The next morning Harry and Hermione lead Emma and the other Cuckoos to the station. Well, more Harry than Hermione, as Emma has tasked Hermione with finding everyone that's actively looking for them.
Hedwig flitting between the four Cuckoos attracts more than a little interest, and families that are sending their children off to their own schools around the country take the occasional photo.
As they pass through the barrier between the main station and the magical platform, Hermione takes the prefect badge out of her pocket and looks at it with a mixed expression.
Emma waves the Cuckoos towards the train while she takes Hermione's trunk and leads her off to one side. "Hermione, are you alright?"
Hermione looks up and nods a little sadly, "This is the first year that mum and dad didn't come to the station with me."
"Did you want to say goodbye again?"
"Maybe, I don't know." She passes the badge back and forth between her hands, "I'm also not sure if I can be a prefect with how much I need to practice my telepathy on top of OWLs."
Emma leads Hermione over to a bench and sits down, "Why don't you think you can do all of that at the same time?"
"Well, you had me finding specific people, and that took me ages every time. How can I do that and patrol, or whatever else they want prefects to do? That's not counting anything else I need to do."
Emma thinks for a moment. "Ok, this is what I want you to do. I want you to build a reputation for being the biggest killjoy in the school. Whenever someone is thinking about starting trouble, I want you to be there ready to do you prefect duty. At the same time, I want you to learn how to modify the minds of other people, so that if the trouble is too dangerous, you can stop it before anyone gets hurt."
Hermione looks down at her badge, "Isn't that, well, immoral?"
Emma takes a deep, controlling breath. "Hermione, here's something for you to think about. Is it better to prevent a murder and allow the murderer to walk free, or to allow the murder to go ahead and punish the murderer?"
"It, ah. Save them, but the murderer might find someone else."
Emma nods, "That is always a risk, but it's better to save a life now than capture a criminal. Of course, you have advantages that the Cuckoo's and I don't have. As your telekinesis could be used to remove someone from danger. The last thing for you to work on, is how to determine where people are in relation to you." She grimaces, "It is sadly one of those problems that the Cuckoos can't help you with, as they can easily triangulate the location of the minds they feel. I have a feeling that they've started doing it as a matter of course since Harry joined."
"How do I do that then?"
Emma smiles and pats Hermione's hand, "That's for you to work out. You should get to the train."
Hermione nods and stands up as the Weasley family starts making their way through the barrier.
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When Harry looks back towards Hermione, Celeste takes the lead and makes her way down the train towards a mind that feels different from the others. Mindee and Phoebe both grab one of Harry's hands and drag her down the train after Celeste, "Harry, she'll be fine."
Harry nods, "I know, it's just I worry about her."
Mindee loops her arm around Harry's back in a half hug, "We know. Like we know that Ron's jealous streak has made you change the way you look at him. Come on, let's get on the train and save Hermione a seat. Besides, we're listening into their conversation just in case Emma…"
Harry nods and matches Mindee and Phoebe's pace, "Thanks, I needed that. And yeah, she's better than McGonagall."
It's not long before Celeste slides open a compartment with only one occupant. "Morning, would you mind if we joined you?"
The blond haired girl, with a wand stuck behind her ear like a pencil, looks up from her newspaper, "I do not believe I would mind."
Celeste steps into the room and takes her trunk out of her pocket and puts it on the luggage rack. The girl watches as the other three do the same thing and then sits down underneath their trunk. Until Mindee cups her hands so that Harry can step in them. Then Harry draws her wand and taps each trunk on the top so that they expand in place.
"That's an interesting solution to the problem. I'll have to ask father to do that for me next year."
As Hedwig's climbing across Mindee and Phoebe's shoulders to get to Celeste. Celeste says, "Hi, I'm Celeste Cuckoo, these are my sisters Phoebe, Mindee, and Harry."
The girl looks at them searchingly, "Are you sure? You look just like Harry Potter."
After a moment, Phoebe says, "Yes we're sure."
Mindee adds, "But Harry used to be Harry Potter."
Harry snorts, "We still answer to Potter in the magical world though."
The girl nods and taps her nose, "That makes sense, it will keep the Rotfang conspiracy guessing."
Celeste nods, "It does that too. It's more that Harry is rather famous, or infamous."
The girl nods, "The prophet does seem rather fixated with him, don't they."
