Jane and her father were in the car when the car slipped on an invisible sheet of ice. Jane closed her eyes until it stopped moving. When she opened them, she was upside down in the back seat, staring at her father's bloody body.

She closed her eyes, trying to block out the image. She trembled, and her breathing got faster, she started rocking back and forth. When she slammed her body to the side, into the cracked and cold window, she felt as if she had released something., so she did it again, and again.

When Jane awoke, the image of her father's dead body was the last thing that she could remember. She was hoping it was a dream, but she knew it probably wasn't because she was in a strange white room. Her mother was by her side. When she looked down at Jane, Jane could tell that she had been crying. "You're going to be okay, Jane," she said.

Jane felt really strange, especially on the left side of her face and neck, and her left hand. She wanted to ask why, but she could not get the words out. She moved her left hand into her line of vision and saw that it was bandaged.

"You're injured, but the doctor said it's not bad enough to be permanent."

Jane saw Tracey, sitting up in their mother's lap, and then Jane started sobbing. Jane had had her father in her life for eleven years, but Tracey would not. Neville's father was still alive, but he had never been able to be a father to him, and the closest Neville had to a father was his grandfather, who died when he was even younger than Jane. Life was so unfair.

On the way home from the hospital, Jane, her mother, and her grandmother stopped at the local zoo and went into the reptile house. Jane's grandfather had taken Tracey home a while ago.

Jane tightly held her mother's hand, while she stared through the glass at Mrs. Snake.

"Oh no," Mrs. Snake cried. "What happened to you?"

Jane tried to speak, but nothing came out. Jane hadn't spoken since the accident, but she was hoping that she would at least be able to speak snake.

"What? You're so upset you can't talk to me? Well, shit happens, but you'll be okay in time. You always seemed pretty tough."

Jane was surprised by that comment.

Jane, her mother, Tracey, and her grandparents, were getting ready to leave for the funeral when there was a knock on the door.

"Come in," her mother called.

Neville and Mrs. Longbottom walked in.

Jane looked at them, surprised. Neville was supposed to be at Hogwarts.

"Hi Jane," Neville greeted, sadly. He wouldn't look directly at her, but he didn't seem surprised to see her in her current state. Maybe he had been warned. "They opened a flu network so I could come home for the day and go to the funeral."

At the funeral, Jane sat between her mother and Neville.

Jane's mother had been holding Jane's right hand, but she let go of it when she had to go up to speak.

Neville held out his hand, and Jane took it.

Jane's grandparents and Mrs. Longbottom were all looking at the two of them, but they didn't notice.

Jane's mother started speaking, but then she started staring into space as if she was totally lost. This wasn't the first time, since her father died, that Jane had seen her do that.

"Come on Mummy," Jane said. "We need you."

Her mother looked straight at her, for a few seconds, and suddenly she was fine.

Years ago, Jasmine Birtch had found out that Asperger's ran in her husband's family when he started noticing signs of Asperger's in their daughter. She suspected that she would have been a lot less upset if she had at least known that Asperger's ran in her husband's family before they got married, but she did not complain about that. She suspected that she would have known if her husband's family hadn't all died before she met them, and she wouldn't dare complain about that. He'd even said things, in the past, that implied that his father and little brother were in some ways very weird, so she wondered if she should have suspected.

Jasmine had pulled Jane out of school, for a while, after the accident. Today she made her go back, and she was regretting that decision already.

Jasmine served lunch to Augusta Longbottom, Tracey, and herself.

"So I kind of have an ulterior motive in inviting you to lunch today," Jasmine admitted. "I don't want Jane to go away to Hogwarts."

Augusta looked puzzled. "Why?"

"This may surprise you because Jane and Neville made friends with each other so easily, but normally she fails to understand or relate to her peers, and she often gets picked on by other children. How other people treat her and react to her seems to have gotten worse as she's gotten older, and I'm mostly referring to people who know she has Asperger's. Do they even know what Asperger's is, in the wizarding world?"

"No. I didn't know what it was until meeting you guys."

"Well, she has enough trouble at her current school, where they do know what it is, and she doesn't live there."

"You don't have to let her go, but if you don't then she'll probably resent you, and she won't learn how to control her magic, which could be very bad. It's not like she would be going away to boarding school alone. She'll have Neville to look out for her."

"I know, and that does make me feel somewhat better. I guess I never fully got used to this whole magic thing. Seriously. I accepted the fact that she wasn't going to be a normal kid, or be popular, or much like myself at a young age. Then her magic started showing up, and it just terrified me."

"Neville didn't show any signs of magic until a later age than most, and I was worried that he didn't have any. I never accepted that, but it turned out that I didn't have too, but overall I'm probably not as accepting of him as I should be. Speaking of Neville, I was worried about him going away to Hogwarts without Jane. He's less timid and shy when she's around."

"Jane's less timid and shy when Neville's around too. I'm certainly glad we moved in next to you guys."

"I'm glad you moved in too."

A moment of silence passed.

"You know, you'll probably be able to talk to some of the Hogwarts staff about her. Muggle-raised children usually get their first Hogwarts letter hand-delivered. You probably shouldn't mention that she can talk to snakes, though."

Jasmine flinched. "Why shouldn't I mention that?"

"She might get discriminated against because of a famous wizard who could talk to snakes."

"Oh, she might get discriminated against for everything."

"My husband used to say that you'll never be able to do anything if you don't take risks."

Jasmine sighed. "That sounds like something my husband would say."