."

Calvin smiled at him.

"Alright, boy. Don't want you to tire yourself out, do we."

Peter shot him a quick grin before disappearing inside the house.

Ariel wasn't very happy.

She had spent the entire summer by her brother's side once more, and now their Houses were separating them again. She pouted a bit, giving herself a moment to be unhappy before sighing and shaking the bad feelings out of her mind. It didn't matter. They were back at Hogwarts, back to magic, and back to friends.

She really had only one close friend for most of her life, and that was Peter. However, she had had a few girl friends in New Castle that she missed when she returned to Hogwarts. Most of the Hufflepuffs deemed her a little too exuberant for their tastes, and tolerated her for the most part. She got along with a pretty dark-haired girl from Gryffindor and a tall boy from Ravenclaw, but they weren't in her same house, and she felt a bit lost when she was left to her peers.

"Are you okay?" one of the new Hufflepuff First Year's asked her, and she grinned at them.

"Yeah, I'm great!" she said cheerfully. "My name's Ariel, Ariel Charlotte. I'm a Second Year."

The first year – a rather short boy with a mop of curly dark hair, beamed up at her.

"I'm Leo Walker," he said with a smile. "I'm a First Year, but you probably knew that already."

Ariel nodded, giggling slightly.

"Your height gave it away," she teased.

Leo gave a mock-scowl.

"I am not short," he declared. "I'd simply be too much to handle if I were any bigger. That's what my Dad says." Ariel could hear the pride in the smaller boy's voice. "He's an Auror and he get's to work with Harry Potter."

"That's pretty wicked," she commented. She'd really only heard rumors about the 'savior' of the Wizarding World, but she supposed that it would be pretty cool to work with a living legend.

Leo launched into an excited rant about the Potter guy, and Ariel (even though she only understood about half of it) thoroughly enjoyed it.

From that point on, she had a friend in the Hufflepuff house.

"I swear, you grew like four inches," Adam commented as he gave Peter a sideways glance.

Peter laughed.

"Good, I won't be small forever, then." He said.

Adam ruffled his hair.

"Nah, you're not small. You're still a growing kid, and you haven't even hit puberty yet."

Peter made a face at the last comment, making it Adam's turn to laugh.

"Oh, touchy subject," he teased, prodding the boy's side with the end of his wand. "Looks like I know your weakness, Pete."

Peter pushed Adam's hand away.

"I got the bird's and the bee's talk years ago," he informed his older friend. "By my mum. I don't think there's much you can do to make me uncomfortable."

Adam took this as a challenge and grinned at Peter.

"Oh, really?" he asked. "Because I saw a certain someone looking at Liza Goodman from Ravenclaw the other day, and she's a very pretty young lady~" He raised his eyebrows, and Peter flushed scarlet.

Word Count: 1,375 without A/N