Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ron looked out the kitchen window, but there was nothing more interesting than a passing cloud in the summer sky.

"Hello? Ron? It's your turn."

"Oh, uh, sorry, Dad. Just thinking. Er, knight to D4."

Grandfather Septimus's old pieces exploded in a riot of very loud opinions, none of them flattering.

"Are you sure, Ronnie?" said Dad, frowning at the board. "It isn't like you to make mistakes like that."

"Yeah, just... distracted."

"What's on your mind?"

"Nothing," he deflected, because he'd just think it was stupid, like everyone else did.

"If it causes you to blunder like that, it certainly isn't nothing."

Ron sighed. It had been gnawing at him all week, keeping him up at night even when the ghoul wasn't banging on the pipes.

"It's just... shouldn't it be here by now?"

"'It' being your Hogwarts letter?"

"What if it never shows up?" he mumbled, fiddling with a captured pawn lying motionless to the side. It didn't even have enough fight left in it to complain.

"Why in the world would you think that? You've been having your little accidents since you were what, five?"

"Six. Later than everyone else. And they were all little. What if it isn't enough?"

"Look, maybe they're just going out a little later this year, but it is coming, I promise you."

"You sure?"

It would be just like him, after all, to miss out. To be skipped, overlooked, the only Weasley that the enchanted quill happened to forget.

"I would bet my entire collection of plugs on it."

The game lay forgotten between them; there was nothing the pieces hated more than to be left hanging, but for once in his life, Ron didn't care. Dad looked at those funnily shaped bits of metal and plastic like they were all a bunch of extra kids, it was a big bet to make. He was pretty sure nobody else would bet a Knut on him.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. In fact, I think something's coming right now."

Yeah, right. Ron wasn't falling for that, the twins were already laughing at him for jumping out of his seat twice, he wasn't going to look like an idiot a third time.

"That'll be Mom's Witch Weekly or something," he said without much hope, looking at the decidedly birdlike speck growing bigger and bigger in the sky.

Dad rubbed his glasses with the hem of his sleeve and squinted at the incoming owl.

"If it is Witch Weekly, the editor's gone off his rocker, because that doesn't look like a magazine to me at all."

And finally, only when the feathery messenger was inches from the window, Ron believed him. It took three tries for his shaking, fumbling fingers to conquer the stubborn latch, but the bird hopped inside, appropriating Errol's perch and looking immensely relieved to be separated from its cargo. It took a single, regal sip of water from the family owl's bowl and sat watching him, its great, dark eyes staring as if to say 'What are you waiting for?'.

The first thing he saw was the seal, a mismatched herd of animals pressed into a drop of wax, tightening their ranks around a large letter H. His heart hammered in his chest. He turned the heavy envelope, because it wasn't real until he read his name on it, elegantly formed in green ink like everybody else's. What if it was some sort of mistake?

He blinked the words into focus. There it was.

Mr. R. Weasley

The Orange Room Below the Infested Attic

The Burrow

Ottery St. Catchpole

Devon

Ugh, leave it to him to have an embarrassing address. But right now, Ron wouldn't have cared if the envelope had described every stray smelly sock under his bed. It was his, and that was enough.

"Don't open it yet, Ronnie. Don't you want everyone to see?"

In all honesty, Ron wasn't sure. What did he want, really? To be recognized for once, to have a bunch of people looking over his shoulder as he broke the seal and making a great fuss, or to have just this one moment all to himself, in a house where peace and quiet were so hard to come by?

But Dad had already decided for him, and was shouting up the stairs – he who so rarely shouted, and only ever raised his voice either in a true emergency or in childlike delight – to gather the family.

"Everybody get downstairs! Ronnie got his letter!"

Slam, slam, slam went the doors; Mom had an overflowing basket of laundry following her in midair, but she nearly dropped it in her excitement, and the twins didn't look like they were plotting anything, which was its own miracle. Percy had been caught in the middle of reading a book, a finger slipped between the pages for lack of a bookmark, and Ron had never, for as long as he could remember, been more interesting to him than a book. And Ginny... Ginny was jealous, and he'd never had anything to be jealous of before.

"Oh, Ron, finally," said Mom, her voice broken with something that sounded suspiciously like tears. "I'm so proud of you."

Then, and only then, was when he opened it, because it was such a rare occasion for those words to pass her lips, and he could think of only one thing that could make it even better.

One of the pages fluttered to the floor, but he had eyes only for the other, the one that told him that he'd been accepted, that he belonged.

There was a smattering of applause, enough to turn his ears as red as beets, but one pair of hands did not join. For all her pretty words and teary smiles, his mother was not clapping. She had picked up the second page from where it had fallen, and there was a telltale crease between her brows as her eyes scanned the equipment list.

"Oh, well. We'll manage. We always have."

Chapter Text

"Let me go over that again. Our Hermione is a what?" said Dad, valiantly ignoring the fact that several issues of the British Dental Journal were currently flapping about the room like live birds, narrowly missing their heads.

"A witch, Mr. Granger. I suggest you get used to hearing that word."

Professor McGonagall, who had a very strange idea of what constituted a demonstration, certainly looked the part, with her long emerald robes and her impressive hat; perhaps her parents had expected a few more warts on her nose, but you couldn't have everything in life.

"Look on the bright side, dear," said Mom, sounding a little strained. "At least we're not going mad from the stress."

"I'm not sure we agree on our definitions of 'not going mad'."

"Mom, Dad, please. You're not going mad, or suffering from some little-known side effect of laughing gas, or heatstroke, or any of the seventeen other ways you've tried to explain it away. Don't you see this is the only thing that really puts all the pieces together?"

"... you've been counting?" said Dad weakly.

"Starting this year. If you count my whole life, we're probably in the hundreds."

It would have been a stretch to say she knew it was something like this: not even all the deductive reasoning in the world could have accounted for that, for the fact that magic was apparently real and living right under their noses this whole time. It threw off everything she thought she knew about how the world worked, and if she stopped to think about it too hard, it really should have sent her into a panic.

But this happened all the time in the books, didn't it? Over and over again, she devoured stories of people who were told they were special in some way, and it soothed an ache she didn't even know she had to imagine a version of events where she wasn't just the plain one with the big teeth and the frizzy hair, the teacher's pet, the lonely little bookworm who always got picked last.

She was painfully familiar with how these things went. Chapter one: a dreary, unremarkable life, and a little boy or girl who fit in it about as well as a square peg in a round hole. Chapter two: the catalyst, the thing that sent everything crashing down and set the story into motion. By chapter three or four, things would usually be explained, and the little boy or girl would be leaving it all behind to set off on some madcap adventure.

The real question now was... what chapter was she on?

"I don't doubt it," said Professor McGonagall with an unexpected warmth in her voice, entirely contrary to the stiff, almost queenly way she carried herself. "I believe this is yours."

She offered the letter she'd been carrying, and it was far and away the strangest letter Hermione had ever seen. The address on the envelope was certainly... one of a kind.

Miss H. Granger

The Room with the Overflowing Bookcases

48 Southgate Drive

Crawley

West Sussex

There was a spark of... something on Professor McGonagall's face as their eyes both lingered on the same spot, something that seemed to say I see you, I get you, I want you. With her luck, she'd probably imagined it.

"I-I mean, they're not really overflowing," said Hermione, a blush creeping up on her face.

"Please," said Mom, leaning over to read the address. "If you had it your way, we'd have to buy a second house just for your books." She didn't sound entirely displeased, but it was definitely a conversation they'd had several times over.

"Then it will please you to know that Hogwarts does require a fair few of those. Go to the second page."

Hermione turned over the envelope to break it open – there were animals on the purple wax seal, the kind she'd only ever seen in history books and fanciful tales about knights in shining armor – and flew straight to the equipment list, past the uniform, and to—

This time, Hermione did panic.

"Oh, no." She could feel her breath coming in faster. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no, who are these people? I don't know anything about any of this, it's impossible, it's too much to catch up on, what do I do?"

Being the top of the class was just about up there with statements like 'the sun is hot' and 'the sky is blue', something she'd believed to be unshakeable, and now... what if Hogwarts reduced her to a complete dunce? Was it still worth going, then? What if she never filled the gap, if she scrambled uselessly to remember everything and never even managed to keep her head above water?

