December 1988

The waiting room of the practice Shannon worked out of had been a very alien environment to Cassie at first — the general idea vaguely familiar but executed with an odd combination of professional blandness and childish colour, mysterious muggle technology set out here and there in the form of televisions and computers and the like, displaying a preponderance of unfamiliar modern synthetic materials — but by this point it'd become quite familiar, its form and its sounds ground in through the repetition of routine. She even knew the names and random details of the varied lives of a few of the regulars — there was often nothing better to do while they waited for their children to get out of their meetings than gossip, she'd been drawn into more conversations than she could count. Those conversations tended to be rather lopsided, she did not understand modern muggle life well enough to convincingly lie about it...

She never had accustomed herself to the reading material, though — the magazines on offer were all either dreadfully boring or bafflingly foreign, too much of a cultural gap for her to find them an interesting diversion. She'd taken to bringing along her own, usually the most recent issue of the IDL's Les Franchis — if only to keep up on developments that might affect duelling events, and to do a little research on potential competition — carefully charmed before she arrived to prevent muggles from noticing anything untoward. This time, the usual women who took to chatting with her didn't happen to be here, so she was left alone with her magazine, reading about some issues involving a major tournament being organised somewhere in central Asia (not one she'd planned on attending anyway), a very gossipy piece about Jaya Joshi (a duellist from one of the Indian states, near the top of the international rankings at the moment), a dispute to do with the translation of the IDL's rating system with certain regional traditions, oh hey, there was an open international event in Egypt in the spring, that should be the week Violet would have off, she should check...

She was reading on a debate on the legality of alchemical charms when she vaguely heard a call of her name — glancing up, she quickly spotted Shannon standing at the entrance to the waiting room, as soft and warm-looking as usual in a long skirt and a knit jumper so familiar Cassie must have seen it at least a few times before. "I'm sorry, what was that?"

Lips curling in a crooked smile, the woman drawled, "Could you join us for a minute, please?"

"Oh, of course." Cassie flipped the magazine closed — not bothering to save her spot, the debate wasn't really that interesting — tucked it away in her bag before getting up to follow. Once they were in the quiet back-hallways, leaning a little closer, she asked, "Anything I need to be worried about?"

"No no, nothing like that. I thought we would discuss the concerns Violet's teachers brought to you together."

"Ah. Good." Cassie wasn't certain whether that was quite the right word, but Shannon didn't seem particularly tense at the moment, so it probably wasn't anything to get too worked up over. She'd had all of two conversations about this autism thing so far, and she'd seriously felt her age in both — as far as she'd fallen behind (in both the muggle and magical worlds, it seemed), she had no basis for comparison to judge how worried she should be. She just had to rely on reading Shannon's body language at this point, since she was the expert here.

When she stepped into the familiar office, Shannon waving her in ahead of her, Cassie was completely unsurprised to find Violet sitting at the coffee table poking at another puzzle — silly girl did like her puzzles. Cassie would occasionally check on Violet, if she'd been too quiet up in her room for a while, and every time she would be drawing or putting together a puzzle. Since she'd noticed how much Violet liked that sort of thing, she'd been looking into finding a greater variety of things to keep her entertained, even some muggle toys or games on recommendations from Shannon or Andi or one of the random women in the waiting room, but Violet didn't seem to mind a lack of variety so much? Cassie knew she'd taken her "space puzzles!" (as Violet insisted on calling them) apart at least twice just so she could re-solve them from the beginning, which seemed tedious to Cassie, but...

Well, she didn't have to understand why Violet liked a thing to notice that she did, and it wasn't like entertaining herself with her puzzles was hurting anybody. And she did seem to enjoy fiddling around with her puzzles, even redoing one she'd already solved — Cassie wasn't sure what that "click" feeling she described was, but it sounded pleasant enough — so, she kept an eye out for new things Violet might be interested in, and just didn't think about it too hard.

If she was being completely honest with herself, as confusing as Violet's preferences could be sometimes, Cassie was rather relieved that her interests were turning out rather more...tame than Cassie's had been, even at that age. Violet did like playing football with the neighbour kids, or climbing trees, but besides that she was either drawing, or doing her puzzles, or obsessing over their garden for months at a time.

When Cassie was eight, she'd nicked one of the wands out of the mausoleum and accidentally burned off her cousin Maredudd's eyebrows, and she'd once slipped out to go flying in the middle of a storm just because it seemed like fun and nearly got herself killed crashing through the greenhouses. Between being vaguely confused by Violet's preferences and being terrified she'd do something terribly stupid and hurt herself if Cassie turned away for five seconds, she was happy with the former.

(In retrospect, she did not envy her mother — she was amazed that poor woman hadn't simply dropped dead from the stress before Cassie had even started at Hogwarts.)

"Hello, darling," Cassie said, walking up to the table. "Ah, going for a Christmas theme, I see." The puzzle was only partially-completed, of course, but it looked like it was some kind of snowy village scene, a lot of warm candlelight through windows and a tall Christmas tree in the square, decorated with baubles and coloured lights in the modern muggle fashion.

