As they went through London to King's Cross Station, where they would be departing for Hogwarts, Jonathan, towing his new trunk behind him, came to the conclusion that he would need to come back here sometime when he didn't have to be somewhere else. There was a lot of cool stuff here, stuff that Mr. Salisbury seemed to take no notice of. The giant Ferris wheel, for instance, and all the statues of people who'd obviously been important once.

When they finally got to the station and saw the platforms, Mr. Salisbury stopped them. "Right then. I'm afraid this is where I must leave you. I would recommend that you all stay in the same compartment, if you can. Not everyone on the train will be friendly to you, I'm afraid. When you get to Hogwarts, just follow instructions and you'll be fine." He paused. "Oh, right, your tickets."

He pulled three out of his pocket and handed them out. Jonathan read his and frowned. "Sir, it says that the train is leaving from Platform 9 ." He looked around, and, yes, there was a Platform 9 and a Platform 10, but no Platform 9 . "Where is it?"

"Oh. Right. Just go into that wall between Platforms 9 and 10."

"What?" Henry asked. "Just walk through the wall?"

"Yes, quite. Look over there, if you would, there's a group going through now."

Jonathan looked between Platforms 9 and 10 again, and yes, there was a group of older boys and girls walking towards that wall, talking and laughing with each other…and walking towards that wall, not slowing down…and…he blinked as, one after another, they disappeared through it.

"Simple as that," Mr. Salisbury said.

"Sir, don't people see that happening?" Becky asked.

"No. Muggles are very, very good at only seeing what they expect to see. Imagine if you'd seen that before you knew about magic. You'd have assumed they went around the thing, not through it, and your mind would fill in the gaps. That sort of mental shortcut makes our lives a lot easier. Now, best you get going. The train leaves in an hour."

They all said goodbye to Mr. Salisbury, and headed for the wall that was apparently also a door. As they got closer, he wondered if it was going to work for them and if he was going to suffer from the embarrassment of literally walking into a wall—and when his foot hit where the wall should be, the illusion went away, and he saw the platform.

It looked like something out of an old movie, that was the only way he could describe it—the train on the tracks next to the platform looked like it came straight of the 1800s, and the station was much the same. He wouldn't have been surprised if it was built in the 1800s—wizards seemed to have a thing for old buildings. The Leaky Cauldron wouldn't have been entirely out of place in historic Savannah.

"We should probably get out of the way before somebody else comes through and runs us over," Becky said, breaking Jonathan out of his reverie.

"Yeah, we should probably do that," Henry agreed, and they walked towards the train. "Do those tickets say where we're supposed to go on the train?"

Jonathan fished his out of his pocket. "No, they don't. Don't even tell us which car to get on."

"Joy," Henry said with a sigh. "We'll probably get on a car meant for the older students."

Jonathan looked around to see if there was any indication of where they were supposed to go, then saw some students who were about their height getting onto a car, one of whom was…black? He'd always assumed everyone in Britain was white. Live and learn, he guessed.

"Hey, I think those kids're about our age, and they're getting on that car."

"Good thinking," Henry replied. "Let's get on and get ourselves a compartment if we can. Some of these folks look kind of snooty."

"Yeah," Becky agreed, and when Jonathan took a closer look at some of the students he had to agree.

They actually did manage to find an empty compartment, and once they were settled in, Henry and Jonathan on one side, Becky on the other, they set to talking about home, what they expected Hogwarts to be like, and things like that, and he barely even noticed when the train started.

No other students tried to come in, though after a couple of hours there was a woman pushing a pastry cart who, for some reason, apologized to them for being late due to somebody clearing her out a couple of cars backs, which he wouldn't have known if she hadn't said otherwise. Maybe other people would?

"Ah, ma'am," he said, "what's available, exactly?"

She then began to list off all sorts of things that he'd certainly never heard of, and Becky and Henry, judging from the looks on their faces, hadn't heard of either.

That, however, did not stop Becky from plunging in. "I'll take a chocolate frog and a cauldron cake, please."