Being smart was part of her identity; what if she couldn't simply accept being a witch as a new and more exciting part to try on for size, but had to trade one for the other?

"Miss Granger, for Merlin's sake, breathe."

File that away for later—was that how she was supposed to speak now? Mom had a copy of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur somewhere, she knew she'd seen it.

"There is some additional background reading I can recommend, if it would make you more comfortable, to get a sense of the current events of the wizarding world and the history of the school you'll be walking into."

"Slow down," said Dad, frowning. "I think we're being a little too quick to assume she's going. What about your plans for secondary school, and—"

"—and dental school, and more or less becoming exactly like you? It was a good plan until yesterday, but you're the one who's always talking about the importance of having a plan B."

Mom sighed. "What happened to our precious little girl who said she wanted to be a dentist so she could help people?"

"Still here, Mom. It's just that... maybe people need help with something other than their teeth."

Chapter Text

"Oh, Neville." There it was, the way she said his name like an exasperating thing she never quite knew what to do with. "You've been keeping them? I thought I told you to throw them away."

"Every single one," he mumbled, staring at the thick envelope that had gone and revealed his little secret.

Mr. N. Longbottom

The Overgrown Room with the Gum Wrapper Stash

Longbottom Lodge

Downham

Lancashire

"Whatever makes you happy, dear," said Gran, shaking her head.

It was the same with the garden, really: she was content that he kept it in shape so she could impress her guests, but she would never get it, even if he explained until he was blue in the face.

"At any rate, I'm so, so pleased that it's finally here." Neville suppressed a stab of longing. He'd almost believed she was going to say she was proud. "Well, I suppose it was a given after the... er, bouncing incident, but to see it confirmed... let me just Floo Algie and Enid real quick, we should celebrate."

Gran's idea of a celebration usually consisted of being paraded around to a legion of aunts and uncles full of opinions on everything from his choice of hobbies to his posture, and he was supposed to prune the Flutterby Bushes today. That would have to wait.

Great Auntie Enid stepped primly out of the fireplace in a cloud of perfume and mindless twittering, but the second burst of green flames heralding her husband never came. She tutted.

"I swear, where is that man's head? Said he had to go 'take care of something', probably got lost, now I know where Neville gets it..."

Neville sighed. At least Great Uncle Algie wasn't altogether terrible; he had some strange ideas on how to get magic out of him, but he generally came up with presents he could actually use, which was more than he could say of most of them. If he wasn't coming, he was in for a thoroughly unpleasant time. He missed his Flutterby Bushes more than ever.

"Oh, but I'm not here to complain about my husband, am I? Where's our boy? Accepted at Hogwarts, how remarkable, I never thought I'd see the day..."

She seized him in a bone-crushing hug that smelled like someone had tried to stuff roses, sandalwood and honking daffodils into the same bottle. It was a very bad idea.

The rest was more of the same: an endless trickle of witches and wizards several times his age stepping through the fire with strange, slanted compliments that always made sure to tell him that yes, they were happy he got his letter, but what a surprise it was, really, they could have sworn he was a Squib. After the fifth time or so, Neville began to wonder if it would have been better for him not to get accepted at all.

Uncle Algie still hadn't shown up. Where was he? It was so unlike him to miss it, for the meringues if not for him.

"When are you taking him to get his things, Augusta, dear?" asked Auntie Enid. "I do need to stock up on dragon liver, we can make a bit of a day of it..."

Neville pointedly ignored the squirming in his stomach. He really would have preferred his school shopping not to be a large, loud family expedition, but he wasn't going to let that ruin it for him.

"Can we go get my wand first, Gran?"

"Oh, they all say that," she chuckled. "My Frank was the same, I can't tell you how happy I am to see that you do take after him, at least in the little things. Don't you worry about that, Neville. I have plans to make it very special."

Somehow, Neville couldn't muster the excitement she was probably hoping for.

And then, all of a sudden, the fireplace flared green.

"Algie! About time! Where were you? Come here, get the soot off of you, I saved you some meringues, I know they're your favorite..."

But Uncle Algie had no interest in his wife's tempting offer, and he made a beeline for Neville instead.

"Where's my favorite nephew?" Considering that he had no other, that wasn't very high praise. "Awfully sorry, Neville, the folks at the Magical Menagerie took forever to set me up with this thing. Accepted at Hogwarts! That deserves a little something, don't you think?"

He rummaged in the inner pocket of his robes until something came out, magically shrunk to fit inside; Neville wasn't sure what he was looking at until a quick tap of his wand made it grow and swell rapidly into a delicate, luxuriant glass cage. At first, his eyes locked on the interesting little landscape of moss and ferns and gnarled bits of wood, and then something moved.

It was a terrarium.

"Oh, wow. Is that... is that a toad?"

"Right in one. Can't send you off to ol' Hoggy Warty Hogwarts without a pet, now can we?"

Gran let out a deep sigh. "Are you sure that's a good idea, Algie? That's quite the responsibility, you know how he gets..."

Neville tried not to show how much that stung. Yeah, he forgot things sometimes, but what was she saying, that he was too stupid for a toad and he'd just let it die?

"I think I'll call him Trevor."

He wasn't sure where he'd heard the name before, but he just looked like a Trevor. Or maybe he just wanted to stake a claim before Gran decided to march him right back to the Menagerie.

"Ha! Nice, solid name, that. See? He likes him already!"

"Can we, uh, can we go show him to Mom and Dad?" he said in a breathless rush.

"Oh, Neville." This time, the exasperation was tinged with pity. "What do you suppose they'll make of a toad?"

"M-maybe nothing," he stammered. Merlin, he hated when he stammered. "B-but it's... it's not really a celebration without them."

Chapter Text

The house was still meant for three: Luna, Dad, and the Absence. The Absence, she reflected, was just like a Crumple-Horned Snorkack: you could never see it, but you knew it was there.

Sometimes it sneaked up on her, when a cloud in the sky took on a certain shape, or a few stray letters from the printing press seemed to spell out something just for her, and sometimes it was everywhere. Those were the worst days, when she wanted to do nothing but stomp up to her room and stare at the ceiling for hours, unmoving, because every muscle was heavy with the memory of her.

"And done! This is it, Luna. We're going to get so many subscribers, we're going to have to hire a third person just to get the owls going."

The Absence pounced with teeth and claws. They shouldn't have to hire a third person. Luna watched the printing press come to life, spitting out copy after copy (how many would go unsold this time?), and chose not to comment.

He always said that, but the numbers told a different story. The Quibbler had always been a little... off the beaten path, but it had been bleeding subscribers to the point where Dad hardly even needed Luna's help sending it off to their readers anymore.

Luna thought she knew why. Since that day, the magazine had been taking a different direction, like a Dirigible Plum bush that was growing crooked: fewer discussions of strange magic and creature sightings, and more rambling attempts to find out what was wrong with the world, when really, it was all because of the Absence.

"Have you been up all night putting it together?"

Dad didn't answer, which was as good as saying yes. He patted the printing press as if to encourage it and disappeared down the spiral staircase to put on some breakfast. He wasn't a bad cook, but some days, all his food tasted like Absence.

The kitchen window was always full of owls in the morning. Those that didn't fit went to the roof to wait for their turn, or spread out in the garden and left it full of what Dad liked to call 'free fertilizer'. Luna had to admit the Gurdyroots were rather thriving.

Most of the letters were complaints, detailing exactly how and why Dad was a nutter and The Quibbler wasn't worth the parchment it was printed on, or filling the room with the amplified voices of people threatening pus-filled boils in very nasty places if he didn't write a retraction immediately, but he kept going as if he'd never received them.

He opened the window to let them in and began sorting through them, muttering to himself: "Same old thing... same old thing... same old thing... well, look at that, Luna, dear, I didn't realize it was that time of year."

And he slid a letter in her direction, looking at her with a bright expectation in his eyes that almost made it seem like that day had been just a bad dream.

Luna read out the address on the envelope.

Miss L. Lovegood

The Pale Blue Room with the Collection of Curiosities

The Rookery

Ottery St. Catchpole

Devon

The Absence attacked, a heavy, snarling thing that filled her lungs with lead, and she ran.

