April 12th, 1992

Melissa dreamt of dashing sword fights and pixie dust. When she awoke, her head was full of song. She skipped to the horns of Hook's theme as she made her way down the stairs. Celestas and flutes twinkled in her mind as she poured cereal in her bowl. The majestic and whimsical strings so key to Williams' style swirled around her ears as she read through the Daily Prophet. It took a serious amount of effort to stop the Lost Boys from chasing the Peter of her thoughts as she sat down to write Harry a letter.

Dear Harry,

You missed a great movie! You also missed the perfect opportunity to join my rebellion in renaming Jeff as Jack and Uncle John to Peter. This would only make sense to you if you had come home. Your loss.

Melissa

P.S. Have you been by Hagrid's at all? Does he have an egg with him?

"Subtle." She muttered, then promptly scratched it out. Better to remove that section completely or else risk Harry taking a look. Sure, Hagrid getting caught with a dragon could get him arrested, but learning about Norbert is just another puzzle piece to the stone that Harry could have in his arsenal.

Keep Hagrid out of jail. Keep Harry away from the stone …Tough call.

*Ding Dong*

"Coming!" She called out, abandoning her first draft at the table as she went over to the door. The lost boys still skated about in her mind, weaving her feet to the music as she got to the door. She peeked through the eyehole, humming all the while, and was surprised to find Mister Salvatore on the other side. Confused, but not horribly so, she got out a bag and went through the usual protocol for visiting wizards. When done, she opened up the door at last. "How do you do, Mister Salvatore?"

"Well, thank you." He nodded. "Are your parents in?"

"No. Mum has an outcall lesson and dad's with some mates. Anything I can help with?"

The former defence professor smiled. "I'm sure you can."

"Well, alright then. Come inside." She led him over to the den and settled down across from him. "So what brings you over? I'm surprised you don't have Sirius with you."

"While this is about Sirius, I felt that this visit would be best done without his knowledge." The man confessed. The response confused Melissa, moreso when he pulled a piece of parchment from a box hidden in his robes. "Sirius fears he has had a security breach of late. I believe you are familiar with the matter."

He handed the parchment over to her. She took it, and felt a quick pulse of panic as she read the opening line To: Kreacher. She didn't gulp, much as comedic timing would call for it. Instead, her eyes flicked up to the elder man and flitted down again to the small letter. He doesn't know. She tried to convince herself. No, I'm not supposed to know. He already said that I would know even though I shouldn't. "What makes you think that I know about this message?" She asked curiously. Not innocently, no. No need to be dramatic.

He didn't answer. Instead, he simply waved his arm over the box, giving it a unique shade of sunset gold. That same light then emitted from her wand. "I showed each of you your magical signatures during your first month of school." Speechless, she made no move as Mister Salvatore plucked the letter from her hand. "That, and you need to learn how to disguise your handwriting."

Melissa struggled to find her voice. "Does he know?"

"No." He answered simply.

Melissa met his eyes with uncertainty. "Why?"

"Because I have my own questions in need of answering." The wizard's dark hazel eyes bored into hers. "Three times you have accomplished difficult tasks; destroyed two dark artifacts belonging to a powerful wizard and freed an innocent man by finding the man who framed him. Each time, you did this with the intention of not being found out. I've spoken with Sirius about you. Not directly about your feats, but he has mentioned your… shall we say instincts in things you should not know about. Therefore, I no longer trust that your discovery of Peter Pettigrew was an accident. Nor do I trust that these artifacts were found in a similar way. So, shall you keep playing the innocent child, or will you finally come out of hiding?"

The question and analysis left Melissa in full panic mode. He was asking questions he shouldn't know to ask, and already had answers he shouldn't have had, either. The instinct to flee was tampered down with the knowledge that the man before her is armed, literally and figuratively. There is no way to get out of this. For the second time in this life she felt truly helpless.

"I can't… I can't tell people."

"Can't and won't are two very different things, Miss Bennett." The man coldly assured.

The witch really did gulp this time. What was there to say at this point? She settled on a half-truth, the same as what Harry has been led to believe. "Sometimes… I see things-"

"No."

"No?"

The wizard raised his brow. "That's not the word you want to use. What word are you hiding?"

Melissa sighed, and amended her phrase with eyes downcast. "Sometimes I… I remember things." He didn't interrupt this time, and Melissa knew she had to continue. "I remember things that have happened, or... haven't happened yet, or won't happen at all."

In her periphery, Mister Salvatore waved his human hand in a beckoning gesture. "Why do you remember them, and not see them?"

Beyond her control, Melissa flinched. She never considered that question before yet hated it all the same. She couldn't tell him the full truth, but he kept catching her in the lie!

"The first time I met Harry… I didn't know who he was. Just some kid with cruel relatives. I wanted to help him. Everything was fine when we walked over to my uncle's house... but then he said his name."

"And then?"