"Two sickles, dearie," the woman said, and as Becky dug into her pockets for the change she turned to Henry and Jonathan. Henry ordered the same thing. Jonathan, being a little curious, went for the jelly slugs and a cauldron cake.

"Where are you children from?" the lady asked.

"America," Jonathan replied.

"Oh," she said, sounding surprised. "We'd heard there were some of you coming, but everyone thought that would be next year. Welcome to England, children.

"Here, take these," she added, pulling out a newspaper labeled "The Daily Prophet" and three bags of the every-flavored beans and handing them over, one to each of them. "Don't even think about trying to pay, being as far from home as you are. It's terrible what our people over there wanted to do."

"Ah, ma'am, what are you talking about?" Jonathan asked. Mr. Salisbury hadn't mentioned anything about there being other wizards in America.

"I'd explain, dearie, but I haven't the time. Ask when you get to Hogwarts," she finished, then moved on.

Jonathan looked at the newspaper and saw that the pictures moved. That he wasn't startled by that, he thought, was a sign that he was getting used to things.

It was a bit surprising when the chocolate frog actually leaped around and the every-flavored beans turned out to not only have flavors like "apple," but also "fish" and "ow-ow-spicy-hot-ow-what-is-this-ow-why-would-you-make-this-a-flavor-ow-ow."

That was one of his, as it happened. The ice cream one was pretty nice, though. It at least cooled his mouth down—he wasn't sure if he had any taste buds left.

When the train finally came to a halt, it was night, and he saw no sign of the school. Everybody was getting up and grabbing their stuff, though, so the three of them did the same. Once they were off the train, which was a bit of a shoving match, they headed walked over to a giant of a man who was calling all of the "First Years" to him.

After a short speech in which he introduced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, he led them on down to a lake, where boats were waiting for them. They didn't have oars or motors, and for a moment Jonathan wondered how they would get across. Then he slapped himself in his head. Of course they would use magic.

The three of them boarded one together, and he was glad of it. Despite the fact that he knew the things moved by magic it was still disconcerting when the boat started moving on its own, and having people he at least sort of knew in it with him helped keep his jitters down.

When the castle finally came into view, it was…amazing. The moon was in just the right place to show it in shadows, and it was a very impressive silhouette indeed. He let out an involuntary whistle.

"So that's home until summer. Seems big enough for all of us."

"No kidding," Becky said quietly. "I didn't realize it would be a real, live, castle."

"This is gonna be so cool," Henry whispered.

Jonathan couldn't disagree with either statement.

When they arrived at the dock and walked to the castle door, they were greeted by a woman who introduced herself as Professor McGonagall. He'd always thought professors taught in colleges, but apparently things were different with wizards. She reminded him of Mrs. Dudley, his old fourth-grade teacher. Stern, no-nonsense, but not harsh nor unfair.

The way the school worked was weird, though. There were four "Houses," with names that were…more than a little strange, everybody lived in one of them, they competed for something called the "House Cup," and the competition was based on whoever was best at a game called "Quidditch," whoever got the best grades, and whoever broke the fewest rules. And apparently they were all going to be sorted into their houses tonight.

And they were all supposed to get into alphabetical order.

"See y'all later," Jonathan said as they split up.

"Yeah. Tomorrow maybe?" Henry replied.

"Maybe the weekend," Becky suggested. "We might not have time until then. They probably have some kind of new student orientation, and they probably split up by house."

That sounded about right. "We could meet on Saturday morning after breakfast. Maybe in this Great Hall place we're going to?"

"Sounds good—and we should get in our places."

He hurried over to about midway in the line, and found his place relatively quickly.

As they walked up towards the Great Hall, he was a little spooked by the ghosts. But they were kind of cool, even so.

As they stepped into the Great Hall, Jonathan looked about him in wonder. He knew the place had a roof, but all he could see was the night sky. And the candles—the candles were floating in mid-air. No wires or anything. That was pretty cool.

Then an old man stood up at the front of room next to a tall gray hat that reminded him a bit of a Pilgrim hat, except it was floppy and pointy, introduced himself as Albus Dumbledore—weird name, but whatever—and as he began to talk Jonathan felt his eyes go wide. A hat was going to sort them out into whichever house they would spend the next seven years in? How?

