Summer

Addie wasn't someone who would ever describe herself as a liar, at least until today, that was. The moment they had all got into the car after having been picked up at Kings Cross, she had had a pretty good idea of what would happen. Therefore, she had practiced what she was going to do and say. As soon as they had arrived at Privet Drive, she had put her plan into her motion.

"Uncle Vernon," she said shakily, hoping more than anything that she would be able to get it right this time and be back in her room pointedly ignoring Harry as soon as possible.

"Hmmph?" Uncle Vernon, who had been driving, responded.

"I know that you will confiscate all our things from school, but…"

"You thought right. Alright, out with it. What is it that you want us to let you keep? Hmm. Freakish herbs? Chalk so you can draw your freakish diagrams?"

"Vernon!" Aunt Petunia shushed him. Presumably the neighbours were a viable threat to her, even when they were in the driveway with the windows closed, out of earshot of even the neighbour with the longest neck.

Addie had known that neither her aunt or uncle were going to be likely to give in, so she had planned accordingly. "Well," she explained, "none of those things. I want to be able to keep my calculator. I bought it from a stationery shop in London."

Both Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon turned around in surprise, and Dudley, who was cowering from Addie and Harry and basically had his head out of the window gasped. Harry gave her a confused look, but for all he knew, she could have a completely reasonable non magical reason to have a calculator.

"Whatever for?" Uncle Vernon asked, clearly genuinely confused.

Herein lay the lie. "Maths," she said earnestly, "and I also wondered…"

"Oh what else," he said in exasperation, "oh what else could you possibly want from us after we spent so much raising you? Children aren't cheap you know."

She tried to keep her cool. Uncle Vernon was so frustrating that it was difficult sometimes, but she had to keep her cool if she wanted to get what she needed. Just a few more minutes. Deep breath in, then out again.

"Well, I was going to ask whether I could go to the library sometimes. After my chores I mean."

"Why," was once again Uncle Vernon's question. And 'maths' was once again her response.

Uncle Vernon gave her the same confused look, before leaning over to talk to Aunt Petunia. They conversed for several minutes, and for all that time, they were all stuck in the car until the child locks were released. Addie wondered whether the child locks had been on all the time they had been at Hogwarts. It would be just typical of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia to have removed them before they left London after having dropped them off at the station in September. Dinky Diddikins couldn't possibly be constrained in the same way as the freaks although – Addie thought – based on past behaviour Dudley was just who child locks had been invented for in the first place. He had once opened his car door in the middle of a motor way when out on a day trip with his parents to Alton Towers when they had refused to buy him the biggest toy in the shop. It was probably the first time either of them had been frustrated with a child under their roof for a justified reason. Throughout the conversation, both Harry and Dudley tried to eavesdrop, but Aunt Petunia had no shortage of forbidding looks. Finally, they seemed to come to a consensus.

"Alright girl." This was it. Addie had very low expectations as to what she would be able to get, but figured that she would have regretted it if she had not asked. "We will allow you to go to the library for 3 hours, including the time needed to get there, on three conditions.

1. You must do any and all chores that your aunt gives you. You must do this without complaining, and do them to the best of your ability.

2. You must take your brother with you to the library. This is only worth it if we are free from your freakishness at the same time."

At this, Harry looked as though he was going to complain, but clearly thought better of it.

"You both make far too much noise at home, and are constantly getting underfoot," Aunt Petunia explained, "and no matter what I tell you, you are both always acting like juvenile delinquents. We need time away from you."

"You can't say that, we're not…" Harry started, defensively.

"Exactly what I was saying Pet," Uncle Vernon said righteously. "They're both spoiled and rude. I don't know where we went wrong with them."

Addie glared at Harry to get him to shut up and he got the message. Just a few more minutes. This would be over soon.

"3. You have to do GCSE maths or something like it, and you have to do well. Those freakish qualifications you are going to work towards don't mean anything in the real world, and we don't want to be caring for another generation of Potter demon spawn if one of you ends up in prison."

