The twins see their dad again for the first time since they left home on September 1st

On Saturday morning after finally returning to the castle from the woods happy but exhausted, Hermione had sent their father a thorough and very honest letter about the weird and wonderful hijinks they had gotten up to the night before. By that afternoon she had received a note via school elf from their head of house instructing her and her brother to both pack overnight bags and report to her office as quickly as possible.

It was the 21st, and the full moon wouldn't be at its height until Monday. As far as she knew they hadn't made any plans to go home for more than just the afternoon and night of the full itself. She tried to hold back her fear of repudiation - after all, she had taken the initiative to be forthcoming like he said he would always appreciate. He was probably just concerned and wanted to lay eyes on them. Normal overprotective dad stuff.

After saying goodbye to their dorm mates and asking Neville to tell their cousins they'd gone home early the pair of them made their way nervously up to professor McGonagall's office above the main transfiguration classroom. Hermione clutched her brother's hand tightly outside the door, excited and terrified all at the same time. She'd never been afraid to see her father before, and just the thought of it sent a jarring and profoundly wrong sensation through her like her fur being rubbed the wrong direction.

Harry squeezed her hand back and sighed contentedly like he had been all morning so far "He's not going to be mad at you Neens, he's going to see me shift into a great bloody wolf and be absolutely thrilled out of his bloody gourd. He might shit a brick, but I promise you he's going to be beside himself with joy… and if he isn't then I'll just have to bite him myself, won't I?" He said with a smirk and a laugh.

She rubbed her shoulder against his silently, pushing appreciation tinged with the doubt she still felt through the link that existed between them still. They were currently separated into their own two individual bodies but the bridge between them was open and primed, and they would be keeping it that way for the time being. Should they wish to do so again, they knew it would be as easy as breathing to merge themselves together like they had the night before. Though their spiritual shenanigans hadn't come with instructions, it had been very plain to the two of them that they would always remain connected for the rest of their lives. They had been divinely endowed and imbued with the abilities they had explored in the celestial plane, and they were a part of them now forever.

"If he's mad at you then he's mad at us both," Harry added more seriously, sensing her nerves and wishing he could soothe them. He lifted his fist and knocked on the door in front of them, pulling her along through it with him when it opened. It should have been obvious that a proud Scot like professor McGonagall would decorate with tartan, but a startled laugh still escaped him unintentionally when he saw she had an entire wall painted in the vibrant pattern. With all the rich reds and golds it was just as cozy and inviting as the Gryffindor common room.

As they entered her office the professor stood up behind her desk and beckoned them over to the hearth. She lit a fire and took a box of floo powder down from the mantelpiece, and eyed them knowingly "Your father has written me requesting that the two of you come home for all three days of the full moon so that you'll have time to adjust to having been away from home for the first time. As it is currently the weekend and this is still your very first month of school, I will allow it this once. You're excused through Tuesday and I expect to see you back here in my office on Wednesday morning. In the future you will be allowed to leave in the morning on the day of the full moon and will be excused for the entire day, but will be expected back the day after. I will not make exceptions again unless there are legitimate extenuating circumstances." She smiled tightly, but her brow was furrowed and she was clearly conflicted.

"Your father and Mr Rowle fought for you before the school board to have the same rights as the other students and not be treated unfairly. Even though they were successful and the contract was signed, I'm sure there are still many who would like to see you removed from here permanently. This should come as no surprise, but as much as I like all of my lions I'm quite fond of the two of you in particular. Therefore I will be doing my best to avoid giving you preferential treatment so as not to call attention or give those fools any reason to complain. They won't be able to point a single finger at any impropriety if I have my way, real or imagined," she said, and they both rushed forward to hug her. She chuckled and patted their backs.

"Not to beat a dead horse but this is exactly what I was talking about, my dears" she remarked dryly, and they both laughed. Hermione took a conservative pinch of the powder between her fingers and tossed it into the fireplace, calling out their home address "We'll behave professor, we promise. And we love you too!" She said cheekily, leaping into the flames before the woman could respond, and Harry was delighted to see twin spots of color on her cheeks and a true grin on her face. He waved at the professor and jumped into the fireplace after his sister.