Then the hat started to sing. Apparently it was a magical hat, so it probably had some kind of way to tell who would get along with who. He wondered for a moment if he would end up in the same house as Henry and Becky.

One by one, the other first-years were called forward. He was the first of the Americans, and as he headed for the hat he wondered where he'd end up. He hoped not Slytherin. They were shooting some mean looks at him.

McGonagall sat the hat on his head, and he heard it talk inside his own head. "Well, well, what have we here?"

You can read my mind! he thought, not sure why he was surprised.

"'Course I can. Couldn't do this job if I couldn't. Hmm, Muggle-born, so not Slytherin..."

Good, he thought, before the hat continued. "You think differently than most I've Sorted, Mr Hardee. If you were British this would be much easier. Where to put you? Brave, certainly, you'd be fine in Gryffindor but that's not quite right. Hufflepuff? No, you're loyal but that's not key. Curious, inquisitive—RAVENCLAW!"

He'd been hoping for that. Seemed like his kind of people.

They also seemed pleased with the idea, anyway, cheering and applauding as they had with the others who'd been sorted into their house.

Then a few more went through, but everything seemed to come to a halt when McGonagall called out the name "Harry Potter." A rush of whispers swept through the hall, and Jonathan leaned over to the boy next to him, another first year named Michael Corner.

"Who's Harry Potter?" he asked.

Corner looked at him in disbelief. "Who is Harry Potter?" he asked. "You mean you don't know about the Boy-Who-Lived? The one who defeated You-Know-Who?"

"No, I don't. And who is You-Know-Who?"

"How do you not—wait, you're a Muggle-born and one of the Americans, of course you wouldn't know about Harry Potter and You-Know-Who. Don't worry, I'll get some of the lads together and we'll explain everything to you when we get to the dorms."

Jonathan rather wanted to know what the other boy was talking about right now rather than later, but he supposed that now wasn't the time.

"The hat's taking awhile," he heard one of the older boys say quietly. "Longer than it did with Hardee."

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted. Jonathan was pretty sure he was never going to get used to thinking that. The Gryffindors went wild, but he couldn't help but notice that the Slytherins looked…upset. Why?

The next few passed through, and then it was Henry's turn. The hat settled on his head, seemed to think for a few moments, then yelled out "HUFFLEPUFF!"

Henry seemed a little disappointed, and Jonathan didn't blame him—Hufflepuff seemed to be the house of "If you don't fit the other three, this is where you go." Hopefully there was more to it than that.

Then Jonathan wondered if he'd be the only American in Ravenclaw. Well, Becky seemed bright enough, but that wasn't her "thing" for lack of a better way to say it. So he probably would be. He wasn't sure what he thought about that.

Becky went up right after Henry. The hat took a few moments, a little less time than it had for himself or Henry, and shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"

Becky seemed pleased, anyway, but it did seem a little odd that of the three of them, one had been sorted into each house that didn't actively hate them, and he wondered for a moment if someone hadn't rigged the sorting process a little.

Then again, how did you bribe a magical hat? There was probably a way, to be sure, but he couldn't imagine what it would be.

Then the last of the first-years went through, and it was time to eat. At least the food was relatively normal, although it was a bit different from what he'd had at home. It was still good, though. Also, the ghosts came back to visit—apparently Ravenclaw had a couple of resident ones. That was kind of cool, if a little weird, though. He was definitely going to mention that, first letter home.

There was, of course, a lot of talking. Everyone talked about what their first magic had been—his was one of the odder ones, but it wasn't unheard of. Also, everyone wanted to hear about America, for some reason or other—apparently there weren't a lot of wizards there, thanks to something called the Great Scouring that had happened back before the Revolution, and ever since then it had become a place where persons born into wizarding families who didn't have magic—known as Squibs—went.

That information came from Corner—apparently his father had been involved in the process that had led to Jonathan, Henry, and Becky coming over here, and as a result he knew more about it than he might have otherwise. It was all very interesting, but Jonathan still wanted to know what all the hoopla about this Harry Potter kid was for, who this You-Know-Who fellow was, and why people seemed to be scared of the latter.