"Alright," Addie said, slightly stunned but accepting of his requirements, "I'll be sure to do my best."

With that, the child locks were released, and everyone poured into the house. Clearly the arrangements for this summer were slightly different from the previous summers of Addie's life. Addie and Harry had been set up in Dudley's second bedroom with the lumpiest mattress that not very much money could buy, and back then, this had been considered to be more than generous by the Dursleys. The twins were not worthy of the space or money that their darling Diddy was.

Now, however, the Dursleys had clearly realised that where they let their beloved niece and nephew sleep was of a matter of interest to the magical world, which they wanted as far away from them as possible. Therefore, they had provided a second more permanent bed in the hopes of a good report back to the school. Addie, who had been the lucky inhabitant of the camp bed got a bed that was marginally more comfortable than its predecessor. She knew that it was a better situation than she had been in the previous summer, but after months sleeping in her comfortable bed in the Hufflepuff tower, the springs in the mattress felt as though they were grating the skin on her back. She knew she should be grateful – the Dursleys didn't deserve to be saddled with two children they hadn't asked for – but still felt bitterly jealous of the king size mattress with additional padding that Dudley had been purchased on his arrival home as a consolation prize. In quiet moments, Addie was sure that she could still hear Dudley complaining about the "Freaks" having got a new bed, so why could he not get the same? She was pretty certain that if Dudley had to sleep on the bed of knives, he would revolt.

Aunt Petunia had also realised that it was probably getting to a point at which the twins should probably have their own space, so had generously installed a screen between the two beds. It had clearly seen better days and looked like it had come straight from a decommissioned hospital, but Addie was grateful. It meant that she didn't have to deal with Harry trying to catch her eye at all times of the day. He wanted to talk to her now? After everything that had happened, of him pretending that she didn't exist and (if the way that they had treated her demonstrated anything) telling his new friends all manner of stories about how much of a nightmare she was.

They had only exchanged a few sentences all summer. Harry had clearly wanted things to go back to how they were before and had made a joke about Dudley the moment they had been sent up to their room.

"Are we seriously not going to talk about it?" She asked as calmly as she could. "All these months of nothing, and then you seem to expect everything to go back to how it was before."

"What do you mean?" Harry replied, squirming slightly. "Nothing has to change."

"You don't even have excuses," Addie realised out loud. "You think it's normal to treat your sister and only close family member as though she doesn't exist? It's not. We were always so close but then you stopped talking to me like something happened. I don't know what I did Harry. Please tell me what I did if I did something wrong. Or if I have done anything wrong at all. The longer this goes on, the longer I feel as though some thing is very wrong. You are acting weirdly. You have been for ages."

"You talk about me being weird..." Harry said under his breath.

"What does that even mean?"

"Oh, as if you don't know."

"Well if I knew, I wouldn't have to ask you what is wrong."

"You know."

"I don't. My friends say you are ignoring me because you're embarrassed and that I should hate you because you're a coward…"

"I saved the school," Harry hissed. "I'm not a coward."

"There isn't just one type of cowardice," Addie said sadly.

At this point, Addie had realised that this wasn't even a conversation anymore. Well if he was going to ignore her, then she would do him the same courtesy. She made a point of putting her earplugs in and going and lying on her "new" bed. He had attempted several times to get her attention when he had come to her side of the screen, but she had faced the wall and tried to ignore him even more. He eventually got the message and decided to leave her alone.