"Mhmm. This one is hard, y-you d-d-d-d— The white is all the same, hard to see."

Yeah, Cassie could see how that might be a problem, but it didn't seem to slow Violet down that much — just in the time it took Cassie to get here from the door Violet had clicked a few pieces together. While Shannon shuffled past her to the armchair, Cassie quick shrank herself down to child-size, transfiguring her clothes as she went. This dress laced up tightly enough she hadn't bothered wearing a brassiere, but these knickers weren't transfigurable, fine lace enchanted with gold thread — Síomha was coming over tonight, and she always made the funniest faces on encountering needlessly fancy lingerie — she just let them slide off and nudged them out of the way, before sitting down across from Violet. "Hmm hmm hmm... Ah ha!" She picked a piece out of the spread of lone ones, snapped it into the partially-completed picture. "So, what did you need to talk to me about?"

"I 'unno." Violet slid over the D-sound, Cassie noticed, that was one of the ones that gave her trouble sometimes. "Shannon wouldn't say."

"Yes, there's something I needed to tell you both, so I wanted to wait until we had Cassie here. But before we get to that, Violet mentioned you haven't said what your holiday plans are."

"Didn't I? There's an event in Novgorod, on the Twentieth and the Twenty-First, I'm already signed up. A duelling event, I mean, of course."

"I know about that," Violet said. "B-b-but that's not all the way to Christmas, is it?"

"You mean Christmas Day? I thought you knew, we're staying over with the Tonkses again. Unless you wanted to do something else..."

"No, the Tonkses are nice. I d-didn't know, is all."

"I'm sorry, darling, I could have sworn I... Come to think of it, we might have talked about it months ago, when Narcissa asked after our holiday plans, and I never brought it up since. Did you want to visit the Tonkses again? If there's something else you wanted to do..."

"Mm, not r-really..." Violet hesitated for a moment, fingers idly playing with one of the pieces, worrying at her lip. "Um, Síomha m-m-mentioned the vigil her family are having, it sounds p-pretty."

Cassie frowned across the table at Violet — she wasn't looking, focussed on her puzzle again, placing one piece, another, another. She guessed she shouldn't be surprised Violet might want to see Síomha for the holiday, she was around a lot these days. "Ah, no, that...wouldn't be appropriate." For starters, Síomha's father absolutely hated her — they'd met all of once, a couple years ago now, and it had not gone well — so, that might make things a touch difficult. Not to mention those sort of celebrations tended to be quite religious in character, and very private, she seriously doubted Síomha could get them an invite even if she thought it was a good idea to try. Which, given she was well aware of how her family felt about Cassie, yeah, that wasn't happening any time soon. "Síomha will be coming with us to Novgorod, though."

"I know. That's okay."

"Good." Cassie made a mental note to tell Síomha Violet had suggested they might spend Christmas with her, had the feeling she'd like that... "Violet darling, if there is something you want to do, for the holidays or any other time of year just because, just say so, and I'll see if I can make it happen. Okay?"

Violet nodded, blonde curls shuffling. "Okay."

"I'm sorry, darling, I honestly didn't realise you didn't know what we're doing. You know me, I can be a little thoughtless sometimes."

"It's okay." By the faint frown Violet gave her, confused, it didn't seem like she was just saying that — if Cassie had to guess, she had no idea why Cassie was making such a bit deal about this. Which she guessed was fair, it was possible she was channelling her own old irritation with her mother accepting invitations on her behalf without asking her first.

"Very well, then," Shannon said from her armchair, smiling at the two of them. (She'd stopped giving Cassie funny looks whenever she shrank down to Violet's age months ago now.) "Just to be clear, Cassie, I only brought it up because I asked Violet what you were doing for Christmas, and she told me she didn't know." It hadn't been bothering Violet so much she'd brought the topic up herself, Shannon meant. "Anyway, now that we have that taken care of, how about we move to the topic I wanted to discuss today? Violet, were you told about the conversation your mother had with your teachers, about a month ago?"

(It was always odd to hear other people refer to her as Violet's mother — or just a mother in general, for that matter — but it'd gradually become less unnatural-seeming with time. Still just slightly surreal, though.)

Violet frowned a little, glancing up at Shannon for a second before turning back to her puzzle. "I knnow they talk sometimes."

"Yes, they do seem to try to be involved there, don't they? I have to admit," Shannon said to Cassie, "I do find your approach to education quite fascinating. There's much to be said for the, I don't know, less regimental environment. On our side, there has been some investigation into the matter, and, it's all very interesting."

Cassie gave the younger woman a crooked smile. "I don't meant to disappoint, but the more free-wheeling style there is very much particular to the craft school at an Ollscoil — I hear Hogwarts is more like the average muggle secondary school in its structure, these days. Though I suppose I really have no idea what education on the Continent is like, could be better for all I know."

"Well, that's disappointing. Anyway," Shannon sighed, turning back to Violet, "after seeing you in class for a time, your teachers had begun to... I don't want to say have concerns — it isn't a bad thing, exactly, not something you're doing wrong. They spoke to your mother, and she mentioned it to me, and I said I would think about it and get back to her."