"And then…" The girl sighed and flopped deeper into her chair, eyes looking up to the ceiling, this time. She allowed the memory to flow through her. Feeling it now as she had felt it then. "It was like everything flooded in at once. His life flashed before my eyes. A montage of random movie clips about his life. I saw everything from when Voldemort went after him as a baby to getting hit with the killing curse when he's older. Hell, even after that!" She sounded angry at this point, even meeting his eyes as she spoke. "Look, I know it doesn't make sense. Okay? I don't even remember everything I saw that day. It just happened! One second he's telling me his address, then I'm on the ground laughing because I'm apparently a witch in this wild story about a boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs! I didn't ask for this! I definitely didn't ask for him to get his mind wiped after the whole thing while I had to pick up the pieces to figure out what's real and what's fake. I don't even know what reality I'm in, anymore! Everything's great, but it's also a mess, and I'm just trying to keep him safe so that Dumbledore doesn't send him off to die!"

Melissa was panting at this point. She hadn't even realized that she was shouting until the hoarseness creeped up her throat. The cautious wizard before her, though, looked concerned rather than feeling the fury. "Why does Dumbledore want Harry to die?"

The girl growled in frustration. "Because he's a goddamn horcrux, okay! Voldemort put a stupid piece of his soul inside of him when he died and now it's the only way to kill Voldemort for good unless I can find a way to stop it!"

"A horcrux?!" Now the Mediterranean man finally related to the strong sense of urgency. "But how? He is a living being!"

"Like that's stopped him before." Melissa scoffed. "His snake, Nagini, is one as well. Along with five other pieces."

Mister Salvatore paled at the reveal. "The man broke his soul into eight pieces? What madness!"

"Mhmm, yeah, join the club."

The wizard pondered worriedly for a moment. "That's what the artifacts were, weren't they? Horcruxes. Little wonder the house elf could not destroy the locket. But how did you destroy them?"

"Next year Harry is supposed to fight and kill a basilisk hidden under Hogwarts." Salvatore nearly jumped out of his seat, yet Melissa simply raised a placating hand. "Relax, we got it cleared up. I told Harry about it and he somehow made friends with the damn thing. -Before you ask, being a horcrux turned Harry into a parselmouth, so that was easy enough.- Anyways, we got her to destroy the first horcrux we found, and I got her to break the locket after that. I don't want Harry to know about that one, though."

"...Yes. I can see the trouble that would bring." He answered slowly. "The poor boy must be suffering enough with that thing in his mind." He thought on for another moment. "I must confess, while I expected some divinative abilities from you, this precise power is not something I have ever seen before. Has this happened with anyone else?"

"No, just with Harry." She answered truthfully.

His eyes alighted with realization. "That's why you don't want him to know. For anyone to know. Knowledge of the Boy Who Lived could be dangerous in the wrong hands."

"And it's weird as fuck." She added with a shrug.

Mister Salvatore thought longer on the information provided. "This summer both you and Harry will be tutored in occlumency under myself and a proper legilimens. Sirius knows that I'm a cautious man, he won't argue against it or be suspicious of it. It may take some years to master it, but I will send readings to prepare you. I will also tutor you both in defensive magic."

The news surprised the witch. "What about the whole 'no magic outside of school' thing?"

"Such rules have little effect in a magical home. Particularly if hidden by the appropriate wards and with written approval to be your tutor. That said, I also require whatever information you can give me about the remaining horcruxes. How close are you to retrieving them?"

"...Yeah, about that." The girl muttered abashly. "I'm pretty much stuck for a few months. If memory serves, Lucius Malfoy will have one brought to Hogwarts next year through Ginny Weasley. I can get that one easily enough. There's a cup that, in the future, is found in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringotts. There's a ring, but all I know about it is that Dumbledore finds it. Then there's Nagini, but I'm not sure if she's already a horcrux or if it happens in three years. Or is it in two years?"

The man pursed his lips into a thin line. "I can come up with ways to look into each of those items. Perhaps with enough recollection we can find these objects and destroy them. Perhaps even study them to find a solution for Harry. When does Dumbledore make his move?"

"Against Harry? Uh, I suppose in six years? Technically Dumbledore is already dead at that point. Harry was given the idea to kill himself by Dumbledore, though."

"Then we had best get to work." Mister Salvatore straightened in his seat. Melissa, however, remained slouched. "...Seeing as you showed honesty to me, and are not posing a threat against Sirius and his family, I have decided to not reveal the truth to them."

Melissa looked up in surprise. "You are?"

"Yes." He nodded. "The less people who know your secrets, the better they are kept secret."

"Oh, thank Merlin." she breathed out in relief.

The older man smirked. "If it makes you feel more assured. Having young Harry's life safe from dark wizards is also a strong interest for my work's integrity."

Melissa couldn't help but blast two short chuckles at that. "Maybe I should tell Sirius to give you a raise?"

The man's tone warmed in amusement. "Had I the belief you could recommend that without revealing the reason to Sirius, I wouldn't stop you."

"Well at least I offered." The girl shrugged. "So… secret revealed, and now you're part of the secret mission. What's the next step?"

"Now, we catalogue the remaining horcruxes and your knowledge of how they will be recovered. From there we plan the next stages."

Melissa chuckled again. "Knowledge and preparation?" She muttered smugly.

Salvatore smirked at the girl's tease. "Precisely, Miss Bennett. Precisely."

A/N: Well, she survived five years before the secret broke out, and on another Easter, of all times.