They spent most of the summer doing their usual chores as assigned by Aunt Petunia. Addie supposed that she had probably been saving them up so as to keep them busy the entire summer. She didn't really mind chores, especially the mindless ones. When she scrubbed the tiles in the bathrooms, she thought about all the things Professor Binns had taught them about, and when she had gone through all of that, she started thinking up stories in her head. When she ran out of things to make up stories about she thought about herbology and potions which she had managed to scrape a reasonable result in. She didn't touch transfiguration, charms or defence against the dark arts as they were more trouble than they were worth. Her magical exam results had been the lowest in the year, lower even than Crabbe and Goyle from Slytherin who were universally known for their lack of aptitude in all things. It probably wasn't healthy to spend so much time alone and overthinking, or near bleach, but it certainly kept her busy.

As Addie had predicted, their magical belongings had been confiscated the moment they entered the house. It didn't matter whether the objects were magical or not, if they had been to Hogwarts, they were "contaminated" and after a thorough spray and wipe down of the outside of their trunks, they were unceremoniously dumped in the cupboard under the stairs. This included not only books, their wands and potions ingredients, but also their clothes and toiletries. Therefore, only pre-Hogwarts belongings were acceptable. This meant Dudley's castoffs for Harry, and clothes given away by charity shops due to lack of demand or excess of damage for Addie. On any given day she was usually wearing something antediluvian that had probably not been washed since. The only exception to this rule was Addie's calculator, which had been thoroughly disinfected by Aunt Petunia who had not even bothered to turn it on, and then returned to Addie, who had been delighted to see it.

When she had a free moment, Addie spent her time working her way through the variety of books that had been left by Dudley in the room. She first tried the fiction but didn't find herself particularly interested. Many of the books had clearly been bought with the idea that he was basically a miniature Uncle Vernon and would therefore be interested in the same things, however, Addie knew very well that Uncle Vernon only read when he had to know about something for a business meeting or networking. Therefore the only fiction book was The Catcher in the Rye. Addie remembered that there had been a business meeting more than 5 years ago during which the person Uncle Vernon was trying to ingratiate himself with related to the protagonist. There were also a variety of books that made her feel faintly sick including a very well read copy of The Anita Bryant Story and a copy of The Bible which had some of the more inflammatory lines underlined in red biro. She tried to read some of them but came out of the experience even more sure in her assumption that Uncle Vernon was a nasty piece of work. She had more luck in the books that had been bought in the presumption that Dudley might actually enjoy them. He had not enjoyed them, and unlike the toys, they had never been opened, but it was the thought that counted. Addie recalled Aunt Petunia writing thank you letters and tried to imagine the lies that she must have thought up.

Dear Great Aunt Emily,

Thank you for the generous gift of the full set of encyclopaedias. I have already used Heating to Infectious to write my essay on the Iberian Peninsula for Geography. It was very useful to have everything I needed in one place and I didn't need to work in the library. I told you in my last letter about not being able to come to see you for your birthday as I had homework to do and the library wouldn't let me borrow reference books, so this really helps. I am planning on using USA to Zwingli for my essay on Volcanoes.

Your loving nephew,

Dudley

Or

Dear Aunt Marge,

Thank you very much for the pictorial encyclopaedia. I know that I shouldn't need one with pictures anymore as I can read better than anyone else I know, but it really helps to gain crucial context and further my understanding of the world around me. It was really nice to see you for Christmas. Hopefully we'll be able to see you soon. Work at school is really hard, but this will help with history. I got an A on my essay on The Spanish Inquisition and am receiving a special reward from the school. Mum and Dad say that it's good to know that Smeltings is just as good as it ever was, and the Headmaster says that I am an asset to the school.

Lots of Love,

Dudley

She wondered if either of them believed whatever Aunt Petunia was saying to them and hoped that someday someone would ask Dudley a question about Iberia. Surely they had noticed by now that Dudley had not the slightest intention of engaging at school. It was far more interesting to him to hit people with his Smeltings stick and laugh when they cried, or steal their lunch money and then drop it down a drain while they were watching as he didn't actually need it himself. If Addie had one thing to be grateful for, it was that Dudley was uninterested in all the wonderful books he had been given, and Aunt Petunia was satisfied to yell when she wanted her and never came into the room, meaning that she was able to spend hours upon hours filling her brain with more history. She didn't know why she hadn't found any of this interesting before. How was it that learning about Goblin wars and Wizarding inventions had made her so much more open to learning about Muggle wars (of which there were many) and Muggle inventions? How had she not seen its appeal before?

