Inter Arma...

by Pitry

Summary:

On James Sirius Potter's fifth year, the goblin war came to Hogwarts.

Notes:

This is a very loose sequel to my fic War Is Over. While some things continue, and some events will be vaguely alluded to, the two fics don't continue each other directly (and have 20 odd years' difference between them), so reading one is not required for reading the other.

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Letter

Mr and Mrs Dursley of Number 15, Woodland Rise, were perfectly normal - thank you very much. They were regular people, living their regular lives, even if every once in a while they wished something more strange or mysterious would happen to them.

Mr Dursley worked in his father’s company, Grunnings, a firm which made drills. He was a big, beefy man, with blond hair and was starting to go bald at the top of his head. He looked a lot like his father, except for the fact he didn’t have a moustache. Mrs Dursley, on the other hand, was very different from her husband. She was tall and had long dark hair, and was a lawyer. She usually spent her days going over legal documents at the office.

Mr and Mrs Dursley had three children: two boys, Vernon and David, and one little girl, Houda. Their sons, Vernon and David, were the two most normal boys for their age - Vernon spent his days thinking about girls and not studying for his A-levels, and David spent his days playing football and computer games and not studying for his GSCEs. But their daughter, Houda, was a very unusual girl. Like other girls, she played with her friends, ran outside to play or stayed inside with her dolls and computer games, and did well in school. But strange things had the tendency of happening around her, things that didn’t happen to other girls. When she was eight, she decided she hated the colour blue, and all of her blue trousers turned purple. When she was nine, the boys didn’t let her play football with them, and for the rest of that afternoon, whenever they tried kicking the ball, it moved somewhere else. And when she was ten, she fell out of the attic window on the fourth floor, but got up from the pavement without a scratch. Mrs Durlsey always said Houda was the luckiest girl in the world, but Mr Dursley just looked at her in a funny way. He didn’t seem very happy.

Mr Dursley had one more family member - a cousin called Mr Potter. Mr Potter also had a wife and three children, but the Dursley family and the Potter family had never met. Mr Potter had invited Mr Dursley to his wedding, but Mr Dursley was ill with the flu at the time and couldn’t make it. When Mr Dursley got married he also invited his cousin, but something came up as well. That was the only time Mrs Dursley had ever heard of Mr Potter, because Mr Dursley and his father had shouted at one another for quite a long time over the subject. Mrs Dursley was very curious about her husband’s cousin, and why her father-in-law didn’t want anything to do with him, but for some reason, she had never asked her husband about the story behind it, and he never offered to tell.

These days, the only interaction between the Dursleys and the Potters were the Christmas cards they sent each other every year. Mr Dursley would always write down the Potters’ address carefully on an envelope and put a stamp on it, together with the rest of the cards, two weeks before Christmas. His cards always had a photograph of him and his family, smiling at the camera. In return, Mr Dursley always got a Christmas card from the Potters, too. But the Potters’ Christmas card never arrived in an envelope with a stamp. Instead, every year, on the night of the 25th of December, an owl knocked on the window, and when Mr Dursley had let it in, it dropped an envelope into his lap, or, at times, on his head. In the envelope was a card with a picture of the Potters waving merrily at him.

Mr Dursley had never shown the card to his wife, or to his children. He would look at it himself, and then put it in the drawer with the other cards, which were all full of waving people. He didn’t want to explain to his family why his cousin was sending him cards with pictures that moved.

For the rest of the year, Mr Dursley never thought of Mr Potter at all.

On the rainy July evening our story begins, Mr and Mrs Dursley were sitting in their living room together with all their children, and watched television. It was time for the Dursleys’ favourite television show, and they never missed an episode. And so, they were a bit unhappy when the doorbell rang, just five minutes before the end of the episode.

“I’ll get it,” said their little girl, Houda. She wasn’t enjoying the episode very much, so she didn’t care about missing the ending.

When she opened the door, she saw a man she had never met before. He had untidy black hair and glasses, and was smiling at her with a big, pleasant smile.

“Hello,” he said. “You’re Houda, right?”

“Yes,” she answered, a bit confused. Why did this man know her name?

“Happy birthday,” he said.

He was right, of course - tomorrow was Houda’s eleventh birthday. “How do you know it’s my birthday?” she asked, curious. She didn’t invite him in, but if he thought she was being rude, he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, I’m sorry - we’ve never actually met, have we? I’m Harry, I’m your dad’s cousin,” he said and offered her his hand. She liked that - he treated her like a proper adult. She supposed now that she was eleven and going to secondary school at Smeltings, more people would treat her like that. Pleased, she took his hand and shook it.

“How come you’ve never come to visit us before?” she asked once he released her hand.

“Oh, I’ve been busy,” he said. She frowned - it was obvious he was lying, and it was the kind of lie adults told little children. He had just treated her like an adult, and it wouldn’t do for him to think about her like a child.

“D’you want to come in?” she asked, and he smiled and followed her into the living room.

Just in time, the episode ended and the blue credits started rolling. “Dad,” she called, “your cousin’s here.”

She had seen her father react oddly at times to some unexpected events. Like the time her hair had turned green overnight, or when she fell from the attic, even though nothing had happened. But it was nothing compared to the way he reacted now. She rather thought he looked like a frog that had swallowed a spider instead of a fly. It would have been comical, if not for the way his eyes darted between Mum, Houda herself, and the newcomer.

“Hey, Dudley,” said his cousin.

Dad still didn’t say a word. It was Mum who saved the situation. “So you’re Harry, then,” she said, hurrying forward to stretch her hand. Dad’s cousin took it gladly.

“You must be Aminah, it’s such a pleasure to meet you.”

“I wish I could say I’ve heard all about you,” she shot Dad a look, “but Dudley tends to turn mute on such occasions, as you can see.” Houda knew that tone of voice - if Dad hadn’t been in trouble until that point, he was now. She abandoned any pretence of watching television, and was now staring at them openly.

“Oh, I’m the black sheep of the family, I guess,” Harry said, still wearing his pleasant smile.

“Anyway, better introduce everyone else - you’ve met Houda, and these are Vernon and David.”

“Hi Vernon, David,” he shook their hands quickly and smiled again at Houda. “I was just telling Houda I’m a terrible uncle, I haven’t brought anything for her birthday.”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Mum said. “You have a daughter the same age too, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Lily,” he said, and for some reason he looked at Dad when he said the next sentence, “she just turned eleven a couple of months ago.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Mum said, and all of a sudden Dad spoke.

“I think we better have this conversation in the kitchen,” he said. Mum looked at him in confusion, but Harry nodded.

“Yeah, it’s probably for the best.”

The three adults went together to the kitchen, while Houda and her brothers remained staring at each other.

After a moment’s silence, Vernon spoke. “What the hell was that all about?!”

“I don’t know, I didn’t even know Dad had a cousin,” David offered.

“Well, he didn’t look very happy to see him,” said Vernon.

Houda’s mind, however, was already focused to the next problem, which was: How to listen in to what was being said in the kitchen. The door wasn’t a very good option - it wasn’t too thick, so technically listening in was a possibility, but it wasn’t attached very well and there was too much of a danger that she would actually lean too hard on it and her parents would notice. It was raining outside, so listening in from the garden window wasn’t a possibility, although -

“Hold on,” she said and gave her brothers a surprised look. “He wasn’t wet!”

“Who wasn’t wet?” Vernon had already started looking for a different channel to watch.

“That man - Dad’s cousin! It’s raining outside, but all of his clothes were completely dry!”

“There’s this new invention, Houda, maybe you’ve heard of it - it’s called an umbrella.”

“No, but Dad’s been messing round the garden again, the whole road is muddy, he can’t have not stepped there and if he had, he’d be full of mud!”

David shrugged. Vernon didn’t even bother with that, as he had found something more interesting on the television and was ignoring her completely.

“Fine,” she snapped at her two clueless brothers, and walked softly to the door. If she was the only one learning at the door, she might be able to listen in undetected.,, if she was just careful enough...

Her attempts at finding out what was going on in the kitchen proved useless, though. She must have leant too hard on the door, or else approached it at just the wrong moment - the door opened from within and Houda found herself grabbing the wall in order not to fall down, having completely lost her balance.

“Ahem,” Mum said, and Houda flushed in embarrassment.

“Maybe it’s a good idea to invite Houda in,” someone suggested from the kitchen - Dad’s cousin. Now she flushed even more, and in addition, stared at them in confusion. Since when was the punishment for listening in even remotely similar to getting invited into the conversation?

“Yeah,” Mum said, but without much enthusiasm. “I guess she should.”

Curiosity made her forget her embarrassment. She walked in, slightly confused, slightly wary, and stood behind her father. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a weird, heavy, yellowish envelope. Dad’s cousin Harry was sitting in front of him, looking at Mum with an odd expression. Mum, satisfied that neither Vernon nor David found what was going on in the kitchen to be more interesting than the television, closed the door again and sat down.

“Sit down, Houda,” she said and gestured at the chair between her and Dad, right in front of Harry. Houda sat down, confused even more.

“Your uncle Harry has come with a... proposition,” Mum said, obviously looking for a better word. “He’s come to offer you a place in a school.”

“But I’m going to Smeltings! Dad said so - he said they’re accepting girls now and that I’m going,” she said and her brow furrowed. Both Dad and Granddad Vernon had been talking about Smeltings for years, and Granddad Vernon had been ever so pleased when they started taking girls in, and kept on talking about how Houda could go now. Why would she want to go to a different school?

“Hogwarts is a bit... different,” it was now Harry who spoke.

“Different how?”

“Your dad tells me weird things sometimes happen to you?” he asked gently. “He said last year you fell from the fourth floor attic and sort of... bounced?”

“The land was soft because of the rain,” she repeated what she had heard Mum say afterwards. To her surprise, Harry burst out laughing. Was he mocking Mum? She decided maybe she didn’t like him that much after all.

“Dudley, no offence, but you should have said something after that one. It’s incredible, isn’t it, the excuses we make? I remember that time I ended up on the school roof and thought it must have been the wind,” he said, his mouth twitching, but he didn’t start laughing again. “It wasn’t the ground, Houda. It was you.”

“What? I’m extra bouncy?”

“No,” he said, his mouth twitching again. “You’re a witch.”

A... witch? “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” she said uncertainly. He didn’t sound like he was trying to be mean.

“It’s not a comment about you,” he hastened to say. “It just means you were born with magic. Some people do, some people don’t. You’re a witch, you were born with magic.”

“Magic?” she looked from him to her parents, full of doubt. It wasn’t like her parents to play pranks on people, especially their kids. They didn’t much approve with stuff like that. They wouldn’t have told her that unless they were absolutely sure - but how could they - it’s completely ridiculous - unless...

“Were you born with magic?” she asked Harry.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m a wizard. I went to Hogwarts when I was eleven, too.”

“Prove it.” She knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care.

He pulled out a wooden stick - a magic wand - and directed it at the kettle. Immediately, it started whistling. Next, four cups jumped out of the cupboard and had the tea poured into them by the untouched kettle. Within a few seconds, those same four cups were now on the table in front of them. No one got up to make tea that whole time.

Dad eyed the cups apprehensively; Mum almost jumped in her seat. Harry, however, smiled and took a sip. “I forgot the sugar,” he said all of a sudden, and with another wave of his wand, the sugar travelled to the table as well. “Ah, that’s better.”

“That’s really magic,” she whispered, completely in awe.

“Or some really good work with invisible strings,” Harry said, unable to stop himself from smiling. “I think maybe you should read your letter now?”

It was phrased as a question, but it didn’t sound like a question. Without a word, Dad handed her the heavy envelope. Now that she was looking at it, she could see it wasn’t a regular envelope - it looked as if it was made of parchment.

She didn’t hesitate before ripping the envelope open and smoothing out the letter inside, which was definitely made of parchment. There, in green ink, she started reading: Dear Ms Dursley, it said, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She finished reading the letter within seconds, excitement building up inside her. “Can I go?” were the first words that came out of her mouth. She couldn’t understand why Dad looked so unhappy.

“What happens if she doesn’t go?” he asked Harry.

“What?” she couldn’t stop herself from raising her voice, even though she knew her parents frowned at such behaviour. “But I want to go, this is brilliant!”

“I’m not saying you can’t go, Houda,” Dad said levelly. “I just want to know exactly what we’re facing. What happens if she doesn’t go, Harry?”

Harry thought for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said in the end. “Look, the magic isn’t going to go away. The Ministry is definitely going to want to keep an eye if there’s an untrained witch living among Muggles, and she’s already registered with them and everything, that’s automatic. It’s the Statute of Secrecy, they’ll want to keep an eye on her. But I don’t really know what that entails, it’s not in my department.”

“Is it dangerous?” Mum asked suddenly, looking tense. “If she’s not trained.”

“Well,” Harry said, very slowly, “accidents have happened. That’s why it’s so important for kids like her to go to Hogwarts - they learn how to control their magic, not just how to make the best out of it. You remember how I was before I went, Dudley, sometimes... accidents happen.”

“So what you’re saying, it’s in her best interest to go,” Dad said, and Houda didn’t quite understand why he sounded angry all of a sudden.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest that she goes,” Harry said. “But mostly in Houda’s. Look, she’s not going to be disconnected from the Muggle world - non-magic folk,” he added at the confused look on Mum’s face, and undoubtedly on Houda’s own. “She’ll still be here on holidays, and the whole attitudes towards Muggles are changing, there’s a lot more openness these days. There even were a couple of students who sat the GSCEs as well as the O.W.L.s last year, from what a friend told me. If people are interested in being able to assimilate into Muggle society later, Hogwarts is willing to help.”

“And it won’t make a difference... I mean... She’s not - you know, how it was when you were...” Dad seemed to be looking for words in vain. “It doesn’t matter that we’re not magic?” he asked finally.

“Not at all. It’s not like those days, Dudley. Things have changed. No one cares who her parents are anymore. Honestly.”

“We’ll have to think about it.”

Harry nodded. “Sure. Take your time. Well, take some time - Hogwarts is going to need an answer eventually. I’ll tell you what, let me give you my number -” he flicked his wand again, causing a paper and a pen to appear out of thin air and, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, the pen scribbled the number on the paper all by itself. “There,” he gave the piece of paper to Dudley, who eyed it suspiciously. “Whatever you decide, talk to me, okay?”

Dad nodded. Mum just stared at the pen.

“I, uh, I think I better go now,” Harry said.

Mum and Dad got up to show him to the door, and Houda remained behind reading the second part of the letter. This one was all about the stuff she would study and need. She read in interest the list of subjects, most of it with exciting names like Potions, Transfiguration, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Even History didn’t sound that bad when it had ‘of Magic’ attached to it. The required equipment list was equally exciting, with items such as ‘cauldron, pewter’, ‘telescope’ and ‘wand’. And it even said she was allowed to bring a pet, but the pets listed weren’t dogs or hamsters, but animals like owls. Immediately, she wanted an owl.

“Can I get an owl?” was the first thing she asked her parents when they returned to the kitchen. Mum looked at her in alarm. Dad couldn’t look more uncomfortable than he already was, so he just fidgeted unhappily.

“We’ll talk about it,” he said.

“I want to go,” she told them, just in case it wasn’t obvious the first time round.

“I know, Houda - but think, it’s a big decision.”

“But I already am a witch, that’s what Harry said, isn’t it? He said that it doesn’t matter if I go or not, I’m a witch no matter what I do, so I might as well go and learn all that stuff like - like -” she fetched the parchment and read - “like Herbology and Charms.”

“We’ll talk about it,” he said unhelpfully.

But Houda wasn’t going to wait for a discussion she might not even be a part of. She rushed to the living room and declared to her stunned brothers that she was a witch and going to a school of magic.

“We always knew there’s something wrong with you,” Vernon joked, but she didn’t mind. She was a witch!

Her brothers reacted to the news differently when they realised Houda wasn’t being facetious or pranking them, but that she was, indeed, a witch. David was horrified with the idea of his sister going to a school for witches. Vern, on the other hand, thought it was cool. “I wish I was magic,” he said when he compared her book list to the list of books he had to read for his A-levels the next year. He kept on looking over and over at her letter, and announced to their parents that they couldn’t possibly not let her go.

To Houda’s delight, Mum had adopted the same attitude after the initial shock had worn off. “If she’s a witch,” she told Dad, “and it’s not going to go away, I guess we might as well let her make the best of it.” Dad just shrugged, but he didn’t object.

And so, three weeks later, they stood in the middle of Charing Cross road, waiting for Harry to come and show them where they could get robes (black), protective gloves (dragon hide) and spell books. Houda didn’t quite understand why they were standing there, in the middle of a regular street - surely, they couldn’t get things like robes and spell books in the middle of London? Mum and Dad seemed just as apprehensive.

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Mum asked Dad a couple of times, who answered that yes, this was the address Harry had given him, but as the moments passed and there was no sign of Harry, he seemed less and less certain.

After about fifteen minutes of standing there, they were starting to draw attention from a couple of shopkeepers. “You should ring him,” Mum said, but Dad looked dubiously at the piece of paper and said that it was only a home number and that he didn’t know whether Harry had a mobile.

“Maybe they’re still at home,” Vern suggested.

“Maybe,” Dad sighed and fished for his mobile - at the same moment as Harry appeared next to them, as if out of nowhere.

“I’m so sorry, guys, I forgot you can’t see the entrance - anti-Muggle charms - I completely forgot...”

“How d’you mean, ‘anti-Muggle charms’?” Dad looked positively alarmed now.

“Oh, no, nothing sinister, just so that Muggles won’t be able to see it. C’mon,” he led them towards a small pub in front of them. But the most peculiar thing happened then - Mum and Dad just stopped dead on the spot and refused to move.

“What, here?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, through here.”

“Er, shouldn’t we go to the door or something?” Mum asked, even though she was right in front of the door.

“Mum, it’s right here,” Houda said, somewhat amused, and pointed at the door. “Can’t you see it?” But Mum just looked confused.

“She can’t see it,” Harry said suddenly. “Like I said - anti-Muggle charms. Once we get through it’ll be fine.”

“But we can’t go through here! There’s nothing here!” Dad said. His voice had turned high and nervous.

“Dudley, there’s a door here. I know you can’t see it, and that it looks like you’re going to go crashing straight into the wall, but it’s really there. Trust me?”

Dad looked at Harry suspiciously, then nodded and - extremely reluctantly - started walking towards the door. It was obvious to Houda now he couldn’t actually see it - after a few steps, it looked almost like he was going to miss it; Harry had to steer him back to face it before he could continue, and then open it for him. Dad kept on walking in slow, measured steps, until finally, he disappeared inside the pub. Behind Houda, she could hear Mum gasp.

“Is he... where did he go? Did he go in?”

“Yeah, he walked inside. Your turn now,” Harry smiled, and helped Mum the same way. Next came Vern and David, Vern with a big smile on his face, saying ‘cool’ all the time, while David looked dubiously at the door he couldn’t see and tried to ignore Harry at the same time, and almost crashed into the wall until he finally listened to Harry’s warning and walked back into the right path.

“How about it, Houda? You now?” Harry asked and smiled at her. She smiled back and walked straight through the door without any help.

The pub was not what she had expected. If this was a magic place, why did it look so shabby? Couldn’t they make it look much better and cleaner with magic? But the place they were in looked old and dirty and pretty miserable. She couldn’t see the point in hiding it from non-wizards. It wasn’t like they would want to spend time in there. The whole place looked like it was taken from Gran Petunia’s worst nightmares.

“Heya, Tom,” Harry, who had walked into the pub last, nodded to the barman, who returned his greeting with an enthusiastic, “Hello, Mr Potter!”

Harry then turned to them. “Through here, guys.” They went through a back door and into a small alley, where Harry tapped his wand on a stone wall and the whole thing opened to reveal -

A huge street, full of shops and buildings and people, hidden from everyone, slap bang in the middle of London. And what a street it was - Houda could see that this was the place to get all those things she needed, pewter cauldrons and owls and wands. It was packed with people, and animals, and voices and noises.

She would have wanted nothing more than just go around and look, but at that exact moment, another girl appeared. She was about her age, slightly taller than Houda and with long, flaming red hair, very much different from Houda’s short and black one. “Are you my cousin?” the girl asked excitedly.

“Yeah, that’s them, Lily - Houda, this is Lily, my daughter. She’s also starting Hogwarts in September.”

“Hi,” Houda said nervously. She was now eyeing the red-headed girl with much curiosity, and a little bit of trepidation, too. After all, this girl had been living with wizards all her life, and unlike Houda, she had always known she was magic.

“Dad says your family’s Muggles, that must be so cool!” Lily went on with the same air of excitement. “My cousin Hugo’s grandparents are Muggles, and he always has these weird stories - have you got a television?”

“Let her breathe, Lily,” Harry said.

Other people had joined them, and Harry introduced them too. “Um, Dudley, Aminah, that’s Ginny, my wife, and our kids, James and Al, and Lily you’ve met. Guys, these are the Dursleys, those are Vernon and David, and this is Houda.”

“Hi,” Ginny, Harry’s wife, smiled at her warmly, but the older boys seemed almost bored.

“Hi,” the taller and obviously oldest of the three kids said, and immediately turned to his father. “Dad, can we go to George’s shop? He said he’s got some pretty cool stuff, and I don’t need a lot of things anyway -”

“You need new robes,” his mother said sternly. “Honestly, the rate you’re growing...”

“Tell you what,” Harry suggested calmly, “how about you go to the shop while we’re going to the bank, that way you could also show your cousins around a bit, and we’ll meet you there and do all the shopping together? Dudley, Aminah, that alright with you? It’s going to take a while in the bank to exchange Muggle money, no reason for them to get bored waiting in the queue.”

“Yeah, it’d be great, they’d love it,” James quickly latched towards Vern and started leading him deeper into the street. Dad had no choice but to agree, and so all the kids followed James.

Diagon Alley was incredible. ‘George’s shop’ turned out to be a joke shop, full of incredible and unexpected tricks, toys, and other things Houda didn’t even have words for. She didn’t mind at all when Lily’s older brother said they shouldn’t leave the shop until their parents got there, and neither did Vernon and David. Only Lily’s other brother Al sulked a bit, and complained how there weren’t any goblins in the shop. Houda started asking what did he mean by ‘goblins’, but then she was shown something called Headless Hats and forgot all about it.

Even after their parents got there and they all left the shop, there were so many unexpected places to go to get all of her school things. Lily and her brothers turned out to be extremely nice, even though Lily was getting excited at the prospect of very silly things - after television, she had a hard time wrapping her head around mobile phones and, once Houda had accidentally mentioned them, electric toothbrushes (although Houda had to admit she didn’t much see the point of these, either), and James and Vern got along famously.

Soon enough, they had to start rushing from one shop to the other. Every shop they walked into had a huge queue and many kids and adults. All of them, Houda had noticed, seemed to know Harry and his family, and they stopped to greet people or exchange a few words every minute or so. And sometimes, they seemed to be having more important conversations. Houda thought she caught a snippet of a conversation - another mention of goblins, in fact, this time by Harry - but just then they went into a shop that sold potion ingredients, and Houda was completely lost in the exciting but weird world of rat tails, chameleon skin and fly wings.

By the end of the day, they had boxes over boxes of school equipment and robes and books and even a cat, which Harry claimed was much cleverer than regular cats, being a magical one. Even David stopped acting like a snot, because he was too busy getting excited over everything. He was even too excited to be jealous. It was a perfect day. Before Houda went to sleep, she took a look at some of her books. Magical Drafts and Potions looked dreadfully hard, with so many disgusting-sounding ingredients like beetle eyes and lizard tails; Magical Theory looked very much like her maths book from last year; and Muggle Life in the British Isles proved quite entertaining - the author, Wilhelm Wigworthy, didn’t seem to know much about non-magic people. She was trying to decide whether to look at A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot or the other history book on the list, Magic Britain in the 20th Century, when the unthinkable had happened, and she fell asleep.

-X-

The next month rushed on. They had met Harry’s family a couple of times more - now that she was going to go to Hogwarts, Dad had wanted her to know more about wizards. Harry had brought Lily over a couple of times to their home, where she showed her cousin the television and computer and some of the books she had about wizards, which made Lily giggle. Then they got in the car one weekend and drove to Harry’s house, which wasn’t far outside London. Lily had shown her around the house, with its owls and the unkempt garden, and dishes that cleaned themselves in the sink. Houda found herself giggling over a bunch of comic books called The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle - much like her Muggle Studies book, it didn’t seem the author had known a lot about Muggles before writing it. Lily looked offended, but only for one moment, then she started laughing, too.

The holiday would have ended on the best of notes if it weren’t for Granddad and Grandma Dursley, who had returned from their holiday in Majorca right at the end of August.

“And here she is!” Granddad Vernon opened his hands for a hug as soon as she opened the door. She hugged him gladly, then Grandma Petunia, only a lot more carefully, because Gran didn’t like it when her clothes were being ruffled.

“How was Majorca?” she asked excitedly.

“Oh, it was alright,” Gramps said. He didn’t look very happy. “It was full of tourists, you know, everyone being noisy -”

“ - And there was rubbish everywhere,” Gran said, looking just as unhappy. “With all the money we paid, you’d have thought they could afford better cleaning services.”

“Hi Mum, Hi Dad,” Dad said, and hugged his father. “Trip went alright?”

