Mrs Granger had started to keep a journal. She had written "Never such a puberty!" at the top of the first page.

Her little bookworm had transformed into a sporty mutant who'd already set her cap for a boy they'd only met once.

Out the window she saw Hermione in the back yard, riding a broom. It hung from a pulley on a rope, and must have been hell to stay on. Even with pads and a helmet, it looked more dangerous than she should be all right with. There were three of them. One went southeast, one southwest, and one south. They had put down flashing so Hermione scrambling onto the roof didn't harm its integrity. The three ropes had basketball hoops without netting that Hermione passed on either side, five sets in all. Her goal was to throw a football through them. At times Mr Granger would help her by throwing the football as she rode the rope down. Once she'd lost her balance and had to hang from the broom and catch her fall on her hands on the lawn, but was unharmed. Coupled with her report that she'd nearly fainted playing football during play break because her dolls were siphoning her magic, Mrs Granger was wondering when she'd have to step in.

What held her back was the reasonable argument that it was better for Hermione to be mildly hurt now than killed later because she had no allies in "Wizarding Britain." Her association with families like the Potters and Lovegoods could literally make that difference. Hermione was, for the first time ever, making friends at school. She was at least an average football player now. Sometimes, when she was reading Quidditch books at school, she passed them off as football training. The old Hermione would have never gotten away with it.

Those utterly queer books had described the sort of girls and their traits that were popular at "Hogwarts." "Hogwarts" was, apparently, located in "Hogsmeade" where the headmaster's brother ran the "Hog's Head Inn." Three guesses what the economy of the region had been. Hermione had told her she was consciously learning from the advice the girls gave each other in the books, especially the girls who had ensnared the hero. What a twist, actually meeting him! It gave you pause, though. If Harry Potter was real, and magic was real - was her daughter in there?

If so, she feared the worst. If she perished in the book, which seemed to have some sort of magical ability to mimic reality, Mrs Granger could well understand turning Hermione's life upside down over it. And it would also explain the curio shop. According to Hermione, the shop girl resembled the description of one of the Lovegoods, and they were said to have the ability to "divine" the future to a degree. Perhaps one of them wrote fictionalised accounts of the future intertwined with romance, then sold them in the non-magical world so only those in the know would see them? It was distinctively odd, however; probably the quotes on the dust jacket were fabricated? It had to have been a vanishingly tiny print run or magical children like Hermione would have told their parents about it by now.

Hermione put away her football, stripped off her helmet and padding, and came in. She marched upstairs, and Mrs Granger could hear her having a quick shower. When she came back down, with still-damp hair that actually looked controllable compared to the dry version, she had the box the three new dolls had come in.

"Harry bonded to them, somehow. That's what they told me." So Hermione was going to give them to him. This was the pretext for the Grangers meeting the Dursleys.


Hermione's perpetual nervousness and shyness were less and less evident nowadays. She got out of the car and walked up at a moderate pace to the front door of Number Four. Her parents stood a few feet behind her. When a woman who matched the description of Petunia Dursley answered the door, Hermione, and then her parents, introduced themselves. Mr Granger said, ominously, that they needed to have a discussion about Harry Potter that would be best not held on her front doorstep. They could all see Mrs Williams in Number Six looking over intently. Less obvious was the couple in Number Two, who according to Harry tended to, as now, simply have their window partly open and part of the curtain pulled away at the bottom.

Before Petunia could react, she dashed in and knocked on the door to the cupboard. "Harry, come out, I have something for you. It's Hermione," she said. She stepped away as the door opened out, and Harry emerged, blinking owlishly. He didn't look entirely shocked when she opened the box she was carrying and showed him it was more dolls.

Hermione made a point of taking Harry's hand as she went towards the front of the house again.

Her parents had been laying down the law to Petunia. To sweeten the bitter pill, however, they'd discussed the wizard who left Harry on the Dursley's doorstep. The Grangers believed the headmaster's explanation was misleading.

"We think that, far from increasing the protection on Harry, caused by your sister's sacrifice, he's weakened it tremendously. He really wanted Harry raised ignorant with people who disliked magic, so he lied," Mrs Granger was saying as Harry and Hermione returned.

Mrs Dursley tried to object when she saw that Mr Granger had brought out a camera. Mrs Granger gently reminded her what a precarious position she, her husband and his sister, and her son were all in. Hermione, Harry and Mr Granger paused, amused.

"You see, once the wizard - his name's Dumbledore," she said, and ignored Mrs Dursley's "we knew that!" "Once that wizard," she continued, "placed Harry here and transferred the protection from whatever ritual your sister did from Harry's body to this house, it ensured you all protection from those 'Death Eater' terrorists. It would have been far better for everyone if he threw you a little money to leave the country or change your names. As it is, as long as Harry calls this place home, apparently, some of his mother's protection extends to the house. Or so he claimed, though we trust him no more than you do, Mrs Dursley. If Harry leaves, or even more likely realises he could live somewhere else and this place is no home, then the wizards that kill the families of Muggle-borns will eventually find you and kill you all. That's," raising a finger, "One."

"The general community of wizards venerates this boy like few others. He's their national hero. And you, Muggles as they call us, have beaten him, starved him, abused him, and sicced your son and your sister-in-law's bloody dog on him. You'd be lucky to get life in their wizard prison, which is worse than Devil's Island. And we don't need pictures for that, they'd never believe you over him anyway. That's two."