When they finally stopped spinning they crawled out of the hearth in the cottage, desperately glad to see it for the first time in weeks. The scents of home washed over them and their father rushed into the living room from the kitchen, striding towards them like a man possessed. Within an instant they were scooped up into his arms and he was hugging them both within an inch of their lives. "You're alright, you're here with me, you're safe. Goddesses above, let me look at you," he exclaimed, holding them at arms length and inspecting them head to toe.

He poked and prodded and ran his hands over their shoulders and down their arms, but they were truly fine. He shook his head and smiled warmly "You two have got to stop scaring the very life out of me. Let me see you, my boy. I want to meet you properly," he said softly, his eyes already wet. Remus came in from the kitchen and watched from the doorway with a dish towel over one shoulder, a tender smile on his face.

"You're going to need to back up a bit," Harry said with a cheeky grin, and their father laughed and retreated barely a foot or two, unwilling to be any farther from either of them so soon after they'd come home to him. Shaking out his arms and legs and bouncing on the balls on his feet, the color of their shared green magic washed over him in a wave of shimmering sparkles and he transformed right there in the living room. Their father was bowled over as he grew and grew and grew to the size of a horse, two enormous paws landing on his chest and thoroughly knocking the wind out of him.

"Goddesses above but you really weren't exaggerating," he wheezed disbelievingly, patting Harry's side heartily with one hand and bringing his other up to brush the fur back from his eyes "What a handsome thing you are, my son. What a miracle this is," he said breathlessly, tears welling in his eyes. Harry lay down fully on top of their father, nuzzling his snout into the crook of his neck and licking his chin.

Suddenly his head whipped up, and he stared at Remus where he was still standing leaning against the doorway. He looked back down at their father and lowered his head again to sniff deep. Like a shot he was across the room with his nose in Remus' armpit. Seconds later he had pulled back and had a paw lifted, pointing back and forth between the two men.

"Holy shit, he's right. The two of you smell exactly like the boys dorm," Hermione said from where she was knelt by the hearth, looking a little green around the gills but otherwise happy and clearly having immediately picked up on what her brother had just discovered "alright dad! Oi-oi-oi, who would have guessed you've still got game, old man?" she said with incredulous delight, which had the two men sputtering and Harry yowling with wolfy laughter. "So are you boyfriends or is it casual?" She asked with all the graceful tact of a bludger. Their father's face flamed beet red and Remus had covered his with his hands, his shoulders trembling with quiet laughter.

"Young lady you had an audience with the moon goddesses themselves, don't you try and turn this around on me," their father retorted weakly, to which she snorted with laughter and scoffed "Yes I absolutely did, and they were glorious and magnificent. All earthly praises be to my ladies Selene and Artemis and Hekate. And thanks to their divine blessing one of us could probably officiate if we're going to be holding important pack ceremonies anytime soon," she said with a smirk, waggling her eyebrows up and down suggestively.

Their father's mouth opened and shut several times, little more than a wheezy hiss of air coming out. He tipped his head back to look at Remus, who was standing so still and silently he looked like a deer frozen in place. The man inhaled sharply and seemed to come back to himself "That's very kind of you to offer, dear heart, but I think you might be getting a bit ahead of yourself. Your father and I like each other very much but this is also very new. Give us some time to find our footing, aye?" He said, crossing his arms and looking at the three of them very fondly. She pouted "Only because you asked so nicely" she said with a huff.

Realizing Harry had the right idea and that she could put off difficult conversations if she was incapable of human speech, she briefly thanked the goddesses and shifted into her own wolf form to lay down on the floor next to her father and brother. The living room really was becoming cramped with two enormous wolves taking up so much of the space. Remus came over and sat down next to her, petting the scruff of her neck and inspecting her carefully "Merciful Merlin, you were so little when I saw you last. Barely bigger than a dog! It's hard to believe this happened in a single night. Did you have any growing pains?" He asked curiously, and she shook her head in the negative before laying it down heavily across his lap.

He carefully lifted the side of her lip and pulled it up so he could see her teeth, pressing a hand to his forehead when he caught sight of them. "Your teeth are as big as my hand! You really could do some terrible damage with those things, young lady," he exhaled incredulously. She lolled her tongue out and licked the hand that held her cheek, looking up at him with huge innocent puppy eyes "Well I'm sure you wouldn't mean to but you've got to be careful with them nonetheless, darling. I'm a werewolf as well and my old heart still nearly skipped a beat just seeing those teeth," he said a bit tremulously.