"So that's what we're doing n-now?" She'd stopped paying attention to her puzzle, eyes flicking between Cassie and Shannon. Slightly tense, Cassie thought, though the worst of it had loosened when Shannon had suggested she wasn't in trouble.

"Yes, this is me getting back to her. But it will take some explaining for both of you, I think. Have you heard the word 'autism' before, Violet?"

She frowned. "Isn't that a word for r-r-rrr— Ugh." A pause, a short breath in and out. "Retards?"

Before she could stop herself Cassie let out a little amused scoff. Violet glanced her way, Cassie gave her a smile and a shrug. "I don't know what it is any better than you, honestly. When Éimhear and that other bloke, forget his name, they tried to explain it to me, and how it's different from other infirmities. Really made me feel my age, in a way I often don't — when I was growing up, we just called all those kinds of people spastics, and no one really thought about it too hard."

"That is a very offensive thing to call someone on our side, Cassie."

Cassie rolled her eyes, exaggerating the gesture for Violet's benefit. Pointing at Shannon with a jerk of her thumb, "Yeah, I got a whole lecture like that when we talked about it. Young people these days, honestly." Shannon looked less than amused with Cassie not taking her admonishment seriously, but Violet giggled, so Cassie was calling that one a win anyway. "Just the way some people are, not really worth making a fuss about — though some people can be, well, mages managed to make up our own version of eugenics entirely independent of the muggles, let's put it that way."

"What's eugenics?"

"Racist shite. I'll explain when you're older — if only because the History curriculum is awful."

Violet face twisted up into a confused frown, while Shannon muttered, "Oh dear. Let me guess, whoever writes the curriculum is, ah, far less open-minded than you when it comes to the Starlighters and the like."

"Among other things, but yes, good guess. And not just at Hogwarts, the OWL is set by the Department of Education, and the Ministry has certain ideological interests in how History is taught. It's much the same in most societies where the government has any hand in education at all, I would imagine — after all, when it comes to the knowledge available to the populace, governing institutions are not a neutral party." Cassie remembered the depiction of the goblins being especially bad, for obvious reasons — it didn't help that they'd been not so far out from the most recent 'rebellion' at the time — and according to Andi it'd only gotten worse since then.

"I find the magical world so terribly disappointing, sometimes. But anyway, that's not what we're here to discuss," Shannon said, refocusing herself with an almost visible effort. "Violet. I'm sure you must have noticed that, in some ways, you're not much like other children."

Violet gave her a flat, unamused sort of frown. "Yeah?" She stared down at her hands, concentrated for a second — there was a faint brush of warm light magic, and Violet had coloured her fingernails blue. It didn't look like nail varnish much at all — Violet had hardly started playing with things yet, and getting details like the sheen of enamel correct took practice — but as though the keratin had simply been tinted blue. Violet pouted at the results, but turned her fingernails toward Shannon anyway, as though to say see?

Shannon smiled at her, delighted — she'd mentioned to Cassie before that Violet finally feeling comfortable playing around with changing things was a very good sign. Which had seemed like a peculiar thing for Shannon to say, but while the concept of metamorphs might be new to her, the concept of someone growing to become comfortable with who they were and with their own body obviously wasn't. "Of course, but I didn't mean that. It is alike, in a way, as it is something that can cause problems, but isn't..." Glancing away from Violet for a second, Shannon let out a little sigh. "I'm going to be very honest with you right now, Violet. This isn't an area that I am...very well practised in. Ah. The children who come to see me, they have had something bad happen to them. Their home burned down, there was an attack, or someone close to them died, or they were treated badly by someone who should have taken care of them." Violet made a face at the last one, Cassie assumed guessing (correctly) that that group would include herself. "My experience is in helping those kinds of children. Other problems do come up, of course, but that's what I've studied best. There are other things, that I am not so familiar with. I know a little, but not as much as I might like."

For a moment, Violet didn't respond, still poking at puzzle pieces. She seemed to notice eventually that Shannon was waiting for something from her. "Okay...?"

"I only mean to say, I don't know everything. No one who does the work I do knows everything. Brains are funny things, and we can't see how one works, there's no way to know what someone is thinking or feeling. We can only watch, and listen, and guess. And sometimes our guesses are not so good, and, over time, we keep watching and listening, and we see our guesses don't make sense, so we make new guesses to better fit how people behave. We're always trying to understand better, but it takes time, and sometimes even our best guesses don't seem very good.

"I explain all that, because autism is one of those things we don't understand very well. Even the way we use the word has changed, more than once, just in my lifetime. I can't tell you how you feel, or how your thoughts work — I can ask, and listen to what you say, I can watch what you do, and I can guess, but that's all. One of these special, swish doctor words that I have, I might think how I understand it might fit some of what I've guessed. But I can't tell you for sure, because I'm not in your brain. I can only guess, and talk to you about it, and see if it fits."

The whole time Shannon was talking Violet stared down at her puzzle, slightly frowning. She wasn't actually working at the puzzle, sometimes her fingers would tap at a piece, pick it up and set it down. Listening to Shannon, and fiddling. When Shannon finished, Violet said, "Um, I know that? That brains are weird. We t-t-talked about that before."