“Well, like we were just telling Houda, people were very loud. And there was rubbish everywhere. I thought Majorca would be more pleasant.”

“Yeah, you said the same thing about Cyprus last year,” Dad said and gave his mother a kiss.

“But that doesn’t matter now, does it? The holiday is over! And your holiday will be over soon too, young lady!” Gramps pinched Houda’s cheek. She hated when he did that. “But you’ll be going to Smeltings, and you’ll have quite a time there. I’ll be honest, Dudley, I wasn’t sure they were doing the right thing when they started accepting girls, but I can’t think of another school our Houda could go to.”

“Actually, Dad...” Dad swallowed. He looked as nervous as he did on that first night, when Harry showed up. “She’s not going to Smeltings.”

“Not going...? Nonsense!” Gramps dismissed Dad’s words with a wave of his hand. “Of course she is! Where else would she go?”

“I’m going to Hogwarts to become a witch!” Houda announced happily.

She might as well have told them she was going to drop out of school altogether, judging by her grandfather’s expression. He stared at her for a moment, the smile still frozen on his face, and then a vein started throbbing in his neck and he turned completely red - almost purple, in fact. There was no hint of a smile now.

Gran’s hand shot straight to her mouth in horror.

“Hog... Hog...?” he whispered, apparently incapable of pronouncing the school’s name, which was odd because it wasn’t a hard name to pronounce, just different.

“Yeah... Uncle Harry was here and brought me the letter! Want to see?”

“You’ve been in touch with Harry?” Gran said in a strange voice. Gramps seemed to have lost his voice altogether. His vein kept on throbbing dangerously.

“He dropped by to bring us the letter. We talked about it. We decided it would be best to let Houda go,” Dad said carefully. “And she wants to go.”

Houda didn’t think she would forget the fight that ensued in a hurry.

Chapter 2: An Eventful Journey

“ ...And then Dad said, ‘I won’t let you do to her what you did to Harry, so you can just leave!’ And my granddad stormed out of the house. It was horrible.”

It was the First of September, and Lily Potter and Houda Dursley were sitting in a compartment on board the Hogwarts Express, on their way to Hogwarts. Houda had finished saying her goodbyes a few minutes before. Because her family were all Muggles, they couldn’t go through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and had to say goodbye to Houda back on Muggle King’s Cross. Houda didn’t seem very happy over this.

Lily herself ended up not saying goodbye to anyone. Both her brothers, James and Al, were on the train with her - and so was her mother. As it turned out, she was going to teach flying this year. It made perfect sense, of course, as Lily explained to her cousin when she asked how come her mother was going to Hogwarts with them. Ginny Potter had been a famous Quidditch player years ago, and James said the old flying teacher, Madam Hooch, was very old and prone to fall off her broom these days. Mum was the perfect choice - that was what James had said, and that was what Lily had told Houda.

The only person not on the train with them, then, was Dad. He never made it to King’s Cross.

Lily was still a bit cross with that. She understood it wasn’t his choice - he had an important job at the Ministry, and every once in a while, emergencies came up and he had to leave at weird hours or miss important family events. As the first of September drew near, the only thing on Lily’s mind was the hope that it wouldn’t happen this morning. After all, she wasn’t going to see him until the holidays. But what was done was done, and Dad couldn’t come to see them off, and so they boarded the train and found a compartment together with Hugo without saying goodbye to Dad.

It wasn’t long before Al showed up in their compartment, threw his bag moodily on the seat in front of him, and pulled out a magazine. ‘What’s got into his pumpkin juice?’ Lily mouthed to Houda and rolled her eyes, but Houda didn’t seem too impressed. She was busy telling her story about her grandfather who, in Lily’s opinion, sounded downright horrible, but of course she didn’t say so out loud.

Now it was something else that had caught Lily’s attention. “How d’you mean, ‘what they did to Harry’?” she asked in confusion. “You don’t mean Dad, do you?”

Houda looked embarrassed for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t think about it...”

Lily was thinking whether it was possible it was Dad, when a boy with brown hair and a big trunk knocked on the door. “Excuse me,” he said, his voice shaking with nervousness, “would you mind if I sit here?”

“Not at all - the more the merrier!” Lily said and started helping him drag his trunk into the compartment. Al snorted and went back to staring at his magazine. “You can help, you know,” Lily chided her older brother, but Al ignored her.

“I’m Lily, by the way, and that’s my cousin Houda, and that’s my cousin Hugo, and that useless lump is my brother Al.”

“Hi,” the boy said nervously. “I’m Aaron. All your family’s magic then?” he asked eagerly.

“Yeah,” she said, and he looked crestfallen for a moment. “Well, except for Houda I guess, her parents are Muggles, only she’s magic.”

“Really?” he asked, cheered up again. “That’s great! I mean - I was afraid I’d be the only one,” he mumbled that last sentence. By now, they had finished dragging the huge trunk into the compartment, and Aaron took a seat next to Houda.

“Nah, don’t worry,” Lily said. “There’s loads of Muggle-born kids at Hogwarts. It’s gonna be fine.”

“It was so weird, getting the letter - I mean, no one in my family’s magic at all, we didn’t know anyone! We had a teacher come and bring the letter and talk to my mum and dad - they thought it was a prank at first, before she turned the kettle into a bunny... Must be weird, though, growing up with magic,” he said this to Lily.

Hugo, who sat in front of him, was the one who answered. “I don’t know, I think it’s weird growing up without magic,” he said. “My mum’s Muggle-born, too, so every time we’re at my grandparents’ no one’s allowed to use magic and there’s all kinds of stuff like the telly and everything - so odd - but cool,” he concluded. “I wish we had a telly.”

“Why can’t you... I dunno, just get one?” Aaron asked, surprised.

Hugo shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe it’s like Hogwarts, too much magic around so electrical stuff doesn’t work properly. Or maybe Mum just doesn’t want us to have a telly. She’s strict like that,” he finished, looking depressed.

“Well, cheer up,” Aaron said, “doesn’t matter that she’s strict, you’re not going to see them until Christmas!”

Hugo couldn’t hide his misery now. Lily sniggered. “Aunt Hermione’s teaching this year. The old Transfiguration teacher retired and McGonagall asked her to fill in for a year - that’s the Headmistress,” she told Aaron, “Professor McGonagall.”

“No reason for you to laugh,” Hugo retorted, “your mum’s teaching this year too.”

“Yeah,” she said unhappily. “Weird, though, isn’t it? Both our mums teaching this year?”

“It’s not as weird as you think - budge up, will you?” James had just entered the compartment with his girlfriend Colleen Thomas, and their twin friends, Lorcan and Lysander Scamander.

James was a Prefect, and as such, he was supposed to be in the first compartment, or else patrolling the corridors. Lily wasn’t very surprised to see him there, though - she wasn’t quite sure what Professor McGonagall had been thinking when she made him a Prefect. Dad always said that James was as much of a troublemaker as the people he was named after, Dad’s father and his godfather, who apparently had quite the reputation for being troublemakers when they were at Hogwarts and had never been Prefects.

“How d’you mean, it’s not that weird?” Al raised his head from the magazine.

“Yeah, found out why Dad had to work today. Old Professor Cattermole was attacked last night.”

“What?” three voices in the room said together - even Al seemed interested at this news. “Was that... the goblins?” he asked, and James nodded.

Lily noticed Houda and the new boy, Aaron, looking at them nervously. “Of course!” she said, “you don’t know about the goblins, do you?”

“Goblins?” Houda asked, but Aaron nodded.

“I’ve seen them. At the bank - Gringotts, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, although I don’t know why they still let them work there,” James said darkly. “We’re at war with the goblins,” he explained to Houda and Aaron. “They’re really vicious,” James started, “they just like killing and -”

“Dad says that’s not true,” Al interrupted again. “Dad says goblins aren’t nice to wizards ‘cause wizards were never nice to goblins.”

“Yeah, but Dad’s weird that way,” James dismissed him rudely. “And you really wouldn’t want to meet a goblin in a dark alley somewhere.”

“What would a goblin do in a dark alley?” Colleen wondered out loud. Lily just giggled.

“I wonder who we’re going to get for Defence this year,”James said, ignoring the comment, “I hope it’s not Professor Malfoy, he’s horrible enough in potions, and last year when Professor Cattermole was ill and he took over classes it was a disaster. Oh, don’t worry,” he must have caught Houda’s expression, because he said now in a warmer, more reassuring voice. “Hogwarts is the safest place there is. We’re completely safe.”

“They made it to Hogsmeade last year, didn’t they?” Al said.

James shot him a dirty look. “Besides,” he said loudly, as if to drown Al’s already-spoken words, “they won’t hurt children. And like we said, the goblins at Gringotts are still working for wizards. I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Goblins are weird. Even the goblin teacher at Hogwarts is weird, and he’s been teaching there for ages.”

“Bet we are going to learn a lot about goblins in History of Magic,” Lily said excited. “Dad says there’s a lot more about goblins these days than when they were kids, because of the war. He knows a lot about goblins,” she said, hoping to sound important to Houda and Aaron, “he helped some of the negotiations with them.”

“Well, it didn’t do much good, did it, negotiating,” Lorcan said. Lily ignored him. Thinking about Dad had reminded her something she had heard him say, and she turned to James in confusion.

“But Dad’s office isn’t involved in the war, is it? I remembered he said he had to talk to the Minister about that -”

“Yeah, but someone’s been attacked, they can’t sit down and do nothing, can they?” James rolled his eyes, and Lily regretted ever asking the question. “I don’t know how long the Minister will let Dad keep the Auror office out of this, though, they’ve been wanting the Aurors to get involved in the fighting for ages.”

The compartment door opened again, this time to reveal Lily’s cousin and Hugo’s sister, Rose, and a couple of her friends. “Did you hear about Cattermole?” she asked with mixed excitement and worry.

“Yeah, I’ve just been telling this lot.”

“The entire train’s talking about it, and I met Mum along the way, and she told me of course not to tell anyone, but I thought Aunt Ginny must have told you because you’re a Prefect and everything - ”

“Oh, yeah, speaking of things Mum told me,” James turned now to Al. “Mum says you’re not to go anywhere near that Malfoy boy this year. She says if she hears even a whisper you’ve been fighting again you’ll be very very sorry.”

Al scowled and went back to staring at his magazine. Rose walked into the compartment and sat on opposite Al, throwing his bag back at him. He ignored her.

“Just keep your distance from that kid, okay?” James said again. “And you better do it, ‘cause I’m a Prefect this year and I can give you detention if you fight with him. Also, better not give Professor Malfoy any more chances to deduct points from Gryffindor,” he scowled now himself. Lily had heard all about Professor Malfoy, who taught Potions and was James’s least favourite teacher. “You know he’ll never deduct points from Slytherin, especially if it’s his own kid that’s caught in a fight, and he always blames you. So just don’t do it.”

Al didn’t bother answering. He probably thought the lecture was pointless.

“What’s Gryffindor and Slytherin?” Aaron asked from next to her.

“Oh, they’re two of the Houses - there’s four Houses, you see, at Hogwarts,” Hugo started explaining to Aaron about Hogwarts.

Houda was less interested in that information. “Are they really dangerous?” she asked Lily instead. “Goblins, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” Lily confessed. “The way you hear everyone talking about them you’d think that, but then Dad says a lot of what people say is rubbish, and Aunt Hermione says that too, and they both know a lot more about goblins than most people.”

“Mum says it’s the wizards’ fault that goblins fight us all the time,” Rose joined in the conversation. “But I don’t know, Mum has weird ideas about stuff. I wonder how she’ll be as a teacher,” she said all of a sudden in a concerned voice. “Transfiguration’s hard enough as it is without her. Oh, but let’s stop talking about that,” her face suddenly brightened. “The trolly lady is here. Good - I’ve been trying to get the Agrippa card for ages. Maybe it’ll turn up.”

They ended up buying a bunch of chocolate frogs. Houda eyed the boxes suspiciously and Aaron asked if they were really frogs, at which point Hugo laughed and explained it was just a charm. Aaron didn’t look completely reassured, so Lily opened her own frog and showed him that the frog was hollow inside. Alas, Rose didn’t find the missing Agrippa. Her chocolate frog card was another Dumbledore; Lily’s was Merlin, and Hugo ended up with his third card of Morgana. They all gave their cards to Houda and Aaron - better help them start a collection.

Houda, however, was looking at the card she got in surprise. “Hey, Lily, that’s your dad, isn’t it?” she showed the card to Lily in an awed look.

Lily didn’t find it as exciting. “Yeah, he defeated some famous dark wizard during the War,” she shrugged and unwrapped another frog. She only needed Circe to complete her Ancient Wizards set. She would never tell Rose, but she had two Agrippas. She was keeping the spare one to trade in case anyone had a spare Circe. As far as she knew, Rose didn’t have a Circe yet.

Houda and Aaron, however, seemed hung up on Dad’s card. “Harry Potter is the only known wizard to have survived the Killing Curse, after the Dark Lord used it on him when he was only a year old... Mr Potter had later defeated the Dark Lord during the Battle of Hogwarts...” they read from the card.

“Wow, Lily, your dad sounds cool,” Aaron said in awe.

“I guess,” she shrugged and looked hopefully at the new card. Alas - it was yet another Dad, waving at her merrily from the card. She threw the card in disappointment on the empty seat next to her.

-X- The train was slowly coming to a halt. They had arrived at Hogsmeade station.

Some of the younger kids were still struggling with their school robes when James went off to the platform. Most of those were the Muggle-born kids, and James did his best to stifle the smile that came to his lips as he remembered them. It wasn’t something to laugh at... even though it was funny.

Any hint of a smile was erased from his face, though, once they got into the platform. Lysander tapped on his shoulder and pointed at a few dark figures at the edge of the platform. “Aurors,” he said, and James nodded.

Next to him, the Muggle born boy from their compartment was looking curiously at the Aurors, then at James and Lysander.

James didn’t want to say anything there. He was sure the kid would not understand a word, and then go back to ask Lily what it meant, and he didn’t want to alarm her. She must be nervous enough because of the sorting, he thought. So he searched for her quickly, wished her good luck with the sorting, and grabbed Colleen, Lysander and Lorcan to find one of the horseless carriages to school. They found a carriage which only had a couple of timid-looking second years and climbed into it. Only then did James open his mouth, and not before shooting a glance at the second-years and deciding they weren’t going to be a problem.

“They must be worried about the attack, then, to send Aurors here,” he said.

Lorcan nodded. “Weird, though, isn’t it? Think your dad finally gave up?”

James snorted. Bloody likely, that was. “When hell freezes over,” he said to Lorcan. “He’s not going to get the Aurors involved in the war.”

“Y’know, I know he’s your dad and all, but I reckon at some point the Minister’s going to take the choice out of his hand if things keep on going that way. I mean, last year at Hogsmeade was bad enough, but now they attacked a teacher... people will be demanding the Aurors get involved soon.”

“Re-telling our Hogsmeade glory?” a new voice was heard as James’s cousins, Roxanne and Dominique, joined them on the carriage with their friend Priyanka. Now full, the carriage started moving out of the station. It was windy on the road, and a soft drizzle started falling over their heads. The second-years didn’t seem to notice, though - their mouthes opened in shock as they recognised the great heroes from last year, and James groaned.

“You’re the ones who saved all those kids last year at Hogsmeade, aren’t you?” one of the mousy-haired second-years demanded of Roxanne.

She gave him her most charming smile, and said, “Yes, duckling, and don’t worry, if there’ll be any more goblins here, I’ll save you too.”

James groaned again. It was bad enough that he had to spend the entire summer hearing what heroes Roxanne and Dominique were - at the same time as hearing from Dad in no uncertain terms that he was underage and under no circumstances was he ever to try and play the hero and risk himself - but now, he also had to hear it being retold at Hogwarts. Probably to the entire admiring Gryffindor common room.

“What, James, aren’t you proud of your hero cousin?” Roxanne flashed him another smile and shook her head, her plaits falling in every direction. He looked for something to throw at her.

“Speaking of goblins,” she said, this time more seriously, “did you see the Aurors at the station?”

“Yeah,” Lysander jumped on the opportunity to speak of something other than Roxanne’s famous heroism. “I’d just been wondering if Harry finally gave up and got the Aurors involved in the war.”

“Nah,” Roxanne said with just as much confidence as James expressed only a moment before. “Uncle Harry’s stubborn that way, if he didn’t get the Aurors involved until now it’s just not going to happen.”

“Yeah, but a teacher got attacked - and last year at Hogsmeade -”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” she asked. “If Hogsmeade was serious enough to convince him to get the Aurors involved, he’d have done it then. He wouldn’t have waited all summer and see more people get attacked.”

“I don’t get why he doesn’t want the Aurors to join in the fighting,” Lorcan said quietly.

“‘Cause that’s not the Aurors’ job, is it?” Colleen joined in. “Goblins aren’t dark wizards. They’re here to catch dark wizards, not fight a dirty war.”

“That’s why the goblins still respect Harry,” Roxanne agreed. “If we have any chance of ending this war, it’s persuading them to sit down and negotiate, and that’ll only happen if they keep on trusting people like Harry.”

“I still think they’re being stupid,” Dominique said. Her father, Uncle Bill, had worked with goblins for years - but then, James thought, perhaps that would make her less kind towards goblins, not more. “I heard a lot about the goblins from Dad, and they’re mental if they think they can talk to them.”

Dominique was about to say something else - and then the carriage stopped moving all of a sudden. James looked around him in alarm. They were well beyond Hogsmeade Station by now, surrounded by woods on both sides of the road to Hogwarts. They couldn’t see Hogwarts yet, too - just the trees all around them. And on top of it all, the rain was getting stronger.

“Something wrong, d’you reckon?” he asked Lysander and the rest in a low voice.

Lysander nodded. “D’you think we’ve broken down?” he asked.

“Can’t be, the carriages move by magic,” Colleen pointed out.

“Well, they’re not moving now,” said Lorcan.

“Better take out our wands,” Roxanne said and drew her wand, murmuring Lumos and shining a weak light over the carriage. Everything beyond the small circle of light from her wand was now pitch black.

And then - voices. Something was moving in the dark, in the woods.

“Maybe we should walk on foot,” said Dominique, and both James and Roxanne hissed at the same time, “Quiet!”

They exchanged looks. James was sure Roxanne had heard whatever it was that moved in the woods as well. He withdrew his wand, too, but didn’t light it. Instead, he shielded his eyes from Roxanne’s wandlight and tried scanning the darkness for anything that moved.

“See anything?” she whispered.

He shook his head. It was too dark outside - the sun had already set, but the moon hadn’t risen yet, too low to be seen above the tree line.

“Maybe you should turn off the light,” he suggested in a whisper.

“No,” she said. “Whatever’s out there, they’ve already seen us. Better not keep ourselves completely blind.”

He kept on scanning the darkness. He couldn’t see anything, and now he couldn’t hear anything, either. He had just started to wonder maybe he imagined the noises after all, or perhaps it was a unicorn or something that had escaped the school, when they heard a new voice, rough and unpleasant.

“Well, well. Aren’t these kids from the wizard school.”

They all jumped. “Lumos,” eight voices said at once, and all the wands on the carriage lit up. In the light, they could now see shapes in front of them - two small shapes, walking towards the front of the carriage from the woods.

“Who is it?” Roxanne asked loudly, but James thought the question was unnecessary. They couldn’t yet see the facial features or any other details, but from the shape of the ears and the height of the figures, it was already obvious what they were dealing with. Goblins. He swallowed.

“I warn you,” Roxanne said again, her voice steady and strong. “We’re armed.” James couldn’t help but admire her courage. He didn’t dare say a word, out of fear that his voice would shake.

The goblins, however, didn’t seem as impressed as James was with her calm voice. One of them laughed in a slow, ugly voice. “Indeed you are,” he said, clearly amused. “So are we, little witch girl, so are we.”

His friend said something in Gobbledegook - goblin language, and they both burst into a loud laughter.

“What do you want?” Roxanne called out again.

The goblins drew closer. James could see them properly now - their beady little eyes, their long noses and ears, so oddly shaped, the malevolence in their smile. “What’s your name, little witch girl?” one of them asked, the light from Roxanne’s wand reflecting in his eyes.

“Roxanne Weasley,” she said defiantly.

The goblin who had remained silent started talking fast in Gobbledegook again, but the other goblin waved a hand, and he fell silent.

“And you?” he narrowed his eyes at Lysander.

“Lysander Scamander,” Lysander said, his voice slightly shaking.

The goblin kept on smiling his unpleasant smile. “You?” he turned the question now to James.

James drew his breath. He wasn’t going to let them hear the fear in his voice. “James Potter,” he said.

The two goblins started talking again rapidly, pointing at James. James didn’t know a word of Gobbledegook, but one repeated phrase in their speech he could understand. Harry Potter. A mad thought came to his head - it was like Roxanne said, wasn’t it? They trusted Dad. That might just be their ticket out of there - the goblins could not have possibly wanted to anger his father. If they hurt him, it might just be the incentive Dad needed to involve the Auror Office in the war.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding a lot more assured of himself than he felt, “I’m Harry Potter’s son. You really don’t want to piss off my dad.”

The words didn’t have the effect James was looking for. Instead of backing away, the goblin walked closer to the carriage. He was carrying some sort of a weapon with him, aiming it at James. “Don’t come any closer!” James said, and his voice came out all high and unnatural.

To his surprise, the goblin had stopped walking. “James Potter,” he said in a contemptuous voice. “You tell your father -”

“Gwetio!” the second goblin called all of a sudden. Even James knew this word - wizards. He looked around hopefully, and indeed, two tall figures were running towards them. Aurors. They were saved.

The goblin closest to him looked from the Aurors to him and back to the Aurors, and finally, reluctantly, he nodded at his friend and they retreated back to the cover of the woods. By the time the two Aurors had reached them, all trace of the goblins was gone.

“Are you okay?” the taller Auror asked - Uncle Ron.

“Yeah, we’re fine, there were two goblins -”

“Yeah, we’ve seen them, Teddy, stay here!” Ron shouted, and ran into the woods.

Now James could see the other Auror - electric blue hair and broad smile, it was Teddy Lupin.

“Teddy!” James called in relief. “You finished your Auror training, then?”

“Yeah, just a few days ago,” Teddy paced back and forth around the carriage. “Just in time for you guys...” He didn’t finish the sentence, but instead looked at the forest, narrowing his eyes, as if trying to spot Ron. His nose seemed slightly longer than usual, and James could swear he was trying to sniff out their environment.

“He’s coming back,” Teddy said eventually, although James could not see a thing. “Alone.”

Teddy was right - a few more seconds, and now James, too, could see Ron running back towards them.

“Lost them,” he said, sounding disappointed.

“I could try -” Teddy started suggested, but Ron shook his head.

“No, you escort this lot back to the school. There might be more carriages out there, and I don’t want the goblins to get a second chance. Tell Minerva - she’ll do it anyway, but tell her to make sure everyone’s alright. I’ll go and coordinate a search of the path with the rest of the Aurors. And I better -” he didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he aimed his wand at the sky, and something big and silvery shot out of it and disappeared.

“You lot sure you’re okay?” he asked them again.

“Yeah,” Roxanne said. “They didn’t touch us. I think they wanted to, but when they heard James’s name they sort of... stopped. They started - ”

“One of them wanted me to say something to Dad but then you showed up and they scarpered,” James offered.

Ron looked at them for a moment, then nodded. “Alright. Listen, the feast will start any moment, no need to have you all starve. We’ll probably go back to the school and hear all about it afterwards, alright? No, shut up for a moment,” he stopped them before they’ve had the chance to protest, “we will want to hear what you have to say, really. But there’s no reason for you to miss the feast and starve on your first day back,” he smiled. “Just, Teddy, make sure they get there, I’ll be taking the thestral so I can scan the road faster.”

“Yes, sir,” Teddy said and raised his eyes at Roxanne. “C’mon, guys, off the carriage.”

Lysander and Lorcan, however, looked at Ron with something resembling awe. “Thestral?” Lysander asked. “There’s one here?” and Lorcan said, “Of course! The carriage!” and all of a sudden, they both looked at the front of the carriage.

“Yeah, it’s pulled by a thestral.”

They watched in silence as Ron went to the front of the carriage and removed some of the metalwork that, as James understood now, wasn’t there for decoration, but harnessing an invisible horse. Another moment, and Ron mounted the beast. It was the weirdest thing in the world, to see him riding an invisible animal. They watched him disappearing into the darkness on his way back to the station.

“How can he get on that thing so easily?” one of the second-years asked out loud.

“They’re not invisible to him,” Teddy said.

“Can you see them?” the boy asked eagerly.

“No, and I’d rather keep it that way,” Teddy answered, sounding a lot more serious than his usual cheerful voice. “They can only be seen by people who’ve seen death.”

“Oh.” That last statement killed the mood. They started walking after Teddy, on the path towards the school, keeping quiet. All the while, Teddy was moving his head around fast, looking at some point of random darkness and then at another, sniffing around them.

“Can you actually smell things?” Dominique asked.

“Yeah. Usually my sense of smell isn’t all that good - I mean, it’s still better than the average human even on regular days, but -”

“Oh, it’s a full moon today!” James realised all of a sudden. Teddy smiled.