She whined and rolled over onto her back, her huge head laying in his lap like a baby with her paws folded up by her chest. "You're the size of a horse, you have teeth like daggers, and you must be something like five hundred pounds now - how are you still so bloody adorable?" He moaned helplessly, rubbing the fur under her chin and laughing as her tail started to thump the floor. "Unbearably cute. It's so unfair, I've never once in my life had puppy eyes like that," he complained, to Harry and Fenrir's laughter and yowls. His words gave her pause though, and she looked up at him askance.

"What is it sweetheart? I can see you've got something rattling around in that big lovely brain of yours," he quipped with a grin, ruffling the fur on her muzzle. She sneezed at him, and then so so so gently she clamped her teeth shut over his forearm. Making eye contact with him, and then looking pointedly at Harry, she looked back at him. Questioningly. Waiting for him to connect the pieces. It didn't take him long. He looked at her, and then at her brother, and then down at his own arm, and then back at her.

He nodded hesitantly, and rolled up his sleeve, giving her precious willing access to his bare wrist. Goosebumps rose on the skin there and his arm hair stood on end.

She lay flat on the floor so as not to overwhelm him, and licked his arm sweetly as if asking him if he was positively sure. He nodded again, and only winced for a moment when her teeth sliced past his skin like it was made of butter and embedded themselves deep into his flesh. Across the room her father shouted and made to rise, but Remus held his other hand up to stop him, shaking his head. Around the pair of them her magic was invoking, she'd never done it in her wolf form before, and the white walls of the living room were taking on a sea green glow as they reflected it.

It wasn't exactly like biting Harry had been, she didn't know it at the time but when she'd bitten him as a child his wolf soul had been so weak and hurt that what she'd really done was little more than tie her own up to it like a muggle IV crash cart to keep it stable. He had never shifted before then and she had to teach his body how to be a wolf from scratch. Remus had a healthy wolf soul, but it was wild and it was so angry. He'd started to try and make amends with it for the way he'd let it be bound and imprisoned for so long, but it still carried the memory and the rage and resentment of being treated like a nightmarish inconvenience. It was still giving Remus a hard time for what it considered a lifetime of disrespect and indignity.

With her teeth she softly scolded it, whispered to it of the world's cruelties and his fears and her father's mistake. She took its razor sharp claws and blunted them, and its wicked teeth and dulled them, and its swirling tumultuous anger and gentled it. She took its loneliness and showed it the dozens of young men and old men and women and girls and boys of the huge pack it was now a part of. She took its sadness and she showed it her form and her brothers form and her fathers form and the little family it was now a part of. She took the tips of its ears and the end of its tail and pulled and rearranged them so that they were overlaid with the head and the spine of the man. The wolf soul and the human soul merged, and when her teeth pulled free of his limb it was no longer an arm but a furry foreleg.

He was nowhere near as large as her or her brother, but he was bigger than she had been before. He was probably about the size of a true wolf, she thought absentmindedly. That's what he was now after all - the goddesses had been right, her bite was as true as they had intended. She looked over to where her brother and father were sitting and saw the same sight mirrored, Harry had their father's arm in his mouth and blood dripped. His expression was absolutely thunderstruck, and he still hadn't taken his eyes off of her and Remus. He barely blinked down at his own fresh bite, when he suddenly transformed in an instant into his wolf form.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but she found herself disappointed that he was the same size as he'd been before. Larger than Remus was now, but still smaller than either her or Harry. He was their father, he was the alpha, he should be the biggest and strongest. As delighted as she was and as right as the situation felt, her gut told her something still wasn't perfect. She would examine that later though. The puppy pile was calling her name. She nosed Remus up from where he was still looking down at his own paws in fascination, and nudged him across to the other two.

I had some work to do, like the work the goddesses did on you she let slip through her mind to her brother in the space they shared, how did it go with dad? She thought, pushing it towards the part of her that was always Harry.

Easy as tying the ends together, the wolf and human souls just needed a push to connect fully, he told her, he took to it as well as you did in the celestial plane.