"Yes, we have. I just wanted to be clear, as we start, because we are outside of the things I spend a lot of time working on, and because our understanding of autism is changing — a lot, right now. So I'm going to be guessing today, even more than usual. I don't want to give you the feeling I'm more sure about these things than I really am." Shannon hesitated for a moment, glanced over something on her clipboard. "Well. I'm going to try to explain what I understand autism to be, in broad strokes, and then we can talk about how we feel it may or may not fit, and what to do about it.

"We fancy doctor people look at signs in three boxes. One is social difficulties — this is where the word comes form, autism, meaning something like 'self-ness'. In the most severe cases. Children often won't respond to other people at all, or talk or play with anyone, off in their own world, but it's not always that serious. Sometimes they simply have a hard time playing with other children, they have problems understanding them, don't know when they're supposed to do what, they might not have fun with the same things or find the same things interesting. Some autistic people will say that they do like other people, they want to have friends, they just...can't seem to do it right, they always say or do the wrong thing without meaning to."

Cassie noticed that Violet was frowning down at the table again, her fingers idly playing with a puzzle piece, tap tap tapping against the table.

"Another is difficulties with communication. Sometimes autistic children will have trouble speaking at all — some will never learn to talk, some will only pick up a little. But those who do speak, the way they do can still seem a little...odd. They may use words in weird ways no one else understands. They may repeat themselves, or make nonsense sounds when excited or bored. They may speak too loud or too soft, or put the emphasis in odd places. They may have trouble understanding jokes, or metaphors and idioms — like, off the hook, beating around the bush, getting your knickers in a twist, at the drop of a hat, those sort of things. The rhythm of a conversation, how it goes back and forth, one person and then the other and then back again, they often have trouble feeling all that out, when it's their turn to speak, and when they're supposed to be listening."

Tap tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap tap.

"Our last box is harder to put a simple word to. If you like," Shannon drawled, smirking a little, "for this box you can imagine a posh old man in a coat and one of those monocles, getting all huffy and saying I say, this child is right peculiar — that's what I do." Violet giggled a little, but Cassie didn't get the joke, assumed it was a muggle thing. "Sometimes the peculiar is a thing the child does, that you can see. Some are seen to rock back and forth, really common in the more serious cases or when stressed, they may pop their lips, or kick their feet. Or tap their fingers."

Abruptly, Violet froze, the clicking rhythm of her fingernails against her puzzle piece cutting off. Cassie was pretty sure Shannon had meant to draw attention to that — she got the feeling the expert in the room was building to a point here...

"Sometimes the peculiar is a way the child reacts. They might not react to, say, their name, or being rained on, but on the other hand, they might react very strongly to certain lights, certain sounds, smells, being touched. Sometimes they might seem very distressed, scared or in pain, and other people might not know why, reacting to something the people around them don't even notice, or just see as ordinary. They might shrink away at bright lights, or feel their skin crawl at getting something slimy on their hands, or get terribly frustrated with the line drawn by a wax pastel not coming out even."

She was definitely talking about Violet, there was no doubt about that now — Cassie had noticed all three of those at one time or another. Well, the part about not liking pastels was something Violet had explicitly told Cassie — she'd worn down her box of coloured pencils enough to need a new one, and Cassie had asked why she wasn't using the pastels at all — but she'd noticed that— Whenever they were making something they had to touch or, say, balling biscuits, Violet would wash her hands several times through the process — despite the fact that she was just going to go right back to touching whatever it was and getting her hands messy again anyway. Cassie had thought it was a bit finicky and obsessive, but it didn't really seem to bother her to do it, and it's not like Violet washing her hands more than necessary was hurting her or anything, so she hadn't given it much thought...until Cassie had thought to offer her a clean hands charm, she'd been, just, adorably delighted, even with the chill she felt from the darkness of Cassie's magic...

Come to think of it, Violet could also be particular about combining certain tastes in a dish, or the feel of the food in her mouth (which Cassie honestly barely noticed herself), those should also possibly count. And the smells of a potions lab could be bad, yes, but not normally so terribly bad as Violet had described — Cassie had just enchanted a properly-isolated amulet for her anyway, since Violet had asked and it hadn't been any great difficulty — and she'd completely avoided some of the clothes Cassie had gotten for her, when asked could only say that they felt weird. Cassie had shifted down to her size to check for herself, and they'd seemed fine to her — but she'd just shrugged it off, and gotten rid of the things Violet didn't like, and resolved to always have Violet try something on before buying it just in case, hardly given it a second thought...

After all, she didn't have to understand Violet's preferences to accommodate them — honestly, it hadn't even occurred to her that Violet's more finicky moments were signs of some kind of infirmity. But she guessed she wasn't the expert in the room, was she? That's what she was paying Shannon for.