Supper ended, they were dismissed, and soon Jonathan and the others were trotting after their head of house, who was explaining everything to them as they went along.

When they finally made it to the tower, after climbing up several flights of stairs, one of which decided to move around while they were on it, it turned out that in order to get into their house they had to answer riddles. He was fine with that, he'd always been good with those, but if this was supposed to keep people from other houses from getting in, it seemed like a bad way to do it. Slytherins, for example, were not known for being stupid, and they were the ones it appeared everyone was on the lookout for.

Once they made it to their assigned dorms, the boys all made their introductions—the other three, besides him and Michael, were Terry Boot, Anthony Goldstein, and James Kirk—and then Corner organized the "explain to the new guy what's going on" meeting.

It was certainly…revealing. Apparently a few years back there'd been this guy named—Corner had gone to a whisper at this point—Voldemort, more commonly referred as You-Know-Who because nobody wanted to say his name, which seemed silly to Jonathan. He'd been running around proclaiming wizard superiority to Muggles, that wizards born to Muggles were inferior to those born of wizarding families, that wizards should rule Muggles, and non-"pureblood" wizards needed to be exterminated.

Fortunately, some people had objected to that, and a war had broken out. A lot of people had died, and for a little while it looked like Voldemort might actually win. Then, one day, he'd gone after the Potter family—James, Lily, and their son, Harry. No one knew what happened that night, but what everyone did know was that when it was all over, James and Lily were dead, Harry was still alive but with a weird scar on his forehead, and Voldemort was gone.

As a result, Harry Potter had become celebrated as "The Boy-Who-Lived," and acquired a bit of an air of mystery about him, since he'd vanished from the wizarding world afterwards until this past summer, when he'd come to Diagon Alley in the company of Hagrid, who was, in fact, actually a half-giant. Jonathan decided that he didn't need to know which parent was the giant and which was the human. Dad had given him "the talk" at the beginning of summer, an experience that he did not want to repeat, and he did not want to speculate on the hows of the thing.

At any rate, after showing up in Diagon Alley, Potter vanished again for about a month, and had showed up at the Hogwarts Express just today. That explained most of the interest the students had in the boy in general, but, as Corner explained, there were other reasons.

"Any of the houses would have been glad to get him, but Gryffindor and Slytherin especially wanted him. Gryffindor because his parents were in Gryffindor, so it's like he's continuing their legacy. Slytherin, because it would have represented a repudiation of his parents' legacy. Fortunately, that didn't happen."

Jonathan had never seen that kind of thinking before—especially not from kids his own age. That seemed like the kind of thing grown-ups got up to when they had too much time on their hands, like old Mrs. Jamison. Well, some of the girls at school back home seemed like they got up to those kind of games, but none of his friends ever had.

"So that's how it works, then," he said, not knowing what else to say. "Sorting really does matter a lot?"

"It does and it doesn't," Boot said. "It's not like blood purity or anything—there's families that'll disown members if they marry someone who had a cousin marry a Muggle or a Muggle-born—but people'll make assumptions about you based on your house." He snorted. "Take us here in Ravenclaw. Everyone thinks of us as boffins and researchers. But we can give Gryffindors a run for their money in Quidditch—without cheating," he muttered darkly, and the other boys nodded.

That brought up another question. "What's Quidditch?"

That conversation lasted until the prefect told them all to go to bed. And Jonathan still wasn't sure if he understood it any better than when it started.

The next few months passed by quickly, somewhat to Jonathan's surprise. School had always seemed like it lasted forever for him, mostly because he was usually bored out of his skull.

The teachers weren't much different than back home, really, and the scheduling wasn't different than what he'd been told middle school was like. The subjects, admittedly, were a bit different, and from what he understood you went to class for every subject every day in middle school, whereas here different classes had different schedules.

They also took each class with one of the other houses, and he much preferred having class with Gryffindor or Hufflepuff to having it with Slytherin. There was a lot to be said about the snakes. None of it was good.

