Chapter 27: Notes and letters

The next morning, a Saturday, had dawned misty and rainy – Harry knew that because he'd been awake for it. He'd heard Hermione again. She'd sounded closer, louder than she had in the forest.

He'd woken up terrified. And lonely for his friends…

But he'd shaken off the feeling. Instead, he had forced himself to get out of bed and, after some hesitation, to sit down at the table and write. It was now almost three hours later, and he felt drained.

Harry stretched and stared at the sheets of lined paper on the desk in front of him. Six of them. One for each Horcrux. The light from the desk lamp illuminated the black scribbles that covered them back and front. He'd tried his best to be neat, but after the first page his hand had cramped up so badly that he'd quickly given up on neat and aimed for mostly legible instead.

Now all he needed to do was give the notes to Lily and James with express instructions to pass them straight on to Dumbledore. In fact, he was considering sealing the pages with a spell only the Headmaster would be able to unpick.

For the time being, he'd simply added a warning, underlined twice, at the top of the first page: 'PLEASE, let Professor Dumbledore handle this – he'll know what to do.'

He was a bit worried that it made it sound like he thought Lily and James wouldn't know how to deal with it themselves but figured it would be worth offending them if it meant they ended up a safe distance away from the Horcruxes.

Harry took a deep breath and looked up from the desk. The sun was slowly burning through the mist. From the floor below his, he heard someone get up to go to the bathroom, and footsteps on the stairs, the heavier ones James's, followed by a light tread and child's voice. Anna.

Sam wouldn't be far behind…

With that in mind, Harry folded up the pages and stuffed them into the moleskin pouch he was still wearing around his neck – a habit he probably should shake now that the war was over.

But before he could dwell on that thought, there were new footsteps on the stairs – a gentle knock on his door… Harry put on what he hoped was a happy front as Sam, all smiles and wide hazel eyes, stepped into his room.

The day was starting, whether Harry was ready for it or not.

Despite hearing Hermione's voice for the second time in as many days, Harry didn't find it all that hard to act as if everything was normal. Maybe he'd gotten used to life here – at least enough for him to be able to rely on some form of autopilot.

It wasn't until later that morning that he found himself at a bit of a loss.

Once breakfast was over, Lily had gone upstairs to work. Anna had taken up residence in the corridor with a tennis ball and was entertaining herself bouncing it against the wall. And for once, Sam hadn't felt like flying, or like playing Lego – or even like chatting with Harry like he normally did. Instead, he had picked up a comic book and cuddled up against James, who was doing the weekend crosswords in the paper.

Harry left them to it. This was the family following its habitual patterns, without him…

Instead, he made his way up the house, to his bedroom, with the vague thought of reading through his letter to Dumbledore once more.

That was how he came across Violet's room, and her within it. Her door stood open, so he'd looked inside, not realising that she'd be there. When she looked up from where she was lounging on her bed, it was too late to back away.

For a split-second, she was the defensive girl he'd gotten used to since his arrival – her chin thrust forward in a gesture he recognised as one he shared. Harry pushed his glasses up his nose and was about to apologise when the frown on Violet's face melted away into weariness.

"Hi," she said, much to Harry's surprise, and beckoned him in with a slight nod of her head and a shrug.

"Hey," Harry replied. He shuffled into the room.

Cautiously, he perched on her desk chair and looked around him. It was a little girl's bedroom still, with posters of unicorns on the wall and cuddly toys on the shelves next to her first-year schoolbooks. Looking at the gangly, awkward teenager on the bed, it was obvious that she'd spent most of the past year away and had, in that time, outgrown her room.

And for the first time, he thought about Hogwarts from the parents' perspective – how strange it must feel to let your child go off, so young, to spend most of the year away from you. He wondered if maybe there were some families that resented the fact that the only option for a magical education was to let their child grow up away from them…

The Weasleys seemed fine with it, so presumably most wizarding families were taking the Hogwarts experience as a given – but what about the parents of Muggleborn witches and wizards? And what about those who had lost so much during the war – would they still be willing to let their children out of their sight at such a young age? Andromeda for instance. What would it be like for her, to relinquish the only family she had left? Teddy turning eleven was still a long way away. Enough time for her to heal maybe, at least a little…

"God, I hope so," Harry whispered, before a little cough brought him back to his surroundings, blinking and blushing upon realising that he'd spoken out loud.

"Everything alright?" Violet asked.

"Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "I was just thinking about my godson…"

Violet frowned at him. "You have a godson? Aren't you a bit young…? No offence," she added quickly seeing Harry's surprised expression.