"Sometime the peculiar is the way the child thinks. They might be very good at a particular thing, like, doing maths in their head, or music, or something silly like knowing the day of the week any given date was on. Some are even known to teach themselves to read before starting school." That was meant to be Violet again — she didn't seem at all surprised that Shannon was obviously making the comparison at this point, just calmly listening. "It's common for them to like routines, or doing things in the same order every time, sometimes they get confused or upset if someone tries to have them do things the wrong way. Often, though not always, they think of things very literally, and very...structurally — like, say, taking something apart to see how it works, but trying to do that with everything they can. And some of them are good at seeing patterns, can see how things fit together, enjoy putting pieces of one in their place."

"Like," Violet interrupted, but didn't finish the thought, her fingers flicking through the mess of lone puzzle pieces for a second instead. She picked one up, and snapped it into its proper place on the partially-completed image, turning a grin up at Shannon. "The click! Things c-coming tog-g-gether r-r-rrr— That's it." Her enthusiasm was dimmed a little from the stammering episode — Cassie had noticed it sometimes got especially bad when she was excited about something — but still pleased enough she was smiling, all but bouncing in place with the energy of it. They had talked about this 'click' feeling before, and Violet had been rather disappointed that Cassie didn't know what she meant by it, she was clearly happy to have something approaching a proper explanation.

Smiling back at her, Shannon said, "Maybe! Does sound like it, doesn't it? These children also, sometimes they'll get very very interested in something. Maybe there will be one thing they like, and have to know simply everything about it, drinking up everything they can find. Or maybe they have a small handful of things they're always thinking about, or maybe they move from one thing to the next to the next — they hear something neat about cameras, so then they spend the next few months reading everything they can find about cameras, how they were invented and how they work, play around taking photos, and then one day they take a train somewhere and they decide trains are really neat, so then they have to learn everything about trains, and the history of the rail network in Britain, and after a few months with that they hear a really interesting piece of music, so now they absolutely must learn guitar, think about absolutely nothing else for months..."

"Space! And the g-g-g— with the peh-plants! And embroidery!" Violet seemed slightly surprised with herself for getting the long complicated word without stuttering, frowning for a second before going back to grinning.

When Violet came home from school, Cassie most often heard about whatever craft thing they did that day — she did sometimes mention something that'd happened in class proper, but only rarely, if there was something she had a question about. Over the last month and a half or so, Violet had seemed fascinated with the basic stitching exercises they were starting off textiles with, sometimes excitedly babbling off for minutes at a time despite Cassie having literally nothing to contribute. (She'd never learned how to do any of this by hand, it was all new to her.) From the notes they sent to parents, Cassie was aware that they were starting off with explanations of the basics, so they could learn how to do repairs if necessary, but apparently Violet had picked it up quickly enough that their teacher had given her little strips or squares of cloth to play around stitching patterns in while everyone else worked on the lesson. It looked tedious to Cassie, but Violet seemed to be amusing herself, so she hadn't really given it too much thought...

One time, she'd gone upstairs to check on the girls to find Susan, Lasairín, and Damhnait sitting at the table in Violet's room chatting...Violet still 'sitting' in her chair, which had been tipped over onto its back on the floor for whatever reason, her feet kicking in the air, picking away at one of the projects she'd been allowed to take home, her head bobbing in time with the stitches, because this girl was so very silly sometimes. Cassie had just silently backed off again, leaving the girls at it, shaking her head to herself.

So, yes, embroidery was this month's fascination, but Cassie fully expected it'd be something new in a month or two. She was putting her money on painting, either on ceramics or canvas or both — it could be hard to predict what Violet would find interesting, but she had a pretty good feeling.

"Yes, very much like that," Shannon agreed, smiling. "This funny swish doctor word of mine seems to have something to it, hmm?"

"Mhm. How mmmany of the things do you n-need to be..."

"Autistic."

"Yeah, that."

"Well, we're not keeping score, precisely. But if we're going back to my three boxes..." Shannon hummed, glancing back at something on her clipboard. "I think we agree you've got enough things that fit in the I say, this child is peculiar box to mean something." Once again, Shannon said that one phrase in an exaggerated tone, with a sarcastically posh muggle sort of accent; Violet giggled again, before nodding. "The other two boxes, I'm less sure about. We've talked about the trouble you have getting on with other children, but I haven't seen you with your neighbours, I don't know why that is. I can't tell if it fits. And some things I am in a position to notice during your visits here, well... If your voice sometimes seems too loud or two soft, or if the tempo or the pitch seems off, that could just be because of the stammering. It's also common for autistic people to have trouble keeping eye contact, which I have noticed, but it seems to happen far more when you're nervous about something, or thinking, and I'm not certain that counts. Like I said before, I don't often work with autistic children, I'm not sure what counts and what doesn't. I can't say for certain."

There was a brief silence, Violet frowning down at the puzzle pieces...and then reaching to snap one onto the picture, and then another. The silence dragged for a moment, Shannon giving Violet time to think, but Cassie wanted her to confirm what she was getting at. "But?"

"But," Shannon said, nodding at Cassie, "I wouldn't be talking about this with the two of you if I didn't think it was quite likely. It's not a severe case, of course — Violet can still do things like play with the neighbours, and go to school, and help around the house. Many autistic children have a much harder time with it, that's for certain. But, if I consider everything I've read on the subject, and the opinion of a couple colleagues I've spoken to, and everything Violet has told me, here and your own reaction to my list a moment ago..." Shannon shrugged. "Yes, I think there may be something to it. At the very least, it's worth seriously considering."