Even so, he did wonder why the lions kept getting thrown together with the snakes. That just seemed like a bad idea, though he supposed throwing the Hufflepuffs to the psychos would have been bad too, and he certainly didn't want to be stuck with them.

The classes were a mixed bag.

History of Magic was a terrible class. Professor Binns managed to take even stuff that should have been interesting, like the Goblin Wars, and manage to suck all the life out of it and make it dust-dry.

Defense Against the Dark Arts wasn't what it could have been either—admittedly, they were only first years, but his father had started him with an actual rifle when he was nine, and the theory of the thing had taken all of half-an-hour before he started shooting targets. Quirrel didn't have any of his classes even touch their wands for months so far.

Transfiguration was good, though—he'd been right about Professor McGonagall, and she was an excellent teacher to boot. Always ready to answer a question, never talked down to anyone, and if she said you did well she meant it.

Professor Sprout, in Herbology, was a little different—definitely less severe than McGonagall—but she knew her business, and he suspected that getting on her bad side would be a Very Bad Idea.

Flying, once they'd gotten through the first lessons, was far more fun than he'd ever had in his life, despite the fact that Madam Hooch had probably the most unfortunate last name out of all of the professors at Hogwarts. He'd managed to keep a straight face so far, but there had been a couple of close calls, and he was worried that one of the other boys was going to notice and make him explain.

Charms with Flitwick was another one of the bright spots. While he was their head of house, he showed no favoritism, which avoided any kind of real resentment, and he was a solid teacher. Apparently some people were a little twitchy about the fact that he was half-goblin—again, how that had happened was not something Jonathan cared to speculate on—but he didn't see the issue.

Astronomy was kind of boring, but it was only once a week, and it wasn't Professor Sinistra's fault—he just really wasn't interested in stars.

Still, neither Astronomy, nor History of Magic, nor Defense Against the Dark Arts was the low point of the week. That distinction went to Potions class with Professor Snape. Glah. That was a class that should have been spectacularly fun. He'd always enjoyed science class and watching what happened when you threw different stuff together and stirred it up a little.

Snape, however, made it unpleasant. He wasn't nearly as nasty to either them or the Hufflepuffs as he was to the Gryffindors—he occasionally actually awarded points in their class, whereas, based on what Becky said, the next time he gave a Gryffindor points would be the first. Even so, he reminded Jonathan of Mr. Gleason, one of the PE coaches in elementary school. He'd been all set to go to Georgia on a football scholarship, and then something-or-other had happened and he'd lost it. Now he took it out on the kids he was in charge of whenever he got the chance.

Despite that, Snape knew what he was doing, anyway, at least according to the older students, and so he listened and learned as much as he could—and, like most all his housemates, also did some studying in his off time.

That led to the library, which by itself more than made up for Quirell, Snape, and Binns. Yes, Madam Pince seemed almost to regard the students reading or borrowing the books as an imposition rather than the reason for the place's existence. That wasn't like any of the librarians back home, but in some ways that almost made it more fun to try and find things. Well, unless you were looking for a book for homework and couldn't find it thanks to the fact that the library didn't have a card catalog or anything.

And the place was huge, too—all the books in the Homerville library could have fit in there at least five or six times over. Since Binns never actually asked anything during History of Magic, did anything other than recite the same lectures and give the same tests every single year, or notice if students fell asleep in class, Ravenclaws in years gone by had left their notes behind so that time in spent in the class could be spent doing something, anything, else, so he spent it reading.

If other houses weren't smart enough to do the same thing, that was their problem.

Okay, he might have shared his with Henry and Becky. What they did with them he didn't know. Mostly because he didn't ask.

There was even some excitement outside of class. A troll showed up around Halloween, and had been rather quickly dispatched-by Potter and a couple of other Gryffindors, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, though according to Becky running into the troll had not been intentional on their part. Jonathan hoped not. From the description, trying to take on one of those would be stupid, and he didn't want to think anyone was that dumb.

Quidditch had also been something he'd unexpectedly enjoyed. He didn't play—that wasn't for first-years, unless you were Potter, and besides he didn't really want to—but it was a lot of fun to watch. Way more fun than watching football—if nothing else, watching people fly around was fun, and after watching a few games he was starting to get the hang of the rules.