“But you’re not - I mean, you don’t change, do you?” Dominique asked again.

“No, I’m not a werewolf. Couldn’t be here today if I were. It’s funny, I guess people like my father must hate the full moon, but I kinda like it. I can see and smell a lot better at this time of the month.”

Teddy and Dominique kept on discussing werewolves until they reached the big Hogwarts gates. As they entered the school, even Dominique fell silent, and walked the rest of the way in silence. Someone’s hand sought James’s - Colleen’s, and she found it and squeezed his hand. He squeezed her hand back, unsure whether she was looking for reassurance or trying to reassure him.

Teddy led them all the way through the grounds and into the Great Hall. As they entered the room, he said goodbye hurriedly and rushed towards the teachers’ table, where Professor McGonagall was already sitting down, undoubtedly to convey Ron’s message.

James wanted to watch him for a while longer, but the feast was about to start, and it didn’t look like McGonagall would postpone it. They bade Colleen, Lorcan and Dominique, who were all in Ravenclaw, farewell; always a shame in James’s eyes, because the very idea of the mischief they could have done if Lorcan and Colleen were Gryffindors was all too inviting. But the three continued to the Ravenclaw table, while James, Lysander, Roxanne and her friend Priyanka walked to the Gryffindor table and sat down at the front. James made sure to sit there, to get a good look at Lily’s sorting.

The front seat, however, also allowed him to notice something else - the teachers’ table. Professor Longbottom was missing - as usual, he was in charge of bringing in the first-years to be sorted. But another seat was empty - Professor Cattermole’s. “Look,” he nudged Lysander. “They haven’t found someone to fill in for Cattermole yet.”

“‘Course they haven’t,” Lysander said. “She was attacked yesterday, even Mcgonagall can’t find someone that quickly.”

At that moment Mcgonagall called for silence, and Professor Longbottom led the first-years into the Great Hall. James could easily spot Lily and Hugo among them - the Weasley red hair stood out even between the entire class of first-years.

The first kid of the year was sorted into Slytherin - always a bad start, in James’s opinion. Then there was a Hufflepuff, another Slytherin, and the first Gryffindor, who ended up being none other than Houda Dursley. James clapped enthusiastically.

There really wasn’t any reason to worry - if there ever was a Gryffindor in the family, it was Lily, James was sure of it. Still, he felt relief when her turn came and the hat announced almost immediately ‘Gryffindor’. Her Muggle-born friend from the train, Aaron Singer, joined them not long after, and by the time Hugo turned out to be a Gryffindor (although it seemed the Hat was taking its time with him), James was already completely starving.

But before they could eat, McGonagall had messages to convey. For one wild moment, James thought she was going to address their encounter with the goblins, but she seemed much more occupied with giving them the usual batch of beginning-of-the-year messages.

“Welcome to another year,” she said, looking sternly at the recently-sorted first years who were still talking at the beginning of the table. “And welcome, all of our new students. Before we start on our wonderful feast, I have a few messages.

“First, we have quite a number of changes in the staff this year. Our regular Transfiguration teacher, Professor O'Donnell, has decided to take a Sabbatical to further his study of Deep-Sea Spontaneous Transfiguration. I’m sure we all wish him a great success.”

“We would, if we could understand what that even meant,” James whispered to Lysander, who sniggered in appreciation.

“His place would be taken by Professor Hermione Granger-Weasley, who has agreed to fulfil the post for the year.”

James clapped loudly as Aunt Hermione smiled at the students.

“We are also joined this year by a new Muggle Studies teacher, Professor Dean Thomas,” McGonagall said, “and we wish him all the best.” James clapped loudly again - after all, Professor Thomas was Colleen’s father.

“Next, our long time flying teacher and Quidditch referee, Madam Hooch, has recently retired. Her place will be taken by none other than Madam Ginny Potter.”

At this announcement, everyone in the room cheered loudly, not just James and his family. Mum used to be a famous Quidditch player in her past, and even today, her Quidditch columns in the Daily Prophet were highly popular.

Mum waved happily at the cheering students, before being distracted by Professor Scamander, who whispered something in her ear. James could see his mother laughing a bit. Well, there it was then, his mother was now a Hogwarts staff, just like Lysander and Lorcan’s - Professor Scamander had been teaching Care for Magical Creatures since Hagrid’s retirement three years previously.

When the cheering had died down, McGonagall started talking again. “Lastly, as I’m certain you have all heard by now, Professor Cattermole was attacked last night. We wish her all the best and hope she would return to us shortly. Until I can find a suitable replacement, Defence Against the Dark Arts classes are cancelled. I expect that within a week or two everything will go back to normal.

“And now, I daresay we’re all hungry enough for our feast,” she said, and the food appeared on the table.

For a few minutes, James was busy wolfing down the wonderful roast chicken that had appeared right next to him. Then, slightly less hungry, he had some time to catch up with his classmates. He was about to ask Trishana Finnigan, who was sitting next to him, how her holiday had been, when the conversation around him turned to the day’s events.

“I can’t believe they attacked a teacher,” Trishana said.

“Forget the teachers - we almost got attacked,” Lysander had replied and started telling her the tale of their journey to Hogwarts. Trishana looked very impressed.

On James’s other side, Rose listened intently. “I can’t believe they’d attack kids,” she said quietly, once Lysander had finished talking.

“Well, they did,” James said bluntly and took the bowl of peas.

“I don’t doubt you, I’m just saying, it’s weird.”

“I don’t think the teachers think it’s weird,” Al piped in. “Look at the people they got this year - we got Mum, Aunt Hermione, and Dean Thomas, not to mention Professor Scamander and Professor Longbottom. I mean, both Professor Thomas and Professor Longbottom were Aurors after the War, weren’t they?”

“Yeah,” Lysander picked up on the thread, “Colleen said that Professor Thomas used to be an Auror before she started Hogwarts! And, I mean, Mum and Mrs Potter and Mrs We - Professor Granger-Weasley, I mean, they fought in the War, too.”

“Can’t be a coincidence,” Al concluded.

“Yeah, but they haven’t kicked out Professor Malfoy yet, have they,” James smirked, and the tension around the table dissolved as they went on abusing Professor Malfoy.

It was almost the end of dinner when James felt a hand on his shoulder - Professor Longbottom, the head of Gryffindor House, had come down from the teachers table. “James, Lysander, can you come with me?” he asked gently. “Roxanne, Priyanka, you too, alright?”

James nodded. He could see, on the table next to them, Professor Scamander bringing Colleen, Lorcan and Dominique from the Ravenclaw table. Together, they followed the teachers to McGonagall’s office. The gargoyle that hid the entrance was happy to clear their way towards a moving staircase as soon as Professor Longbottom had given the password, which, apparently, was ‘cats’.

The office was already packed with people. Professor McGonagall was there, of course, as well as Professor Scamander, Professor Thomas, Mum, Aunt Hermione, Uncle Ron - and Dad. Harry Potter’s hair was soaked and glued to his forehead, and steam came out of the tip of his wand as he passed it back and forth over his clothes in a futile attempt to dry them. His heavy travelling cloak was thrown unceremoniously over one of the chairs, completely soaked as well. The entire group had obviously been deep in conversation before James and his friends entered the room, but as soon as Professor Longbottom opened the door, they all fell silent.

The first to talk was Dad. “Are you alright?” he walked towards James and asked him, tension in his voice and his eyes checking him over, as if to make sure there were no wounds James was hiding under his robes.

“I’m fine, Dad. They didn’t touch us.”

“Okay,” Dad nodded. “Tell me what happened.”

James started telling the tale of how the carriage had stopped and the goblins had appeared. Once or twice, Dad seemed to want to ask something, but stopped himself and just nodded, signalling James to continue.

He still looked unhappy, though, even after James finished his story. For a moment he seemed deep in thought, tapping his wand carelessly on the back of a chair, and then he suddenly smiled.

“Dominique!” he called. Dominique jumped in surprise. “You’re doing Charms N.E.W.T.s, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, unsure.

“Have you learned how to remove memories yet?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said, clearly nervous now, “but I’ve only done it once.”

Dad nodded. “Okay, that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll just guide you through it, alright?”

“What d’you need the memory for?” James asked.

“Sometimes it’s better to see things, rather than just listen to them told - I’m not saying I think you missed anything, James,” he added, as if he could read the thought that crossed James’s mind. “Just that I’d like to see it in person.”

“You speak Gobbledegook, don’t you?” Roxanne asked all of a sudden.

Dad smiled. “Yeah, I do,” he said, and without another word on the subject, he turned to Dominique. “Okay, Dominique, there’s no reason to be nervous. Do you remember the incantation?”

Dominique nodded.

“Brilliant. Now, all you have to do is just think of that moment. You don’t need to think of all of it or relive it or anything like that. Just concentrate on the idea of it. Have you got it?”

Dominique nodded again, uncertain.

“Okay. Don’t worry, take your time, relax - breathe, don’t be so nervous. It’s alright,” he said pleasantly, and put his hand on her shoulder. “Got it?”

She nodded again, this time looking more confident. Then she closed her eyes, and aimed the wand at her head, right above the ear, and whispered the spell. A strange, silvery substance came out of the tip of her wand in long strands. Dad immediately flicked his wand, producing a glass phial out of thin air. He then guided Dominique’s hand towards the phial. Her eyes still closed, she moved more of the silvery substance towards the phial, until there were no more silver strands on her wand, and the phial was full. Only then did she open her eyes.

“You did great, Dominique,” Dad said encouragingly. “Do you want to check it before I see it, to make sure it’s just that and not anything else?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I’m pretty sure it’s alright.”

“Okay then - Accio Pensieve,” he said and flicked his wand a second time, and a stone basin appeared from one of the cupboards. Dominique gasped.

“You have a Pensieve, professor?” she asked Professor McGonagall in an impressed voice. “They’re really rare, aren’t they?”

“Almost any receptacle can serve as a Pensieve if the need arises, Ms Weasley,” McGonagall said, “but yes, proper Pensieves are quite rare.” James thought she seemed a bit pleased with herself.

Dad, however, had already continued to his next task. He emptied the silvery contents of the phial into the Pensieve, and now sunk his head in its water-like surface. James watched him for a few moments, until Mum walked closer to him.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah, Mum, I’m fine,” he said, rolling his eyes. How many more times would he have to answer that question?

“I’m proud of you,” she said and hugged him. He let her - she probably needed it a lot more than he did. “Sounds like you kept a cool head back there.”

“Thanks, Mum,” he said, trying to hide his smile.

“He was magnificent,” Uncle Ron said, and James could feel himself flush.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Professor Scamander talking quietly to Lysander and Lorcan - probably having the same conversation, he figured.

Uncle Ron’s words brought him back to their corner of the room. “And of course, our great hero proved herself for a second time,” he smiled at Roxanne, who laughed it off.

“C’mon, all I did was shout a bit at the goblins,” she said. “It really was James this time, he figured out they were talking about Harry and just went on with it. It was really quick thinking on his part - I reckon he confused them just long enough for you and Teddy to show up.”

“Still, you kept your cool, guys. That’s the most important thing,” Ron said earnestly. “Thinking under pressure.”

“Ron, they’re not your new Auror trainees,” Hermione said, amusement in her voice.

With all the fussing, none of them had noticed Dad had already finished watching the memory. Only as he chuckled at that last comment, they realised it and turned back to him. The smile was slowly leaving his lips, replaced by a thoughtful expression. Without another word, though, he Vanished the memory and sent the Pensieve back to its place.

“Thanks, guys. That’s all I needed, really,” he told them. “You can go back to your common rooms.”

“What?” James and Roxanne said at the same time. “What did the goblins say? What did they want?”

Dad said nothing, just raised his eyebrow. James sighed in frustration. He knew that expression all too well. There was no hope of getting anything out of Dad now.

“You did well, James,” he said and hugged him. “Now go to sleep. And tell Lily I’m proud of her, too.”

“Sure, Dad,” James said, biting down his frustration, and turned to leave, Lysander and Lorcan behind him.

“Oh, and James?” Dad said, and for a moment James hoped he was going to share something of that evening’s events with him, only to be disappointed upon hearing Dad’s next words. “If something like that ever happens again, or like last year in Hogsmeade, don’t try to act all heroic, alright?”

“Yes, Dad,” he said, not trying to hide his annoyance anymore, and left the room. They started climbing down the stairs, James and Colleen with Lorcan and Lysander, and Roxanne, Dominique and Priyanka just behind them, when James put his hand in his pocket and found - one of Uncle George’s Extendable Ears, exactly where he left it last year. All of a sudden, an idea formed in his mind.

“I forgot something,” he lied quickly to his friends - he didn’t have time for a full discussion right now, and he didn’t have any more Ears to share with them. He’d tell them when he went back to the common room. “I’ll catch up you guys later.”

Lysander looked at him curiously, but then shrugged, and his friends kept on walking down the stairs, while James doubled back and stopped next to the big door to McGonagall’s office. He pulled the Extendable Ear from his pocket, and attached one end to his ear. The other he released towards the door. There were disturbances - the Ear had, after all, spent a significant amount of time crumpled in his pocket, and had probably been through the washing once or twice too. But it was good enough to hear.

“ - Weren’t after them,” he heard Dad speak. “That’s a relief, anyway, the goblins aren’t mad enough to start attacking Hogwarts students.”

“What did they want, then?” that was Uncle Ron.

“To pass a message to me. I don’t get it either - there’s plenty of informal channels to pass messages between the goblins and the Ministry. We’ve done it several times when the official negotiations were frozen or something came up and one side didn’t want to be seen talking to the other. I don’t like it. If they want to get in touch with me, they know how to do it. They don’t need to go look for James to do it for them.”

“Maybe they were afraid of your reaction. Because of Cattermole,” Aunt Hermione said slowly.

“Yeah, how is she?” that was Professor Longbottom.

“Not good,” Dad said quietly. “She hasn’t regained consciousness yet. Reg is devastated - I tried telling him she’s going to be alright, but he’s worried sick. Can’t say I blame him. Say what you will about Reg, but I’ve known Mary Cattermole for over twenty years, and it’s very hard to catch her by surprise. I don’t know what they did to her and how they managed to catch her off her guard, but it doesn’t look good. You’re going to need a new teacher, at least temporarily, Minerva. She’s not coming back any time soon.”

McGonagall said something James didn’t catch, and then Dad said, “You can’t afford not teach them Defence. It’s too important.” His voice was loud and clear, much louder than before.

It took James a moment too long to figure out what that meant. By the time he had removed the Ear and started folding it, Dad had already opened the door. He froze in surprise for a moment upon seeing him, then his expression changed into a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

“Remind me,” he said in a clear voice, “to tell George never to sell you another Extendable Ear ever again.”

Behind him, Aunt Hermione pressed her lips in an obvious effort not to laugh, while Uncle Ron gave up all pretence and roared with laughter. Even Mum smiled.

Which left only Dad. James looked at him nervously for a moment, but as he shook his head in exasperation, James allowed himself a sheepish smile. It didn’t look like he was going to get punished for his little indiscretion.

“I’ve got to go now,” Dad said to the room full of family and teachers as well as to James, then gave James a hug. “Don’t get into trouble,” he said, raising an eyebrow again. James nodded, and Dad went to give Mum a kiss. “I’ll talk to you soon,” he said. She held him for a moment longer than usual, James thought, and then Dad put on the soaked travelling cloak and started going down the stairs.

“Come on, James,” Aunt Hermione said, “I’ll take you to the Gryffindor common room. It’s almost nine.” She gave Uncle Ron a kiss, then took James gently but firmly and turned him towards the stairs. Worried he’d stay and listen for longer, he thought.

“So, an interesting first day back,” she said lightly as they walked down the nearly deserted corridors.

“What did Dad mean?” he asked her. “About the goblins wanting to send him a message.”

“I don’t know,” she said, then smiled at his disbelief. “I really don’t, James. Not that it would have been your business even if I did - but I don’t. That’s the problem, I think. Your dad doesn’t quite know what to make of this. And I think - Albus Potter!” she called all of a sudden. “Scorpius Malfoy!”

Al and the Malfoy boy were standing in the corridor, facing each other with their wands drawn.

“What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded.

Al and Malfoy threw another look at each other, then immediately stashed their wands. “Nothing,” Al said quickly - lied quickly, more like, James thought.

“Like hell it’s nothing,” she said sternly. “Five points from Gryffindor and Slytherin. It’s almost nine o’clock, Mr Malfoy, and I believe the Slytherin common room is five floors down. Off you go,” she said, “before it becomes ten. Al, come with me.”

Al shrugged and turned to follow. Malfoy looked sullen for a moment, then legged it towards the nearest staircase.

“Al,” Aunt Hermione started, “you really need to stop fighting with Scorpius Malfoy. I don’t understand this obsession the two of you have with one another. Honestly. Just leave him alone. I know it can be hard - but you have to try, alright?”

Luckily for Al, the lecture was cut short. They had reached the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Password?” she asked them in an amused voice. Only then did James realise he didn’t know what the password was - in all the excitement, he had forgotten to ask Professor Longbottom about the password.

“Redcurrant,” Al said sulkily, and the portrait opened. “What?” he asked at James’s incredulous look. “I was here before when the Prefects told us - you were supposed to do that, by the way.”

“James had something else he had to do,” Hermione said. “Anyway, goodnight boys, I’ll see you down at breakfast tomorrow.”

“Good night, Hermione,” James answered automatically, then remembered where they were. “I mean - Professor Granger-Weasley,” he sighed. “Do we really have to call you that?”

“Yes,” she said testily.

“It’s just kind of a mouthful. Hermione’s a lot shorter.”

She chuckled for a moment. “You’ll get used to it, James. Good night,” she said and was gone. James followed Al through the portrait - into a packed common room, where Priyanka and Roxanne were already deep into telling their tale about being attacked by goblins to a bunch of wide-eyed first-years, headed by Lily and Hugo. James threw himself on an armchair in front of the fire, next to Lysander.

“Wait until I tell you what I just heard,” he whispered with a smile. It was, indeed, an interesting first day back.

Chapter 3: The Goblins

It was pouring outside. Hogsmeade had not seen such a downpour of rain for the entire summer, and none of the residents dared leave the safety of their roofs. Those who had been caught at the Three Broomsticks when the drizzle became a flood laughed and ordered another round of Butterbeer and continued chatting merrily to their friends. Those who had preferred the Hog’s Head seemed less happy, but still preferred staying at the mangy little pub over braving the weather outside. They continued their conversations in whispers, staring unhappily outside every few moments and hoping the rain would subside.

The Hog’s Head had been a Hogsmeade establishment ever since anyone could remember. The old barman was older than any other the village’s other residents, and had built the pub from scratch almost a century ago. He wasn’t remembered as particularly friendly or forthcoming to anyone, but when he had died, some ten years previously, all of the residents of Hogsmeade had lamented that their village would never be the same. The Hog’s Head had been as much a part of the wizarding world as Hogwarts or Gringotts, they said.

And then Mundungus Fletcher had bought the pub five years later and re-opened it. The people of the village had all of a sudden remembered that when the old barman was alive, they were never too fond of him. It wasn’t just how unfriendly he was, or that the Hog’s Head was closed three times due to severe violations of the Ministry’s Health and Safety regulations (and once because of the now infamous goat scandal). It was because, quite frankly, he never seemed to give much of a damn who made business in his pub. Every petty criminal - with the exception of Mundungus Fletcher himself, some whispered - could simply walk into the pub and conduct their business there. Even Death Eaters made the pub their base of operations, more than once.

Now that it was in the hands of a known petty criminal, it was certain to bring back unwelcome elements into the otherwise pleasant village.

So the Hogsmeade residents had arranged petitions and protests and had even sent their representative, who burst into Minister Shacklebolt’s office and refused to leave until he was heard. It didn’t do them much good - for some reason, the Ministry didn’t see it fit to interfere with the Hog’s Head and its criminal of an owner, and soon shady characters were coming in and out of the pub and the village as well, suspicious characters that had not been seen there ever since the old barman’s death.

These days, however, the whispers around the village were that Mundungus Fletcher had gone too far and that the Ministry were bound to interfere. He was letting goblins do their business in his pub - or rather, as some less war-happy individuals pointed out only to be ignored - he still allowed goblins to do their business in his pub. More and more of Hogsmeade’s human population had declared that their foot would not step inside the Hog’s Head until the goblins were gone - but as they hardly ever set foot in it before anyway, Mundungus Fletcher did not suffer a huge dent in his profits. The residents could only file their complaints with the Ministry and demand of the Minister, “What are you going to do about this?!”

Tonight, if any of them had looked outside and saw the man who had Apparated at the threshold of the pub, they might have thought Minister Shacklebolt had finally decided to do something. After all, the man was known to all in Hogsmeade, even under his heavy travelling cloak. The untidy black hair and glasses were the trademark of the Minister’s right-hand man, the head of the Auror Office, Harry Potter, as much as the legendary scar on his forehead.

Harry Potter looked around him for a moment, and then escaped the rain into the dry safety of the pub. His entry did not go unnoticed - some of the patrons slinked in their chairs, some hurried to pull an item or two into a secret pocket inside their cloaks, and the goblin in the corner narrowed his eyes, and then returned to speak in rapid Gobbledegook to the wizard in front of him.

The goblin was Harry Potter’s target; once he had taken his Butterbeer from Mundungus, he walked towards the corner table and sat himself pointedly in front of the goblin and next to his wizard companion. “You’ll excuse us, won’t you?” he asked the wizard pleasantly.

The man did not seem very willing to excuse the intrusion, but he did seem unhappy enough to object to the rudeness, not with the present company. He grunted something at the goblin and left.

The goblin eyed Harry for a moment. Despite his previous rudeness to the goblin’s partner, the Auror was not in a hurry to talk. Instead, he drank his Butterbeer passively.

“And what do you want?” the goblin asked in Gobbledegook eventually.

“Some goblins were looking for me earlier,” Harry said, also in Gobbledegook. He made sure to use the word for goblins that showed the least respect, without being outright rude for the situation. “I thought maybe you knew why. Or where I could find them.”

“As far as I’m aware, no one has anything they want to say to you. Or to your boss.”

Harry nodded. “Very well. Spread the word, will you, next time someone wants to talk to me, they should go through - ” he hesitated for a moment, looking for the right word, then resorted to English, “the proper channels”.

“I’ll do that,” the goblin said. His beady eyed followed Harry as he got up, said his goodbyes to Mundungus Fletcher, and left the pub. A few moments later, the wizard returned and the two resumed their conversation, if in somewhat hushed tones.

-X- Considering that Aaron had been hearing about goblins ever since he stepped on the Hogwarts Express, he did not expect to see one the very next morning. But there he was, there was no question about it - at least a head shorter than any first-year, with dark eyes and pointy ears and nose. The goblin was sat at the teachers’ table in the Great Hall, talking with one of the teachers as he put some more butter on his toast.

“That’s a goblin, isn’t it?” he whispered to Houda, who turned to look in shock.

“What, the teacher talking to Mum?” Hugo joined in the conversation. “Yeah, that’s Professor Greiphok or something. He teaches Astronomy.”

“Oh, is that your mum?” Aaron’s eyes opened wide. “That’s the teacher who came to give me the letter!”

“Yeah, I told you she’s Muggle-born, she knows all about Muggles,” Hugo said.

“And his name is pronounced Griphook,” someone interfered in their conversation - Hugo’s sister, Rose. She sat at the table and took some toast herself. “Take a good look, though - we don’t usually get to see him outside of classes. He hardly ever comes down to the Great Hall - have you finished with the milk?”

“But what’s he doing here?” Aaron asked in surprise. “If there’s a war going on and all...”

“He’s a teacher, though. I’m sure Professor McGonagall would never have hired him if she had any doubt. There’s also a centaur teacher, isn’t there?”

“Is there?” Aaron asked at the same moment that Houda asked, “Centaur?!”

Rose laughed. “Yeah, the Divination teacher. I don’t know, I don’t take Divination, and Mum says it’s complete rubbish, but he’s been teaching here for years, even though the centaurs are on the goblins’ side.”

The Gryffindor first years had their first Astronomy lesson that same day together with Hufflepuff house. Aaron soon learned that he wasn’t the only one who was surprised that one of their teachers was a goblin; all of the Muggle-born kids were somewhat taken aback - while most of the kids from wizarding families were downright scandalised.

Professor Griphook himself seemed to be completely oblivious to the children’s reaction. He wasn’t a very pleasant teacher - he eyed them with his beady eyes and was almost nasty when one of the kids got an answer wrong. But he wasn’t the worse teacher they had, not by far - that honour was reserved to Professor Malfoy, who sauntered unpleasantly into the class they shared with the Ravenclaws and stared at them all unpleasantly. Aaron much preferred their Herbology classes, with the Gryffindor head of house, Professor Longbottom, who was a very nice and funny man, or Transfiguration with Hugo’s mum, even though the subject turned out to be very difficult. Charms was also very difficult, taught by the ancient head of Ravenclaw House, Professor Flitwick, who looked a bit like a goblin himself but was much more pleasant than Professor Griphook.

Unlike these two classes, Muggle Studies turned out to be by far the easiest subject; Professor Thomas had to apologise at the beginning of the class for the inaccuracies of the textbook - which Aaron had pointed out, together with Houda and three other Muggle-born kids - and tell them that the book was being revised but it will take a while, as this was the first year Muggle Studies was mandatory for first-years. He then continued to tell them a story of a football game he went to once, and by the time the bell rang he had become everyone’s favourite Professor.