...That didn't actually answer her question. "And what would that mean, exactly? Seriously considering it. You've got to give me something to work with here, Shannon, I have no idea what autism is."

"Of course, I realise that. I only—" Shannon cut herself off, frowning. Again, instead of directly answering Cassie's question, she turned to speak to Violet instead. Cassie realised she was really speaking to both of them, just didn't want Violet to feel left out of a conversation about her, but at this point Cassie was starting to find it quite irritating — Shannon had just suggested that Cassie's kid had some kind infirmity she'd never even heard of before Éimhear brought it up, some fucking explanation would be nice. "You know, a person's brain is sort of like a big bundle of wiring, with little zaps along the wires controlling your body and making your thoughts and feelings. If I took a big handful of string, and scrunched it up, and you did the same thing, our handfuls would come out looking different, threads would end up in different places. Well, when a body is putting together the bundle of wiring to make up a brain, it never turns out exactly the same twice — each person's brain is a little different from everyone else's. So it makes perfect sense that everyone likes different things, and aren't all good at the same things, and have different opinions and feelings about things, because their brains are all slightly different.

"Sometimes, some people's brains are wired rather more different than normal, just by the chance of how their bundle was put together. One of the ways the wiring being a little off makes people act and think in a similar way to each other — we swish doctor people call this pattern autism. And while how the brain is wired can change a little bit over time — that's how memory and learning things work — that only makes small changes, it can't change the big, overall pattern."

"It never g-g-goes away, you mean," Violet said. Calmly, seemingly unconcerned by the idea.

"No, it doesn't, but it can sometimes get better. Or I suppose I should say, autistic people can learn to manage it better. Like how you can wear gloves so you don't have to touch slimy things, or get a magic thing so the smells in the potions lab don't bother you, or keep your fish and your potatoes in separate dishes — you can learn to avoid the things that stress you out and do more of the things you like, just like anyone else. And it might take longer, more practice, to pick up things other children do easily. I know you've said before that you don't know how to play with other children at all, but that got easier, didn't it? You have plenty of friends now."

Violet frowned a little, but she nodded. "I think I say or d-d-do something k-kinda funny sometimes, people think I'm r-r-rrr-rr—" She huffed. "Weird. But, I am weird, so."

"Normal is boring, anyway," Cassie said — smiling, trying to act casual. She still didn't really get what this meant, she wished Shannon would take a break to explain it all in adult language quick...

Trying to play it off was definitely the right decision, though, because Violet grinned back across the table at her, bobbing in place with badly-contained enthusiasm. "Yep! So, tha-that's all it is, a word for me b-b-being weird?"

"Unfortunately? Yes." Shannon hesitated for a second, before turning to Cassie. "Having looked into it over the last few weeks, there honestly isn't any treatment I can recommend. As I said before, our understanding of autism is evolving quite rapidly, as I speak. It was only relatively recently that we even distinguished the condition from schizophrenia — infantile autism, which was only ever intended to describe cases much more serious than Violet's, was initially understood to be how schizophrenia presented in childhood. Severely autistic children were often institutionalised, and... That often didn't end well, to say the least."

They likely all died of tuberculosis, she meant — that psychiatric institutions used to be absolutely miserable and rife with disease had been mentioned in one of their previous discussions about the different approach to mental health in the muggle and magical worlds. Not that Cassie was entirely certain what schizophrenia was anyway, that one was a muggle word too.

"Such extreme measures are very rare these days, but we're in a...I suppose you could say, an experimentation phase. People have a lot of different ideas, we're trying a lot of different things, but we have little evidence so far as to what actually works. For milder cases like Violet's, there is some evidence to suggest that children in nurturing environments, where their talents are encouraged and they aren't harshly punished for their peculiarities — and are not socially isolated, are able to attend school with their peers and the like — are more likely to grow happy and healthy. Naturally, all that is true of any child — the difficulty with autistic children is figuring out the accommodations necessary to actually do that."

"So you mean...what we're already doing?" Cassie asked, extremely sceptically. She had to be missing something, because it sounded like Shannon was suggesting that Violet actually having this autism thing shouldn't change their behaviour at all, which, what the hell was the bloody point of all this, then?

"I suppose so," Shannon admitted, seemingly with no self-awareness of how completely ridiculous this whole diversion had been. "With, perhaps, some more conscious accommodation when it comes to things Violet is uncomfortable or has difficulty with, but you've already been doing quite a good job of that already. If you were, ah, a rather more strict parent, there might be more to discuss, but I don't think we need to do anything drastically different, no."

"...Okay. So, this entire conversation was fucking pointless, is what you're saying."

"There's a word for it."

Cassie blinked, glanced back at Violet. "What?"

Violet was frowning, vaguely — thoughtfully, trying to figure out how to explain. "It's not p-pointless, there's a word for it. It's n-n-nnot me b-being wrong, it's a thing, there are other p-p-p-pehp... There's a word for it."