However, when Christmas rolled around, he was a bit down in the dumps, mostly because he was bored. And homesick—the weekly letters just weren't cutting it, as even though he had made friends with the other Ravenclaws and a few Hufflepuffs, they reminded him of all the people he missed.

Henry and Becky felt much the same way.

There weren't a lot of other students around, either. Potter was—according to Becky, who'd heard it from Granger, his home life was on the abusive side—and so was the youngest Weasley boy, whose parents were going to Romania to see his brother, who either bred or trained dragons, he couldn't remember which.

Either way, that sounded like a really cool job.

It was still the first time he'd spent Christmas away from his family, and unlike Potter his was actually functional. He wondered how Mom and Dad would explain why he wasn't there to Jiadek and Grandma and Grandpa and the uncles and aunts and cousins.

Not that he could do anything about that, he thought as he walked into the Great Hall and looked around for Henry and Becky. They were sitting at the Gryffindor table, as while house-mixing was usually prohibited, the rules were relaxed over the Christmas break-or, as the English called it, holiday. He walked over to where they were sitting, several seats down from where Potter and the youngest Weasley were eating, and sat himself down there as well.

"Hey Jonathan," Becky said.

"Y'all have any plans for the day?" he asked as he took one of the serving dishes and got some porridge out of it. He missed grits. They didn't have them at all over here—didn't even know what they were.

"No," Henry answered. "We were hoping you'd think of something."

Jonathan shook his head. "Haven't a clue. We can't leave the castle grounds to go to Hogsmeade, 'cause we're first-years. I could stay in the library for awhile, but neither of y'all like reading as much as I do. And I know I can't spend all break in the library."

"Maybe we could bum around the castle a little?" Henry suggested. "Now that there's not so many people around, we shouldn't have any problems."

Becky nodded, as did Jonathan. Hogwarts had its share of bullies, mostly in Slytherin though there were a few others—McLaggen, a second-year Gryffindor, came to mind—which made walking around by yourself outside of certain areas mildly hazardous. Fortunately, they'd all gone home, and Jonathan intended to enjoy their absence.

Even so...

"First, breakfast. I'm starved," he pronounced, and the other two laughingly agreed.

As they walked by the lake back to the castle after a very lengthy walk, Becky said something unexpected.

"What's a Mudblood?" she asked quietly.

Jonathan frowned in thought for a moment. "I dunno. Sounds like an insult to me, though. Why do you ask?"

"Well," she said, "two of the Slytherin girls—"

Of course, Jonathan thought

"—were walking by me, and right as they were passing I heard one of them say something about letting "savage Mudbloods" into Hogwarts. I would've said something to them about it-"

Jonathan didn't doubt that, after a little incident when a Slytherin girl had made fun of Becky's accent. Becky had smiled, nodded politely, stepped forward and whispered something that had caused the girl to run off, pale-faced.

"—but I didn't know what it meant, so I didn't know what to say." She looked vaguely upset, though Jonathan wasn't sure why.

Henry actually said something, however. "What should you have done? Asked her to explain what she meant?"

Becky winced. "That's so. Still. Jonathan, do you know?"

He wasn't sure why she was asking him. Okay, he did know more than they did about certain stuff, but that didn't mean he knew everything.

He knew someone who might know, though. "We could talk to Professor Flitwick after lunch. He ought to know."

"You sure you want to ask a teacher about this?" Becky asked.

"Positive. I don't think he'll make a big fuss over it."

Becky still seemed hesitant, and they all ended up agreeing that he should go by himself, since Flitwick was his head of house. And so once they got back to the castle and had lunch was done he made his way up to the professor's office.

He raised his hand to knock, but before he could he heard the man say "Enter!" and so he did.

"Ah, Mr Hardee. Very pleased to see you. Come in, sit down. Is something the matter?"

Jonathan did as he was told, and told him what Becky had said, ending with, "…And none of us knew what it meant. I thought you might."