History of Magic was one class everyone looked forward to, as it was their chance to learn more about goblins. Aaron thought at first it might only be the Muggle-born kids who would be so interested, but it turned out most of the kids from wizarding families didn’t know a lot about goblins either - and after James Potter’s carriage being attacked on the way to school, everyone wanted to know as much as possible about them.

Alas, History of Magic soon turned out to be one of their most boring classes; Professor Binns, the teacher, was a ghost, and Aaron rather thought he sounded bored with his own voice. It didn’t help that he didn’t even start with the goblins - they had two major subjects to cover that year, and Professor Binns insisted on going on about the War and soon lost the attention of the entire class. The Battle of Hogwarts sounded like it could be interesting, and the idea of the Evil Wizard Voldemort was downright fascinating (if a bit frightening), but any exciting aspect was soon buried in Professor Binns’ survey of Ministry reforms after the War, and Aaron spent the rest of that lesson with Hugo teaching him how to make pencil scribbles move on the paper.

The War wasn’t only mentioned in Professor Binn’s classes - on the Hogwarts grounds, between the castle and the lake, there stood a big monument for the Battle of Hogwarts and listed the names of the soldiers who died. Some of the names were recognisable - like Fred Weasley, who turned out to be another uncle of Lily and Hugo’s, or Creevey, just like Colin from Ravenclaw. Lily and Hugo had shown them a couple more, like Lupin who was, apparently, some sort of a cousin of theirs although Lily wasn’t quite sure of the exact details, or Severus Snape who was the Headmaster at the time, and Al Potter was named after him. Most of the names didn’t mean anything to any of them, though, so they just looked at them once and then the monument had become a constant in the background.

Aaron had no problem with that. A war that ended years ago was not nearly as interesting as the war that was raging right now, just outside Hogwarts’ walls, and if any of the first years still thought none of that had anything to do with them, even after the events of the first night, they were in for a pretty big surprise only a week after the beginning of the school year.

They were in the Great Hall at the time, finishing up on their pudding, when the entire castle shook. The kids stopped eating, and looked at each other in alarm. What was - there it was again.

“There’s an earthquake!” Houda said in excitement.

“Can’t be,” Hugo Weasley furrowed his brow. “Hogwarts is protected against such things, it says so on Hogwarts: A Hist - ”

The loud bang could be heard right outside the hall. A few suits of armour toppled one on the other, and swallowed the rest of his words.

“D’you reckon we should go back to the common room?” Aaron wondered out loud. No one seemed to pay him any attention, though - they were all staring at the strange man who had burst into the hall.

Aaron had never seen him before, but he would not have been surprised to learn it was one of Lily and Hugo’s relatives. He had red hair, just like them, and had a rather long nose, just like Hugo. If he were a relative of the Weasleys’, though, it wasn’t enough to make him stop at the Gryffindor table. He was running directly towards the teachers’ table, until he reached it and stopped to talk urgently to Professor McGonagall.

Whatever he was saying, it had disturbed the teachers greatly: Professor Granger-Weasley turned visibly pale, while Professor Longbottom and Madam Potter jumped to their feet. Professor Griphook, meanwhile, looked rather much like he had their previous class, when a student insisted for forty-five minutes that Pluto was a planet.

The red-headed man stopped talking, and Professor McGonagall rose on her feet. “Prefects!” she called, and the entire Great Hall turned silent, listening to her every word. “Please lead the rest of the students back to your dormitories. No dawdling - goblins are attempting to force their way into the castle.”

She wanted to make sure they were taking the threat seriously, Aaron knew, but he rather thought that revealing to them the nature of the situation just made everyone panic. Half of the students jumped on their feet at that announcement, and at the head of the Gryffindor table, Roxanne Weasley was having a hard time getting the attention of all the kids.

Suddenly, a loud whistle pierced the noise. Roxanne had given up on the idea that the panicked Gryffindors would listen to her, and decided to draw their attention another way. “This way!” she now shouted in the silence that followed. “Gryffindors, follow me!”

Houda and Hugo were already on their feet. Aaron gave his pudding - a particularly tasty chocolate fudge - one last miserable look, then got on his feet as well, nudging Lily. Lily seemed to rebel at the idea of getting up for a moment, then sighed theatrically and got on her feet. They had to start walking fast - they were on the far end of the table, and Roxanne, James and the other Prefects had already left the room, most of the house behind them.

Despite behind so far behind, Hugo stopped once again. “Oi, Hugo, c’mon,” Aaron said, but Hugo was looking at the red-headed man who had entered the Great Hall and alerted the teachers.

“Dad!” he called, and the man - who, Aaron smugly noted, was a relative of Hugo and Lily’s then! - turned to look at him. “Go to your common room, Hugo!” he said in a tense voice. “Don’t hang about, alright?”

Hugo opened his mouth to say something, but his father was already gone, gone through another door at the side of the Great Hall with the teachers. Hugo sulked for a moment, then joined the rest.

“I didn’t know Dad’s stationed here,” he said angrily. “He didn’t say anything, and neither did Mum!”

“Maybe he’s not always here,” Lily suggested. “Maybe they’re here on shifts or something... it wouldn’t be fair to always be here far from home, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, as all the family’s at Hogwarts, you’d think he’d want to be here more often,” Hugo said, still sulking.

His words only made Lily look unhappier.

Hugo realised all of a sudden he had said something wrong. “Well, your dad can’t really be here, can he?” he said reasonably, forgetting his own confusion at his father’s behaviour. “He’s way too important in the Ministry. He probably has meetings all the time.”

They started climbing a flight of stairs, ignoring the kids in front of them who shouted and pushed all the time. “I wonder what does he do about the goblins,” Lily said thoughtfully.

“I thought it isn’t your dad’s job?” Houda asked.

“Well, it isn’t, that’s what he always says, he says they’re there to go after dark wizards and not goblins, but I don’t see - what’s the difference, anyway?”

“Well,” Colin Creevey, who had been walking in front of them, joined in the conversation at that point, “goblins don’t have wands, do they? Maybe the magic the Aurors are using is only good against wand-magic.”

“No - if that was the case they couldn’t protect the school against them, could they,” Houda said reasonably.

“Yeah, right. Well, I don’t know, maybe they don’t think it’s fair?”

“What?” Hugo started laughing. “Not fair to who, the goblins? C’mon, they’re vicious and evil and they’re coming to attack us!”

“I don’t know,” Colin muttered, “Professor Griphook isn’t evil, he’s just... I dunno, not very nice.”

“‘Not very nice’?” Lily said incredulously. “Colin, you’re - ” She stopped all of a sudden. “Colin?” she asked again, suspiciously.

“What?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Going to my common room,” he said, confused, and pointed at the pushing kids in front - all of whom, now that Aaron paid attention to it, were sporting the Ravenclaw colours - blue and bronze. In the general confusion, they had followed the wrong group.

“I think we should go back,” Aaron suggested, and they all turned away from the Ravenclaw group and started making their way down the stairs, against the torrent of students. The problem now was that they had gone too far from the Great Hall - they had never been in that part of the castle. It was hard enough to remember which corridor led where and make their way to the Great Hall each morning without getting lost - in fact, Aaron had only managed to do so that morning. But now they were in a completely unknown part of the castle. Before, they followed the Ravenclaws without paying attention to where they were going. Now they found out that they had no idea how they got there and how to get back to Gryffindor tower.

Aaron started to regret his earlier suggestion. Even joining the Ravenclaws seemed like the better option now. After five minutes of wandering the corridors, and once - as far as Aaron could tell - they were completely lost, he opened his mouth to suggest they tried to find the Ravenclaws again - at the same time as Hugo suggested the exact same thing, and Lily shot him down.

“And what will we do once the teachers get rid of the goblins? We’ll be stuck in Ravenclaw!”

“Besides,” Houda said quietly, “they’ve disappeared, too.” She was right - when Aaron looked back up the stairs and at the corridor around them, he couldn’t see a living soul. The Ravenclaws had continued on, to wherever it was that they went to.

“We’ll just have to find our own way,” Lily said and started marching in determination in the general direction back. Aaron could see he was not the only one worried: Houda looked a bit unhappy and Hugo looked downright miserable. But then he caught sight of the window, and became worried about something else entirely. “Look,” he said to the others, to draw their attention.

They could see them now, small dark figures on the darker background of the night. Every few seconds, a different part of the grounds lit up - red, green, and yellow, the jets of light flew everywhere, shining a bright light around them, then disappearing again. Every once in a while, a bigger ball of light exploded, and the entire battlefield below became visible. From where the children were standing, it seemed the wand-carrying witches and wizards were outnumbered two to one by the smaller figures.

All of a sudden, they saw a huge blaze of white light over the grounds. Someone screamed. It sounded like the voice of humans, not goblins.

“What if we don’t find the way back?” Hugo asked quietly. “What if we’re lost?”

“We’ll go back to the Great Hall,” Lily said from in front of them in a matter-of-state voice. She was the first to tear her eyes away from the window. “And climb back to Gryffindor Tower from there.”

“Yeah, but what if the goblins make it through?” Houda said, looking even unhappier with the new idea. “What if going down is too dangerous?”

“And even if it isn’t,” Aaron added, “what if the teachers find us and think we’ve ignored McGonagall’s instructions?”

“Oh, stop making yourselves more miserable!” Lily tstomped her foot in disapproval. “We don’t have any choice but to try and get back, and if we can’t do that, then retrace our steps the best way we can - and I doubt the goblins will get in,” she told Houda, “between our teachers and the Aurors, the school’s perfectly - ”

Boom.

The kids jumped as one; at the same time, all of the candles had gone off. In one second, the entire corridor - the entire school - had gone dark.

“You were saying?” Hugo said in the darkness sarcastically, but his voice didn’t sound sarcastic as much as worried.

“We need to get out of here,” Lily said. Aaron wasn’t going to argue with that.

“There was a door here, I saw it just a moment ago,” he gestured to his right, forgetting that his friends couldn’t see him properly in the darkness. “To my right, it was right here.”

Lily, however, was much more occupied with something else. “Does anyone know that charm Flitwick told us about? The light thing?”

“Lumos?” Houda asked, and as she said the word, the tip of her wand glowed in the dark.

“That’s the one,” Lily gave a broad smile and repeated the spell. Aaron and Hugo copied their actions, albeit without the smile. Aaron was much too worried to smile.

There was a door there - a few steps back and to Aaron’s right. “D’you reckon we should go in there?” he whispered. He wasn’t sure why he was whispering. It seemed the right thing to do in the darkness. When he wasn’t speaking, they could hear more shouting from down bellow. It sounded much closer to the castle now.

“I don’t know,” Lily looked unsure for the first time since the beginning of the emergency. She studied the door in doubt.

“I reckon in there is better than out here,” Hugo said. “If the goblins do come in... I mean,” he hurried to add, “we’re right here in the open.”

“Yeah...” Lily was still staring at the door in apprehension.

Houda, however, had regained her confidence in the meantime. Without joining in with the whispered discussion, she walked to the door and opened it. The corridor behind it was just as dark as the one in which they stood, and in the light of their wands, it looked abandoned and full of dust.

“I don’t think anyone’s been here for years,” Hugo whispered in awe.

“That settles it, then,” Lily said and followed Houda in - possibly unhappy that someone else made the decision for her, Aaron thought quietly, but kept that thought strictly to himself. “It’s better here, no one’s been here for years, no one will think of looking for us. We could get out again when everything’s calmed down.”

“How will we know when things have calmed down, exactly?” Hugo muttered, but nonetheless, he walked into the corridor after her. Aaron followed last, and closed the door behind him.

As soon as he did so, he sneezed; a cloud of dust came out of the door and settled all around them. Lily sneezed, too, and he sneezed again. “Come on, let’s look for somewhere with a little less dust, shall we?” Hugo managed before he, too, succumbed to the dust. “I wish I knew how to make that cleaning charm Mum always uses.”

They walked through the unknown corridor, looking for a place that looked a little more civilised - or at least, a little less abandoned, and every once in a while one of them sneezed. They didn’t talk anymore; for some reason, it didn’t feel appropriate, not in this corridor. They shouldn’t have gone in there, they knew. It felt forbidden, even if it were more dangerous out there than in here, and even if they were certain that their teachers would understand their reasonings - well, any teacher other than Professor Malfoy, Aaron thought darkly. The Potions Master was sure to take off a huge amount of points from Gryffindor if he saw them there, no matter the reason.

After a couple of minutes of aimlessly wandering and occasionally sneezing, Lily led them into a room. The door to the room seemed to be less dusty than the others. How could people use that door when the rest of the corridor hadn’t seen a human face for what surely was centuries, Aaron had no idea, but he assumed the answer was something that included ‘magic’. And if that room was less covered in dust than the others, he wasn’t going to be too particular in his doubts.

The room did have less dust than the others. It also had a trapdoor, with a ladder leading down.

Immediately, all thought of goblins and dust and rule-breaking was gone from the minds of the four children. Trapdoors and ladders in the middle of the school? That was exciting and cool, and should be explored at once. And if a hint of a doubt nagged at Aaron’s mind, he dismissed it by pointing out to himself that they had already broken the school’s rules by being in that corridor and in that room in the first place; they might as well have some fun while they were at it.

Unfortunately, the rooms under the trapdoor weren’t a lot more interesting than those above it. They were definitely more peculiar - one room had a wild flock of rabid keys; another had what looked like a graveyard for giant chess pieces. Perhaps this was a storage room for everything Hogwarts never needed in the first place? There wasn’t much sense in those rooms, not any that Aaron could see, at any rate, and then the whole complex ended up with a dead end, a chamber that led nowhere.

It was a rather large chamber, larger than the previous room that had led to it. It was dusty and uninviting, and there was a chill in the air, a chill that was not present in any of the previous rooms.

“Let’s go back,” Hugo whispered urgently.

But Aaron had just noticed something - the room was not completely empty. At the far corner, there stood a mirror. “Why would someone keep a mirror here?” he wondered, and walked towards it. The rest had noticed it now, too, and followed Aaron, although with trepidation.

“I don’t think we should be here,” Houda whispered, too.

Lily, however, was just as intrigued by the mirror. She raced past Aaron towards it, then stood right in front of it.

Aaron waited to see what would happen - perhaps something would come out of the mirror, or it will perform some cool magic trick - but no; it appeared to be simply - a mirror. A very old one, very tall, with an ornate golden frame, but still, just a mirror. Aaron imagined he could see letters etched on the gold, but they didn’t make much sense. Instead, he looked into the mirror - and didn’t see much of anything. Lily was getting in his way. He took one step closer to get a better look and then - the reflection in the mirror changed.

It was still him, and he was still standing there. And he could still see Lily and Houda and Hugo, just as they were now. But there was someone else at his side - his sister, Rachel. He turned around in surprise. There was no one there, no one but Lily and Houda and Hugo. He looked back at the mirror - and there she was again. Rachel.

It was ridiculous to think she could be there. Rachel was sixteen; if she was ever going to receive a letter from Hogwarts, she would have done five years ago. No, Aaron was the only wizard in his family, the only one who was different. He did wish, ever since the day Professor Granger-Weasley appeared on their doorstep two months ago, that he would not be the only one going. As exciting as Hogwarts sounded, it was odd, and a bit awkward, and somewhat sad - that he’d be the only one who knew this world. He had asked Professor Granger-Weasley then, after she told him she was also Muggle-born, even though he felt a bit foolish at asking her. What does it feel like, to be the only wizard in the family?

He felt she was a bit too understanding when she said it was hard at times, but it was worth it.

She was right - he could tell, even after only a week at Hogwarts. It was worth it, even if at times it was lonely and a bit hard. But he really did want someone from his old school to come with him, or someone from home.

It was like the mirror knew that this was what he wanted - someone from his family to share the experience. So it gave him just that, his sister Rachel, there in the mirror. And now, if he looked really close at the reflection, he could see she was a Prefect, just like Lily’s brother; she was sitting in the Gryffindor common room, on the armchairs in front of the fire, and telling jokes with Roxanne Weasley; and there they were, going home on the Hogwarts Express together, and he could see she was telling their parents all about what they learned and Mum and Dad were nodding in understanding and didn’t look confused and worried at all, the way they did the night Professor Granger-Weasley showed up...

It was tempting to just stand there and watch. More tempting than he thought, even if every time he looked behind his shoulder and saw nothing he grew a bit angry. But eventually he had enough. Rachel wasn’t going to show up there. For her, Hogwarts didn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. She would sit her A levels while he sat his exams in subjects like Charms and Transfiguration and that was the way it was going to be.

He looked away from the mirror and decided never to look at it again. He felt sad at that decision, but knew that it had to be done.

Houda seemed just as fascinated with the mirror as he was. Could she see Rachel there as well? he wondered - but that was silly. Houda didn’t know Rachel at all. Maybe she was seeing her own family there as wizards, too. He wanted to ask her, but then thought it wasn’t the best idea - not here, at least. He didn’t want to tell everyone about Rachel. He’d feel stupid to try to explain it - especially to Lily and Hugo.

He’ll ask Houda later, he decided.

“D’you think we should head back?” Lily asked. She obviously wasn’t fascinated with the mirror - maybe it only showed people to Muggle-borns, Aaron wondered. Or maybe she just wasn’t looking at it properly. Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to suggest she took another look - getting out of there was the best idea.

“Yeah, we should leave,” he agreed. “Houda?” he asked tentatively.

Houda looked away from the mirror for a moment. “Maybe...” she said in an odd voice, and then turned to look back at her reflection.

“Oh, come on, the mirror’s not that interesting,” Lily said impatiently.

Aaron, however, thought differently. He stood next to Houda, then nudged her sleeve a bit. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Tell me what you saw in there later?”

Houda looked at the mirror for another moment, then nodded and looked away. She looked sad as she did that, almost mournful. Aaron wasn’t so sure now that talking to her about the mirror would be a good idea.

They started walking towards the end of the chamber. Just as they did that, however, someone burst in - Lily’s Prefect brother, James.

“What are you lot doing here?” he demanded.

They looked at each other in horror. They were caught - and just at the wrong place! It certainly looked bad. Still, they tried to explain the situation.

“We got held up - and we accidentally followed the Ravenclaws - ”

“Yeah, we didn’t realise they weren’t Gryffindors ‘till we saw Colin Creevey, he’s in Ravenclaw, you see - ”

“We were talking about something else, we didn’t see where we were going so we couldn’t know it wasn’t the way to Gryffindor Tower - ”

“And once we realised that we didn’t know where we were!”

“So we went back and then we were lost.”

James shook his head in exasperation. “First years,” he muttered. “Honestly. Come on guys, party’s over - hey! What’s that?”

His change of topic was almost comical. Aaron had to bite his lip not to laugh when he started walking towards Aaron’s direction - he had noticed the mirror.

“It’s just a mirror,” Lily said in an annoyed voice. “Shouldn’t we go?”

“Yeah... just a mo’...” James was now looking at the mirror in confusion. “Mirror, you say?” he asked after a moment or two.

“Yes. We have a couple at home, you’d know if you ever bothered looking at them,” she retorted.

“It’s not a regular mirror, though...”

“What are you talking about?” Lily asked impatiently, but Aaron was now curious. What did James Potter see in the mirror? Whatever it was, Aaron was certain it wasn’t Rachel.

“Hey, d’you remember that picnic we went to before I started Hogwarts?” James asked his sister.

She shrugged. “I guess so. It was in Cornwall, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he stared at the mirror some more, a strange look on his face.

“What did you remember Cornwall again for, anyway? That was ages ago! Come on - are they still fighting out there?”

“What?” James was lost again for a moment, then shrugged and turned to look at his sister. “No, the fight’s over. The goblins ran away. Teddy wanted to go after them but Ron said not to bother.”

“Was Dad here?” Lily asked.

“I don’t know. I guess so, loads of Aurors were here. They’re all gone now, anyway. Come on, it’s after nine o’clock, none of us is supposed to be walking around the corridors at this hour - especially not today. Professor Longbottom would kill me if they catch us.”

They followed James out of the chamber and back to the dust-covered corridor. At the door of the chamber, Aaron stole one last look at the mirror. It was standing there, in its corner, showing nothing but the empty room. He returned his attention forward, and noticed that James Potter was looking back at the mirror as well.

Aaron had the feeling that whoever had put the mirror there, where most students would never find it, had done the right thing.

-X- James made sure that Lily and the rest of the first years were safely in their dormitories before he went back down to the Gryffindor common room. He didn’t want to give them any more ideas - honestly, wandering around the castle after hours when there was a goblin attack going on, how irresponsible could they possibly be?

It was true that he, too, was going to walk around the castle after hours - but at least he was going to do so the responsible way.

Some people might say that what they had done by mistake, he was going to do now on purpose, but James would have disagreed with any such statement. It wasn’t the same thing at all. For one thing, there wasn’t a goblin attack going on right now. For another, he wasn’t going to get lost at Hogwarts - after four years in the castle, he thought he knew it inside out. And lastly, well, there was no way of checking what he wanted to check without leaving the common room after hours.

The room was mercifully abandoned. Only Lysander, James’s best friend and usual partner in crime, was there, a big smile on his face. James had told Lysander all about what Dad had said in McGonagall’s office on the night of the First of September, and they had decided that the next time, they were going together.

This was the next time, of course. The goblin attack was a serious one - the school had almost been breached, Lysander argued once the candles all went out. Had James not noticed at that very moment that his sister and her friends were missing, they would have gone already then, sneaking out through the corridors and trying to listen in and learn what was going on. But James was adamant - Lily barely knew the castle, and the first years didn’t know any magic at all and could get into serious trouble.

But now they were back, safe and sound, and James, still irritated over the stupid mirror - if it even was just a mirror - felt like doing something. And trying to spy on McGonagall and the other teachers - and Ron and Dad, too, if they were there - seemed like the best thing to do.

“I wish I knew how to do a Disillusionment charm,” he complained to Lysander. “If anyone comes by, we’ll be completely out in the open.”

“We’ll just have to be very careful,” Lysander shrugged, and James said “Yeah”, but without much enthusiasm. They left the common room together.

“Where should we go?” Lysander whispered once they were out in the corridor. “Reckon we should go to the Great Hall?”

“Yeah. But not through the main staircase,” James warned. “It’s probably crawling with teachers. I think there’s a - yes!”

James had discovered that particular shortcut the year before, one afternoon when he was trying to avoid Roxanne and the particularly vindictive mood she was in at the time. He had opened the door, thinking he’d find a cupboard to hide in, but instead it had turned out to be a shortcut to the Great Hall - where Roxanne had been waiting for him, furious.

Still, it was always useful to know shortcuts in the castle, and now he was very happy he had learned about its existence. Lysander slipped in behind him, and the two walked down the staircase quietly, occasionally skipping a step or two - until they heard voices.

“They’re here! I think they’re right beyond this wall,” James whispered. Lysander just nodded, and put a finger on his lip, as if to say, ‘hush!’.

They needn’t have bothered. Whoever was behind that wall was shouting, and wouldn’t have heard them in the first place.

“What were you trying to achieve, exactly?” came the shout, but no reply. It reminded James of that time Professor Malfoy caught him in a badly-executed prank and shouted at him for the entire afternoon, just - James had suspected - to hear his own voice.

“These are children here! Children! I don’t care what you think about us, they have done nothing to you! We don’t attack your children, do we?”

Someone muttered something in response. James couldn’t hear what they said - but it didn’t sound very much like English.

“What was that?” Apparently, the person on the other side of the wall couldn’t understand it, either.

“Nothing,” said a sullen voice in English, then followed by a word in what James could now recognise as Gobbledegook. The Aurors had caught a goblin!

Whatever it was that the goblin had said, it had angered the man on the other side of the wall. “You little piece of - ”

“Seamus!” a new voice was heard - Dad’s!

James exchanged glances with Lysander in the semi-darkness of their cupboard-like staircase. At last, maybe they’ll hear something really good.

The captive goblin seemed to think Dad’s appearance was good news, too, as he started speaking in Gobbledegook. However, he didn’t finish two sentences before Dad stopped him.

“We’ll conduct this in English, please,” he said in a voice that was calm, but James had known it well enough to know he was in fact very, very angry. “Were you a part of the attack?”

“No,” the goblin said in his sulky voice.

“What were you doing here, then?”

The goblin muttered something incomprehensible.

“Wanted to stick around and see if they succeed? What was the point of the attack?”

“What do you think?” the goblin’s voice was now full of venom.

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you.”

“The sword.”

There was a pause, and James wished he could see what was going on beyond the wall - especially when his father spoke next, and did so in Gobbledegook. The exchange in Gobbledegook lasted much longer, and the goblin seemed much happier to talk in his own tongue.

At last, Dad said again, “You’re free to go.”

“Harry!” said the other man - Seamus. “Need I remind you that they almost got into the school and - ”

“I’m quite aware of that, Seamus,” Dad sounded tired all of a sudden. “Ginny and the kids are all here, too.”

