Disclaimer: I do not own or hope to ever own any of the characters in Harry Potter's world. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I am just letting them have some fun.

Other Puzzle Pieces

Andromeda Black Tonks was concerned about Narcissa's motives. Andromeda had not been sorted Slytherin for nothing, even though she married a half-blood Hufflepuff with muggle leanings. Her mind wandered to the pleasant years spent with Ted and the trying years with Nymphadora. She shook her head and corrected herself as her daughter was wont to do, Tonks. "No, she could not bring herself to call her beautiful, funny daughter by her last name. She was Dora Lupin to her." Ted had been a television reporter when she had first married him. They eloped to Gretna Green straight from finishing school at Hogwarts. He had already been hired and they were giddy teens high on adrenalin. The first few years had been hard, but when he had been promoted from reporter to news presenter near the end of the First Wizard War things became much easier.

Andromeda remembered why she had come upstairs to her bedroom, the one she had shared with Ted Tonks. She shook herself away from that reverie again. Crossing over to her night stand, she pushed it about a foot away from the bed. There she pulled up a floor board and retrieved a box. Their father had told all three girls not to disparage all things muggle. The cleverness sometimes was better than magic for hiding things and with combined with magic was often defeating to wizard (or witch) and muggle alike. This floor board was a muggle hiding place, but the box that had been hidden in it was definitely magic. It looked similar to the puzzle boxes from the Chinese and the Pacific Islands, but you needed magic to open it. The box had originally been a wooden puzzle box from the Philippines, but she had charmed it and endowed it with numerous enchantments that only allowed her and her blood descendants to open it. She pricked her finger and pressed it to the lock.

The lid was free to open and she removed the upper center tray then pulled up one of the wooden panels that made the partition between the center portion and the two side portions on the left. (There was a similar divider on the right, but the top portion on that side was divided into thirds.) She reached under the divider and pulled out a thin packet of letters. Rifling through she pulled out one then returned the packet to the hidden compartment. The box closed with a snap. She carelessly stuffed the letter into her bra and murmured about skirts without pockets. Deep in thought Andromeda traced the intricate inlay of the multicoloured woods in the top of the box. Ted had brought it back from a filming trip he had been on while she was pregnant with Nymphadora and could not travel with him. It was a cherished gift. Carefully she placed it back beneath the floor boards, sliding it back to hide it and then returned the covering board. The nightstand was returned to its correct position before Andromeda went back downstairs.

Andromeda opened the yellowed parchment of the letter. It was the last one from her father before he had passed away. Her mother never corresponded with her once she had married Ted. Andromeda wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with a crisp white handkerchief. She stared at the handmade lace that filled one corner and had the ABT of her monogram worked into the lace and surrounded by forget-me-nots.

The poem on the parchment had long been a puzzle. Her father had written that it was a very old prophecy and even he could not remember when it started being handed down to the second child born of the Ancient and Noble House of Black. That is why she had it. Her father had been the second and she had been the second. He said that it didn't matter whether the second was a witch or a warlock, it needed to be protected in a way that the heir could not. Well that was right. Sirius and Regulus were both dead.

She looked at the old script in blue-black ink on the cracking parchment, then holding it carefully she read:

When the war has ended

And the Black name is no more,

When there are but five,

The muggleborn witch will provide direction

And the potioneer the brew.

Each of the five a puzzle piece to own,

Each of the pieces only to share.

Each Black remaining will have to care,

Their talents and cooperation to share,

For the name to ring true, of jealousy beware.

One from the dark and one from light

A truce will form and a child's loss and return

Will only come through cooperation.

Only the pure of heart will again shine

While the darkest heart in fire consume.

Once the puzzle is complete,

The fruits will be shared and multiplied

Only then the strength of the name will rise

From an unexpected place.

The House of Black will be renewed

And a named heir and spare return.

At the bottom was a nine pointed star with runes at each point. This was superimposed over a star chart with one point ending on the star Sirius and another on Regulus. Why hadn't she seen this before? Maybe she wasn't looking, or maybe it wasn't visible before.

She shivered and wondered if the child lost and returned would be Teddy.

/

Hermione Granger was a volunteer at the local public library and did the children's story hour every week. She used a mixture of fairy tales and adventure stories. Just as long as there were pretty picture the children were happy. She had just figured out how to make the stories from The Tales of Beedle the Bard into muggle fairy tales. She was carefully copying the illustrations with coloured markers onto poster board. On the back fly-leaf someone had drawn a nine pointed star superimposed over a chart of the night sky. She shook her head. No, she didn't remember seeing that before.