She lay down next to him heavily, watching pleased as punch while Remus and their father curled up around each other sweetly. Did you see that coming? She asked cheekily, and was surprised at his response.

You're joking right? The very first time he came to visit ended with dad grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and vowing that he had a place here. I've been waiting for this for an entire year. I never would have guessed it would take them this long to figure it out between themselves.

…Huh, okay. I guess that makes sense now that I think about it. Who'd have thought you'd be the love expert between the two of us? Do you think it's gonna be weird for them that dad had a mate? I wasn't sure he'd ever be able to move on, honestly.

Remus had a mate too, your cousin Sirius was his life partner before it all happened.

Really? How'd you find that out?

He told me as much. Accidentally let slip that they were both jealous of my parents' wedding and had started planning their own. They never got around to it, its why Remus had such a hard time after Sirius was arrested. They never made it official so he didn't have access to their joint accounts and he was on the streets here and there for a while. Don't let him know I told you, he's very embarrassed by it and I could tell he didn't really want me to know. He just got caught up one day telling me about them and said more than he meant to.

That's terrible, poor Remus! So I guess he and dad have that in common, losing their mate. That's so sad, but I'm glad they've found each other.

Yeah, I can see it working out for them well long term.

He nosed her side with his snout, and then covered his eyes with his paws. They both drifted off into a warm and happy sleep in their childhood home, surrounded by the sensation of being cherished.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Murmurations drew her from sleeping, and her eyes blinked open languidly. Her father looked small where he was sat on his bum beside her, his hand was buried to the wrist in the fur on the back of her neck and he and Remus were softly discussing the events that had transpired. She knew for a fact that she had requested Remus' permission to invigorate his abilities, no matter how obliquely. She wasn't as sure that her brother had obtained the same explicit approval from their father beforehand. She sincerely hoped he had. She hoped more than anything that it had been something he wanted.

With her much more supple and flexible spine, she twisted her neck around and nosed at him. Questioning, but also seeking comfort. He always said there was nothing she could ever do for her to lose his love, but she still always feared that she would someday find the thing that would prove the exception to the rule and do it. Would turning him like this without discussing it first be the bridge too far, the straw that broke the camel's back? Suddenly she was terrified and she whined loudly several times, burying her head in his side and derailing the conversation they were having.

"What's wrong little wolf? Well… no, I'm not calling you big wolf, you'll always be my little wolf, no matter how big you get. But what is it my girl?" He asked, stroking the silky top of her head, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes. She closed them and whined again, and from behind her she heard her brother say "She's afraid I bit you without asking first and that you're going to disown the pair of us," She whined even louder, sounding utterly pathetic to her own ears but unable to stop herself.

"And how exactly do you know what she's thinking?" Their father asked Harry mildly, and though she couldn't see his face she knew he had a single brow raised. That tone and that brow always went together when he was trying to root out misbehavior. "Twin stuff with a boost from the goddesses," he retorted cheekily, and she huffed and snorted with amusement.

Their father looked down at her huge head, nearly the size of his torso, and she very conspicuously put her paws over her nose to hide her face. He chuckled, and rubbed her ears fondly "You gonna take that fur off and tell me about meeting the literal deities that we revere who apparently created and blessed you both? Or are you just gonna let me stew on that one a bit longer," he asked, poking the tip of her nose to get her attention. She whuffed and transformed back and was talking almost before she had a human mouth again.

"Dad the letter I sent you doesn't even begin to describe it. It was incredible. I wish I could just take you into my memory of it. Harry, help me out here"

"It was very magical,"

"Well done, Dickens,"

The pair of them spent the entire rest of the afternoon describing every last detail of their audience with the goddesses that they could remember with the two men, nearly talking themselves hoarse. Their father and Remus were fairly shell shocked, struck speechless by what the children had experienced. There was one bit he was particularly hung up on though.

"I still can't wrap my head around Severus Snape escorting a mixed house group of first years into the forbidden forest out of the goodness of his heart. Doesn't he notoriously hate children?" Remus asked, genuinely gobsmacked at the very thought of it. Hermione blushed and was forced to fill him in on having eavesdropped his conversation with Harry and writing the professor and everything that had had come of that. "I'm glad you made things right with Severus, it was wrong what Sirius did to him. But did you really just give him a quarter of a million pounds because you had it to give away?" He asked in frustrated confusion

"Is that how much you gave him? Jesus Christ, Nene. We ought to call you miss moneybags," her brother said. She stuck her tongue out at him "Look at the way she constantly torments me. I have emotional damages, I need a weregild too!" He announced dramatically, to Remus and their father's laughter.