Her real sanctuary, however, was the library, which Aunt Petunia had begrudgingly allowed Addie and Harry to traipse off to each Friday. Together and completely wordlessly, they would leave the house and make their way along Wisteria Walk, before braving the shortcut through the park, which if they did it quickly enough meant that they could avoid Dudley and his cronies, who would chase after them as quickly as they could and hit them with his stick. Addie always had a great time in the library. She would spend the first hour doing maths problems on one of the scientific calculators that you could borrow if you asked the librarian. It looked like the calculator that she had meaning Harry never asked any questions and she didn't have to bother her friends with incoherent messages that were surplus to requirements. She would then photocopy a couple of pages of problems at the low low price of 2p per page (pilfered from down the back of the sofa) and go over them back at Privet Drive. The rest of the time was spent adding to her already accumulated knowledge.

While the pictorial encyclopaedias were interesting to read through, they very quickly revealed themselves to be lacking in detail. It was the same problem that she had found with Hogwarts a History and A History of Magic the previous year at school. She had needed far more information than had been given, and had needed to look at the bibliography. The pictorial encyclopaedia hadn't had one, but she had managed to find numerous very interesting books regardless.

The earlier part of the summer passed fairly uneventfully. They ignored the Dursleys and the Dursleys ignored them. Addie and Harry ignored one another as well, both in their shared room and when they went to the library together. The Dursleys weren't being particularly forthcoming with food, for either of them, so Addie sent a distress call.

"D5-π0+-FEED1π6-MC.5πAx-1Ea5E."[1]

She had not expected much from this, as she had presumed that there was only so much that they could do between them. However, the lunch club sent Addie care packages as often as they could. Cho's mother, Jen knew of some very heavy-duty preservation and warming charms as Cho's cousin and some of her friends had once gone camping before they were of age and had not taken an adult. Every Monday, she would receive a parcel made up of things sent by the others to Cho, who would then have her mother cast charms on the food and pack everything neatly into a deceptively sized parcel. Addie would then send back the packaging from the previous week so the containers could be refilled. For the first time, she experienced the joys of other people's home cooking. Cho's mum sent warm comforting soup with egg in it so she could get some protein, which was very rare for her. Neville's grandmother had agreed with him sending food, but only if he made it himself, so he sent a stew that he had made with the aid of Rose Eliott. Adrian, who had to be more discrete than the others on account of his parents had enlisted his House Elves (whatever they were) who seemed to have magicked up a dozen different variations on a cheese and pickle sandwich. For her friends, she was truly very grateful, and as the arrival of these care packages meant that she had access to an owl, she would send back letters of gratitude on sheets of Little Whinging Library borrowing receipts.

She was surprised to see that Harry's friends were not doing the same, so she begrudgingly offered him half of her lunch every day. They had both gained quite a lot of weight during their time at Hogwarts, and she knew that it would not do for either of them to fall under a healthyish weight again. So, every day, she would push the food around to his side of the screen, and a short time later, it would be pushed back in her direction. This was the full extent of their communication.

[1] Dursleys not feeding much. Snacks please.

A/N: And I'm back! I'm so sorry it has taken more than a year for me to start posting this. I had dissertation from winter 2023-April 2024, anxiety about results, graduation, a cat put down, a seriously ill grandad, a diabetic cat (she should be fine) and an ill granny. This has been mostly written for most of this time, but I made it my new years resolution to get this finished, edited and posted. It will be going out every Tuesday like last time, and I will start brainstorming for book 3 very soon! The calculator messages are not a major part of the plot, and context will usually tell you what they mean. A footnote is also available.