Harry laughs, "I wouldn't know, I haven't seen a copy since June."
"Mmm. How do you know who I am?"
Celeste leans forward, "Who says we do?"
"I don't know, but you seem to."
Mindee shrugs, "We just saw an interesting looking person sitting on their own. We were right, you are interesting."
Just then, the door slides open and Ginerva's voice says, "Are you sure they're in this one?"
In the doorway Hermione nods, "Absolutely. Hey girls... Hi, would it be ok if I left my trunk here? As Ron and I have to go to the prefects carriage."
The girl looks up without blinking, "I have no objections."
As Hermione catches sight of the newspaper the girl's holding, Celeste remarks, "Did you know that The National Inquirer has the highest proportion of accurate sightings of Alien and Mutant encounters? That's across all of the US publications."
Hermione's mouth snaps closed with a click. As she continues to put her trunk up, Ginerva squeezes past, "Oh, you've met Luna."
Mindee smiles, "She hadn't got around to introducing herself yet. Until she did, she was the girl with the interesting jewellery."
Luna cocks her head, "Really? Most people make fun of it."
Mindee shrugs, "Most people can't make their own jewellery either."
Ron pokes his head around the door, "Why are we sitting with Loony?"
Harry frowns minutely, before smiling widely, "We were going to talk about jewellery making, and how to take left overs and turn them into something lovely. Care to join us?"
Phoebe nods, "I've seen some fabulous pieces made from old bottles."
Mindee adds, "I'd love to try shrinking crisp packets, and turning them into earrings."
Ron grimaces, "Um, I have to go to a prefects meeting."
Luna looks surprised, "Can you do that? Shrink crisp packets?"
Hermione turns around from the doorway, where she was following Ron, "Yes, mum and dad did it with me when I was younger after I watched it on Blue Peter. We turned them into keyrings."
As the door slips closed, Ginerva asks, "What did you do that for?"
Ginerva squirms as all four Cuckoo's look at her as one. One of them says, "We have a low tolerance for name calling due to Harry's history. We are still working through the problems it caused him."
Luna looks at the four of them curiously, "You speak as though you're not Harry."
Harry blinks before shaking her head, "No, I am Harry. But I'm not him. I have his memories, but they offered him something he'd yearned for since he could remember. I couldn't join the gestalt without doing so with everything I was. In a very real sense, I died on the shore of the reservoir that day."
Ginerva blurts out, "But what about all those things you did?" Unsaid is, 'What about when you saved me?'
Celeste raises her hand and turns it into diamond, "Ginerva, we'd have still rescued you. If Sophie was still around, we think she'd have done it anyway. She was like Harry in that respect, being the hero because if she didn't, nobody else would. But we'd have done it differently."
Mindee adds, "We'd have also recommended that you got mental healing."
Harry cocks her head, "Did you get healing?"
Ginerva looks away and mumbles, "We went to Egypt, and everyone forgot about it." More loudly, she says, "Why do you keep calling me Ginerva? Everyone calls me Ginny."
"Do you want us to call you Ginny?"
Ginerva opens her mouth and closes it again. Luna observes, "I think she just swallowed a Blibbering Humdinger."
The Cuckoos just smile until Ginerva pulls herself back together enough to say, "Nobody's ever asked before."
Harry smiles, "Well, why don't we start again. I'm Harry Cuckoo, and these are my sisters Mindee, Phoebe, and Celeste."
Ginny smiles, "Hi, I'm Ginny Weasley, pleased to meet you."
Luna beams happily, "And I'm Luna Lovegood."
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An hour into the journey, Hermione and Ron return from the prefect's carriage while the Cuckoos are finishing the lunch Harry prepared in the Grangers kitchen. As Hermione sits down beside Ginny, Ron pokes his head through the door, "You're not going to talk about girly stuff again, are you?"
Phoebe smiles sweetly as she looks up from a book on arithmancy, "You're not going to be a jerk again, are you?"
"I, uh, no?"
"Then we don't need to talk about makeup, or who the hottest boys in the school are."
Ron put Pigwidgeon on the luggage rack before leaning down to heft his trunk off the floor. Harry rolls her eyes and leans down and grabs the trunk with one hand before putting it on the rack as though it weighs nothing.
As Ron flops into the seat beside Hermione, he says, "Cor blimey. You been working out?"