Despite her usually playful nature, she was deeply unamused "That man had a horrific and deeply traumatizing experience with a werewolf, even if it wasn't Remus' fault. At every opportunity for the rest of his life he would have done whatever he could to further the anti-werewolf agenda if I hadn't actively taken steps to change his mind. He was a walking talking piece of political propaganda for those who think we are little more than beasts who should be killed before we can infect others. The price I paid was twofold - it was the right thing to do, and it was a lobby for him to consider a different perspective. That we can be kind and considerate and human. He's going to think twice now when he thinks about us. We're not all just vicious beasts. Some of us are little girls who give away a small fortune to do right by a sad lonely scared man," she ranted, shoulders drawing up and arms crossing in front of her chest defensively.

"And also she knew she had my permission so she went a little wild on that one," their father added.

"Honestly he's the least important part of the story, I don't know how you can hear about the goddesses literally manifesting before us and be interested in why professor Snape was there. He just was! I thought it would be smart to have a staff member know where we were and he was the only one I could think of that I might be able to convince," she admitted. Then proceeded to tell them all about the first potions class they'd had with him and how he'd let her out of the castle on her first excursion. She hesitated to tell them about how he'd used legilimency on her, but she had promised her father her honesty and she wasn't about to drop the ball this far along.

He looked absolutely incandescently furious when he heard, and Remus looked like he was going to be sick "He's a natural legilimens, he would use the ability to taunt us when we were in school with him. Imagine being in the middle of a fight with someone and they can project an image or idea of something shocking or disgusting or horrible right into your mind. It was the most potent weapon in his arsenal, and he used it like a switchblade between the ribs whenever the odds against him looked bleak," he told them wearily.

She didn't want to say it aloud to Remus because she loved and respected him, but she privately thought that if it had been four vs one against her and she had such an effective, ability she could easily see herself using it liberally and viciously. The thought must have slipped through to Harry because she could see him contemplating it and then he nodded at her meaningfully. He would do the same in a heartbeat, any advantage in a fight was a good thing.

"Professor Snape said he uses his legilimency for discipline, to do surface scans and make sure no one's lying or cheating or causing trouble. He said it was an accident that he dove so deep into my memories, and he looked like he felt terrible about it," she argued in his defense. Her father and Remus stared at each other aghast, "Little wolf that doesn't make it better, that makes it worse. He's so used to scanning without asking that he fell right into your mind. That's not the hallmark of a good man. Mental shields are very important, and by regularly diving in he's risking breaking them or making them vulnerable to attack," her father argued vehemently.

"What he's doing isn't good teaching, it's careless and lazy. Not to mention unoriginal. He's invading his students brains to find out what bad things they've done or might do without even giving them a chance to properly confess or change their minds. Where have you heard that before, hmm?" Remus asked pointedly, and she groaned "That's like the thoughtcrimes in 1984," she said, feeling stupid for not seeing it that way sooner. It had made sense and seemed normal enough when she was in his office, even though he had been so apologetic. Maybe she really should have taken him at his word about how bad what he did had been.

"Well I don't know what we can do about it now, he said he was sorry and he took us into the woods to make up for it. We might have been able to sneak out without his help but if we'd have been caught it could have gone badly. Harry's wolf is healed because we were able to get out to go see Amalthea, and now yours are too," she said, not feeling like arguing any longer but wanting to make sure her thoughts were clearly known. She laid back against the legs of the sofa where she sat on the ground next to her father, tired and stretched a little thin. "He said he could go to Azkaban for going in my mind like he did, but I thought he was just being a drama queen," she said looking up at him with tears forming in her eyes.