There was a brief, hot silence in the room, Cassie wordlessly staring at Violet — the precious silly girl met her gaze for a couple seconds, before turning back down to her puzzle, poking at the pieces, unconcerned.

Somehow, with that awkward, meandering explanation, Violet had managed to stab Cassie right in the heart.

She remembered, going on a year ago now, trying to get Violet to understand that there was nothing wrong with being the way she was. Being a girl if she wanted to be, yes, being a metamorph, that she wasn't a freak, acting smooth and casual when uncomfortable moments came up, making sure Violet was introduced to Dora, and the Starlighters, and encouraging her to...

Violet had thought she was the only person like her, that she was wrong. But there was, in fact, a word for it.

It took a long moment, her throat clenching and her eyes burning, for Cassie to power through the all but overwhelming urge to burst into messy tears — her emotions did tend to get all over the place when she was child-sized, she was blaming it on that. She could feel Shannon watching them the whole time, Violet sometimes glancing up at Cassie or Shannon, but mostly focussed on her puzzle, placing one piece, another, another. Finally, forcing as much cheer onto her voice as she could, Cassie chirped, "Well, all right then!" She cleared her throat — that had come out a little...crackly. "So, we're happy about this, because there's a word for it."

Bobbing in place a little again, Violet nodded. "Mhm."

Well. If all this conversation accomplished was making Violet feel a bit more comfortable with her own peculiarities, she guessed that was something.

There was a little bit of conversation from there, but not anything particularly important. Shannon talked a little bit about theories of what autism was exactly, which was naturally kind of fuzzy, since it was an evolving area of study in the muggle world at the moment — the more Shannon spoke about it, the more Cassie was very certain that autism was a specific category of what mages would just call spastic. Sometimes, the odd movements (where the name came from) were something people could learn to get over, sometimes they wouldn't, sometimes it came with serious intellectual deficiencies, sometimes it didn't, they almost always had social issues...but...

Come to think of it, Cassie was certain there was a Potter who must have had this autism thing, like Violet — they'd met in passing, but Cassie didn't really remember him, just heard gossip third-hand. Cassie couldn't think of his name, he would have been in, um...her grandparents' generation? Old Esmund Potter's elder brother, she thought, who would have been Violet's...great-great-great-uncle, she thought. She was pretty sure Jamie's half-sister had lived with him for a while, they could ask. There were also spastics on Cassie's side of the family, a couple Bulstrodes she knew about, her cousin Regulus sounded like one of these really bad cases Shannon mentioned where the person didn't talk at all...

Shannon said that made sense, autism sometimes seemed to occur randomly but there was also evidence it ran in families. Often families who had multiple diagnoses of autism or schizophrenia or compulsive conditions or the like, even the people who hadn't ended up with anything tended to be rather eccentric — which, now that Shannon was pointing it out, definitely described both the Blacks and the Potters...and also the Bulstrodes and Longbottoms could be a bit off, as long as they were at it...

So far as what they'd be doing going forward, there wasn't that much to talk about. It'd probably take a while to sort out which things Violet had difficulty with were due to the abuse, the autism, or just her personality (which Shannon admitted could be difficult to separate from the autism), but that was something they'd figure out with time, it wasn't urgent that they quantify absolutely everything right now. Shannon did ask that Violet start keeping a diary, paying special attention to things that she enjoyed or that troubled her that other people didn't seem to notice, how she thought and felt about things, what she was fascinated or confused by, to hopefully help sketch out exactly what the shape of her condition was, so it would be easier to work around in future. Violet made a little face at that, but Cassie suggested she could get a sketchbook instead, Shannon's use of the phrase "sketch out" putting the idea in her head — if putting what she was thinking in words was too difficult, Violet could try to draw it instead, as long as it made sense to her. Violet thought this was an excellent idea, so, they'd be stopping to get a stack of sketchbooks and a multi-colour dip pen set on the way home.

(If Cassie had known giving Violet a dip pen set was going to spark a deep fascination with calligraphy and ink art she would have gotten her one months ago.)

Before too long, they were done, and they had to get out so Shannon didn't miss her appointment with her next patient. Violet was very disappointed that she wouldn't be able to finish her puzzle.

Cassie returned to adult size, hopefully not looking too different than she'd been before — sometimes it'd take the muggle mums a moment to recognise her, but they seemingly just wrote it off as perfectly innocent, didn't see each other often enough to perfectly remember her face. (After all, they lived in a world where people's faces didn't change so easily.) She needed to cheat with a wandless charm to pull her knickers back into place, in a way that didn't risk accidentally flashing anyone, Shannon giving her a somewhat exasperated look. Honestly, these weren't transfigurable, she was still wearing her dress and she'd been sitting on her heels the whole time, so it wasn't like she'd been rubbing her naked arse all over Shannon's carpet, don't be a prude about it. Shannon packed up the puzzle, the leverage of lifting it up tugging the picture into even smaller pieces, because Violet was reluctant to do it herself — busy tying her shoes, Violet visibly cringed, clearly uncomfortable to see her partially-completely work ruined. And that was it, they were ready to go.