Flitwick slumped back in his chair. "I had so hoped," he said quietly, "that it would be some time yet before we had this conversation." He sighed. "It was inevitable that we would, though."

He hopped out of the chair and began to pace back and forth.

"You are aware, Mr Hardee, of the attitude many wizards have towards those, like you, who were born to Muggles?"

"Yes sir." His mouth quirked. "The Sorting Hat mentioned it to me."

"Yes, well. 'Mudblood' is an especially impolite term for wizards like you or Miss Tiller. It's an assessment of the...purity...of your line—that you don't have any. It's...not a term used by good people."

"A little different from home, but not as much as I'd like," Jonathan said quietly. A lot of the older folks still threw words like nigger, spic, and gook around like it wasn't anything. A few even called his mom a polack. And some kids were always blamed for what went wrong, even when it wasn't them, 'cause their parents were "trash."

"Muggles have these problems?" Flitwick asked in amazement.

"Yes sir. Usually it's about skin color, but sometimes it's about who your father or grandfather was."

"Skin color?" Flitwick said incredulously. "That's absurd." He paused. "Not much more absurd than looking down on people because they didn't choose to be born to magical parents, I suppose."

Jonathan shrugged. "I don't understand it either, sir. I just know that's how it is."

"Yes, well." Professor Flitwick looked very uncomfortable. "That sort of thing is also the reason that you're here at Hogwarts."

"Sir?"

"During the 1930s and 1940s, there was a war within the wizarding world. We called it the Global Wizarding War." He smiled wanly. "Very original of us, I know. Well, after it was all over, we here in England decided to move a few people over to your country. The war was...a near-run thing.

"We sent ten couples there in the 1950s, and they had children, and set up a small wizarding school, though not an official one. They were somewhat surprised when, in 1966, their roll of future students started having names of children that were not born to any of them." He smiled wryly. "They were from the northeast of your country, often from families who had been there since before the Scouring. Then..." he sighed. "You, Miss Tiller, and Mister Slocum were born. And they panicked."

Jonathan's brow furrowed.

"Why?"

"Because they had been informed that the lands from which you came were barbarous, uncouth, fanatically religious, and generally unpleasant. So they wanted nothing to do with you."

He paused. "It didn't help that the First Wizarding War was going on at the time. But, once that was done, the question of what to do with you and the others came up again. Dumbledore said Hogwarts would take you, and any of the other Americans who the current colony were unwilling to take." He smiled wryly. "There might have been more opposition, but most of those who would have been opposed to the idea were trying to stay out of Azkaban."

Jonathan slumped back in his seat. He knew how the rest of the country saw his home—February was basically "your state is terrible" month, though at least they weren't Alabama or Mississippi. But this was...he didn't know how to put it into words. But he was pretty close to seeing red.

"So we're here at Hogwarts because a bunch of Yankees badmouthed us to the people y'all sent over." He paused. "Is that right?"

Flitwick sighed. "Yes. The more fools the lot of them. You and your countrymen have been excellent students."

"Thank you, professor. This is..." he didn't have the words.

"Overwhelming. I can understand why." Flitwick paused. "When you tell Miss Tiller and Mr Slocum about this, please send them to their heads of house if they have any questions."

"Of course, sir. And thank you for the explanations."

"It's no trouble, Mr Hardee," the teacher said quietly. "I've found that it saves much trouble, in the end, to provide a complete explanation of what's going on.

Becky and Henry were both nearly speechless when Jonathan explained to them how it was that they'd come to be at Hogwarts. He'd done it while they were on the wall overlooking the lake, not despite the cold and wind but because of it. It fit his mood perfectly.

Henry was red with anger, but said nothing.

Becky, however, cut loose with a stream of invective that both shocked Jonathan, because she was a girl, and girls just didn't say things like that back home, and impressed him, because she went for nearly a minute without repeating herself once.

Henry was just impressed. "Where did you learn to swear like that?" he asked.

Becky actually turned a little red, this time with embarrassment. "I have three uncles. They were all Marines, like my dad. And mom's not always around, and sometimes they forget I'm there."

That explained it.