He clutched at her shoulders and pulled her into his arms, rocking her back and forth "Shush now, you didn't do anything wrong my darling girl. You told me what happened and now you don't have to worry about it anymore, I'll figure this one out for us little wolf," his voice rasped softly into her ear and he pressed his cheek against the top of her head. She started to cry in earnest and he just held her and rocked, petting her hair and humming.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When she woke up again it was early morning and she was in her own bed. She heard her brother and her dad and Remus downstairs in the kitchen, and followed her nose that told her good smells were there with them. The Hogwarts elves were wonderful and the food they made was spectacular, but no one could cook for a werewolf like a werewolf. Well before she crossed the threshold she could smell the meat and her mouth was watering. She'd been utterly nauseated the first time she saw one of her house mates contentedly bite into a well done piece of meat, and the image of its greyish insides had haunted her afterwards for days.

The steak waiting for her was barely more than seared on the outsides, and the plate it sat on had a puddle of enticing red juice pooled beneath it. Loaded up next to it were fluffy yellow scrambled eggs and crispy fried potatoes. Her absolute favorites. He'd even made her a cup of tea just the way she liked it. She scurried over to her dad and pressed a kiss to the side of his head "Smells so goooood," she mumbled, thanking him and taking her seat. She only barely remembered her new obligation before digging in.

Sighing with her fork and knife held over her meal, she put them back down and held her open palms facing up at the level of her shoulder above her plate "All earthly praises be to the goddesses Selene and Artemis and Hekate that shaped me and saw me birthed into this world. Thank you for letting my bite remain true and allowing me to give my father and his… boyfriend? …your divine gift. Thank you for this meal that feeds me, this house that shelters me, my father and brother and Remus who love me, and this pack I run with. The wolves you made your blessed light for hunted the animal that became this meal and I eat it in gratitude and devotion to you, my ladies," she chanted in a rush. The air around her tingled with magic as if she had invoked it, but there were no visual effects to be seen.

Picking her fork and knife back up, she ate like a creature starved. Nearly weeping with how good the steak tasted. She could tell from the density of the muscle fibers that ran along her tongue that the elk it came from had lived a good life running and jumping and enjoying being a wild thing, and its meat was absolutely delicious. Her father was frozen with his fork halfway to his mouth, staring at her like she'd grown a second head. Remus looked fascinated, as if he had a million questions he wanted to ask her and then go cross-reference in the library.

Harry on the other hand sat across from her looking decidedly sheepish, and she realized he'd probably forgotten to do his. With a disappointed groan she put her fork and knife back down, hands held up over her plate once more "And please forgive my forgetful brother who is equally devoted but in his defense happens to be a hungry boy, in the name of the moon goddesses, praise and thanks be to them" she said rolling her eyes and picking her utensils back up again.

"I ought to start calling you little priestess," her father muttered, "we don't need to start doing that too, do we?" He asked a bit reluctantly. She tiled her head side to side thoughtfully "I'd really appreciate it if you did. The goddesses said to live our lives in service to praising them and letting others know about them so that they might also worship them. It'd probably be dead helpful if the whole pack started doing little prayers to the goddesses. In fact," she said glancing at her brother "I was thinking we should get permission from the headmaster and maybe the school board to start a lunar temple somewhere on the grounds. Wizards are so weird in so many ways, I bet there's tons of them that worship old gods without even having the connection to them that we do, and every extra prayer is power in our ladies' pockets," She remarked astutely.

"You're really serious aren't you?" Her father said incredulously. She nodded in agreement, still eating. "They just said you'd have to pray to them like that all the time? For the rest of your lives?" He asked, sounding like she'd had something stolen from her. She shook her head emphatically "No dad, there's going to come a time in the future when we've sort of built up enough of a divine well of power for them to do something that they can't currently do. When we've prayed enough and had other people pray enough that they have the strength for whatever it is they need to do, they'll call us back to them and we'll help make it happen," she said much more confidently than she felt.

In reality she was nervous that they would need to spend a good deal of their lives in devotion before seeing any actual results.

But wasn't that the ultimate fate of the faithful, taking leaps of faith?

"Alright, then we're behind you 100% of the way," her father said, his proud approval at her determination rumbling in his chest and ringing in her ears. He set down his own knife and fork and gave a brief but sincere thanks to the goddesses that Remus and then Harry both repeated. They all looked to her with raised brows for approval, and she beamed with delight "Thank you, both of you. I'm sure every little bit helps!" She assured the adults gratefully.