Up and up she ran, fast enough to make herself dizzy, feet banging on the wrought-iron staircase, and she screamed and screamed and screamed into her pillow, punching and kicking and wanting something other than her mattress to rain down blows on, something alive, something that could hurt the way she was hurting.

A soft knock.

"You done letting it all out?"

"It's not fair," Luna sobbed, tears soaking her pillow, hating the sound of her own broken voice. "It's not right. She should be here to see it. It's not right. Why did she have to leave me?"

"Hey." His weight settled softly on the edge of her bed. "I know this isn't how we planned it, and I'm not going to pretend everything's okay, but... it's still Hogwarts."

The Absence snapped its jaws again.

"That's the point. Sh-she never saw me get my letter, she'll never see me get my wand, she'll never know what House I'm in, and it just... isn't... fair!"

"Oh, Luna. Come down to the garden with me, breakfast can wait."

But there was nothing special in the garden that she could see: it was still the same old place, and it was full of Absence. At her feet, several white, fuzzy dandelions swayed in the gentle breeze, their seeds barely holding on. Dad bent down and picked one, pressing it into her hand.

"Is there something you want to tell her?"

"That I miss her, and—and that getting my letter isn't the same without her."

"Say it to the flower and blow on it, and I promise she will know."

"Dad, it's just a dandelion."

"Oh, Luna." He wasn't even disappointed, just so very, very old. He picked a Dirigible Plum from a nearby bush. "Eat this. It enhances your ability—"

"—to accept the extraordinary." She wasn't very hungry at all, but she might as well have one little bite.

"I'll just... leave you to it. This moment should be yours, and yours alone."

Luna wasn't sure if the Dirigible Plum had anything to do with it, or if she just had too many words building up inside her, but she talked until her throat felt parched, perhaps to the flower, perhaps to her mother, perhaps a little of both.

"—we were supposed to open it together, and you were supposed to give me a hug. You promised. You always gave the best hugs."

And suddenly, from behind, something did embrace her. It was only her old work robes, charmed to forever smell like her, and her dad's arms holding them up in her stead didn't feel quite right, but for maybe half a second, Luna could believe.

Chapter Text

Ron had been talking about nothing but Hogwarts since the day he set foot back home, and it was getting on her last nerve.

It wasn't just that he was treating her like a baby: that was more or less business as usual, being the youngest in the family, and Ginny could do nothing but grin and bear it. They all meant well, really; she supposed the lethal combination of being the littlest and a girl was something she would always have to deal with, even when they were old and grey.

It was the fact that for the very first time, she was left without a buddy. For as long as she could remember, there had always been someone who got her in some special way: first it was Bill, the big brother who wasn't scared of anything and chased away the monsters under her bed. Then it was Charlie, who looked the other way when she sneaked off with his broomstick and pretended not to know. Then, as everybody's letters began arriving, she clung in turn to whoever was still waiting, finding comfort in the fact that at least she wasn't the only one without it.

Now she had nobody, and it was a strange, dismal discovery to find out that even in a house like the Burrow, forever full of people and noise, you could, in fact, be lonely.

Idly, she moved one hand off her 'borrowed' broomstick and brushed the swaying orchard trees as she went, relishing in the slap-slap-slap of leaves on her fingertips as she hurtled past them. Mom would skin her alive if Fred didn't get there first: they weren't supposed to go any higher than the tops, in case any Muggles from the village happened to be looking their way, and she was cutting it way too close.

Her heart leapt when she noted that she'd left her window open. They were always teasing her for being tiny, but was she tiny enough to go straight through it, toss Fred's broomstick onto his bed, and brazenly insist that was where he'd left it all along? Risky, but tempting.

In theory, it was easy: line up carefully, tuck in any stray appendages that might have a less than friendly encounter with the window frame, and go for a straight shot like a human Bludger.

Here goes nothing.

In practice, her foot collided painfully with the windowsill, and sneaking into the twins' room for phase two of the operation involved a lot more limping than she would have liked. It wasn't broken, but it would bruise for sure. She unloaded her ill-gotten cargo without stopping to look too hard at whatever Fred and George were keeping in there: it was liable to jump out at her, explode in her face, or something equally as pleasant.

She marched downstairs, heroically ignoring the throbbing in her foot, to be greeted by several variations on "Morning, sleepyhead!" and "Nice of you to join us!". George even went for the old chestnut of "The princess has awoken from her slumber," which she hated with a fiery passion.

Yeah, right. If only they knew. In this house, you had to be an early bird if you wanted to get anything done, at least when the 'anything' in question was flying.

There was something odd at the table today, but Ginny couldn't put her finger on it. Percy was talking entirely too loudly about the weather, the twins were not conspiring to wreak havoc, and even Mom looked anywhere but directly in her eye as she dished up her sausages.

What was going on? Was she busted? It seemed so uncharacteristic of Mom to say nothing. If she knew about her escapades, she'd be sending her out to de-gnome the garden faster than she could say 'Quidditch', Mommy's little princess or not.

"Such a, um, nice day we're having." Percy's smile looked like it pained him more than anything.

"Right, that's it. Spit it out. There's definitely something you're not telling me."

"Congratulations, Perce."

"We knew you were a lousy liar..."

"But less than thirty seconds..."

"That's got to be a record."

"Thirty seconds of what?"

Ron stared rather pointedly at his sausages, not wanting to be the one to crack.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley, I'm taking all your Cannons posters hostage if you don't talk," she threatened.

"All right, all right!" he said hurriedly, raising his hands in surrender and rushing to retrieve something from the mantelpiece, tucked between Charm Your Own Cheese and Enchantment in Baking.

"Ron! How could you?" said Fred, clutching his chest as if grievously wounded.

"At least let us have fun a little longer!"

"You heard her, I never would have gotten my posters back in one piece."

He tossed it at Ginny and she caught it without thinking. It was definitely made of parchment. They wouldn't, would they?

"It arrived without you, and these two wanted to see how long we could hide it."

"So much for brotherly love."

"What happened to having each other's back?"

"As if it could be anyone else's idea," said Ginny. "You two are going to pay for this."

And for once, they actually looked scared. She didn't know what revenge would look like just yet, but it would be so very sweet.

Ginny looked at the treasure in her hands, perhaps a little worse for wear for having been tossed around like a Quaffle. It was hers, and it was beautiful.

Miss G. Weasley

The First-Floor Room Overlooking the Orchard

The Burrow

Ottery St. Catchpole

Devon

She was supremely peeved that she'd missed its arrival, but she couldn't think of anything she'd rather miss it for.

"Oh, Ginny. I can't believe you're all grown up!" said Mom, watching her break the seal with tears glistening in her eyes.

About time you noticed, she thought a little unkindly.

"I still get to be your baby for the rest of the summer," she said instead. "Make the most of it."

Chapter Text

Breakfast always meant a veritable flock of owls laying siege to the windows. Large ones, small ones, some carrying nothing but a brief note, others burdened with strange, unmarked packages he wasn't meant to know about.

And still, none of them were the owl. Honestly, Father was a school governor, he couldn't see why he couldn't just speed things up a little.

"Dobby, get the mail," said Father flatly.

'Getting the mail' generally meant one snap of the elf's long fingers to slam the windows open, another to make all the letters disappear from their various beaks and legs and reappear in a neat pile near his plate, and a third to close them.

Except today his fingers were bandaged for some reason, probably something to do with the especially loud peacock that had interrupted Mother's beauty sleep early in the morning, and the pile collapsed in a miserable heap.

"Of all the clumsy, incompetent—I ought to teach you a lesson! One more blunder like that, and it'll be clothes."

Dobby whimpered, fiddling with the frayed edge of his pillowcase. It had a new stain all down the front that Draco was fairly sure was peacock droppings. This was why Father always had to keep him out of sight of any guests: he didn't have an ounce of pride in his position. He was always a strange one.

"Y-yes, sir, of course, sir. Dobby's going to twist his ears for this."

"Yes, yes, whatever you see fit. Dismissed." The small, groveling figure disappeared with a crack. "Honestly, how is one meant to find good help these days?"