Seamus didn’t speak again. James and Lysander could hear movement from the other side of the wall - people were shuffling around. Perhaps Dad was already gone, but no -

“I’ll come back later, Seamus. Good work, all of you. I just want to see that no one’s - ”

There was a pause. James thought that perhaps Dad had already left the Great Hall, but the next thing he knew, the wall right in front of them became a door and opened up, to reveal his father, extremely angry. He was clutching his wand with one hand, an old piece of parchment in the other, and on his face there was none of the amusement and exasperation of the week before. This time, Dad was furious, his nostrils flaring, and James half imagined fire coming out of his eyes.

“Out,” he said.

James got out first, Lysander behind him. James shifted uncomfortably on his feet. Dad wasn’t a teacher, so technically he couldn’t give him detention, but James had no doubt he was going to pay dearly for this one. They looked around for a moment - there were several Aurors there, including Teddy and Ron, and a man with sandy hair who stood close to Dad - he must have been the Seamus who had started questioning the goblin. There were teachers, too - Professor Malfoy and Professor Griphook were standing and talking quietly behind one of the school tables. But James’s glance returned to his father, who was still standing there in front of him, and still very much furious.

“Explain yourselves,” Dad said.

James lifted his head to look at him, and his heart sank. Behind Dad, Professor Longbottom showed up. They were definitely getting detention for that one.

“Well, we wanted to see - we wanted to know what’s going on,” he said, and couldn’t believe such a pathetic explanation was coming out of his mouth.

“The school is under attack, and you - as a Prefect - think it’s the time to go wandering about to satisfy your curiosity?”

“C’mon, Dad, we knew the fighting was over and that everything’s alright! It’s not like we were going about when the fighting’s still going on! We’re not completely irresponsible!”

“Oh, yes,” Dad repeated sarcastically. “Not completely irresponsible.”

Next to James, Lysander was giving him the shove in the ribs that meant, ‘it would be less painful if you just shut up’. James decided to take the advice to heart and shut up promptly.

“Twenty points from Gryffindor,” Professor Longbottom said quietly, “each.”

James and Lysander groaned. Forty points! They knew better than to complain - especially when Dad was still around - but still it felt like an overreaction. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone’s got hurt! Still, James allowed himself to hope, perhaps with so many points taken, they would be spared detention? He kept that hope for exactly another second, until Professor Longbottom opened his mouth again.

“And you will both serve detention. There is nothing that excuses a student wandering about the school after hours, and especially not during an emergency. We’re relying on our Prefects to set a good example, James, not show the rest of the students what they shouldn’t do.”

“Yes, sir,” they both chanted resentfully.

“Off to bed with you. Don’t take any... shortcuts.”

With a sigh, James and Lysander walked out of the Great Hall. At the entrance, James caught sight of the Great Hall again. Dad and Professor Longbottom didn’t seem that angry anymore - Professor Longbottom said something quietly to Dad, and they both smiled broadly. But then Dad noticed he was still there and his face turned serious at once. James turned back and started climbing the stairs towards Gryffindor Tower resentfully.

“I wonder how they knew we were there,” he said. Lysander just shrugged.

-X- “What are you doing?” Houda asked Aaron.

According to their schedule, they were supposed to have Defence Against the Dark Arts right now. Seeing as Professor McGonagall didn’t get the chance yet to find them a teacher, Aaron was spending the hour by peering through Magic Britain in the 20th Century. He raised the book to show her.

“Why are you looking at this book? We’re don’t have History of Magic until Thursday!”

“Yeah, but Binns isn’t explaining about the goblins’ connection to the War anyway,” he said, “and there’s so much more here than Ministry reforms.” Realisation dawned on her, and she sat down next to him to join him.

All the kids from wizarding families took the War for granted, but they didn’t seem to know too much. Other than Professor Binns’ ongoing classes about Ministry reforms, Houda and Aaron managed to learn precious little about the War and how it was related to the goblins. As far as the explanations they got from their classmates went, twenty years ago Slytherin House had refused to accept Muggle-born kids so Lily’s father had to kill the evil wizard Voldemort, whose name half the kids in the school still refused to say. Or something like that. The details were more than a bit hazy, and became hazier the further they tried to question their classmates. At the end, both of them had come to the same conclusion - their friends just didn’t know.

Lily didn’t seem to care much what her father did during the war, while Hugo always shrugged it off; when Aaron had pointed out that there was no reason for Lily’s dad to kill an evil wizard because of Slytherin house, Lily stopped for a moment to think, and then said, “I think Voldemort wanted to take over the school? He was definitely in Slytherin, anyway, everyone knows all the really bad wizards were always in Slytherin,” and Hugo joined in, saying, “Yeah, I think Mum said once that he wanted everyone to be in Slytherin - so there you go.”

So all they knew for certain after a week and a half was that Lily’s dad had defeated the evil wizard and that Professor Malfoy, their Potions Master and head of Slytherin house, was on the wrong side of the War - that much everyone knew, and took much delight in pointing out.

Out of frustration, Aaron had started going through his school books, with the hope that they could fill in the blanks that the rest of the children never could. Last night, he had managed to figure out that the current war with the goblins had started not long after the end of the War, and showed his findings with a sense of achievement to his friends. Lily had wrinkled her forehead and said that she didn’t think the two were related, because “What would the goblins have to do with Voldemort? That’s just coincidence.” Hugo looked more thoughtful, but then got distracted by the game of Exploding Snap that went on in the common room between Roxanne Weasley and Alice Longbottom.

Only Aaron and Houda were still interested - after all, they couldn’t ask their parents for an explanation. If they ever wanted to actually understand what had taken place back then, there were two options: either they asked one of the teachers who had fought in the War, or they went through their history books. The way Houda explained it to Aaron, books wouldn’t turn out to have fought on the wrong side, and it wasn’t awkward to ask them, so until that resource proved itself useless, they decided to try their luck with books.

“Where do you think to start?” Houda asked in an interested voice.

“Well, I started reading the last chapter, about the actual war, but they assume you’ve already read the previous chapters so it doesn’t make much sense,” he frowned at the book. “I was just about to check the - ”

“What are you doing here?” Lily burst into the common room through the portrait hall.

“Hi, Lily!” Houda said brightly. “We thought to read a bit about - ”

“We’re late for class!”

Houda and Aaron looked at Lily in alarm. “Late?” Houda said. “But it’s supposed to be Defence Against the Dark Arts now!”

“They found a teacher,” Lily said, finally catching her breath. “Professor Longbottom said so right after Herbology - you must have already left...”

“Yeah, we left early,” Aaron said and shoved the History book into his bag. “Come on, then - we’re late!”

They rushed out of the common room and into the already-empty corridors. “Who is it, did he say?”

“No - I guess it must be one of the old teachers, though? McGonagall probably asked someone back from retirement. That’s what James said they did when Hagrid first retired, before they found Mrs - Professor Scamander.”

“I guess so,” Houda said. She thought of asking whether Lily knew who these old teachers were - and whether they were likely to forgive kids being late for their first lesson; last year she had ended in detention on the first week of school because she couldn’t find the maths classroom, and the teacher was an old, severe woman who called all of her explanations ‘excuses’. She did not care to repeat that experience, not in her second week in a new school and not with such an important subject as Defence Against the Dark Arts.

Unfortunately, she never got round to asking her questions - on the second floor corridor, as they changed from one staircase to the other, they ran into Peeves, who was holding a suit of armour up in the air.

“Oh, no,” Aaron groaned. He had already turned up late for Transfiguration on Monday because he had to escape Peeves; he, too, did not want to repeat the experience. Professor Granger-Weasley didn’t give him detention that day, but she did impress on him - and on the rest of the class - that running into Peeves was not a good enough excuse to be late.

“Oooh, ickle Firsties,” Peeves said with a gleam in his eyes. The three of them looked at each other in horror. There’d be no escaping the poltergeist now.

“Go away, Peeves,” Lily tried, but it was the wrong thing to say. Peeves looked at her in an unfriendly, malevolent way.

“But I’m holding this armour - do you want to hold it?” he asked and a gave them a wide smile. The next moment, they were running wildly in the other direction, as the suit of armour crashed behind them.

“I can’t believe - we could have been hurt - this isn’t funny!” Aaron said indignantly.

“It’s just Peeves, come on, we need to find a new staircase,” Lily said, and they rushed all the way to the other side of the corridor, where a different staircase could take them to the first floor and the Defence classroom. To their horror, that was where they met the old caretaker, Mr Filch.

They had heard from the older kids already that Filch had never been a good wizard, and wasn’t fond of students. These days, he was also suffering from a bad leg, a worse temper, and allergies to the fur of his new cat, Mrs Norris. In short, Mr Filch had frightened them all half to death every time they saw him.

“What are you doing here?” he growled at them now.

“We were just going to class, sir,” Aaron tried, hoping beyond hope they had caught Mr Filch on a good day.

Of course, he was wrong.

“Classes started ten minutes ago,” Mr Filch looked at them angrily.

“I know - we ran into Peeves, he threw a suit of armour at us and - ”

Unwittingly, Aaron had said the magic words. “Peeves?” Filch’s eyes were now filled with the same malevolence as Peeves’s had before. “Throwing things around? Oh, I’ll show - ” Sneeze! Filch walked too close to his cat and started sneezing furiously.

“Bless you,” Lily muttered, looking at him in fascination mixed with terror.

“I’ll show him!” Filch cried his battle cry again and rushed towards the other end of the corridor. Breathing with relief, the three ran down the stairs, straight into the first floor, and opened the door of the classroom nervously.

“I’m sorry we’re late, we didn’t know classes had started and then we ran into Peeves,” Aaron and Houda started at the same time.

“It’s quite alright,” said their teacher pleasantly. “Take your seats, please.”

Lily didn’t say anything - she just stared at their teacher for a moment longer in complete surprise, then her face turned as red as her hair. Houda had to nudge her towards on of the three unoccupied seats at the back of the class. She waited until they were seated and taking out their books to explain it to Aaron. “But that’s Lily’s dad!” she whispered. “That’s Harry Potter!”

Chapter 4: Adventures in Hogwarts

News always travelled fast around Hogwarts - but never this fast. By lunch, it seemed that the entire school had heard that Harry Potter had come to teach Defence. During dinner, everyone was eyeing the teachers’ table, where Harry Potter was deep in conversation with Professor Granger-Weasley. And when they were back at the common room, no one was discussing anything else but what did that mean.

“Look, the head of the Auror Office doesn’t just drop everything and come to teach at Hogwarts,” Lysander Scamander insisted. “No matter how hard it is to find a teacher.”

“I know what you’re saying,” said Alice Longbottom, a sixth-year and Professor Longbottom’s daughter. “And you’re being stupid. The goblins are not going to attack Hogwarts again. I don’t believe the teachers think that.”

James and Lysander exchanged looks. They had kept to themselves what they had overheard the night of the attack - the goblins had attacked because of a sword, and if that sword was here at Hogwarts, they both were convinced that they were very likely to attack again. As far as James was concerned, his father coming to teach was the final confirmation.

“Besides, I thought the Auror Office wasn’t involved in the war with the goblins?” asked a mousy haired second year old who was allowed, for a change, to listen in on the older kids - tonight, no one cared who participated in the conversation.

“That’s not a part of the war, though,” Roxanne Weasley gave her opinion, and everyone fell silent and listened to what she had to say. “Defending us. There were already Aurors at Hogsmeade Station, weren’t there? And Aurors on the way to school, too - ”

“Yeah, and Ron and Teddy are here a lot, they were here even before the attack,” James Potter confirmed. “The Aurors already take part in defending the school against the goblins.”

“That’s a fine line, though, isn’t it,” Rose said thoughtfully. “Not taking a part in the war and keeping a permanent Auror presence here.”

“Well they can’t just sit back and let the goblins attack us, now, can they?” Al retorted.

“I’m just saying. It’s a fine line between being there and expecting an attack and going to find them and stop it before it happens.”

Privately, James agreed with Rose, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it out loud. He kept his guesses and theories to his more private discussions with Lysander - and with Colleen and Lorcan.

Discussing these things with the other kids felt just as frustration as talking to Dad. As Harry Potter’s eldest son - and a Prefect - no one believed him when he told them, time and again, that he didn’t know more than they did, and that his father had not given him any more information. “Yeah,” he said sarcastically for the third time that evening after a question from a sixth-year, “Dad tells me all about what’s going on in the Auror Office. Come on, how would I know?!” But the rest of the kids weren’t convinced, especially once the information that he had been in the Great Hall right after the attack somehow made its way to the rest of the students.

Lily in particular seemed angry with him over that piece of information. “You left the common room that night?” she stood above him, all 140 centimetres of her, glaring much like Mum did when she was very angry, and James couldn’t help but cower a bit from his younger sister. “You hypocrite! After what you told me and the others?!”

“That’s different!” he tried to defend himself, although he knew it was useless.

“Oh, yeah? How is it different, exactly?” she didn’t back down.

“Well, I’m older! And I’m a Prefect!”

“And now you’re an older Prefect in detention,” she said coldly and went to sit with her friends. She ignored him for the rest of the evening.

Unfortunately, she was right about that bit - and what was even worse, he was told by Professor Longbottom the next day that he would serve his detention that evening - and with his father, not with Professor Longbottom. James suspected that this was by Dad’s request, and his resentment over the events of that day just grew.

When he and Lysander stepped into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom that evening, they were surprised to see they weren’t the only ones there. Already sat were Al - and Scorpius Malfoy, doing lines and throwing dirty looks at each other every once in a while, both sporting black eyes. Scorpius Malfoy had a miserable-looking potted plant on his desk to boot.

Dad only nodded when they walked in, and assigned them lines. As far as punishments went, that was rather painless and uninspired, even if the lines were School rules are not there to be ignored.

“What did you do this time?” James whispered to Al when Dad was deep into whatever it was he was reading.

Al didn’t respond, but kept on writing his lines sullenly.

“Listen, you have to stop fighting Malfoy, I told you - ”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk!” Al retorted, slightly too loud - Dad’s eyes left the parchment he was looking at and stared at the two of them.

“You’re supposed to serve your detention in silence, Al,” he said. “I’d rather not add you more lines.”

Al scowled and gave James his most foul look. From his other side, Scorpius Malfoy sniggered for a moment. Dad raised his eyes a second time, this time to look at Malfoy, but said nothing, and Malfoy promptly returned to his own parchment. After another moment had passed, Dad’s returned to his own parchment.

It was a long and depressing detention, and the silence was starting to get on James’s nerves. At long last, Dad seemed to think they had enough. “I hope the lesson’s been learned, James, Lysander,” he said quietly before he picked up their parchment and let them go.

“Yes, sir,” James looked at him in resentment, and picked up his things.

His foul mood had improved slightly when he left the classroom, as Colleen was waiting for him outside the door. Lysander opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then just smirked and told James he’d see him in the common room.

“What did he make you do?” Colleen asked in a sympathetic voice.

“Just lines,” James kicked around. “It’s so unfair!”

“Well,” she raised an eyebrow, “you were walking around after hours during a goblin attack...”

“I don’t need you to remind me, I just had Dad and his ‘school rules are not to be ignored’ for three whole hours. Just because he was perfect and never broke any rules when he went to Hogwarts doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world if you do. It’s not like we were in danger or something.”

“He’s just worried about you,” she said wisely. “Fathers are like that - my dad really panicked last year when he heard I was in Hogsmeade during the attack, even after I told him it was no big deal. And your father sees really dangerous things every day, he’s bound to be a bit paranoid.”

“Yeah, I guess,” James said, still unconvinced.

“Come on, stop sulking. You’ve got the coolest dad in the world and you know it.”

James didn’t answer.

The problem was that Colleen wasn’t the only person who took that attitude. Defence Against the Dark Arts classes became one of those classes where no one was talking - everyone was paying as much attention as possible, and even Lysander ignored most of James’s attempts to get his attention during classes. It made sense, of course - classes with Dad were the coolest Defence lessons they ever had.

Dad had opened their first lesson, which was the very next day, by addressing some of the rumours that were running around the school ever since the goblins attacked. The goblins weren’t going to go after kids, he said, “But that’s no reason for you not to know how to defend yourselves.”

“Sir, are you going to teach us how to defend ourselves against goblins, or just against the dark arts?” Katie Robinson asked. “Because no one practises the Dark Arts anymore and - ”

“I’m afraid there are plenty of wizards who practise the Dark Arts still, Katie,” he answered. “And it’s good to know how to defend yourselves against curses even if the person who’s casting them isn’t a dark wizard. But yes - a lot of these things could help you against any sort of magical attack, not just against Dark magic.”

He then continued to show them a useful shield spell which, he said, could help against minor curses and more serious types of magical attack. They then split into pairs to practise, with one student trying to Disarm the other, who was to cast the shield, only for Dad to notice half of them didn’t know how to Disarm properly and then they spent the second half of the class practising that.

If James thought the general appreciation of his classmates was bad enough, it was nothing compared to the general interest over lunch, right after the seventh-years first Defence N.E.W.T.s class.

“Uncle Harry is the coolest teacher in the world,” Roxanne announced as soon as she sat down the Gryffindor table. He scowled in response.

“What’s with him?” Priyanka Finnigan asked.

“He’s pissed off because everyone thinks Professor Potter is cool and he’s too busy being mad about being given lines,” Lysander, the traitor, summed up the situation way too accurately to James’s liking.

“What would you think if he was your dad?” he said, still grumpy.

“Yeah, I guess,” Roxanne conceded, “but we’ve never had a lesson like that. Ever. I mean, I thought Professor Cattermole knew things, but Harry, the things he’s seen! Maybe I should be an Auror after Hogwarts, too,” she wondered to herself.

She wasn’t the only one - half the school seemed to consider the idea of a career as Aurors following a class with Dad. James was soon getting tired from the surprise when he was asked and announced that no, he most certainly did not want to be an Auror.

-X- Lily was furious with James. She was looking at her brother and the rest from the other side of the table, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.

“Who d’you want to kill, Lily?” Hugo joked next to her.

“James!” she said, and he gave a terrified look - he had already been on the bad side of one of her rants. She didn’t notice, though. She was too busy being angry with James.

“Come on, stop getting so upset over him,” said Aaron, who had not yet earned himself an angry outburst from Lily and therefore didn’t quite understand what he was getting himself into. “You know what you need? You need a distraction. Something cool to do to get your mind off James,” he said.

Hugo opened his mouth - perhaps to point out that this might not have been the best of suggestions - but Lily had already seized up on Aaron’s words.

“That’s right. You know what we need - our own adventure!” she said brightly.

“What did you have in mind?” Houda asked. She was smiling a gleeful smile at the words - even if her smile was also slightly worried.

Aaron, on the other hand, was not trying to hide that as far as he was concerned, her words were a reason to worry. “I’m not sure that’s what I meant,” he tried to say, but Lily ignored him.

“No, that’s exactly what we need. An adventure. To have some fun. Come on - we’re at Hogwarts, right? The best place in the world for an adventure! And I got just the thing. I want to go see the centaurs in the forest!”

Her three friends looked at each other in silence for a moment.

“Er, Lily?” Hugo was the first to speak - upon the urging of the other two, who knew Lily for a much shorter period of time and weren’t quite certain how to handle her. “There are no centaurs in Hogwarts.”

“Of course there are! Professor Firenze is a centaur, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, but... he’s the only one.”

Lily sniffed. “Mum told me there’s a herd of centaurs in the forest.”

Hugo shifted uncomfortably. That was an even worse sign. “I think what she meant was that there used to be a herd of centaurs in the forest. They’re fighting alongside the goblins, I don’t think McGonagall would have allowed them to stay here if they went against the wizards!”

“But Professor Firenze is still teaching! And there’s even Professor Griphook, so who knows what Professor McGonagall is thinking.”

The other three looked at each other in growing misery. “Okay, but let’s say there are centaurs here... Lily... we’re not allowed in the forest. McGonagall said so. Out of bounds, she said.”

“It’s a school. They won’t be keeping something too dangerous inside a school, would they?” Lily insisted.

“I don’t know,” Hugo said quietly. “I’d say centaurs are pretty dangerous.”

But Lily was not to be deterred. Secretly, Hugo thought she wasn’t as much after an adventure as she was after showing James she was capable of having an adventure. As if there was a chance that the next time James went on an interesting rule-breaking adventure, he’d take her with him. Hugo thought the whole idea was absurd - James had his own friends, and was unlikely to want to take Lily anywhere as it were.

He said as much to Lily when they were walking towards their afternoon Potions class. “Lily,” he said quietly, “I’ll go with you to the forest if you want to, but are you sure you’re not doing it just to show James?”

“So what if I am?” she asked and her nostrils flared. Another bad sign, Hugo knew, but in five minutes their potions class would start, and he was sitting next to Aaron, so he’d be far enough from Lily’s wrath. It also helped that she was slightly intimidated by Professor Malfoy.

“Look, I know you and James are really close and everything, and that whenever he came home from Hogwarts he spent a lot of time with you, but... I mean, we’re all at Hogwarts now. He’s not going to want to spend his time with his little sister when his friends are here.”

Lily stopped walking, and was now eyeing him angrily with her arms crossed.

“Just thought I should say that,” he mumbled.

“Well, this has nothing to do with that,” she said.

“Let’s get going, anyway,” Aaron said behind them. Hugo wondered whether he managed to catch some of the exchange, but whether he did or didn’t, he had enough sense in him not to say a word. “The class is about to start, and I really don’t fancy being late to Potions.”

“You know, I don’t think I feel like going to Potions today,” Lily declared all of a sudden.

“W- What?!” three voices asked at the same time. Skiving off? She couldn’t possibly be that angry, Hugo thought desperately. She couldn’t.

She was. “Yeah. I think I’ll go looking for those centaurs.”

“Er... can’t we do that... after class?” Aaron asked weakly.

“It’s double potions. Any of you feeling up to facing Professor Malfoy for two whole hours?”

She had a point, of course - double Potions was a nightmare for any Gryffindor, and to Lily in particular. Professor Malfoy wasn’t very fond of her - and Hugo was willing to bet it was because of her father. It was no secret Harry and Professor Malfoy had a great dislike for one another. For all it was worth, Hugo’s Mum and Dad disliked Professor Malfoy greatly, and Dad had, on more than one occasion, said quite nasty things about him, before Mum realised he and Rose were in the room and shushed him. And Professor Malfoy didn’t seem to like Hugo that much, either. But with Lily... it was a disaster.

Still, though... skiving? They were bound to get caught. Professor Malfoy was bound to notice they didn’t show up to class. Hugo looked at Houda, begging for help. He could see she was reluctant to go with it herself. Aaron looked downright terrified.

They were too late. Lily had already made up her mind, and was now marching away from the stairs that led to the dungeons, to their Potions classroom.

“Lily - wait!” Hugo said, and rushed after her - and that decided it, really. Aaron and Houda came after him, and so the four Gryffindors were going to miss today’s Potions class.

Lily only stopped her resolute march once she was through the doors and outside of the castle. It was a beautiful day outside, a brilliant, warm day of autumn right before winter took over, and Hugo couldn’t help but think that walking into the forest was a much better way of spending it than inside the cold and damp Potions dungeons. Or, rather, walking across the great lawns was a better way of spending the day. The forest looked just as dreary and uninviting as the Potions classroom, albeit lacking in Professor Malfoy.

“Are we sure we want to do this?” Houda asked nervously behind them.

Now, after the bell rang and well outside the castle, Lily looked far less reassured of her idea than she did inside the castle. From here, the forest was very much real. All of a sudden, Hugo remembered that Rose had said once that there were scary creatures inside the forest - not centaurs, but werewolves, and Thestrals, and perhaps... worse stuff. The forest looked wild, uninviting and cold. There could be anything in there.

“Hagrid’s always going in there,” Lily said, and her voice quivered.

“Yeah, but Hagrid’s half-giant,” Hugo muttered. “He’s not afraid of... werewolves,” he ended with the first creature that came to his mind.

“But we shouldn’t be, either,” Houda said all of a sudden. “I mean, obviously, we should, but not now. I mean, it’s not a full moon now, is it? Or...” she stopped, as if she a terrible thought entered her mind. “Or did the Muggles get it all wrong and werewolves turn into wolves whenever they please?”

“No, no,” Lily reassured her, and as she did that, she sounded a lot happier herself. “Werewolves are only dangerous when the full moon’s out. We should be fine.” With that, and without looking back, she resumed her march towards the forest.

Perhaps she was afraid that if she didn’t, she’d never start. Hugo definitely felt that way, and was glad he had Lily to follow. They soon walked side by side towards the threatening woods.

“I don’t think we should walk through Hagrid’s cabin, though,” Hugo said, half-whispering, even though he wasn’t sure why he was whispering. “Someone could see us.”

“Yeah, we should go around,” Houda agreed, also in a whisper.

They changed direction. Instead of walking towards Hagrid’s, they were now walking in the other direction, towards the War memorial monument and the white tomb. They would approach the forest from the lake.

Houda stopped for a moment next to the tomb. She had never seen it up close before.

“It’s an old Hogwarts headmaster,” Lily told her.

“Ew - are all of them buried here?” Houda asked, looking suspiciously at the tomb.

“No, just him. I think. He died during the War, - he was Dad’s teacher. Al’s named after him, see? Albus Dumbledore. Well,” Lily stopped as she looked at the name that was etched on the tombstone, “Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.”

“He’s got too many names,” was Houda’s verdict, and the four moved forward.

“Wasn’t it Professor Snape who died during the War, though?” Hugo mused, looking at the name on the tomb. Surely they got something wrong?