Harry shrugs, "You could say that. Hermione's stronger than I am though."
Crookshanks stares up at the Cuckoos in confusion before jumping up onto Hermione's lap. Grumpily he walks over to sit on Luna as Hermione leans over and grabs the foil tray and a wooden fork, before opening the carboard lid as Ron's stomach grumbles.
"I'm starving, what's that?"
Harry smiles, "Kedgeree, sort of. Gene was kind enough to let me use his kitchen while Hermione was packing her books this morning."
Hermione rolls her eyes as she chews. "You turned up two hours early."
Celeste looks up from her book on runes, "We wanted to get any owl mobbing out of the way before rush hour."
Phoebe adds, "The owl post office said that international post usually only comes from America on Tuesdays."
Mindee nods, "Still got one owl this morning though."
As Ron stands up to get his lunch, Luna curiously asks, "Who from?"
"Honestly, we haven't looked yet, as we didn't want to find out it's another bundle of shrunken letters. We made the mistake of unshrinking one by tapping on it the other day. It's like, a foot thick of letters from people asking us what it's like to join a twin-bond, thanking Harry for standing up to Voldemort and escaping to warn the USA, thanks for becoming an orphan, marriage requests, and requests for tips on how to cast the patronus spell."
Harry groans, "Don't forget the photos."
Ron curiously asks, "Photos?"
"Yep, loads of sausage meat, and requests that I allow them to put their sausages in my buns."
Ron says around a mouthful of sandwich, "Mmm, I love sausage rolls."
Hermione chokes on a mouthful of food and goes bright red.
Luna innocently asks, "What sort of sausages?"
Phoebe stands up and balances on the edge of the chair as she reaches into one of the trunks and pulls out a bundle of photos, "Keep them, we've kept the dozen or so that we think will make good calendar pictures."
Luna folds her newspaper and puts it on the table as she takes the bundle of photos. As she turns the photos over, her eyes go wide, and Ginny leans over to have a look. Ginny's cheeks pink, and she says, "Isn't that a bit small? Oh, it grows."
Luna turns the next one around and looks at it curiously, "How's that one supposed to fit in a bun, it's far too big."
Between bites Ron says, "Can I see?"
Hermione shakes her head desperately as Luna says "Sure."
Ron takes the photo and then spits out his sandwich, "Oh Merlin, I think I'm going to throw up."
Hermione coughs a couple of times and swallows, then says, "Changing the subject, there's two prefects from each house."
Ron nods, "Subject change is good, Ginny stop looking at those photos. You'll never guess who's the Slytherin prefect."
Celeste drawls, "Malfoy and Parkinson?"
"Of course."
Mindee uses the same tone of voice as she says, "Next you're going to tell me Macmillan and Abbott are the Hufflepuff prefects."
"Are you pulling my leg?"
Harry drawls, "Not at all."
Then Phoebe finishes with, "Of course, Patel and Goldstein could be the Ravenclaw prefects."
Luna looks up from the current photo, and in a dreamy voice says, "You took Padma Patil to the Yule Ball last year, didn't you?"
Ron nods, "Yeah."
"She wasn't happy with you because you wouldn't dance with her."
Ron shuffles in his seat as Luna adds, "I wouldn't have minded, as I don't like dancing much."
Harry hisses, "Ron, if you even mention my name I am going to be very put out with you."
Ron's head snaps up just as the door slides open and Malfoy looks in with Crabbe and Goyle standing behind him, "Granger, Weasley. Did your precious Potter decide to run away? Or maybe he decided he needs a better quality of friends."
Hermione shrugs, "I'm sure that Harry's close by."
Malfoy puts on a gracious smile, "I haven't seen you girls before."
Celeste looks up, "American transfer students."
"Ah, well some free advice. Some people make better friends than others. If you don't want a reputation, you'd better choose your friends a little more carefully. Especially now."
"Thank you for your advice, I will give it all due consideration."
As the door closes, Ron explodes, "What was that about?"
Phoebe says, "He's scared, and he's trying to making himself feel better by picking on an acceptable target. Which would have been us if you'd said anything."
"How could you know that?"
Luna says, "The wrackspurts whisper your secrets into their brains."
Hermione blinks and looks at Luna, "That is weirdly accurate while being completely wrong."
Celeste smiles, "We told you, she has an interesting mind."