"They don't make them like they used to," Mother concurred very primly. "Bad breeding. Goes for people too, really, but what can you do?"

"Oh, I have a few ideas. They're just not fit for polite company."

Father sighed and went to sort out his mail. Privately, Draco thought it didn't make much difference if it was presented to him in an orderly fashion or in a haphazard mess: he had to divide it anyway, a task he never entrusted to anyone but himself. He always ended up with three piles: Ministry business, school board business, and a third that made his eyes narrow and his lips grow thin if he asked too many questions about it.

He was about six envelopes deep into his tedious work when he paused.

"Oh, dear. Almost tossed this in the school pile, the green ink nearly fooled me. My apologies. It's yours."

And he slid a letter across the breakfast table without another word, not even looking Draco in the eye. That was a good thing, he supposed, because he didn't want a lecture about keeping his composure, and his composure had well and truly flown out the window. He wasn't sure which was the more momentous occasion, that his Hogwarts letter was here, or that Father had actually apologized.

(Probably the latter. He was doing magic in his crib, it had never been a matter of 'if', only 'when'.)

He took a moment to savor it before he opened it, seeking Mother's eyes. There, at least, he was guaranteed to find a measure of warmth. The envelope looked every inch the way he'd expected it.

Mr. D. Malfoy

The Green Room in the East Wing

Malfoy Manor

Amesbury

Wiltshire

Almost underwhelming, but accurate nonetheless. His room had been green for as long as he could remember, to make the dorms feel like home, he supposed, because that, too, was not a matter of 'if'. You weren't supposed to know before your time, the polite thing to do was to pretend to keep your options open if anybody asked, but really, what options did he have?

"Lucius, honestly, the post can wait." Mother plucked something at random from the unsorted heap as if to prove a point. "Mr. Cuffe's shameless fawning happens every week, but there is only one Hogwarts acceptance letter."

"True enough, I suppose."

He had a small envelope in his hand with Walden Macnair's name on it, and he seemed unsure which pile to assign it to; he tossed it into the third with a small shrug, and finally gave Draco his full attention. He wasn't altogether sure he wanted it.

For lack of a better tool, Draco sliced the seal open with a butter knife, determined not to listen to anyone's objections on his manners just this once.

It wasn't as though the contents came as a surprise, but they sure were a terrible temptation.

"Can we go get my things right now?"

Father made a face, eyeing the rest of the mail still lying in front of him.

"Your father is a very busy man, Draco," said Mother mildly, ever the peacekeeper. "We might have to hold off on that for a bit."

"And while you wait, do spare a thought about who your prospective classmates are."

"I know, Father. Mixing with the right people, and all that."

Half his connections were already formed, anyway, from carefully arranged playdates when he was little and alliances struck at the margins of dreadfully boring parties where all the adults were trading pointed comments about people he didn't know. Vince and Greg were going to stick to him like barnacles.

"I was thinking of something a little more specific."

Oh, that. The whole world seemed to be in a tizzy over the fact that Harry Potter was going to be on that train; Father got a strange, calculating look in his eye whenever the boy's name was mentioned, like a chess player considering a thousand moves and countermoves.

"Remember, there are those of us who believe that... that what happened, happened for a reason. Cautious overtures of friendship, just to get the lay of the land, and then we shall see."

"But what if the reason isn't what you think it is?"

"Either way, it might be... unwise to get on the boy's bad side. Remember, certain ideas aren't—"

"—fit for polite company."

Chapter Text

"I saw it first!"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Did not!"

Dean groaned. It was never a good sign when you could hear his sisters arguing from all the way upstairs. He supposed he should be grateful that he didn't have to share his room, but some days, the walls felt like paper.

"I don't care who saw it first! Shut up, or neither of you is getting it!" Mom snapped, her patience wearing thin. "Dean, breakfast's getting cold!"

"Coming!" It wasn't his fault – okay, maybe it was a little bit his fault – if his favorite jersey had vanished under a thick layer of general creative mess. Misunderstood starving artist and all that, heavy on the starving part. His stomach roared at the smell of bacon.

He grabbed the first scrap of claret and blue he could see (that was not maroon, thanks muchly) and stumbled downstairs.

"He scores, and the crowd goes wild!" he called out, skipping the last two steps with a heavy thump that almost drowned the telltale click of the mail slot.

"Get the mail, and calm down before you break your neck. Honestly!"

He almost missed it, tucked between bills to pay and too-bright advertisements; he touched it before he saw it, really, strange and unfamiliar beneath his expert fingers. It was not the glossy paper of another stupid ad, nor any other kind he'd ever drawn or painted on.

He looked, and then he looked again, because surely it had to be some kind of prank. Who would address a letter like that?

Mr. D. Thomas

The Paint-Stained Room Full of Football Gadgets

63 Eleanor Road

Stratford

London

"Ha ha, very funny," he said in the general direction of the kitchen. "If this is a clever way to tell me to clean my room..."

He tossed the rest of the mail onto the table and tore the strange letter open, only noticing now that it didn't seem to have a stamp.

"Dean, wait, let me see that," said his mother, and there was something sharp and urgent in her tone that was completely unlike her usual nagging.

"What, like you didn't put it there? It's a joke, right?"

"Not if it is what I think it is. I should have known, really." She pinched the bridge of her nose as if to stave off an incoming headache. "I think I owe you a conversation about... about your dad."

He'd never heard her speak like this, with her quick wit dried up, searching for her words slowly and gingerly, and it frightened him more than he cared to admit.

"What's there to talk about? I thought we'd had that conversation already—that sometimes things just don't work out, and we aren't any less of a family for that. I know it all by heart."

"There's a bit more to it than I told you the first time. Remember all the times I had a go at you for drawing on the walls, and your little stick figures would be gone before I was even done yelling?"

Dean gaped at her. "That actually happened? I thought I was just making it up, that I was too little to remember."

"Yeah. The first couple of times, I thought, or perhaps I hoped, I was making it up too. But considering everything... look, perhaps it's best if you just read it."

He did, and it didn't help in the least. The further down his eyes went, the more he thought there must be a hidden camera pointed at him somewhere, recording his reaction to what he was now certain was a prank of epic proportions.

"Hang on, 'Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'? What does it mean, 'we await your owl'?"

"Long story, and owls are the least of it. I might be breaking a few laws saying this in front of everyone, I'm not sure, but as far as I'm concerned, you're all family, you all have the same right to know, and if they don't like it, they can take it up with me. Your father was a wizard, Dean, and all those things you've been doing—the paint that never fades, the TV somehow giving you the final minute of that match even as the whole neighborhood lost power just before the whistle... I've been denying it for years, but that's magic."

"So cool!"

"Just like the movies!"

Through the fog of his shock, Dean thought stupidly that that was probably the first time in weeks his sisters had agreed on anything.

It made exactly the same kind of twisted sense as a picture full of staircases that went nowhere, which was to say no sense at all, but in a way that still managed to be beautiful.

There was more to the letter than a pleasant message telling him he'd been accepted: it went on and on detailing book titles that made him dizzy, things to bring along that weren't even supposed to exist, pets...

"It's a boarding school, isn't it? What happens if I don't go?"

"I don't know. Your father seemed so adamant that everyone goes, that they only offer the choice of not going, but no one's taken them up on it in ages."

"Do they have a good art program?" he asked, holding on to his last hope for something, anything normal.

"You'd have to ask them. I can't make any more sense of the subjects than you."

"Well. Keep me posted, will you? I have the sinking feeling I'm going to miss a bunch of matches. Forever blowing bubbles, even in this whole mess."

(There was irony in the fact that he was months away from discovering Quidditch, where you could have blown the world's biggest bubbles through the scoring hoops.)

"How do you figure they don't have TV? Your father was always clueless about the strangest things, but you've only just found out."

"Mom, seriously? There are quills and parchment on that list, I'm not exactly expecting live coverage."

Chapter Text

Dad watched the pan washing itself with the air of one who still hadn't gotten used to it. He looked like a gaping fish, but Seamus wasn't about to tell him that.

"If they'd told me when I was your age that this would be how I'd have breakfast every day, I'd have sent them to the loony bin."