"I suppose I am," he admitted. "He's the son of –" He'd been about to say 'one of my dad's friends' but of course, she knew who Remus was… He hesitated, and finally decided to risk it. After all, it wasn't like travelling back in time – there wasn't any future for him to mess up.

He took a big breath and said: "He's Remus's son."

Violet's eyes nearly popped out of their socket at that. She pushed her glasses up her nose and leaned forward eagerly; her hazel eyes took a mischievous glint very much like James's.

"Tell me more," she said with a grin, and Harry chuckled.

"There isn't much to tell, really. He's only very little – just two months old. He's called Teddy. His mum is a Metamorphmagus, so his face changes all the time, but when he's sleeping he looks a bit like Remus, only with blue hair."

He could just picture Teddy's little face as he'd last seen it, all scrunched up as he prepared to wail the Great Hall down… The memory was mostly a bitter one, yet still he found himself smiling.

"Oh, this is priceless," Violet was saying when Harry returned his attention to the present moment. "Does Dad know about it? What about Uncle Padfoot? Oh, I can't wait to see their faces when I tell them about it. There can't be too many Metamorphmagi in Britain, so she'll be pretty easy to find, and then we can work on setting them up and BAM! Blue-haired babies!"

Violet gave an exaggerated evil cackle and rubbed her hands, making Harry laugh.

"Thanks for that, Harry, that cheered me right up," she said, giving him a wink. She picked up her quill again and added a few words to the parchment in front of her. "There, that should do it."

"Writing to a friend?" Harry asked.

"Well… it's for Hermione Granger. She said I could, you know, after what happened last year…"

Violet seemed to hesitate. Harry gave her a small smile.

"I didn't realise you wrote to Hermione. You know, she's one of my very best friends. I honestly think I wouldn't be alive today without her."

And for a second, as he spoke about her, it felt almost like she was here right next to him – the echo of a voice, the smell of her shampoo… He turned around, he couldn't help himself, even though he knew that, of course, she wasn't there.

Violet seemed to drink up his words eagerly.

"I always wondered…" she said timidly. "What it would've been like if you'd been there at school this year."

With a pang, Harry realised that he had never actually considered this. He'd have been attending school with a little sister to look out for, the way Ron did for Ginny…

"I would've like that," he said. "Having you there with me."

They shared a smile, a sad one, one for the lost opportunities, yet one that warmed Harry's heart.

"So you were friends with Hermione," Violet prompted him.

"I was. People actually used to call us the Golden Trio – among other far less flattering things – her, me and Ron."

"Ron Weasley?" Violet asked, her eyes wide. "Hermione Granger was friends with Ron Weasley? But they only ever scream at each other."

"Yeah, well, my Ron and Hermione did that too. I guess there is some truth in the saying that opposites attract."

"Oh my Merlin, you mean they're going out?" Violet had slapped a hand in front of her mouth. "No way!"

"I know, right?" Harry said. For a second, he wondered who Hermione had ended up befriending in this reality, with no troll and no Harry to speed things along, but he push that thought aside, unwilling to ruin the moment with these considerations. Instead, he carried on: "I was also friends with Neville Longbottom." Violet nodded. "And with some people from other Houses too – there's a Ravenclaw girl called Luna Lovegood. She's a bit strange, but once you get past that, she's absolutely brilliant. She'll still be there next year – she was in the year below us – so look her up if you fancy."

Violet nodded eagerly before her smile took on a more impish edge. "So… Hermione and Ron… And what about you then, are you going out with anyone?"

Harry felt a strange pang to her heart. "Yeah," he said. "I did – I went out with Ginny Weasley for a while."

Ginny. Her freckled face. The warmth of her skin under his hands. Her laugh, raucous and so contagious. Her quick anger. Her quicker forgiveness…

Violet was watching him attentively. "You're still in love with her," she said, decisively.

Harry felt himself blush and fought the childish urge to deny it. Instead he shrugged. "What about you then, who are you friends with?" Not that he would know any of the current first-years having missed his seventh year altogether…

But Violet seemed to accept his change of subject and started telling him all about Amanda, her friend from primary school, who had ended up in Hufflepuff.

Finally, he thought, he'd cracked the last one of the Potters from Sam's world. Carefully, he stored everything he could about this conversation into the little part of his mind where he kept his most cherished moments.

A/N: Happy Monday everyone! Here's a chapter, despite RL's best efforts to stop me from publishing by keeping me very busy. Today's curve ball: a washing machine that isn't draining... Wish me luck!