Her voice turned serious, then. "Let's make a promise, to each other."

"A promise?" Jonathan asked, wondering what she had in mind.

"Yes. That we'll never do anything to anyone like what those stuck-up jerks did to us."

Jonathan nodded. "Not just that. That if anyone does that to anyone else, that we'll do for them what Dumbledore did for us."

Becky and Henry looked at each other, nodded, then looked back at him.

"Agreed."

They put their right hands in a stack between them.

"Jonathan," Henry said quietly, "go for it." Becky nodded.

Nuts. He hadn't been expecting them to throw it all on his shoulders. His mind raced.

"Do we promise," he asked, "to never try and prevent anyone from learning to use their magic because of their birth?"

All three said "yes."

Jonathan felt an odd prickle, but ignored it.

"Do we also promise," he continued, "to provide aid to anyone who is denied the opportunity to learn to use their magic because of their birth?"

"Yes," they all answered.

The prickling sensation increased.

There was doubtless some dramatic thing he could say to end this, but he couldn't think of something suitable.

"Promised and done," he said, he felt a slight pressure on his hand, and the prickling went away.

"How about we get inside?" Henry suggested after a moment.

That was a good idea. He wished he'd thought of it.

The rest of the break—and most of the rest of the year—went much like the first part, though Ravenclaw won the Quidditch Cup, thanks to Potter being out for some reason or other. All of the classes went about as they had before, though Professor Quirrell seemed to be more and more distracted as the year went on. Then, one day, right before the year was about to end, he vanished with no explanation. That was also the day that Ron Weasley, Potter, and Granger ended up in the infirmary, and he wondered if the two were connected somehow.

Despite all of that, however, when they arrived in the Great Hall for the end-of-year feast, it was hung in Slytherin colors for the sixth or seventh year in a row. Everyone knew why—never had there been a head of house more unfair than Snape, at least by comparison with the others (according to the older Ravenclaws blatant favoritism toward one's house had been the done thing, as the English said it, in older days).

So it was with a feeling of dull acceptance that Jonathan and all the others greeted Dumbledore's recitation of the house points.

Then, instead of saying what everyone had expected to say, he said "There are some last-minute house points to be awarded."

Everyone looked at each other. Slytherin was a hundred points ahead of them, and Ravenclaw was second.

Then Dumblebore listed off the names of the trio that had ended up in the infirmary and awarded them fifty points apiece. That tied the lions and snakes, so what now? An arm-wrestling match between Snape and McGonagall? He would bet on her, honestly. Snape didn't seem like he was the stronger of the two.

Then Dumbledore awarded ten points to Neville Longbottom, a rather hapless Gryffindor, for "standing up to his friends." Jonathan took a moment to wonder what that was all about before it dawned on him.

Gryffindor had more points than Slytherin.

Gryffindor had won. The snakes had lost.

Unless Snape managed...

"I hereby declare the winner of the House Cup to be Gryffindor," the headmaster announced, and the hall was instantly decked in red and gold.

Jonathan thought he'd go deaf from all the cheers and applause, as he joined in anyway.

He'd've rather Ravenclaw won, but better anybody than the snakes.

He was also going to see if Becky knew anything about what had happened, since she was a Gryffindor.

As it turned out, she didn't. Granger, Potter, and Weasley were all pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing.

As they loaded up on the train back to London, the three Americans took a moment to look back towards the castle.

"I wonder what'll happen next year," Henry said.

Jonathan shrugged. "Probably nothing out of the ordinary. Should still be fun, though."

Becky shook her head. "I don't know. There's something about Potter—I think weird stuff's always going to happen around him." She smiled. "At least we won't get too bored."

Jonathan decided that he was not going to mention that thought to his parents.

A/N: The flavor that set Jonathan off was a particularly strong curry.

The number of students: as is known, canon is somewhat inconsistent on this question, but since the overall staff of the school does not at all correlate with having six hundred students, I've chosen to go with the low end, with between ten to twelve students per year in each house. This still comes out to nearly three hundred students, which seems a little excessive for the number of teachers at Hogwarts, but hey. Not my fault Rowling didn't do the math.