"You say that every morning," said Seamus fondly. Perhaps that was something all dads had in common, repeating the same old things until the whole family could recite them backwards and forwards.

"And it'll still be true tomorrow morning, and every morning after that."

"You're not technically wrong. Mom, can I go flying today?"

The weather outside the window was just begging for it, better take advantage of it before it decided to start pouring down rain and the opportunity slipped from his fingers.

"The rules, Seamus," she said without looking up from the sink.

"Don't break your neck, don't be seen, and book it the other way if you see a banshee?"

"Good boy."

"That last one's never happened, though."

"Better safe than sorry."

"Honestly, dear, you'll give him nightmares if you keep that up."

Seamus privately thought now was not the time to confess that she already had. The pictures in her books were more than enough, thank you very much, and he had no desire to meet the real thing.

"Can you really run into them in broad daylight?"

"Can't fault me for being careful," she said, which wasn't much of an answer at all.

"Are you making the whole thing up to keep him out of trouble?" asked Dad with narrowed eyes.

"I am not! I'll have you know that my uncle saw one and he died!"

"I thought your uncle died when his stash of Firewhisky became more fire than whisky."

"Different uncle, and I am still well within my rights to take away your flying privileges," she snapped.

Dad looked at the pair of them with something that looked an awful lot like sadness.

"Wish you would, then I'd have an excuse to take him fishing," he mumbled.

Seamus felt about three inches tall. It was a bit of a balancing game, living with those two, and he thought he'd been doing a good job of not making his father feel left out, but it had been a while, hadn't it, since they'd spent any time together, 'man to man', as he liked to call it, which was really code for doing things the Muggle way?

"You know what? My broomstick isn't going anywhere without me, but the fish might," he conceded.

He wouldn't lie and say that sitting for hours waiting for something to bite was as fun as dipping low to the ground until his feet brushed the grass, but he couldn't begin to imagine what it was like for him, living right next to magic and never having it. One day of fishing was a small price to pay for his happiness.

"Just... just don't, Seamus," he sighed. "You are a wizard, you've been making that clear since you could walk and talk, I don't blame you for leaning that way. You don't owe it to me to make everything exactly fifty-fifty, it's okay. I know I'd be the same if our positions were reversed." His eyes wandered to the window, lost in thought. "Especially considering..."

"Considering what?"

"That," he said, pointing, and maybe there was a reason he was looking outside after all, because all of a sudden, a feathery shape large enough to blot out the sun was heading straight towards them.

Seamus sprang out of his seat to open the window. He knew it could happen any day now, but he hadn't quite reckoned with that day being today.

Dad looked less than pleased when the owl hopped inside and, once relieved of what it was carrying, decided to stay and inspect their breakfast instead of departing like a good little boy.

"I just know those things don't like me," he said warily. "This one's looking at me like I'm a tasty mouse."

"I told you a thousand times, Dad. If you act like they're going to bite you, they probably will. You've got to learn to relax around them."

"You wouldn't be relaxed if a bird was trying to murder you."

"It's not trying to murder you, it's going for the bacon. There you go, boy, you deserve a treat," said Seamus, feeding the owl a small piece from his plate. Its beak snapped close to his fingers, and his father shook his head in disbelief.

"Yup. This is my life now," he muttered. "Pots and pans washing themselves, owls helping themselves to breakfast... barking mad, all of it, and I love every minute."

He had a funny way of showing it sometimes, but Seamus didn't doubt the truth of that statement. They'd been on thin ice when Mom had had the absolutely brilliant idea of waiting until their wedding night, but one got used to anything after a while, he supposed. Even if he still didn't like owls.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" said Mom. "Open it!"

For the first time, Seamus took a proper look at what the owl had carried in. Well, that was certainly... exact.

Mr. S. Finnigan

The Room Where Half the Pictures are Moving

3 Market Street

Kenmare

County Kerry

That sounded about right. He'd 'borrowed' his mother's wand once or twice to see if he could make his dad's photos move, but after that led to nothing but his memories ending up in the garbage, charred and melted beyond saving, he'd made peace with the fact that his animated posters of the Kestrels would have to sit side by side with static snapshots of his father grinning at the camera, frozen in time, showing off his latest catch.

It was a bit like walking a tightrope, really. He just hoped Dad wouldn't mind if he fell on the other side.

Chapter Text

A lot of the books lying around the house went way over her head, but it was a fun game to play, looking very seriously at an empty teacup and pretending to know things other people didn't.

Lavender squinted at the dregs, but she couldn't make heads nor tails of them. There was a big blob that might have been anything from a pig to a particularly well-fed dog, and two thick, criss-crossing lines that almost resembled a pair of scissors, though she wasn't altogether sure she could make out the handles. But the books said so many complicated things about opening your Inner Eye, before they even got to explaining the shapes, that she gave the whole thing up as a bad job. She probably wasn't using it right, if she had one at all.

"What do you think, Buttercup? Good or bad?"

Buttercup munched contentedly on the carrot tops she'd given her as a treat, and was no help at all. Rabbits could warn of danger if they wanted, just ask Mom, who'd only rescued her cough potion in the nick of time because Buttercup had smelled the smoke and was thumping her little foot like mad, but they were perfectly useless with tea leaves.

Her family had raised rabbits for as long as Lavender could remember, and there were always one or two that she was allowed to keep as her special friends. It was good for her, they said, to learn some responsibility bright and early; said responsibility included always surrendering any fallen whiskers or dead fur from brushing them, which went right into her parents' potions cabinet, but had not yet extended to harvesting any other parts when they inevitably passed away. She shuddered. If Buttercup—no no no, don't finish that thought! Buttercup was happy and healthy.

Ugh, how much longer until she went to Hogwarts? Circling September 1st in red ink on her calendar was decidedly not making the wait go any faster; if anything, it seemed to slow it down to a snail's pace. She had little doubt that she would be going: Mom and Dad had filled her head with tales of magic done before she could even remember it, a stuffed bunny coming back to her when she'd accidentally thrown it out of her crib, dolls standing up and taking a few wobbly steps of their own as she made up fanciful stories of star-crossed lovers.

If she at least had her letter... hang on. There was an owl heading straight for her room, and owls and Buttercup did not mix. Please, let it at least be a little one, that would be less inclined to snatch her up and have her for a snack... nope, just her luck, it was an eagle owl with a wingspan so great it might not even fit comfortably through the window. Fantastic.

"Mom! Dad! Someone! There's an owl and I don't want it to eat Buttercup!"

By the time her dad came upstairs, wand in hand, the massive bird was pecking insistently at the glass, demanding to be let in, and the way its eyes were locked on Buttercup's corner of the room, she wasn't sure if it was doing it out of a sense of duty to its mail-carrying job, or it was just hungry.

"Let's see now..." said Dad, assessing the situation at a glance. He waved his wand in a complicated pattern, and the air above Buttercup's enclosure shimmered with power. "There. That way, if it's a little peckish from the journey, it'll have to go looking for food somewhere else."

Lavender squealed. "Oh, thank you! Let it in, let it in, I really think this is it!"

The owl squeezed itself through the window, offered her the letter it was carrying, and flew a wide, silent lap of the room, searching. Its claws raised a shower of sparks where they met the barrier, and it left in a huff, looking as offended as an owl could be.

Dad closed the window behind it with a satisfying slam.

"Well? Is that what I think it is?"

"It is, Dad, look!"

There was no mistaking the address. It even had Buttercup on it, sort of.

Miss L. Brown

The Pink Room with the Rabbit Enclosure

7 Sussex Close

Bournemouth

Dorset

She opened it; besides a message from the Deputy Headmistress telling her she'd been accepted, it had rules upon rules about what you were supposed to bring. Lavender pounced on those, stifling a giggle.

"Ooh, does it explain what you can wear when you're not in uniform, like on the weekends?"

But there was nothing like that on the second page of the letter. Instead, there was a line that made her heart stutter: Students may also bring an owl OR a cat OR a toad.

Lavender read it backwards and forwards, but it didn't say 'rabbit' anywhere, as much as she willed the word to appear. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"But what about Buttercup?" The way the letter was addressed, it almost seemed like it was for both of them.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Looks like she's going to have to stay home. You saw what happened just now, someone's owl would have her for dinner."