“Oh, I don’t know,” Lily shrugged. “Does it matter? Al’s named after him, too, anyway. Maybe they both died during the War. Come on.”

They found an old trail that led into the forest. It didn’t look used - whatever creature that had broken it was long gone, Hugo thought. Maybe it was centaurs. Maybe not.

Aaron had the same thought. “What happens if we do run into centaurs?” he asked nervously. “You said they were with the goblins.”

“Oh, they won’t do anything to us,” Lily dismissed his words. “They don’t touch children. I don’t think goblins do, either, really.”

“They attacked the school,” Aaron pointed out.

“But who says they wanted to kill students? Maybe they wanted to attack the teachers? Or maybe they wanted to steal something - hey, what if they wanted to steal that mirror?” she asked all of a sudden.

“What, the mirror we found?” Aaron asked loudly. Hugo looked at him sharply. This was not the first time Aaron had brought up that mirror, and whenever he had talked about it, he sounded... weird. Hugo didn’t get a chance to see into the mirror itself, but the more Aaron seemed preoccupied with it - and the more he refused to say what he saw in there - the more curious Hugo had become.

Lily, however, didn’t seem to have noticed Aaron’s reaction to the mirror. “Yeah. It looked almost hidden there, you know? All those chambers, in a completely abandoned part of the castle. Maybe it was put there so that the goblins wouldn’t find it?”

“It had a lot of rubbish all around it,” Hugo pointed out. “I thought it was there with all the rubbish. ‘Cause no one wants it.”

“No,” Aaron interfered. “I don’t think the owner wanted to get rid of it. They definitely tried to hide it.”

“Yeah, they must be hiding it from the goblins!”

Lily and Aaron were excited by their theory, and Hugo didn’t have the heart to point out the many faults it had. He looked around instead, looking for something else to say - and only then did he realise how far they had ventured into the forest. Everything was dark around them, even though it was only noon.

“Er,” he said. Now he was very unhappy that he didn’t continue talking to the two. They might have been oblivious to the change in scenery, but at least they were company.

The other three stopped as well and looked around. They looked just as worried as he felt. “Lumos,” Houda whispered quietly, and the tip of her wand lit up and cast a small light around them. It just made the rest of the forest look eerie.

“Where are we?” Aaron asked. No one’s answered - none of them knew the forest.

“Maybe we should turn back,” Houda said after a moment’s silence.

“I want to see the centaurs,” Lily said, but didn’t sound particularly convinced.

“I don’t think there are any centaurs here, Lily,” Houda answered in a whisper. The forest seemed to close in on them, even though they weren’t moving further in.

“Do you think they will come if we call?” Lily whispered back.

“I don’t know...”

“Maybe we should try,” Hugo said absently - and immediately regretted it, as Lily took the suggestion to heart.

“Oi! Centaurs!” she called. Her voice was amplified by the forest, echoing around them, and, compared to their whispers, sounded even louder than it really was.

No one replied. The trees bustled lightly in the wind, but that was the only noise around them - except for their own nervous breaths.

Aaron seemed to take courage from the silence. “Oi!” he cried, somewhat louder than Lily. “Centaurs!”

“Yes?” they heard a voice behind them.

Hugo thought his heart would burst out of his chest - it was thumping so fast that he almost felt dizzy. Next to him, Lily jumped what must have been a whole foot in the air. Aaron whimpered lightly. Houda, on the other hand, was so fascinating by the centaur that had creeped behind them - a real, living centaur! - that she forgot to be scared.

“Hello,” she said brightly, although her voice shook a little. Fear was not completely forgotten by her, then. Her curiosity was just stronger.

“Who are you?” the centaur asked in a strange voice.

Now that Hugo’s heart was slowly returning to its regular speed, he could give the centaur a better look. His hair was white - if it could be called hair. More like ‘coat’, Hugo thought. He had shocking blue eyes, and an interested - if not very kind - expression.

“We’re students,” Houda said. “From the school.”

“Surely you have been told that students are not allowed in the forest?” the centaur enquired.

“We... wanted to see... well, centaurs,” Lily had found her voice at last.

“I see,” the centaur nodded. “I am afraid to say that I am the only centaur left in the school’s grounds,” he said gravely. “And now that you have seen me, I must escort you back to the castle.”

“Escort us? Back?” Hugo asked in a horrified voice. “Maybe we could go there ourselves?”

“I am afraid I cannot allow that,” the centaur said, almost sadly. “As a teacher in the school, I feel I must inform your Head of House of your transgression.”

The four of them looked at each other in horror. This was not going to end well.

All of a sudden, the thought came to Hugo that he would have liked it if the forest had all kinds of interesting creatures. The kind of creatures that were not welcomed inside the school.

-X- It was the afternoon Care for Magical Creatures class with the Ravenclaws, and James was still complaining to Colleen about his father. “Look,” he said to Colleen, while she just rolled her eyes at him, “I get it that everyone thinks it’s so cool, especially when they hear Dad’s stories and all that, but someone should tell them that it involves people from the Ministry showing up in the middle of the night and missing all the holidays and stuff like that, too.”

He wasn’t worried that Professor Scamander would notice them talking. Care for Magical Creatures was perfect to have all the important conversations - Professor Scamander was usually too busy explaining things, or they were outside, like now, each doing their own thing.

“I think that’s just your dad though, not all Aurors,” Colleen said. “I don’t remember anyone showing up in my house at the middle of the night.”

“Maybe,” he said. He thought about continuing the discussion, but at that very moment, something else had caught his eye - out of the forest came Firenze, the Divination teacher, and behind him - Lily, Hugo, Houda Durlsey, and their first year friend, Aaron. “What the...” he said and pointed the first years to Colleen. She looked at them in similar apprehension.

“What were they doing inside the forest?” she asked, incredulous.

“Why aren’t they in class?” he asked. What was Lily thinking she was doing?

They kept on watching the small procession until the centaur and the four children went into the castle and out of sight. James could just see Professor Longbottom - he had been on the other end of his quiet disappointment too many times. Or, considering they went into the forest, that may actually be one of the rare occasions for his explosive rage, which was downright terrifying. Really, what were they thinking? James hadn’t dared going into the forest until well into his third year! And when both Mum and Dad were teaching this year... Mental, these kids were. Mental.

“I’ll have to talk to Lily,” he said.

“Yeah, you should,” Colleen gave him a meaningful look.

“If she’ll talk to me! I think she’s still angry about the other night,” he pointed out. “Hey - d’you think that’s why she did it? Wanted an adventure of her own?”

“Maybe,” Colleen shrugged, and then smiled. “Speaking of adventures - I got something very exciting to tell you.” She threw a look at Professor Scamander, who was too busy pointing out the similarities between the bowtruckles they were supposed to study and a mythological creature called a Nargle, and lowered her voice. “Lorcan reckons he found a secret passageway out of the castle.”

“Really?” James said in a slightly loud voice, then returned to whispering. “Really?”

“Yeah. He says there’s a statue on the third floor, the one of the one-eyed witch, you know that one?”

“Yeah...”

“Well, he says he tried the Concealment charm Professor Scamander taught him during the holiday around it and as it turns out - there’s something there!”

Lorcan and Lysander, who already knew all about Nargles, joined in with the whispered conversation. “I just did it for practice,” he said, “I didn’t expect anything to show up, but there it was. And then I remembered about this story Mum told us once, about how there’s a passageway from somewhere on that floor to Hogsmeade - ”

“Yeah,” Lysander joined in, “because during the War they couldn’t use it because it was guarded, that’s what she said.”

“So I think that’s the entrance. Now we just need to figure out a way to get it to open.”

“Wicked,” James whispered with a smile on his face. Finding a secret passageway out of Hogwarts was just the kind of thing he needed to cheer himself up after what had already proven to be a miserable week. “Let’s meet up after dinner there and try to figure out how to get it to open.”

If it were up to James, he would have wolfed down dinner in five minutes and then rushed to the third floor. Lysander, however, flatly refused to give up the prospect of treacle tart and claimed, quite reasonably, that the statue and the corridor would still be there in half an hour. James wasn’t completely sure his sanity would stick around for that long, but he resorted to staring at Lysander, picking at his food, and reminding his little brother about the open position on the Quidditch team. Al’s mane of messy jet black hair was visible a few seats down the table, so after he had his share of staring at Lysander miserably, James got up and tapped on his shoulder

Al jumped in surprise, but scowled when he saw it was James “What d’you want?” he asked in an annoyed voice.

“Oi, no need to be rude,” James chastised his brother. “Just wanted to tell you Roxanne is conducting tryouts on Friday.”

“So?”

“So, Terry Bones graduated last year, didn’t he?”

Al gave him a blank stare.

“The Seeker position is open, you numpty! Honestly, maybe we don’t want you as a Seeker if you’re this slow. Anyway, tryouts are Friday at five.”

“Thanks,” Al said and started chewing his dinner again. James stared at him for a moment, puzzled. Sometimes it felt as if Al didn’t even want to be in the team, what with the weird way he broke his leg last year right before tryouts, and now, acting as if he didn’t understand what James was talking about.

He shrugged it off. The last thing he had time for was his brother’s odd moods. He returned to his seat and stared at Lysander eating some more.

After the longest thirty minutes of his life, Lysander finally declared himself done, and James jumped to his feet. On their way out, they caught the eyes of Lorcan and Colleen over at the Ravenclaw table and nodded slightly. Time to have some fun.

Fun - or frustration, as they soon discovered. Lorcan had tried again the spell and it turned out that there was, indeed, something there, right under the statue, but whatever they did, they couldn’t find out how open the statue without completely destroying it. “And let’s admit it,” Lorcan sighed, “if we blast open the statue, it would be a pretty poor secret passage.”

“I wish your Mum would have told you how to open the damn thing,” James kicked around in frustration.

“Hold on,” Colleen now said slowly, “there was this spell in Flitwick’s class... what was it? Oh, yeah - Specialis Revelio!” She aimed her wand at the statue. Nothing happened.

“Oh, come on,” James said in frustration, and, more out of frustration than any reasonable hope, started casting random spells at the statue. “Alohomora! Deprimo! Diffindo! Dissendium!”

To everyone’s surprise - and James’s most of all - the last spell did the trick. The hump on the back of the one-eyed witch opened, allowed them a small but manageable passageway into a tunnel.

“Wicked,” James said with a huge smile and started climbing in.

It was a narrow, small space, and at times he had to get on his hands and knees and crawl some of the way when the ceiling got dangerously low. But after what seemed like half an hour, the tunnel started going perceptively up - and then ended.

“I think that’s it,” he whispered to the rest of the group.

“Where do you think we are?” someone whispered back at him.

“Only one way to find out, is there?” he said and opened what looked like a trapdoor above him.

It was a cellar - and not just a cellar. There were boxes over boxes of candy, a hoard of chocolate frogs, and what looked like half a shop’s worth of Bertie Botts’ All-Flavoured Beans.

“D’you know where we are?” he whispered in awe. “I think we’re at the Honeydukes cellar!”

“Excellent!” Lysander said behind him, while Lorcan, who had just climbed up, whistled in appreciation. Only Colleen looked a bit worried.

“What’s up?” he asked her.

“How are we going to get out of here?” she said. “And worse - even if we do manage to get out of here, how are we going to get back?”

“Let’s worry about this later, shall we?” James was still feeling a bit frustrated and reckless. Colleen looked at him sceptically for a bit longer, then said, “Alright.”

It wasn’t that much of a surprise - as reluctant as Colleen was to get caught outside of school without permission, James knew that like the rest of them, she was unhappy with the new security measures. Usually, Hogwarts students were allowed into the village several times during the year. However, after last year’s attack on Hogsmeade, which happened at the same time as one of the students’ weekends there, Professor McGonagall had announced that all such Hogsmeade weekends were cancelled until further notice. And if James had hoped that the tight security measures would loosen up after the summer holidays, the attack on the school had made it clear that no such thing would happen. They were stuck inside the walls of Hogwarts, unless they could find their own way out.

James thought Professor McGonagall was being paranoid. The goblins had already attacked Hogsmeade once - they would have to be extremely stupid to do it again, now that the wizarding world was ready for them. A small doubt still niggled - after all, no one had imagined they would go for the school, and perhaps Dad wasn’t as paranoid as James thought he was. He knew his father would be less than impressed if he knew they had sneaked out of the school, and that, if they were caught now, a couple of hours of writing lines would pale in comparison to the punishment he would receive.

He just didn’t care at the moment.

They climbed up the stairs quietly. James wished once again that he knew how to do a Disillusionment charm - he would have to ask Dominique to teach him, he decided. But the coast was clear - the shop was completely empty, and even the owners weren’t around. Probably they realised no one was going to get in for the rest of the day.

“Maybe they closed down early,” James whispered in hope.

Lorcan nodded, even though he looked almost sick, jumping around at every small noise as if expecting the shopkeep to show up and turn them all in. Lysander was also jumping nervously, but less obviously so - and Colleen just didn’t look very happy.

They stepped carefully outside of the shop undetected, and James allowed himself to breathe. They did it. They were in Hogsmeade.

“Let’s go for a Butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks,” Lysander suggested, sporting a huge smile, full of relief.

“Nah - Madam Rosmerta could tell on us to someone at the school. She knows we’re not supposed to be here.”

“Okay - how about the other pub?”

“The Hog’s Head?” James’s brow wrinkled.

“Yeah,” Colleen said enthusiastically. “That’s the one. My mum told me all about it, she said the barman there doesn’t really care who he serves, as long as they pay.”

“Yeah,” Lysander was warming up to the idea as well, “he wouldn’t want to get us into trouble, not when we could be the only way of getting Hogwarts students to buy anything from him!”

“Alright, then! Let’s go,” James said. “Just, um - does anyone know where the pub is?”

Lorcan thought he might know, so they started off the path, walking between the different shops and trying to hide from the cold wind with little success. They had to go back several times, when their attempt to escape the wind made them choose the wrong way. Eventually - and not before it started to rain, a small, annoying drizzle - they found it and walked inside, proud of themselves.

The barman was short and balding, his dirty ginger hair thin on his head. His clothes were colourful and the material looked like silk, but they had definitely seen better days - and it looked to James that it must have been a while since they’d seen the inside of a washing machine. The barman eyed them with suspicious eyes as they walked into the bar uncertain, and didn’t make any attempt to welcome them in.

James looked around nervously. All of a sudden, their clever plan didn’t feel so clever anymore. The pub was half empty, dark and uninviting - and quite as dirty as the man. A few unshaven, rough-looking wizards eyed them from one corner, while at the other sat a goblin, talking with a wizard. He eyed them for a moment, then shrugged and kept on talking.

“Go sit somewhere,” James said, “I’ll get the Butterbeer.”

For a moment, he panicked - did he even have money in his pockets? But he managed to find a Galleon, there from the money his parents gave him for the trolly on the Hogwarts Express. Encouraged by this bout of good luck, he stepped up to the barman.

The barman looked him up and down, obviously registering the Hogwarts robes, but he didn’t comment.

“Four Butterbeers, please,” James said, trying to sound reassured and pretend that he had every reason in the world to be there.

“Eleven Sickles,” the barman said. He made no attempt to bring the Butterbeers yet, and James wondered whether he thought they had no money. He pulled out the Galleon, and handed it to the barman, who looked at it in suspicion, bit it, then stashed the coin and passed on the bottles and James’s change.

James took the money and the drinks and went to find his friends. The table they had chosen was the only one fit for four people - and not covered in a suspicious layer of dust and sauce, and was right next to the goblin and his human friend.

Jamed distributed the Butterbeers quietly, trying to listen in on the goblin, but he spoke in Gobbledegook, so it was hopeless. James was slowly getting the feeling that they should be taught Gobbledegook at school. He was already thinking of the reasonings he would give his father or Professor Longbottom - after all, relations with goblins are an extremely important thing in the modern world and how were they supposed to understand goblins if they couldn’t talk to them?

“Did he say something?” Lorcan asked anxiously.

“Huh? Oh - no, not at all. I don’t think he cares,” James said. The wizard was now talking, and James tried hard to listen and look nonchalant at the same time, perhaps the wizard only spoke English? But alas, the guttural sounds that came from the wizard’s throat were definitely Gobbledegook. Damn.

Lysander and Lorcan started talking about something, and Colleen joined in with them, but James’s mind was still on the wizard and the goblin. Why would a wizard meet with a goblin? Some wizards met with goblins, of course - Dad did, quite a lot of times, but it was a part of his job. Perhaps this was a Ministry wizard, trying to talk some sense into the goblins? It would make sense, James reasoned, that they wouldn’t want to meet anywhere that was only for goblins or only for humans. A pub was as good a place as any, he thought.

“So I was thinking, James, are you listening?” Colleen asked sharply. James shook his head and focused on her.

“Yeah, sure. Listening. What were you saying?”

She gave him an odd look. “I was saying, if we’re actually going to do this, we need a better way of getting in and out of Honeyduke’s.”

“We need to learn how to do a Disillusionment charm,” he shared with them the thought he had in the Honeyduke’s cellar. “If we can do that, we wouldn’t have to worry about being seen.”

“A Disillusionment charm doesn’t make you completely invisible, though,” Colleen pointed out. “Not if someone’s expecting to see you.”

“Well, that’s the point, isn’t it? No one knows about the passageway, why would they expect to see us?”

“Some people obviously know about it,” Lorcan objected. “Mum told us about it, didn’t she? So she obviously knows.”

“Yeah, but the people inside the castle aren’t the problem, Honeyduke’s is. All we need to do is to fool him, then we’re fine.”

The four considered this for a while. “Do you know anyone who can do Disillusionment charms?” Colleen asked, sceptical.

“My cousin Dominique,” James said. “I’m sure she’d be willing to help us out if we asked really nicely...” Actually, he wasn’t quite so sure. In fact, he was positive she would become suspicious and would demand to know why a bunch of fifth-years were asking her how to do N.E.W.T level charms instead of concentrating on their own O.W.L studies. But he was sure he could come up with a passable excuse.

At that point, a loud thump made them all jump. But it was nothing - the wizard next to him, the one with the goblin, had dropped his bag on the floor. His papers started flying everywhere around them - on the chairs, on the tables, on the floor, even on James. James jumped from his seat and started picking up papers. He hoped to be able to see something, hoped that they had something to do with the man’s meeting with the goblin, but they were all written in some unknown script. James wondered whether this was what written Gobbledegook looked like. In that case, it was definitely related to the meeting, but he would remain none the wiser.

“Here,” he handed the man the papers. The man stretched his left arm to take the papers, and the sleeve of his shirt fell back, revealing a weird tattoo - almost completely faded, it had the vague shape of a skull and a snake.

James looked at it for a moment. For some reason, the tattoo looked familiar, but he couldn’t place it. The man, however, wasn’t happy at all that James had seen the tattoo. He snatched the papers and pulled the sleeve back, then shoved the papers back into his bag, muttered something to the goblin in Gobbledegook, and disappeared.

The goblin got up and left as well, and only now did James allow himself to express the thought he had been bursting to speak. “I wonder what they were talking about!” he said.

“Who? The goblin and that wizard?”

“Yeah! He looked really unhappy when I started picking up those papers.”

“What did they say?”

“I dunno,” James admitted, “it was all in some other language.”

“Hey, maybe it was Gobbledegook!” Lorcan said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought - and then he really didn’t like when I saw his tattoo. I don’t know, it looks familiar, but I don’t know where from!” He described the tattoo to his friends, but it didn’t ring any bells with them, either.

They started talking about goblins again, and about the attack on the school.

“I’ve been thinking,” Lorcan said slowly. “About what you guys heard that goblin say that night.”

“Which bit?”

“You know which bit - the sword! I’ve been thinking - what if he meant the Sword of Gryffindor?”

“Oh, get off it,” James snorted. Lorcan’s theory was surprisingly unexciting; they had discussed the nature of ‘the sword’ ever since James had heard the goblin mention it as the reason for the attack. “The Sword of Gryffindor is lost. It got lost in the War, didn’t it? No one knows where it is!”

“Well, maybe they do. Maybe they’re hiding it at Hogwarts.”

“I doubt it,” Colleen said with as much disbelief as James felt. “They wouldn’t keep the sword in the school even if they did have it.”

“Why not? Hogwarts is the safest place in the world! Everyone always says so!”

“Yeah - but think. They say the sword’s got magical powers, don’t they? If they had it, they would have probably used it, not hidden it away somewhere!”

The discussion and bickering went back and forth for a while. The next time any of them glanced at their watches, it was 8 o’clock. “We better head back,” James said, slightly worried.

They were faced with a much more daunting task this time round. Honeyduke’s was bound to be closed by now - which meant that they would have to break in. He didn’t look forward to that at all. Did the owner have some sort of alarm? What would happen if they just walked into the shop?

They stood in silence in front of the closed door of the shop for a while. It was dark and abandoned inside, and on the floor above there was light at the window of the small flat, where the owners undoubtedly slept. The drizzle had - mercifully - stopped, but the wind had become stronger while they were inside the pub, and stabbed them with its icy fingers.

“It’s breaking and entering if we go in there now,” Lorcan said in a small voice.

“We could go through the regular way,” Lysander said, his voice full of doubt.

James looked up at the sky. The clouds did not look encouraging. And even if it didn’t start to rain... “We’re bound to run into some teacher if we go through the grounds.”

“It’s against the law!” Lorcan repeated, eyeing the closed, dark shop. “This isn’t some stupid school rule. It’s - the - law!”

“Only if they catch us,” Lysander pointed out. “It’s not like we’re going to steal anything, is it? We’re just going to go through the cellar and back into the tunnel. We’re not going to take anything. So it’s not technically...”

“A burglary?” Colleen asked in a voice as icy as the wind. James started shivering.

“We’ll freeze half to death if we stay here much longer,” he announced. “I don’t see what choice we have.”

“This is stupid,” Colleen hissed.

“I know,” he said. “I just don’t see any other option. If you can think of something better than going through the grounds, I’m all ears.”

“No,” she admitted. “No, I can’t see any other way, either. Let me have a go, though.” She cast a spell around the door of the shop, and all of a sudden smiled. “I don’t think there’s any sort of alarm charm on the shop! I don’t think they expect any burglaries!”

“So you think we can just walk in?” James asked, just as excited. Were they really going to be this lucky?

Colleen gave him a warning look, as if saying to let her handle this. Then she went to the door, tapped it gently, and whispered something. Nothing happened. Apparently, nothing was supposed to happen, because now her smile definitely became relieved. She flicked her wand again, said “Alohomora”, and the door opened.

No alarm was heard.

“Excellent!” James said, and followed her into the dark shop, Lorcan and Lysander right behind him. They made sure to close the door gently, and then turned around the counter and walked down the stairs and into the cellars.

Everything was going right according to plan - until Colleen’s foot landed on the floor of the cellar. All of a sudden, a loud alarm was heard all over the shop. They all froze.

“No no no no no!” James moaned. He could hear someone rushing from above. “Come on!” he urged the rest in a whisper. “Into the tunnel!”

Throwing caution into the wind, they sprinted towards the trapdoor, and jumped inside, one after the other. James was last; he pulled out his wand, whispered “Colloportus, and told his friends, “Run!”

They couldn’t run, of course. They could only step carefully, and then start crawling as the ceiling of the tunnel became lower and lower. It didn’t sound as if someone was after them, though. As they were crawling down the tunnel, James thought the shop owner must have thought that any burglar would be likely to go into the cellar to disappear with the supplies, and maybe that was why the charm only worked there. It didn’t seem like he knew about the tunnel.

Some twenty minutes later, they were standing up again, breathing hard at the other end of the tunnel, ready to exit through the one-eyed witch statue.

“Wait!” Colleen whispered, stopping Lysander. “We need to make sure there’s no one here.”

It was good that she had stopped them - they could hear now someone shouting in the corridor above them.

“Potter! What do you think you’re doing! And it’s almost nine o’clock, too! Ten points from Gryffindor!”

“Professor Malfoy,” someone else said - Dad. Once again, James blessed Colleen’s common sense. If Dad had caught them getting out of the witch’s statue...

“Professor Potter,” said the shouting teacher - Professor Malfoy. He wasn’t shouting anymore - now his voice was calm and guarded.

“I do believe there are two sides to this fight?” Dad asked pleasantly, and James smirked. He knew what Professor Malfoy was trying to do, and gloated that he had failed so spectacularly - and was foiled by Dad, to boot.

“Oh, very well,” Professor Malfoy said in an irritated voice. “Fi - Ten points from Slytherin. Off you go, you two, and don’t let me catch you at it again. That goes for you, too, Scorpius.”

There was a lot of shuffling around. The four of them looked at each other, sharing smiles - the Ravenclaws didn’t like Professor Malfoy any more than the Gryffindors did. After two or three minutes of total silence outside, they figured the coast should be clear. James tentatively opened the hatch above them and looked around. Once satisfied that there was no sign of Professor Malfoy, Dad, or any other teacher, he climbed out.

Lysander had only finished closing the hatch behind him, when someone showed up - Dad again. “What are you lot doing here?” he demanded.

“Just on the way to the common room,” James said. “Well, common rooms, ‘cause Colleen and Lorcan are in Ravenclaw.”

“It’s almost nine o’clock,” Dad said sharply.