Shannon held the door open for them, let Violet skip through, but then her hand caught Cassie's arm before she went by. "Go on ahead, Violet — I need to talk to your mum about boring paperwork stuff quick."

For a second, Violet frowned up at Shannon, suspicious. But then she shrugged, "Okay," and continued off down the hall by herself.

Once she'd turned the corner, out of earshot, Cassie turned back to Shannon. "This isn't about paperwork, is it?" she asked, her voice kept quiet just in case.

Shannon sighed, her hand falling from Cassie's arm. "No, it's not. It may be my imagination, but her stammer didn't seem nearly so bad when I first started seeing her. Some of her other peculiarities have also become more noticeable than they were in the beginning."

"...Maybe a little." Cassie was pretty sure Violet had just been unaware of the stammer before, and being self-conscious about it made it much worse, and some of her "peculiarities" being more obvious could just be because she was making less effort to act normal. Which was a good thing, honestly. And, eye contact had been mentioned multiple times, but Violet didn't absolutely avoid eye contact, just when she was nervous or thinking about something, so, she wasn't sure if that counted or not. "Why?"

Speaking slowly, cautiously — carefully choosing her words, to not give the wrong impression — Shannon said, "The expected course in most autistic patients is for their ability to manage themselves and function socially to improve with time. The rate of improvement is often quite slow, and some of the more severe cases will show very little, but...over time, they learn better coping strategies, and to understand other people better, they improve."

"Okay, you're starting to worry me here, Shannon. Are you saying you think Violet might get worse?"

"I'm not saying that, necessarily." Shannon glanced away for a second, a thin hissing sigh escaping from her nose. "Since I've begun seeing her, Violet's development has seemed rather...uneven. She's gained skills in some areas, especially socially, but in others she's become...more noticeably eccentric. Now, this isn't necessarily a concern — it's possible she was attempting to put on a performance of normality to avoid punishment by her previous guardians, and as she's gotten more comfortable in her new home has simply let it lapse. She's undoubtedly much more at ease and happier than she was when I started seeing her."

"Yeah," Cassie agreed, if only to fill the silence. Though she didn't disagree, the difference was very obvious — she'd be inclined to thank the gods for the miracle if she were particularly religious.

"And that may be all it is. But, while many autistic patients may improve, that is not always the course the condition takes. Some are struck by...significant setbacks. I don't think it's especially likely to be a major concern — serious worsening of the condition is very rare, and she's already passed the usual age cut-off. But it is worth keeping an eye on, just in case."

"That's why you wanted her to keep the diary."

"Part of it, yes," Shannon admitted. "The primary reason is what I said to her, but, yes, autistic patients who do have these setbacks may notice it happening themselves, if they're paying attention. She may well be the first to notice. But it may also prevent these setbacks from happening at all. Living in a society designed for the average person can often be very stressful for people who don't fit the mould, and one theory is that these setbacks are sometimes caused by a sort of psychological exhaustion — better awareness of her sensitive areas will help reduce stress, which may help to improve her mental health in the long term.

"Now, I don't want you to worry too much — I don't think a serious setback is likely. But if she does start to backslide, it may require immediate intervention. So, don't stress yourself out over it, but keep an eye out for signs she may be struggling."

...Which Cassie would do anyway, of course. But then, she might not have necessarily thought these autism-related signs were relevant — she hadn't been paying them much mind before today, after all, since it wasn't as though Violet's peculiarities were hurting anyone — so she guessed the warning wasn't the worst idea in the world. "Right. I'll keep a diary too, then. I actually already do, I picked it up when I started getting out more to try to keep straight all the shite I missed over the last decade and change, but I'll remember to note anything going on with Violet."

"Good idea. It'll be all right, Cassie," Shannon said, softly, her hand finding Cassie's arm again. "Autism can be a trial to manage at the best of times, but cases like Violet's, there's no reason she can't grow to live as full a life as anyone else. I honestly believe she'll be well in time — a little eccentric, perhaps, but happy."

Cassie shot Shannon her best attempt at a cocky smirk. "How about we make certain of that, yeah?"

Shannon uses some outdated language here when talking about autism. Remember, this is taking place in 1988 — the professional understanding of autism specifically and neurodiversity in general was very different at the time. Shannon is actually somewhat ahead of the party line from that time, thanks to consulting a few colleagues with more first-hand experience and some counter-hegemonic opinions, but the way she talks about autism is definitely still dated. In case anyone was planning on commenting about that.

I was originally going to continue posting two-scene chapters through to at least the beginning of Hogwarts, but the second scene for this one is going longer than anticipated, and it occurred to me people maybe don't want to sit down to read ~25-30k word chapters in a go. So, I put it to a vote on the Discord channel, and splitting the chapters up won by about 2 to 1. From now on I'll be posting scene-by-scene, as I finish them, like I have been for The Good War for some time already. Shouldn't change the amount of real-world time to finally get to Hogwarts, but the chapter count just effectively doubled.

I'm already about 10k words into the next scene, so expect that to come relatively soon, almost certainly sometime next week. See you all then.