"But it's not fair!" she whined. "I'm gonna miss her so much!"

"We'll take good care of her for you."

"And cut up fruit for her, and send me loads of letters to tell me how she's doing?"

"Every week, if you want."

"And let her out to play?"

"Sure, honey."

"But watch out for foxes!"

"Lav, foxes can't come anywhere near here, you know we keep the charms up to date."

"That's not true, you forgot to put them back up for three whole days last month."

"And nothing happened! You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

"I'm just being careful! Promise you'll be careful too?"

"Promise. You'll have the time of your life at Hogwarts, you'll see."

Chapter Text

"My Witch Weekly's gone, and I wasn't done reading it! Where did you put it?"

"Where did I put it? Why would I read that silly thing? Just be more careful where you leave your stuff."

"Okay, one, it's not silly, and two, I know it isn't where I left it. Even in this house, it can't have grown legs and walked away."

"With how Dad gets sometimes? Wouldn't put it past him."

"Come to breakfast, you two, you can't solve problems on an empty stomach," said Mom. "You're always bickering. What happened to working in a team?"

"I would if she made a good teammate," said Parvati.

"That's rich coming from you," said Padma, not to be out-stubborned.

Mom sighed, long used to negotiating peace treaties at the kitchen table. It wasn't the first time an argument had broken out between them, and it wouldn't be the last.

"Sit down, this will feel a lot less important once you've eaten something."

"All this over a magazine?" said Dad, helping himself with one hand while he drew his wand with the other. "You'd think the world was ending. Let me do it the easy way. Accio Witch Weekly."

He had grossly miscalculated: several issues of Parvati's favorite witches' magazine pelted him from all directions, coming at him at full speed from increasingly unlikely corners.

"Er... hope at least one is what you were looking for."

"Thanks, Dad," said Parvati, plucking the mysteriously missing one out of the avalanche and propping it against the milk jug.

Padma, on the other hand, was looking at the mess as if it were a puzzle to be solved.

"Oh, so that's what happens with Summoning Charms when you're not specific enough? That's so cool."

Dad chuckled. "A girl after my own heart, always wanting to know what makes things tick."

Padma smiled at the praise and began dishing up her breakfast, never noticing how Mom shot him a look across the table that promised a long, complicated conversation. Parvati turned a page with perhaps a little more force than necessary, suddenly finding her article about hair care potions very interesting indeed.

Having their morning meal interrupted by an owl or two was nothing out of the ordinary, between Parvati's subscription to Witch Weekly and their parents' daily delivery of the Prophet, but it wasn't every day that their window became so crowded. One was just the paper, carried by a handsome tawny owl that hung around pecking insistently at Mom's fingers until she filled its little pouch with the required five Knuts; but it was the two identical barn owls following hot on its tail that commanded everyone's attention. Even Parvati had to stop the delicate operation of nibbling on her food and perusing Witch Weekly at the same time.

"Well, girls... I think this much mail can only mean one thing," Mom grinned, and it was as if she'd released a pack of pixies.

The girls abandoned their breakfast, not to mention their manners, and locked into an unspoken competition to see who could divest her owl of its letter the fastest.

"But how do we know which is which?" asked Parvati, and she wasn't altogether wrong, because at a first, cursory glance, their precious letters looked the same down to the last stroke of the quill.

"Really, Parvati? If it weren't for your magazine, I wouldn't be totally sure you can read. Look, they're addressed to different sides of the room, right and left."

As much as she hated when her sister was right, Parvati had to concede. The initials didn't help, but there was indeed a tiny difference between the two fat envelopes.

One was addressed in neat green script to:

Miss P. Patil

The Right Half of the Split Room

438 Longbridge Lane

Birmingham

West Midlands

The other was word for word the same, except it took care to specify:

Miss P. Patil

The Left Half of the Split Room

438 Longbridge Lane

Birmingham

West Midlands

"You sleep in the left half, so we got them the wrong way around," said Parvati, and they exchanged them across the table.

"Yours might as well say 'the messy half'," said Padma. "No wonder you can never find anything."

"Yeah, well, yours should say 'the boring half'," she retorted. "Do you even have anything fun in there?"

"Girls," said Dad sternly. "This is a very important time in a young witch's life. You don't want the memory of getting your first Hogwarts letter to be tainted by your usual squabbling."

"But it's not tainted," said Parvati.

"This is just what we do," said Padma, for once in perfect harmony.

"Honestly, it's part of the fun."

"What do you want us to do, be disgustingly nice to each other?"

"Then it wouldn't be us anymore."

"I suppose that's true," said Mom with some reluctance.

"I wonder what House we'll be in," said Parvati.

"At least we're already used to sharing."

"Too right. Less likely to murder each other that way."

Mom and Dad shared a long, uneasy look.

"Girls, I think we need to talk," said Dad, and his seriousness seemed to suck the excitement out of the air. "While it's good that you're already accustomed to sharing your sleeping space, you should consider the possibility that you will be sharing... but not with each other."

Two jaws dropped simultaneously. Why had that never crossed their minds?

"I know it's easy to assume that siblings will be going the same way, especially twins," said Mom slowly, as if unwilling to break the news. "But you two are just so different."

"Padma, you're always asking a hundred questions a day, and Parvati, if I had a Knut for every time you didn't quite think things through before you acted, and still managed to land on your feet anyway..."

"We don't know for sure. We just... don't want you to be too surprised if it happens."

"Who knows, it might even be for the best."

Chapter Text

"Yeah, that's not coming out," Fred grumbled, wiping the sweat off his brow.

"Not by scrubbing, not by magic, not by begging." George sank onto his bed, which was the more salvageable of the two, and raised his hands in surrender.

"How much trouble do you think we're in?"

"Scale of one to ten? I think we're on eleven permanently."

They hadn't been doing anything illegal (that they knew of); they'd only tried to start one of Dr. Filibuster's Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks with a drop of Dad's Firewhisky instead of plain water, and now the wall on Fred's side of the room was more or less reduced to a single, enormous black scorch mark that was resisting even Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover. So much for the 'all-purpose' part.

"True, but this has got to be some kind of record," said Fred.

"I told you we should have done it outside."

"Might have given a few chickens a heart attack."

"Yeah, but now we wouldn't have to deal with this."

"Look on the bright side: if we find a way to get it off the wall, we can market it as a cleaning product stronger than Mrs. Skower's. That'd really rake in the Galleons."

"D'you reckon we should ask Dad? He might give us a hint without murdering us."

"Nah. Even with all the stuff he does in the shed, I don't think he's ever blown anything up quite like this."

They'd been working on it for days; Mom hadn't said anything yet, but they suspected she already knew and was giving them a chance to fix it themselves before she rounded in on them. Going to her with their tails between their legs, admitting they had no idea what to do next, was often punishment enough.

"Time to face the music?" asked George, already bracing himself for her wrath.

"If not for this, we'd probably be de-gnoming the garden for some other reason anyway."

They expected anger, they expected 'I told you so'; they did not expect her to look so... defeated, as if she'd finally given up on lecturing them. She even seemed smaller as she puttered around the kitchen, looking busy while not doing anything in particular.

"These came for you while you were... frankly, I'm not sure I want to know what you were doing."

There, on the kitchen table, lay two identical envelopes, except no, they weren't quite identical. The first said in perfectly formed green lettering:

Mr. F. Weasley

The Charred Side of the Explosive Room

The Burrow

Ottery St. Catchpole

Devon

The other was just the same, only it was addressed to:

Mr. G. Weasley

The Clean Side of the Explosive Room

The Burrow

Ottery St. Catchpole

Devon

"Sweet, our Hogwarts letters!" said Fred, tearing into his straight away.

"Mom, what's wrong? You'd think you'd be a little happier, we've been waiting for ages," said George, his envelope hanging limply by his side, unopened.

"It's just... it's your first Hogwarts letters. A once in a lifetime event. Are you sure you wanted it to go like this?"

"Like what?"

"It's not like we accidentally burned them."

"Or tore them to shreds."

"Or fed them to Ronnie's Puffskein."