As they finished their breakfast together, their father kept shooting her and her brother curious looks. She let him stew a bit, and eventually he cleared his throat and brought up what had been on his mind "We have a few days before you have to go back to school, and in that time I'd like to get everything out on the table and all our housekeeping taken care of. I was very proud of you for your letter telling me everything that's been going on with the two of you at school, but I need to know more about this business with the goblins. How did it even start?" He asked with a furrowed brow "Did they reach out to you about their plans?"

With a little smirk on her face, she pulled the letters her and her brother had gotten back from Griphook and Gornuk out of her trouser pocket and handed them both to him "I had a feeling that's what you'd want to discuss first," she said cleverly "we got these the same morning that I sent off a letter to Gornuk casually asking why there weren't any goblin children at the school. It occurred to me that there might be tons of their kids that didn't get school letters just like most of ours, and I wanted to make sure that wasn't the case. Unfortunately it seems like it is," she said with a frown.

She waited patiently while he passed one to Remus, and then they swapped. He sighed heavily, scratching his fingers through his scraggly hair a bit roughly "They weren't messing around trying to recruit the two of you to their rebellion, these are incredibly manipulative. But in their defense you reached out first, and two sympathetic little lords are good allies anyone in their position would want to cultivate," he reasoned, and she felt a small burst of pride at having such a clever father. She knew everyone always said she was too insightful for her own good, but she hoped to one day be even half as able to so easily see the truth of things as he could.

"I know I said I wouldn't after what happened to Nene, but I think I'm ready to claim my heir ring so I can at least assign a proxy to serve in my stead on the wizengamot. I don't think I should put it off any longer," her brother said. Their father glanced at him "You want to, or you think your sister wants you to - so you'll do it to make her happy?" He pressed, and she felt a brief flash of resentment, she would never make him do something he didn't want to! Well… nothing he really really didn't want to do.

"No dad, it may have started as her idea but it's important to me too. I think the time is right, and that when we go back to school you and Remus should serve as our seat proxies. Neville explained to us how his gran sits the Longbottom seat for him because he's only the heir and not the lord. The start of the next legislative session is coming up soon, and we shouldn't let it pass us by. If we get you sworn in then you can join from the very beginning and get a jump on looking for other lords who might be willing to make alliances and help with the type of changes we want to make," he argued, and both of the adults at the table was surprised by how much thought he'd given it. Hermione was just beaming like a little ray of sunshine, proud of how passionately he had become for their cause.

"I've already thought of an idea for a name you can use" she added excitedly "WLFPAC - Wizards and Lycan Friends Progressive Action Committee," she announced proudly, brows raised in anticipation. Her father and Remus were both clearly trying not to laugh, and she frowned in disappointment "Do you not like it? I know it's a bit… on the nose," she admitted. The two of them exploded into laughter at that, and she crossed her arms in front of herself defensively "You don't have to be rude, you can just say you don't like it," she huffed self-consciously.

Her father sighed happily and scooped her up into his arms with a chuckle, pulling her into his lap and hugging her tightly "Ahh my little wolf pup, I forget how sensitive you can be sometimes! I don't dislike it, it's as clever as you are. The whole wizarding world is going to know exactly what we are if we choose something so bold. Maybe they should, though! Are there any laws stopping a werewolf from serving on the wizengamot if he's a lord's father?" He asked with a grin, rubbing his nose into her cheek. She giggled and hugged him back.

"There aren't, I checked the wizengamot bylaws in the library at school," her brother mumbled sheepishly, and a dusky blush rose to his cheekbones as she turned to him in surprise. "When did you have the time?" She asked curiously, and he shrugged "you've been spending a lot of time with Neville" he answered a bit evasively "the two of you are very cute, but I can't stomach it for too long before I need to get away."

Her jaw dropped "Harry, what are you saying - have you been feeling left out?" She asked hesitantly, her voice soft and low. Her brow furrowed and he grimaced, both children distinctly uncomfortable. He didn't shake his head no but he didn't nod it yes either, rather it wobbled from side to side noncommittally "Not… exactly? I try to give you guys some space sometimes. Within reason. We're eleven, and despite what the rest of the wizarding world seems to think it isn't exactly Victorian times. The two of you don't need a full-time chaperone to do potions homework together," he said smartly, and her father and Remus both sputtered with laughter.