"We're trained medical professionals and we've already taken pictures of Harry. The dog bite scars are still there. Apparently, when your husband backhanded him, that didn't leave permanent marks, but the fact that he flinches whenever a man's hand gets anywhere near his head? I'm surprised, given you nearly killed him with a frying pan, it's not a woman's hand, too. And your son did create permanent scars, and bones that didn't heal properly - not taking for treatment a child in your care is yet another crime. All of which adds up to prison for Vernon Dursley, for Marge Dursley when we have her investigated, and probably for you. And your son in a foster home. All of which you'd be lucky to get, considering the other two possibilities. At the very least, Vernon fired for bad publicity. That's three. Now, we were talking about your roses - I think Harry's done a great job with them, don't you?"

Mr Granger meticulously photographed the cupboard, including Harry's marks on the wall - the only recognition his birthday had ever gotten.

Hermione and Harry grabbed some bin bags from under the kitchen sink and went upstairs again, while Mrs Granger kept Petunia Dursley occupied. They came back down shortly with what, from the noise the bags made when they were dragged downstairs, might well be Dudley's broken toys. Without any fanfare, they shoved them in the cupboard under the stairs.

"We found a bed, under all the junk, Ducks," Mr Granger said. "It will probably do. Mrs Dursley, where's some bed linen Harry can use?"

Wordlessly, Petunia indicated the little laundry room near the guest bedroom. Harry and Hermione headed back up carrying sheets, a blanket and a pillow.

When they came back down, Mr and Mrs Granger were still talking to Petunia. "We're still working everything out, Mrs Dursley, but tell your husband we'll take the gloves off if he plans to make trouble. Our daughter will be checking up on Harry, you can count on it."

"Now, Harry," asked Mrs Granger, "we were wondering, would you like to meet a friend of Hermione's? That's where we're headed."

"What's she like?" asked Harry.

"Well," Hermione said, looking at her parents, "the truth is we haven't met her yet."

Harry had the same expression he'd worn when he saw that "A Friend" was an 11-year-old girl.

"But we're ... pen-friends," she concluded. "And she's very nice."

"Harry, we might be able to go by Hermione's favourite shop, too. It might help you understand all the strange things that have happened to you."

Hermione wanted to shake her head at her parents. Heck, she wanted to shake them. All she needed was for the curio shop to be open and the shopgirl to say something about Harry being in the books she bought. That was all it would take to ruin everything. Well, she thought, it's not like I planned to outright lie to him. She would put a brave face on it, and que sera, sera.

Still, it was with a feeling of impending doom that she saw the shop was open. It isn't really on the way to Ottery St Catchpole, she fumed. She babbled a little as they went towards it, explaining to Harry how old the shop was and how unusual. The shopgirl didn't actually wink at her, but it was a very knowing look she delivered to Hermione as they entered. Then she addressed Harry.

"Those three dolls, did the book-girl explain them to you?" she demanded.

Harry shook his head, but said, "well, a little. They're ... kind of scary, honestly."

"You, Mr Potter, are the very last person who should be scared of them. They've been the making of Miss Granger, there, and they'll be the making of you, too. And even better, you won't get tired like ..." she nodded her head in Hermione's direction, and that girl nodded glumly, "she does. Have the Grangers take you to Diagon, have her explain what they can do for you."

Then she reached under the counter and brought out a little hand mirror, which she gave to Harry. "A bargain, this is. Wasn't easy to find. Only a galleon."

Everyone but the shopgirl whipped their heads around at Hermione's sharp gasp.

"Harry doesn't have any, but I'll pay for it," she said. "You can buy me an ice cream or something sometime, Harry," she said, looking at him. Then she took the mirror, treating it like a butterfly that had landed on her palm. Gingerly, she turned it over. You could see the word "Prongs" embedded on the back.

"Hold this, Harry," she said, offering it back. "My hands are shaky. Tap it on the front, once, gently." He did so.

"Moony!" she said, and waited. "Moony, please answer. Remus Lupin! Remus Lupin, this is a friend of the son of Prongs calling. Please answer."

It seemed like the mirror twitched a little, and she had a strange feeling of magic coming off of it. At a guess, Lupin had the mirror near him but couldn't, or wouldn't respond.

"That's really odd," she heard Harry say. "It feels almost like it's alive, it gave me the strangest sensation. Does it read minds or something?"

"It's ... it's like a cellular phone, Harry." He still looked confused. "I am sure you've seen someone with them on the telly. It's a kind of phone you carry with you, it has a battery ... you punch in the numbers like a cash register, you don't dial it." Harry's expression said he was familiar with push-button phones, thank you very much. "Anyway, this is like that, but magic. So you can kind of sense how the person on the other end is feeling, I guess."

"Feeling like not answering, I guess," Harry responded. She nodded, glumly.

"We'll try again, Harry. The person that put you with the Dursleys told Mr Lupin to avoid you, he ordered him to, but he never said anything about the mirrors," Hermione explained.

It would have looked strange if she didn't go to the book section. She was sure her face was white, and she almost collapsed, before straightening up, putting on a blank expression, and going to the opposite part of the store. After that, she stayed with Harry, who fortunately didn't even know about the book section. There was no way she could have explained "Harry Potter and the Yearning Yeti." At least in this context. Maybe at Obscurus or Flourish and Blotts, she could act more surprised.

As they were leaving, Hermione said she'd forgotten something and had them go ahead without her. She went back and shoved all dozen volumes of the adventures of Young Harry Potter into her book bag. Fortunately, they were half the price of the real books.

The shopgirl was openly laughing at her as she paid for them. As she was putting them back in Hermione's bag, the door chimed.

"Good to see you again, Mr Dumbledore," she heard the girl say.