"Or—"

"Enough with your ridiculousness! I keep telling you your room is for sleeping, not for running Merlin knows what dangerous experiments, and now your acceptance letters look like... like... this! A wizard never forgets what that address looked like. Are you honestly telling me you're okay with your room being remembered like that? You couldn't have kept it clean for one more week, just to make sure it was a little more dignified?"

Fred and George shared a long, bewildered stare. That was what this was all about? The state of their room on the absurdly detailed envelopes? Was it really that important to her that the addresses describe a pristinely kept room belonging to a pair of good, obedient little boys?

Please. If anything, they were more likely to keep them as trophies. Seeing it labeled forevermore as 'the explosive room' was nothing less than they'd expected, and they'd wear it with pride.

"We really couldn't have, Mom."

"We were already breaking records."

"And for your information, yes, we're completely okay with it."

"More than okay, in fact."

"Face it, Mom, those addresses are worded that way because they're meant to say something about you as a person."

"And this is us."

"You may not like it, but it's us."

"If we'd kept our room squeaky clean just to get a prettier address to remember this day by, we would have been lying."

"And you're the one who keeps telling us that lying is bad."

"Besides, once we're at Hogwarts, we definitely know what we want to go down in history for."

"And this is an excellent start."

"Oh, boys. Can't you ever take anything seriously?"

But they did take things seriously, sometimes. When it was worth it. She may not see it now, but someday...

Someday, when their bits of scrap parchment full of ideas became real stuff. When their loose notes peppered with question marks about things they weren't even sure were possible were replaced by exclamation points, loud and assured. When they finally learned enough magic to stop dreaming and start doing. When they met like-minded people who would look at their fledgling business plan not with a sigh and thin-lipped disapproval, but with great claps on the shoulder and laughter in their eyes.

As far as they were concerned, that was what Hogwarts was for, and it could only bode well that the start of their journey was marked by a pair of near-identical envelopes memorializing one of their madcap experiments forever. If they were only a little bit older, they'd probably nick the rest of the Firewhisky to toast to a hundred more, and feel like they'd been trampled by an Erumpent in the morning.

"Seriously? Who, us? Nah."

"We could never."

"Not in a million years."

Chapter Text

Of all the things they had expected, a storybook character ringing their doorbell wasn't one of them. Mother looked at her from the tips of her flyaway hair to the mud caked on her sturdy boots, and every inch of her radiated disapproval.

"Excuse me, are you lost? I think you might have meant to use the other door," she said frostily.

Justin's jaw hung open. 'People like that' were supposed to use the back door: gardeners, contractors, folks with calluses on their hands and good stories to tell. Privately, he thought he'd never seen anyone so interesting.

"Lost?" she laughed, not noticing or caring about the implied slight. "Hardly. I'm looking for a Mr. J. Finch-Fletchley?"

She spoke his name like a question, reading off a thick, cream-colored envelope as if making sure.

"Justin? Care to tell me where you know her from?" asked Mother, pinning him to the spot with eyes that demanded an explanation. Justin, who was usually good with words, had none to give.

"I've never met her before, Mother," he mumbled, staring at the pristine floor that had probably never seen a speck of dirt.

"Well, that's easily remedied, isn't it?" said the squat little woman cheerfully. "I'm Professor Pomona Sprout, and I daresay we'll be good friends, once you've heard what I'm here for. Shall we move to somewhere more comfortable? I have a feeling you're going to need to sit down."

And she simply marched inside as if invited, merrily oblivious to Mother's spluttering, and spun a story full of beautiful impossibilities—of a world within a world they'd somehow never noticed, full to the brim with witches and wizards, a world that had a place for him, should he choose to take it.

"I believe this is yours," said Professor Sprout kindly, pressing the envelope into his hands. "Hogwarts will be glad to have you. We would have sent it by owl, but as you needed a bit more of an explanation..."

Justin had to read it twice. He'd never seen an address like that.

Mr. J. Finch-Fletchley

The Cluttered Room Above the Conservatory

64 Highmoor Road

Reading

Berkshire

"Hey, now, his room isn't that cluttered," said Mother feebly, reading over his shoulder. Perhaps that was the only part she understood.

"To be fair, it is a bit," said Justin. Mostly with things he didn't want or need, but he wasn't about to say that out loud.

"This... Hogwarts," she said, wrapping her tongue around the unfamiliar word slowly. "It's a school, you say? We were rather hoping for Eton, you know, once he's a little older. What is its Ofsted rating?"

Professor Sprout looked at her blankly, as if she'd started speaking a different language.

"I'm afraid Muggle authorities have no say at Hogwarts. I'm sure Eton is an excellent place, but it might not... provide what your son really needs."

"'Muggle', you keep using that word," said Mother, who had been squirming in her seat the whole time, uneasy with the sense that she was being insulted in her own home. "We would have to pay tuition, I imagine? Why do I get the feeling that this whole nonsense about wizards is just an elaborate scam? If you need money, there are better places to look for it."

A hard, steely look came over Professor Sprout, and Justin had the uncanny feeling that it didn't belong on her round, pleasant face.

"Perhaps if I demonstrated..." She drew what looked like an honest-to-goodness wand and let her eyes roam until they landed on the overflowing flower arrangement sitting on the mantelpiece. "Oh, wait, that's plastic, how disappointing."

"Now see here—" Mother began, stunned at the audacity of this woman who dared track dirt all over her floor and call her decor choices disappointing.

But Professor Sprout wasn't listening. She trotted up to the false flowers, waved her wand, and they were simply replaced by golden daffodils that erupted into a chorus of honking noises when she poked them.

And somehow, it all made sense. How the things he was looking for always happened to be on hand even though that wasn't where he'd left them, how the nicer nannies had the run of the house and the ones who scared him always found his bedroom door jammed no matter how they pushed and pulled.

It was true, and he wanted it so much it hurt, not like he 'wanted' the latest shiny toy, but a deeper, hungrier want that made his chest feel hollow.

But Mother wasn't having it. She covered her ears to block out the honking and shouted, her face red and blotchy: "Out of the question! The boy's going to Eton, and that is final!"

Justin's heart sank. This could be his ticket out of rubbing shoulders with 'the right people' while wearing those ludicrous tailcoats, and the noisy flowers were doing Professor Sprout no favors.

He put on his best terrified expression, eyes wide and lower lip trembling, blessing that one time she'd tried to put him in acting classes just to say he was an accomplished, artistic boy.

"E-excuse me, ma'am," he said meekly. "Are they dangerous, these things I'm doing? Are they going to get worse if I don't go?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," said Professor Sprout. "An untrained wizard can get unpredictable."

"Did you hear that, Mother? Oh, please let me try. What if the conservatory windows blow out, or all the doors seal shut and we can't go anywhere?" No, that was no good, those were all problems she could throw money at, he needed something more... irreplaceable. "What if something happens to the paintings?"

Game, set, and match. You didn't threaten her art collection and expect her to take it lying down.

"W-well, I suppose you're a bit young for Eton. One year, perhaps two, and if I hear that things at Hogwarts aren't up to snuff, you can always transfer."

The conversation wasn't over, but for now, Justin called that a win.

Chapter Text

Hannah looked up at the statue dominating the village square. To their Muggle neighbors, it looked like something else: a tall obelisk full of names of people who'd fallen in a war fought with horseless carriages that boomed like thunder. She thought she'd even caught a glimpse of it once or twice, before she walked close enough and the magic recognized her.

Their war couldn't possibly fit on an obelisk. Instead, all that was needed to tell its story was a man, a woman, and a tiny, bouncy baby who was supposed to be dead, right there in the cottage with a telltale hole in the roof, and wasn't.

"Mom, is it true he would be around my age?"

She clutched her basket of herbs tighter to her side, a few frown lines appearing on her face.

"If my math isn't off, yes. If I hear one more person making a big production of it, I'll go spare. Honestly, we're all grateful to the poor boy, but you'd think it was the second coming of Merlin."

"Will I get to meet him?"

"Maybe, but if I hear you've been ogling... I feel terrible for him, really, can't imagine the expectations."

"I won't," said Hannah, rolling her eyes. "When's my letter getting here, anyway?"

"It'll get here when it gets here, dear. Good things come to those who wait."