“I know. That’s why we’re going to the common room now, Dad.”

Dad still looked at him suspiciously - and then his gaze travelled to the statue of the one-eyed witch. James’s heart sank. Professor Scamander knew about the passageway - could Dad also know?

Colleen realised that, too. “A couple of kids were fighting here, Professor Potter,” she said all of a sudden. “Earlier. It was... Al. And Scorpius Malfoy. We didn’t want to say anything to any teacher because we didn’t want to get Al in detention again, so we stopped them. We decided to drop by a bit later to make sure they weren’t at it again.”

Dad studied her for a moment. James wasn’t sure he bought it - but it was still a wonderful, flawless excuse, and one even Dad couldn’t poke holes in. Eventually, Dad nodded. “Thanks, Colleen. Next time, though, do tell me or Madam Potter, alright? It could save Al getting intro trouble in the future. Scorpius, too.”

“Okay, Professor,” she said, and the four of them walked away. Dad remained standing there, next to the statue of the one-eyed witch.

“You - are - brilliant!” James said as soon as he dared open his mouth.

“That was absolutely inspired,” Lysander joined in.

“Brilliant,” Lorcan agreed weakly.

They split up then, Lorcan and Colleen going up to the Ravenclaw Tower, and Lysander and James to the Gryffindor common room.

It took James a long time to fall asleep that night. On the one hand, he was glad Colleen had managed to come up with such a good excuse - if the truth had come out, it would have been unpleasant, especially after his and Lysander’s excursion the week before. But at the same time... he didn’t like the thought about that wizard with the goblin. And he was sure the tattoo was something familiar. He would have liked to tell his father about it all, about the goblin, meeting wizards in private, and about wizards with creepy faded tattoos on their arms. But there was no way to tell his father this without admitting they had broken about a dozen school rules. There was no way to ask his advice without getting punished.

James scowled in his bed. Why couldn’t his father be normal, just like everyone else? Things would have been so simple then.

Chapter 5: Students & Gryffindors & Slytherins & Teachers

“Dominique! Oi, Dominique!”

Roxanne and Dominique stopped, allowing James to catch up with them. “What’s up, James?” Dominique asked.

“I wanted to ask you a favour.”

Dominique glanced at her watch. “Alright, but do it quickly, we got Defence in a few minutes.”

“I need you to teach me how to perform Disillusionment charm.”

Dominique and Roxanne both stared at him for a moment in silence. “That’s pretty advanced,” Dominique said slowly. “And it’s not for your O.W.L.s.”

James seemed to hesitate for a moment. “No... look, I know it sounds suspicious. But I have a very good reason to want to learn how to do this.”

“Which is?” Dominique raised an eyebrow.

“I - I can’t tell you,” he said.

Roxanne laughed. “Come on, Dominique, we’ll be late,” she said and turned her back to James.

“No - wait!” he called, sounding almost desperate. The girls stopped again - Roxanne raised her eyebrow in doubt and Dominique did her best not to burst in laughter. “Look, it’s because of Al.”

When they didn’t say anything, he continued explaining. “He’s not himself lately. And last night when I told him about the Quidditch try-outs, he didn’t seem interested at all. And he keeps on getting into trouble because he fights with that Malfoy kid.”

“Yeah, I know about that,” Roxanne said. “I try to keep them as far away from each other as possible, but they seem intent on killing each other - or at least give it their best effort.”

“Yeah - exactly!” James spoke with more confidence now. “Well, I mean, I tried talking to him, but it doesn’t do much good, so I thought, maybe if I could keep an eye on him without him knowing about it then maybe he’d...” his voice trailed under his cousins’ stern expressions.

“You want to spy on your brother?” Roxanne said.

“It’s not like that!” he said indignantly. “Just to make sure he’s alright!”

“If you insist on keeping an eye on any of your siblings, maybe you should consider your sister,” she pointed out, coldly. “Heard Lily got herself and Hugo and a couple of their friends into detention the other day.” At that moment, the bell rang, and gave Roxanne and Dominique the perfect excuse to get out of that miserable conversation. “We’ve got to go, James. Don’t you have a class to go to?”

“Damn - Potions!” he said and started looking for a staircase that would offer him the fastest way into the dungeons - six floors below. Roxanne smirked.

“Come on, we’re late, too,” Dominique said and they made their way to the Defence classroom, three floors down.

Harry and the rest of the students were already there, of course, everyone sitting in their seats and taking out their books - a shame, Roxanne thought, as that meant this was going to be a theoretical lesson, not a practical one.

“Sorry we’re late, Professor,” Dominique was saying behind her. “We got caught up - ”

“Take your seats, please,” he said and they rushed towards the only two available seats - at the back of the class. Damn. James and his nonsense. Roxanne liked sitting at the front on Harry’s lessons.

When they took out their books, Roxanne whispered to Dominique, “I’m in half a mind to tell Harry about what James is up to. I bet he wouldn’t like it...”

“James would never forgive you, though,” Dominique whispered back.

“Yeah...”

They pulled their books out and straightened up, waiting to hear what Harry had to say.

“The topic today is a bit of an unpleasant one, but one you need to be aware of,” he started, and the class fell silent at once. He flicked his wand at the blackboard, and the words Unforgivable curses appeared on it. “You were supposed to cover this subject last year, but I know Professor Cattermole tends to postpone this until the seventh year. I trust you know what these curses are?”

Marcus Macmillan was the first to answer, as usual. “There’s the Cruciatus Curse, for torture, and the Killing Curse, and, erm, there’s this curse to control people or something?”

“The Imperius Curse. Yes, those are the Unforgivable Curses.”

“Sir, have you ever been hit with them - I mean, obviously, the Killing Curse,” Marcus’s cheek reddened when he understood how foolish his question was, “but the others, too?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “And it’s not an experience you want to share, believe me.”

“How do you avoid them, sir?” Michael Thomas asked.

“You run very fast,” came the answer and all the class laughed a nervous laughter. After a moment, Harry’s face turned serious again. “You can learn to fight the Imperius curse. It doesn’t always work - it depends on a lot of factors - but this one you can fight, sometimes even throw off completely. As for the Cruciatus and Killing Curses... You can’t block them. You can’t throw them off. If you’re hit with them - that’s it, really. So yeah, if you’re ever facing an opponent who’s either cruel enough or desperate enough to use them, turn on the spot and run away.”

No one laughed this time.

“Have you ever used them?”

Harry was quiet for a moment. Roxanne knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t need time to think about it. “Are you thinking what would be the best lie to tell us?” she asked.

Harry smiled. “Actually, I was thinking on how best to dodge the question,” he said, and the class burst into nervous laughter again.

Eventually, he nodded. “I’ve used the Imperius Curse... and the Cruciatus Curse. I’ve never used the Killing Curse - and the standing orders in the Auror Office are that any Auror who does use it will be treated the same way as any other wizard who uses it.”

“Get their arse kicked out of the Ministry?” someone sniggered, but Harry answered seriously, “Get their arse kicked into Azkaban.”

“What about the other two? Do the Aurors ever use the Cruciatus curse?” This question was asked by a student who almost never participated in class - Augustus Carrow, an unpleasant, gorilla-like Slytherin kid who was well known around the school for his cruelty.

“Maybe he thinks he should be an Auror so he could use them,” Dominique whispered to Roxanne.

“Like they’d ever let him join,” she retorted.

Harry, however, took the question much more seriously than they did. “Anyone who uses either of these goes up in front of a review board and has to give some pretty good answers,” he said. “As a rule, all three of these curses are banned. We haven’t use them either in action or during interrogations since before I took the office.”

Carrow looked at him sullenly. “He’s disappointed,” Roxanne whispered to Dominique, and they both had to stifle a giggle.

“But Sir,” Jacob from Hufflepuff asked, “how likely are we to even encounter them? I mean... goblins don’t use them, do they?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Dominique replied immediately, “goblins can’t use wands.”

“But they have magic!”

“But it’s not our kind of magic, is it?”

She pointed that last question at Harry, who was watching the discussion with an apprehensive expression on his face. “Goblins have their own kind of magic,” he said slowly. “And they don’t need wands for it.”

“See?” Dominique said in a triumphant voice.

“But,” Harry added, “they can use wands. It’s wizarding law that doesn’t allow them wands, not anything in their magic.”

“Well, that’d be stupid of us, to let them use wands, wouldn’t it?” Michael Thomas started again. “They’re waging a war against us.”

Harry’s apprehensive expression was turning more and more uncomfortable as the discussion progressed. “Wizards have been limiting non-wizards’ access to wands long before the war started, Michael.”

“Yeah, but what’s past is past, isn’t it? Giving them wands now will only put us at a disadvantage!” Marcus insisted, and next to him Priyanka Finnigan nodded in agreement.

“Yeah,” she said, “and if they have their own magic, it’s not really fair, is it? We don’t know their magic, why should they be able to do ours?”

“Last thing we need is goblins running around throwing Killing Curses, imagine what would have happened when they attacked the school if they started killing everyone!” someone added.

“Okay, guys, settle down,” Harry said, and the discussion ended at once. He still looked very uncomfortable. “Look, these are really complicated issued, guys. Wizards have been battling with them for a very long time - and especially in the past twenty years. We didn’t...” he stopped for a moment, thinking of his words. “Things would probably have been better now, if we didn’t limit the goblins’ access to wands in the first place. Don’t look like that,” he smiled at Marcus’s expression. “Even those who are absolutely against allowing goblins access to wands recognise this.”

“What if we give them wands now?” Roxanne asked.

To her surprise, Harry sighed. “It wouldn’t matter anymore. The time we could have stopped the war by giving goblins equal rights is long gone, I’m afraid.”

“They want other things now,” she said as she remembered what James had told them, the enigmatic words about a sword. Harry looked at her for a second longer, but if he suspected James had told them about the sword, he didn’t say so. Instead, he just shook his head.

“To be completely honest, I don’t know what they want anymore. I’m not sure they do, either. Right now, neither side trusts the other - we would be unable to come to an agreement that water is wet if we had to at the moment,” he said with obvious frustration. “There’ll be two weeks of committee work, which will end up with a definition of water and wetness that doesn’t match either, then both sides will scream it’s a completely unacceptable framework and accuse each other of trying to cheat. It’s been like that for a while. One side comes up with a suggestion, the other side automatically turns it down. Three weeks later, the exact same suggestion comes from the other side and is rejected by the people who came up with it in the first place.”

“Does it matter if we do agree on anything?” Marcus Macmillan asked. “I mean, they’re goblins, we can’t trust them anyway.”

“Actually, if we could only sign up a document with them, it’ll solve plenty of our problems - goblins have even more strict rules of binding magical contracts than we do. That’s why the Gringotts goblins are still there. We just never even get as far drafting anything, let alone signing it.”

He looked at the class for a moment.

“Anyway. Enough about goblins. We got carried away, I think, and that’s a lot of things that don’t interest you guys at all. Just because the main problems these days are with them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be worried about what other wizards can do to you. All you need is one person who’s vicious enough and knows enough and they can probably cause more damage to you than goblins could - yes, Marcus,” he said with a small smile, “really. I want to concentrate on the Imperius Curse, seeing as that’s the only one of the three I can actually give you tools to protect yourself. Now, let’s see...”

-X- James burst into the Potions dungeon. “Five points from Gryffindor for your tardiness, Mr Potter,” Professor Malfoy said lazily without even looking at James. His back was at the door, and he was writing down the ingredients for today’s potion on the board.

James hissed under his breath and sat down next to Lysander. “Where were you?” Lysander mouthed at him.

“Tried to get Dominique to agree to teach me about Disillusionment charms,” he whispered back. “Sold her some story about being worried about Al.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “Didn’t work.”

“She didn’t believe you?”

“No, she believed me alright, she just thought it’s disgusting that I want to spy on my little brother.”

“Well,” Lysander pointed out reasonably, “it is disgusting to spy on your brother.”

“But that’s not why I want to do it, is it?”

“Yeah, but you can’t really tell her the truth...”

“Are you mental? ‘Course I can’t! Especially as Roxanne was there right next to her. Last thing I need. Tell her I want to know it in order to break just about every school rule, and she’s right next to the Head Girl.”

“Aw, c’mon, Roxanne wouldn’t turn you in!”

“Don’t be so sure about that. She looked like she was considering going to Dad just hearing that bit - oh,” it dawned on him that Roxanne’s current class was with Dad. No, he convinced himself. She wouldn’t.

“So what are we going to do now?”

“We’ll just have to teach ourselves how to do it, won’t we?”

James was so deep into his hushed conversation with Lysander, that he didn’t realise Professor Malfoy had stopped writing the ingredients on the board and was now advancing towards the two of them.

“Mr Potter,” he said, sporting an unpleasant smile. “In case you haven’t realised yet, the classroom is where we pay attention to the lesson at hand. As fascinating as I am sure your adventures outside the classroom are, there’s no room for them inside it. Consider yourself in detention.”

As soon as Professor Malfoy turned his back on them, James made a rude gesture at him, and Lysander sniggered. Unfortunately, his snigger was heard by Professor Malfoy, who interpreted the situation correctly. “That would be another twenty points from Gryffindor, Mr Potter,” he said without even bothering to turn back again.

James stared at his back in resentment, and didn’t even bother unpacking his ingredients. “He’s just angry ‘cause Dad made him take points off Slytherin yesterday,” he whispered to Lysander.

Lysander was well into cutting his gurdyroot. “Maybe, but you really don’t want to provoke him further.”

“Why? What could he possibly do to me?”

“Put you in detention for the rest of the week?” Lysander suggested.

“Nah, he wouldn’t dare. Dad won’t let him.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Lysander said, now digging up the least squashed beetle eyes from their jar. “Your dad’s here just temporarily. Malfoy’s been teaching for ages. I don’t think your dad will want to interfere.”

“That’s not interfering, though, that’s just stopping Malfoy from being a git. Dad’s good at that. Besides, what would someone like Malfoy do if Dad wanted to interfere?” He didn’t have to explain that last comment - everyone knew who Malfoy supported during the War, and what position it had put him in the wizarding world.

“Yeah, but that’s just making him more vindictive,” Lysander pointed out. “The only place he can get the upper hand over a Potter is when he’s teaching you guys.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying - Dad won’t let him get away with it and - ”

“Mr Potter.” Every Gryffindor in the room groaned, except for James, who raised his eyes lazily to stare into Malfoy’s cold, grey eyes. He wasn’t sure how much Professor Malfoy had heard of their conversation, but he thought it must have been quite a bit, considering how his lip was shaking with rage.

James put on his most apathetic expression. “Yes, sir?” he said lazily.

“Why haven’t you started your work yet?”

He was right, of course - James’s gurdyroot was lying in front of him, whole and untouched, and all the good beetle eyes have already been dug out by Lysander.

“I see you are determined to lose Gryffindor fifty points by the end of the lesson. Let me make this easier for you - twenty-five points off Gryffindor.” James had to stop himself from swearing - by now it was fifty points, and it had only been ten minutes since the beginning of the lesson - five of which he missed anyway. “Now start your work and stop talking.”

Professor Malfoy gave him one last look, as if challenging him to say another word. But as much as James disliked his Potions Master, he knew that the next time he opened his mouth, it’d be another fifty points off, and he wasn’t going to give Malfoy the satisfaction of taking off a full hundred points at one class and throw Gryffindor into the negatives. Again. He bit his lip and started cutting his gurdyroot, and after another moment, Professor Malfoy turned back to his desk.

Despite James’s resolution, he soon forgot to be worried about Malfoy and started talking with Lysander again. Unfortunately, by now - and perhaps, after his last comments - Malfoy was watching him like a hawk. AHe barely even opened his mouth when Professor Malfoy smiled his unpleasant smile, took off yet another fifty points off Gryffindor, and landed James in detention for the rest of the week, just as Lysander had predicted. The end of the lesson really could not have come soon enough, and the only bit of luck James had that day was that it wasn’t a double period.

His luck had lasted all the way out of the dungeons and into the Great Hall, and then ended in a resounding crash when the Gryffindors looked at their hourglass and saw it in the negative figures. “What?” Alice Longbottom called angrily. She had just earned Gryffindor twenty points in the Sixth-year Charms class, but that didn’t even make a dent in James’s lost points.

Behind him, he could hear Roxanne talking to Dominique. “ - Don’t know why they don’t also teach us Defence Against Goblin Ma - James Sirius Potter! What have you done?” she said all of a sudden in a disgusted voice. She didn’t even need to hear the complaints of the other fifth-year Gryffindors to realise who was at fault for this disaster.

James shrugged and tried to look nonchalant. It was a lot harder when it was Roxanne - of whom, unlike Professor Malfoy, he was actually secretly afraid of, no matter what he had said to the contrary. But he did his best. “It’s Professor Malfoy, you know what he’s like.”

“Yes,” she said angrily. “I expect him to take off five, or ten, or twenty points. You lost a hundred!”

“And he got himself into detention for the rest of the week,” Lysander added, and then, as he noticed James’s annoyed look, shrugged. “What? She’d have found out anyway, it’s not like it can be kept a secret. Besides, you were being a git.”

“I could almost give you detention myself,” Roxanne said in quiet fury. This time, James knew to keep his mouth shut - he might be a Prefect, but Roxanne was Head Girl and could very well give him detention if she wanted to. Better not provoke her further, he thought.

Out loud, he said, “Sorry, Roxanne. It’s just that - you know, it’s Malfoy.”

This didn’t seem to placate her. “Yes, James, I know. Screwing over Gryffindor is his favourite thing in the world. Now can we accept that Malfoy’s a depraved, pathetic individual and stop giving him excuses to exercise his power?”

Something crashed right next to them. Roxanne and James both lifted their heads, and saw the third year Slytherins, who had just walked into the Great Hall from their class, and in their midst - Scorpius Malfoy. Malfoy’s son had obviously heard that last sentence and he did not look very happy at all as he stopped right in front of them. The kid’s resemblance to his father only served to strengthen James’s annoyance.

Roxanne didn’t seem particularly impressed, too. “Get going,” she snapped at the boy.

“Don’t call my father pathetic,” he stood his ground.

“We’ll call your pathetic father whatever we please,” James said dismissively.

The Malfoy boy flushed. Meanwhile, half the school stopped to look at the show - James could see Al and his class of third-year Gryffindors coming down from one of the towers, and Colleen’s class from the grounds. Most of the kids were smiling - only the Slytherin students had any liking for Professor Malfoy. And, after all, many of the kids who weren’t in Slytherin had heard from their parents enough stories about the Malfoys.

But to James’s complete surprise, the boy didn’t back down. Instead, he raised his fists. “Don’t call my father names, Potter!”

James just laughed. “Get lost, Malfoy,” he said.

“Get going, Malfoy,” Roxanne joined in. “Or I’m taking ten points from Slytherin.”

The boy swore at them and left, flushed and defeated. Some of the non-Slytherins laughed at him openly as he walked into the Great Hall for lunch, while most of the third-year Slytherins with him seemed as angry and humiliated as he was.

“You could have taken off ten points from Slytherin over what he just called you,” James suggested, much more cheered up. He got a scathing look from Roxanne in response.

“Don’t make me take points from Gryffindor, James. Stop giving Malfoy excuses.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered.

He entered the Great Hall, but before he had the chance to sit at the Gryffindor table, he saw Colleen and Lorcan gesturing at him over from the Ravenclaw table. Lysander was already sitting there, so James joined them as well. He’d learned a long time ago that as long as they didn’t do it too often, the teachers turned a blind eye to students not sitting exactly where they were supposed to.

“If you’ve finished picking on third years,” Colleen said in an annoyed voice.

“What? I wasn’t picking on him! He came looking for a fight all on his own.”

“Yeah, because you called his fathers names,” Lysander pointed out.

“First, Roxanne did, I was completely civilised - ” Lysander snorted - “and second, it’s Malfoy, what d’you expect me to do?”

Colleen rolled her eyes. “You can’t blame the kid if he wants to protect his father’s honour - even if his father has no honour,” she said. “Anyway, we were thinking...”

The conversation turned towards the problem of Disillusionment charm. Lysander had already told the two that Dominique had turned James down on the spot. They all agreed that there was nothing to it - they would have to try and work out the spell all by themselves.

“We better go to the library,” Lysander concluded. “There should be books explaining it there.”

They all looked as unhappy as James felt about the prospect of spending their lunch hour in the library, but there was no way around it. If they were going to get anything out of their newly discovered road to freedom, they would have to learn how to perform the Disillusionment charm.

As it turned out, they weren’t the only ones who were giving up their lunch break. Lily, Hugo, and their friends were sitting at one of the tables, peering over books.

“What are you lot doing here?” James asked in surprise. Lily gave him a dirty look and turned the page on her book noisily. James sneaked a peek at the book - it was A History of Magic. Above her head, he could see the words on the page: the artefacts associated with the Four Founders of Hogwarts have all been destroyed, except for the Sword of Gryffindor, which has gone missing since the Battle of Hogwarts. Many believe that as the last artefact of the Founders, the sword, if found, would hold great magical powers that far surpass those given to it by its original owner, Godric Gryffindor.

James shook his head - they were welcome to all the History of Magic homework they wanted.

“What’s that all about?” Colleen asked, surprised.

“Oh, she’s still angry ‘cause I told them off for wandering around that night the goblins attacked.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You mean that night you were caught wandering around?” she asked.

“Hey, I’m her older brother, It’s my duty to be a hypocrite,” he laughed, and they started pulling out one Charms book after the other.

-X- “I hate climbing all the way to the astronomy tower,” Hugo was complaining. They were, indeed, climbing up and up, trying hard not to be late for their astronomy class. Houda couldn’t help but agree with him, especially as this was their afternoon class - all theoretical material and no star-gazing.

“Why can’t we have the afternoon class in the first floor,” she complained.

“I guess it’s ‘cause Professor Griphook doesn’t like the lower part of the castle,” Lily mused. “Mum said he’s doing his best to stay away from the rest of the school - you saw he almost never has his dinner at the Great Hall.”

“You know,” Aaron asked the same thing he did every time they climbed up those stairs, “here’s what I don’t get. He’s a goblin, right? And he doesn’t seem to like wizards all that much.”

“So how come they let him teach here?” Lily completed the question. “Yeah.”

“Can’t you ask your parents?”

Lily considered this for a moment. “I don’t think they’ll tell me,” she said. “Mum will just say he’s a Hogwarts professor and that I should act accordingly - and Dad will just say ‘listen to your mum’.”

But Aaron had a strange and determined look on his face when they entered the classroom. He sat down in the first row, making Houda, Lily and Hugo to do the same. Houda and Lily looked at each other in confusion as they sat at the next table to Aaron and Hugo. The four usually didn’t sit in the front, especially not on Professor Griphook’s classes. What’s going on? Lily mouthed to Houda, but Houda just shrugged. She didn’t know any more than Lily did - and she didn’t feel inclined to discuss it further, because at that moment a group of Slytherins walked in.

Maybe, she thought, whatever it is, Aaron will think better of it.

He didn’t. Professor Griphook entered the room, told them all to pipe down and immediately started talking about Mars’s moons, Phobos and Deimos. He didn’t complete his first sentence, though, when Aaron’s hand shot to the air.

“I have hardly said anything yet, Mr Singer,” Professor Griphook said in his unpleasant voice.

“Sir, please, this isn’t about this class’s material.”

“What is it, then?”

“I wanted to ask something... something about you, Sir.” Aaron swallowed. Hugo shifted uncomfortably in his seat next to him. Houda and Lily looked at each other, incredulous. “You see, I’m Muggle-born.” Some Slytherins whispered something and sniggered behind Aaron, and he turned around for a moment to glare at them before he turned back to Professor Griphook. For some reason his voice was stronger now, and more self-assured. “I’m Muggle born, and ever since I came to Hogwarts, I keep on hearing how the wizards and goblins are at war, right?”

“Yes?” Professor Griphook narrowed his eyes at Aaron.

“So, what I wanted to ask is, see, I mean... you’re a goblin.”

“Well spotted.” Professor Griphook’s voice was like ice; Houda was looking for the best way to tell Aaron to shut up now.

Aaron, however, seemed oblivious. “I mean, that’s just it. How come you’re here at Hogwarts? Teaching us? Rather than being with your people?”

If Professor Griphook had narrowed his eyes more, they would have been shut completely. Houda took the opportunity to throw a glance at the rest of the class. Everyone was staring at the small goblin. Even the Slytherins didn’t seem to want to mock Aaron anymore - they were sitting, attentive, waiting for Professor Griphook’s words.

“This is irrelevant to the material of the lesson,” the goblin said coldly. But he must have seen the eager faces of the students just the same as Houda did, and knew the same - he will not be let alone, not until he had answered the question. He sighed.

“Very well. I am an outcast amongst my people,” he said, his voice sounding even colder and nastier than usual. “My people aren’t interested in my help.”

“Why?” a Slytherin boy who Houda was sure was named Terry asked bluntly.

“I don’t know that it concerns you, Mr Higgs,” Professor Griphook answered.

“Why, sir?” a couple more students asked.

Professor Griphook looked at them nastily. “Because I have helped wizards - your father, specifically,” he pointed at Lily. “Once during your war, and once right at the beginning of the current war. They didn’t take it very kindly.”