"But I've been waiting forever!" Hannah gasped as an owl soared overhead, circling closer and closer to the neat rows of cottages as if looking for something. "Is that it? Is that my letter?"

"Could be anything, don't get too excited."

But Hannah paid no heed. That was it, she could feel it in her gut.

"Race you home!" she squealed, and took off down the lane, chased by her mother's weary sigh.

She turned to look at her and promptly went down like a sack of potatoes, her foot catching between the cobblestones. Her knees burned with the impact, but that wasn't why she cried. This wasn't how she'd imagined receiving her Hogwarts letter, with her clothes dirty and her skin raw; every young witch liked to plan it with the seriousness of her wedding day, and she'd gone and ruined it.

"Shh, shh, let me look at that. Nothing's broken, now is it?" said her mother softly, setting down her basket to inspect the damage.

"D-don't think so," Hannah sniffled.

"There, see? You've just skinned your knees a little. We'll just go home, get them nice and clean, and—what do we do for a skinned knee?"

"Essence of dittany," Hannah answered automatically, before it occurred to her that now wasn't the time for her mom to quiz her, of all things, or that she might be doing it to distract her from the pain.

"Very good, dear. Your professors are going to be so happy with you."

"But Mom, dittany really stings!"

"It might sting now, but it'll make you feel better later. Now come on, up you get. There might be a letter waiting for you after all. And no more running!"

The owl, they found, had been quicker than them: it was already gone by the time they made their slow, careful way home, leaving a single, precious envelope on their doorstep and not even staying for a treat. This really wasn't going according to plan.

"Well? All that fuss, and you won't even pick it up?"

Hannah turned it round and round in her hands, admiring its weight. The sun shone down on the wax seal, and it almost seemed to her that the badger on the crest winked in the dappled light that made its way between the cottages.

It really had her name on it, finally, after weeks and weeks of waiting and guessing.

Miss H. Abbott

The Upstairs Room with the Fresh Wildflowers

7 Church Lane

Godric's Hollow

Somerset

"It's really here," she breathed.

How did they know, or even care, about her flowers? She wasn't sure why, but it seemed to bode well that someone at Hogwarts considered them important enough to put on her address. There weren't many people who really stopped and saw the beauty in every ditch and roadside.

"So it is. I'm proud of you, Hannah, skinned knees and all. You'll make a fine witch one day. Now let's go inside and get that seen to, and you can read your letter a few thousand times so you don't think too hard about the sting."

Hannah sat stoically in the kitchen, whimpering through it, gripping the edge of the table so that her precious letter wouldn't get crumpled. The contents of the vial were like fire on her angry red scrapes, but out of the corner of her eye, she could already see them sealing over, releasing an unpleasant greenish smoke at the point of contact. If anyone looked at her knees, they would have believed her to have tripped and fallen several days ago, rather than mere minutes: new skin, pink and shiny and fresh, was blooming in place of the old one she'd managed to split open.

"Always a lifesaver, that one," her mom commented casually. "You'd never guess it, it really doesn't look like much, but it just goes to show you don't have to be flashy to be important. And the same goes for people, never forget that."

Hannah didn't respond. Her mother was wise like that, but she simply had no room in her mind for her philosophy right this minute. She was going to Hogwarts, and for now, that was that.

And if she really met the baby from the statue... Hannah struggled to imagine it. Lifeless stone didn't do him justice: she'd seen his chubby little face a thousand times, but she couldn't begin to guess what it would look like now, ten years later and in living color.

She hoped he'd be the type to appreciate a humble wildflower, and if he wasn't, perhaps she'd meet someone else who did.

Chapter Text

Susan stared at the letter for the thousandth time. Merlin, it was so tempting. It stood to reason that it would arrive while she was alone, with Aunt Amelia always being so busy with work. Finding endless ways to entertain herself was nothing new, when the Ministry commanded so much of her time and attention.

But for this, just this, she didn't want to be alone. She'd be so disappointed if she came home in a burst of green flames, Vanished the soot off her fancy plum-colored robes emblazoned with a silver W, and found the seal already broken. It was a special time, and special times were meant to be shared.

But still... just one little peek? The neat green writing seemed to call to her. After all, it was addressed to her in that inequivocable way that could only ever come from Hogwarts.

Miss S. Bones

The Room with the Artificial Sunlit Window

8 Old Compton Street

Soho

London

That window was by far her favorite part of the house, and it warmed her all over that it had ended up in her address.

There was nothing safer, said Aunt Amelia, than hiding in plain sight, and the two of them were certainly doing that. If any Muggles came to call, though Susan couldn't imagine why they ever would, they would have thought her aunt to live alone in a cramped little home that only had room for one; they never would have guessed that it was built for three, magically expanded beyond its tiny confines to make room for a girl and the ancient elf who kept her fed and watered when their 'lonely' neighbor was at work.

They never knew that if they rarely saw her go out of the house at all, it wasn't because she was some sort of sad recluse, but because every morning at eight o'clock sharp, she Apparated to the alleyway behind the theater with a great crack and made her way to the underground ladies' room with her long, powerful strides, ignoring the fact that it looked perennially out of order, and from there, she disappeared into the bowels of the Ministry of Magic.

There were downsides to carving your living space into a dimension that logically shouldn't have existed: it played tricks on your sense of direction sometimes, and when your favorite window was nothing but an illusion, you did lose touch with the real weather. Rain was always so disappointing, when she ventured out onto the busy street below and remembered that the gentle spring day that turned her bedroom golden year-round was just a Ministry-approved trick, just like the ones that chased away the gloom of the otherwise dismal underground offices.

Susan flopped onto her bed in frustration. At least the address had chosen to talk about her window, and not the haphazard piles of tomes of magical law that somehow kept finding their way into her space. Honestly, how were there so many? Sometimes she had to wonder if it was all a ploy by Aunt Amelia to get her to read them, and frankly, if that was the case, the ploy was working.

In the distance, the empty fireplace, sitting unused in the warmth of the season, finally roared with a sudden burst of flames. Susan ran as if she had a dragon on her heels, making it to the living room so quickly that the silhouette of her aunt wasn't quite done spinning when she burst in. (There were two living rooms, really, but the Muggle one hardly counted.)

Aunt Amelia stepped gracefully out of the fireplace, cleaned herself up with a quick charm, and sighed.

"Sweet Merlin, what a day!" she boomed. "If I hear the words 'Class C Non-Tradeable Material' one more time..."

"Hello, Auntie."

"Oh, hi, Susan. I would have made it earlier, but I swear, people seem to have taken leave of their senses. I certainly wouldn't go around complaining that my neighbor's Niffler had uprooted my Venomous Tentacula if I knew for a fact that my license to grow it had been expired for the past fifty years."

"Should you be talking about that?"

"Hey, now, I didn't name any names, did I? What have you got there?" she asked, only now noticing the envelope in her hand.

Susan waved it about like a flag, grinning from ear to ear.

"It's here," she said without further explanation.

Her aunt's face was a work of art. Her eyes lit up with a joy that was so very rare to see on her hard, square-jawed face, and then crumpled with something like sadness.

"Oh, Susie, I'm so sorry. Have you been sitting on it all day, waiting for me so we could open it together?"

"Not all day, exactly, but... you know, a while."

"And here I am, forgetting to leave my work on the doorstep. Come here, let me give you a proper hug, and let's forget all about naughty Nifflers and expired licenses."

Her aunt's hugs were perhaps not the softest, but they were strong, and that was more than enough. Some days, it was the two of them against the world; other days, like today, the world seemed a little less harsh.

Draping her arm over her shoulder, Aunt Amelia steered her towards her office, and that alone underscored the near-sacred importance of this moment: that door was always locked, the one corner of the impossibly extended home that Susan could not enter without permission.

She slid something across the desk in her direction, and Susan's breath stuttered: it was her aunt's special letter opener, an elegant thing enchanted never to go dull, with a great, elaborate letter B carved in the jeweled handle. She was fairly sure she never whipped it out for anyone less than the Minister himself.

"Go on. I can't think of a better use for it."

And slowly, with awed, breathless care, Susan pried the seal open, and with it, her next adventure.