The entire class looked at Professor Griphook in complete fascination, and he continued reluctantly. “Much like Professor Firenze, I cannot rejoin my people once I have lost their trust, and so I am here, teaching a bunch of ungrateful wizard kids material that is much beyond their limited grasp. If we can get to today’s lesson, please!”

“Would you have joined them if you could?” Aaron asked all of a sudden.

Professor Griphook paused, and looked at Aaron as if it were the first time he had seen him. Houda was afraid Aaron was going to get himself into detention - or worse, lose Gryffindor even more points after the disastrous day they already had, courtesy of James Potter - when the goblin did something that completely surprised her: he answered Aaron’s question, and without a shred of his nasty coldness.

“Yes, I would,” he said.

“Even when they attacked the school?” Terry from Slytherin asked.

“Yes, you stupid boy,” Professor Griphook’s temper rose again. “They didn’t come here to kill First Years! Now, on to Phobos!”

Professor Griphook turned to the blackboard to write something. Houda raised her thumb at Aaron, and he smiled in appreciation.

Both their smiles, however, were wiped from their faces when Professor Griphook said all of a sudden, “Oh, and ten points from Gryffindor for derailing the class, Mr Singer.”

The four of them groaned.

-X- The seconds crawled away. Minutes felt like years. Hours... hours were too revolting a concept to even consider.

James stole a hopeful glance at his watch. It had been three whole minutes since the last time he had done so. Time simply refused to pass.

With a sigh, he took another handful of small and shiny beetle eyes, and started sorting them out. Good, good, squashed, good, another squashed one, good, good - “What is that?!” he asked in revulsion. The eye he had just picked up had something green coming out of it.

Professor Malfoy raised his head from the essays he was marking. “Beetle conjunctivitis,” he said and to James’s ears, he sounded gloating. “The beetle version of red eye. Only green.”

“Eurgh!” James threw the eye away hurriedly.

“Pick that up and put it in the bin, Potter,” Professor Malfoy said now in unmistakeable annoyance. And no wonder - the infected eye had almost touched his robes.

“Yes, sir,” James said and tore a piece of paper to pick up the eye. He leaned closer just as Malfoy shifted some papers. For a moment, James thought he saw a washed-up black marking on his left arm. “Sir? What have you got on your arm?”

“What?” Malfoy snapped, raising his head in alarm.

“I thought I saw something... on your arm?” James gestured towards his professor’s left arm. Professor Malfoy then did the most curious thing - he snatched back his arm, rubbed it a little, and looked at James - but not in his usual nasty manner. Instead, he glared at him almost in suspicion.

“I don’t know what you’re imagining you’re seeing, Potter, but you want to get back to those beetle eyes,” he said, and the tension was clear in his voice.

Now James was certain there was something on Professor Malfoy’s arm, something he didn’t want James to see. Which, of course, made James want to see it all the more. He returned to sorting his eyes, but his mind was into it even less than before - he was now thinking of ways to get Professor Malfoy to draw back his sleeve. What if he ‘accidentally’ spilled all the eyes on his sleeve? Or maybe some of the armadillo bile that stood on the counter, waiting, so James suspected, just for him if he ended up sorting the eyes too fast?

“Potter!” Malfoy’s voice snapped him back to attention. “What are you doing?”

James looked at his beetle eyes. He had accidentally let through three squashed eyes as good.

“Sorry, Professor, must have dozed off.”

Professor Malfoy seemed about make another nasty comment, when a knock was heard on the door, and it opened to reveal none other than Dad.

“Can I have a word, Malfoy?” Dad asked in a pleasant voice.

Professor Malfoy looked even unhappier than he did before. “Of course,” he said. “You’re excused,” he said to James. “Come back here tomorrow at the same hour, and we’ll continue your detention.”

All thoughts of finding out more about Malfoy’s arm were gone. James packed up his things as fast as he could, before Malfoy would change his mind, and made to dart out of the room - when Dad’s voice stopped him.

“Hold on a moment, James. Wait for me outside, okay?”

Of course. “Sure.”

He tried to do something useful with his time, like eavesdrop on Dad and Malfoy. Maybe Dad was telling him off for taking all those points from Gryffindor? James thought wildly. Or for putting James in detention for the entire week! But whatever was going on in Malfoy’s office, both he and Dad were speaking very quietly. James couldn’t hear a thing. Disappointed, he stood back - the last thing he needed was for Dad to catch him eavesdropping again.

It took maybe two minutes before the door opened and Dad walked outside. “It’s getting late. I’ll walk you to the Common Room,” he said.

“Okay.” They started climbing the stairs in silence. “Dad? What did you want with Malfoy?”

Dad shook his head. “You don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?” he asked, sounding amused.

“No, I guess not.”

Dad chuckled. “But it’s a good thing you weren’t trying to listen in again.”

James flushed. If Dad noticed, he said nothing.

“Heard what happened at class today, James,” he said after a moment’s silence. “And later with Scorpius Malfoy.”

“Look, Dad, I wasn’t going to say anything to the Malfoy boy, c’mon. You know I’m not like that.”

“I certainly hope you’re not,” he said testily.

“I’m not!” James protested. “I was talking with Roxanne and it was just after he took off a hundred points - a hundred points, Dad! - just for me and Lysander talking a bit in class. I didn’t mean for Scorpius Malfoy to hear that, it just... happened.”

“Try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Fine,” James said, and added, sulking a bit, “it’s just Malfoy, though.”

Dad stopped. “How would you have felt if people said stuff like that about me, James? And if you kept on hearing it, all the time?”

“Yeah, but they don’t.”

Dad wasn’t taking any of this, though. “Scorpius Malfoy hears too many negative things about his father as it is, James. I don’t want you contributing.”

“Fine, fine. Really,” he said when he saw Dad’s sceptical look. “Really! I’ll watch out before I say something again in front of him.”

“Good. Give the kid a break. It’s bad enough Al can’t.”

“But I’m not going to stop complaining about Professor Malfoy, though,” James added.

Dad chuckled. “I don’t expect you to like all your teachers. I didn’t like all of mine. Dealing with unpleasant people is just a part of life. Don’t mouth off to him, though,” he added in a warning voice. “You don’t have to like him but he is your teacher and you will show him respect.”

“He’s always picking on me, though.”

Dad stopped for a moment. James knew he knew it was true - it wasn’t a secret that Professor Malfoy, generally unpleasant, didn’t like James at all. And for no reason whatsoever. And even if there was a reason for it, James thought angrily, but with just the slightest bit of honesty, Malfoy still was the adult, he should have been more mature about it.

He didn’t say any of this to Dad, though. He knew Dad would not react well to it - he would probably tell James off for saying there was no reason, when he knew perfectly well that James had never tried to show the least bit of respect for Professor Malfoy, and never cared, just like today, what he said about him and whether Professor Malfoy heard him or not.

He was surprised, however, when Dad sighed. “Sometimes I think I should have watched my mouth more carefully when I talked about Malfoy at home,” he said in an odd voice. “I think I gave you guys a prejudice before you even had the chance to meet him for yourselves.”

“Dad, I’m sure I’d have disliked him no matter what,” James pointed out - it wasn’t Dad’s fault. That was ridiculous. Malfoy was just nasty.

“Maybe. But Draco and I have never been friends and I know I haven’t tried to hide it. Maybe I should have...” Dad seemed deep in thought for a moment. “Anyway, looks like we’re here.”

He was right - they stopped right in front of the Fat Lady.

“Dad...” James hesitated for a moment. “How can you work with him and be all nice and everything? I mean, during the War... he was on the other side, wasn’t he? He supported Voldemort?”

“I don’t mind working with him now. The War was a long time ago, James,” Dad said. “And everything was complicated then. Now time to bed, off you go. Good night.”

“Good night,” James said.

He gave the Fat Lady the password, and started walking through the portrait hole. Half way through, he turned around. Dad was still there, watching him. He raised his eyebrow without saying a word, and James, who opened his mouth to speak, closed it again and walked all the way through, letting the portrait hole close behind him. He had more important things to do, anyway - like go and find Lysander. He needed to hear about the progress they made during his detention - and more than that, he needed to complain.

Chapter 6: Because of That War

Professor Binns was going on and on about the goblin revolt of sixteen-oh-something, or was it seventeen-eighty-or-other? Al could really not care less at the moment - or at any other moment.

Next to him, Rose was already dosing off, staring out of the window with her quill - which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a Sugar Quill - in her mouth. Their game of hangman was on its last stages, with Al making his last attempt to try and figure out which letter to use.

Just as he was about to try an ‘X’ (was ‘Xeliopolis’ a word?), a small piece of parchment, with the word Albus scribbled over its front, landed on his desk. He sneaked a look at Professor Binns, who was deep in his boring goblin tales and didn’t notice a thing. Smirking, he opened the parchment.

I think I figured out how to control the excess power.

The note was not signed, but Al didn’t need it to be signed. There was only one person who could have sent the note. Under the written line, he scribbled his own note. This is not going to work. He then folded it again, scratched the name at the front, and sent it on its way.

On the parchment with the hangman, he scribbled the letter ‘X’. The small drawn man went and got himself hanged. Al stared at the parchment in annoyance, while Rose smirked, wrote H, and returned to her Sugar Quill and to staring out of the window.

What kind of a place is ‘Heliopolis’?, he scribbled his note to her, but she didn’t notice. Outside, the sixth-years were having a Care for Magical Creatures class, and were running all over the gardens after an errant hippogriff. Rose was looking in interest, together with the rest of the class. Al could see through the window Professor Scamander’s dirty blonde hair flapping behind her, Alice Longbottom’s robes getting tangled in the beast’s rope, and - whoosh, there went the owls.

The piece of parchment landed on his desk again, and he opened it eagerly.

Oh, ye, of little faith was the sole content of the message.

Al started scribbling that he didn’t want another black eye, but then the bell rang and Professor Binns, surprised as always, sent them on their way.

Al rushed for the exit, and bumped into Scorpius Malfoy on the way. “Watch where you’re going, Malfoy,” he snapped at him.

“I’ll show you where I’m going,” was the retort he got.

“Leave him be,” Rose said, right behind Al. “You’re coming to lunch?”

“In a moment. Need to go to the loo first,” he said. She started asking whether she should wait for him, but he told her he will see her there, and she left.

There was a boys’ lavatory right around the corner, but Al didn’t go in that direction. Instead, he ran up a flight of stairs, and chose the toilet on the fourth floor, the one that wasn’t near any classroom. He made sure to close the door behind him before he opened his mouth and said, “So what’s your big revelation? and make it fast, Rose is expecting me to show up at lunch.”

Scorpius smirked. “You should have told her you’re not hungry,” he said.

“Well, I am hungry,” Al replied. “So, what is it?”

“We’ve been going about it the wrong way,” Scorpius said.

“Yeah, I figured that bit out for myself. You know, the bit where the whole thing blows up and we end up with black eyes and all and I get told off.”

“Yes - anyway - the thing is, the amount of power’s right, but we’re putting too much too soon. What we need to do is - ”

“Additive!” Al burst out, unable to contain himself.

Scorpius’s smirk widened. “Exactly, Al. If we give the stupid plant enough magic but not overwhelm it, it should work. I’m sure it would.”

“I still think we should ask Professor Longbottom - ”

Scorpius made an annoyed noise. “He’ll ask why do you want to know and it’ll just lead to a bunch of uncomfortable questions. Nah, my way’s better. So, tonight at eight?”

“Where, though?” Al said, crestfallen. “We can’t use the one-eyed witch statue again. I swear there’s something there, Dad can’t possibly show up there by accident all the time!”

“Yeah, and we can’t get too close to the dungeons again, ‘cause Father’s bound to hear...”

“At least when your dad catches us only I get punished,” Al said in slight resentment. Scorpius’s face darkened for a moment, and he didn’t answer.

“What about this toilet?” Al asked. “It’s not next to any teacher’s office...”

“I don’t know.” Scorpius looked around, unhappy. “It’s too out in the open. We need a place no one goes near.”

“I’ll try and see if I can come up with something,” Al said at the same time as his stomach grumbled. “Anyway, I’m starving, I’m going off to lunch. I’ll send you a note or an owl or something.”

“Sure.”

“Give me a couple of minutes before you come down, alright? Last week it looked like we came down together.”

“Don’t worry,” Scorpius smirked. “Potter.”

Al laughed and got out of the bathroom.

They ended up sneaking into the Divination classroom in the first floor. The Divination teacher was a centaur and his classroom was far away from where people usually spent their evenings - and was large and looked much like the forest.

“Excellent,” Al said as he walked into the room after Scorpius. “Are you sure the centaur doesn’t live here?”

“Nah,” Scorpius said dismissively. “I think he lives in the forest or something.”

Scorpius walked to the centre of the room and took out the object that was hidden inside his robes - a small, grey plant.

Al eyed the thing suspiciously. The last time they had tried to make it grow together, they were thrown five metres back and ended up with black eyes - and detention. Even though a month had passed, he was still suspicious of the thing.

“Ready?” Scorpius asked, apparently oblivious to Al’s misgivings.

“Who’s gonna start?” Al said.

“I will,” Scorpius said, to Al’s great relief. He saw his friend raise his wand and speak the incantation. Red jets came out of Scorpius’s wand, and found their way towards the plant. That didn’t seem to make much impression on it.

“I think you should go... about... now!” Scorpius said, and Al joined his wand to the effort. His wand gave away a purple jet - and for a moment it seemed as if it was going to work - almost - almost - the plant was actually growing a bit, just a bit, and Al shouted in victory and lost his concentration and BANG!

When Al opened his eyes, he was lying on the grass in the Forbidden Forest. What? How did he get - oh. He remembered all of a sudden. This wasn’t the forest, but the Divination classroom. He could hear soft steps getting nearer, and Scorpius’s pale face swam into view.

“Al?” he asked in a worried voice. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m - ” Al swore. He tried getting up, but became dizzy and nauseous at once. “Okay, I’m not alright,” he said.

“You’re bleeding,” Scorpius looked half-panicked.

“Am I? Ouch,” Al tried to get up again and hastily returned to the grass floor. He started laughing - it was incredibly funny, wasn’t it? He couldn’t get up, and if Scorpius ended up asking for help, everyone will think he was to blame for Al’s injury.

“What are you laughing about, you git,” Scorpius mumbled.

“It’s funny.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I promise you, Scorp, it’s hilarious!” He was starting to get stitches in his side from laughing, but he just couldn’t stop. He hadn’t seen anything as amusing as this in ages.

“Al, stop laughing,” Scorpius said in a serious voice.

“Come on,” he managed between one laughter attack and another. “It’s funny!” He didn’t understand why Scorpius didn’t find the situation amusing.

“Stay here,” said Scorpius. “I’m going to get help.”

That just made Al burst in a new giggling fit. “You - can’t!” he said, gasping for breath between one laughter and the other. “They’ll - think - you - tried - to - kill - me - or - something!” Breathing and speaking at the same time was becoming hard, so Al gave up trying to talk sense into Scorpius and just laughed some more.

It was funny - even this classroom was funny, the grass instead of the floor, the fake sky instead of a ceiling - and was that cloud shaped like - ?! Hilarious!

The room became a bit blurred and darker. He supposed it was going on just like the outside, getting darker. That was funny, too, wasn’t it? He burst into a new laughing fit. A room that had the day’s cycles in it! Inside the castle! Hysterical!

He gasped for breath now, and found out that he couldn’t breathe regularly. He tried to stop laughing, but couldn’t. It was still too funny. The room turned darker still. He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, it was to see Dad pacing back and forth next to his bed - no, next to a bed in the hospital wing. Behind Dad he could see Scorpius, wearing a worried expression, and standing next to Professor Malfoy, who looked just as worried and even more unhappy.

Damn. He could’t let Scorpius get punished for this. To hell with their parents.

He sat up. His head swam for a moment - he was still dizzy, but the nausea didn’t come, and after a moment the dizziness stopped.

“Scorpius didn’t attack me,” he said immediately, and Dad jumped. He hadn’t realised Al had woken up.

“Al!” he called, his voice full of relief. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine - and Scorpius didn’t do anything wrong!”

Dad shot a look at Professor Malfoy, then sat down on Al’s bed.

“Okay,” he said, his voice much calmer. “How do you feel?”

“I’m fine!” Al said, and tried to get up. Dizziness hit him immediately, and he sat down again. “Okay,” he conceded, “not completely fine. But I’m okay.”

Dad smiled a small smile. “Tell me what happened?” he asked after a moment, regaining his seriousness.

“I lost my concentration,” he said, realising that it was his fault, their parents were sure to punish them and get mad and they won’t be allowed anywhere near each other at all and all because he didn’t concentrate enough.

“I don’t understand, Al. Start from the beginning, please.”

“Scorpius got a Coedenlas flower for his birthday,” he said, talking to his hand and definitely not looking at Scorpius. “His grandmother gave it to him. We were trying to get it to grow faster.”

Dad was silent for a long time. When Al finally raised his eyes, he saw that Dad wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at Professor Malfoy. Professor Malfoy, in turn, looked even less happy than before.

“How long have you guys been friends, Al?” Dad asked at last, his voice still calm and quiet.

There it was. Now, Al got angry, and jumped out of the bed, ignoring his dizziness. Dad was taken aback, but Al didn’t care anymore. “Ever since we were told to sit together in Professor Cattermole’s first Defence class! First year!” he said. “And I don’t care that you don’t approve, you can’t tell me who my friends are! And neither can you, sir!” he aimed that one at Professor Malfoy and marched out of the hospital, leaving the two shocked teachers behind. Dad didn’t come after him.

These were the facts, down right and simple. Dad and Professor Malfoy were enemies. You didn’t need to be a genius to figure that one out. Everyone knew that, after all - everyone knew that during the War, Harry Potter was fighting on one side, leading one side, and Professor Malfoy was on the other side.

It was even more obvious when your surname was Potter or Weasley. Dad, Mum, Uncle Ron, Aunt Hermione... they all mentioned Draco Malfoy every once in a while. Al had heard the name long before he ever came to Hogwarts and discovered that Draco Malfoy was Professor Malfoy and that he was expected to spend at least five years in classes with him, and that he had a lot in common with Scorpius Malfoy, Professor Malfoy’s son.

Scorpius thought the same thing. “Are you kidding?” he told him one day, a couple of years ago. “If Father finds out my best friend is Albus Potter?! He’d have a stroke, right there!”

Was Professor Malfoy a bad man? Probably. That one wasn’t hard to figure out, not with the way everyone was talking when they thought he wasn’t listening. And what did that mean about his son - and about his son’s friends? Al didn’t think Scorpius was bad. And he most certainly didn’t feel he, Albus, was. But he knew Dad wouldn’t see it that way.

These were the facts. Everyone knew them. Potters and Malfoys couldn’t possibly be friends. Ever.

-X- It was Quidditch season again. Scorpius didn’t play - Father was very enthusiastic about the game, and last year they went to the Quidditch World Cup in Argentina during the summer holidays. But the truth was, Scorpius was a little bit afraid of heights.

It was ridiculous, he knew that. A wizard, afraid of heights? But there it was. He didn’t like being on brooms.

It helped that Al wasn’t in his house’s team, either. It didn’t help Al, of course - being the son of an international Quidditch player made everyone expect him to be good at it, even if his mother hadn’t played for years. And his older brother, that prat James Potter, was on the team, and there were a lot of stories about how his father was the youngest seeker in a century when he was at Hogwarts, so of course everyone expected Al to be a Quidditch player, too.

Scorpius was the only person in the world who knew that Al loathed Quidditch. He was the only one in their year that wasn’t jealous of Scorpius when he told his World Cup stories, one of the only kids who complained every time there was a game and the entire school went out to watch, and as for tryouts - he had to come up with a thousand excuses, both this year and the previous one, when his brother suggested he tried for the team and started asking why he hadn’t.

Scorpius was the only one at school who wasn’t surprised that Al became grumpy every time the school went into Quidditch frenzy.

So, of course, he expected Al to be in a bit of a filthy mood this week, when everyone was talking about the first match of the year, Gryffindor versus Slytherin.

After their little accident at the Divination classroom, and Al’s outburst at his father, Scorpius’s own mood became rather more than filthy. He expected some of the house rivalry had something to do with it - after all, as far as the both of them were concerned, this was the worst week possible for everyone to remember that Gryffindor and Slytherin houses were rivals. That everyone expected Gryffindors and Slytherins to hate each other. Scorpius had never taken it too hard, but he knew that this rivalry was getting on Al’s nerves on the best of days.

Scorpius didn’t see Al after he left the hospital wing. It made sense - it was after hours, and they were both supposed to be in their common room. Father had escorted Scorpius down to the Slytherin common room, saying nothing. Was he disappointed in him? Scorpius assumed that he was. He didn’t much care. If Father was going to be annoying about his friends, it’d just be another item on the list of things he was annoying about. No big deal.

“There you go,” Father said as they arrived at the wall that hid the entrance to the Slytherin cellar. Scorpius nodded, bade Father goodnight, and said the password. The door showed up and slid open.

Scorpius sneaked a look back as he entered the common room. There was someone else there, slightly behind them - Potter. Scorpius snorted as the door closed again. They’re probably going to sit down and think how to make their sons stop talking to one another. About the only thing those two could probably agree on, he thought darkly. Well, they were welcome to it. He didn’t much care.

He did care, however, that the next day Al didn’t make any attempt to talk to him at all. What if Potter had caught up with him and warned him against continuing to be Scorpius’s friend? From all he heard about him, it would be just like him, too. It became even more frustrating, as they didn’t have any classes together that day. Al didn’t show up to their next History of Magic lesson. Their next class with the Gryffindors was Defence Against the Dark Arts, and while Scorpius didn’t believe Al would dare skive off his father’s class, that wasn’t until Friday.

But Scorpius’s biggest frustration for that entire week was the fact that the news had leaked - but not properly. What everyone had heard was that Al Potter and Scorpius Malfoy fought again and that Al Potter ended up in the hospital wing. From his own house, Scorpius had to suffer a mixture of appreciative sniggers and comments that it was the older brother he wanted to target, the one who actually was an invaluable member of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Calls of “Come on, Malfoy! We need Chasers down, not cheerleaders!” and “Wrong Potter, better luck next time!” escorted him all through the corridors when other Slytherins saw him.

Members of the other houses, of course, took it quite differently. During Arithmancy, he was sure he heard Tanya Bones-Macmillan and her friend, Leanne Wood, muttering the words ‘Dark Magic’ when they looked at him. Daisy Chang, with whom he was usually partnered for Care for Magical Creatures, had refused to work with him; and History of Magic with the Gryffindors had been all but a nightmare.

Of course. A Potter and a Malfoy had a fight and the Malfoy had used Dark Magic, because everyone knows that’s what happened in the War.

By the time their Friday Defence class had arrived, Scorpius had all but willed the week to be over. Potter was already in the classroom and sitting at his desk, but didn’t say anything when Scorpius walked into the class and settled in his regular seat at the back. He thought - perhaps imagined - that his teacher looked at him for a moment longer than usual, but then the Gryffindors entered en masse - Al with them, Scorpius noted - and he told them all to settle down and started teaching them about Hinkypunks.

Scorpius tried to catch Al’s attention a couple of times during the class, but Al sat at the front - and besides, everyone was always so quiet on Potter’s classes, that there was no way of sending him a note or anything without Potter noticing - and that’s just what he needed, Scorpius thought grimly. To give Potter an excuse to put him in detention. He was probably itching for one.

The class was a slow torture - why would anyone care about Hinkypunks?! - but at last, it came to an end. The bell rang, and Scorpius picked up his books fast and shoved them into his bag.

“Albus, Scorpius,” he heard his name and lifted his voice in surprise. Damn. “Please stay for a moment,” Potter said. Damn damn damn.

Scorpius progressed towards Potter’s desk slowly. Al was already there, but looking neither at him nor at his father. He looked even angrier than he did on Tuesday evening, if that were even possible.

“It’s okay that you’re friends,” Potter said all of a sudden. Scorpius’s mouth opened in shock, and even Al forgot to be angry for a moment. “We don’t mind - no, Scorpius, not even Draco,” he added with a small smile just as Scorpius was about to say that he was pretty sure Father did mind. “You don’t need to hide it - and quite frankly, I’m relieved that you’re not fighting all the time. Although it would have been nice if you told us about this before.”

Al and Scorpius looked at each other for a moment. Al was the first to smile, and then Scorpius smiled, too. The situation was just too ridiculous not to smile.

“Al, I believe you need to go to Care for Magical Creatures now?” Potter said, and Al picked up his bag and rushed towards the door. Scorpius was about to follow when he heard Potter speak again. “Hold on for a moment, Scorpius, please.”

Scorpius looked at him sullenly. What was he going to do now? Warn him not to hurt his precious kid? As if he would - he didn’t even know any Dark Magic! It wasn’t like Father taught him curses on school holidays.

Potter didn’t say anything at first. He leaned back in his chair and just looked at Scorpius for a while in silence. “Sir?” Scorpius asked eventually. “I need to go to Herbology.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Potter said, and got up, waiting for Scorpius to pick up his bag. Double damn.

They were half-way to the greenhouses before Potter started talking. “It’s no secret that your father and I have never been friends, Scorpius,” Potter said quietly.

“You mean you were mortal enemies,” Scorpius blurted out without thinking.

Potter smiled his small smile again. “I don’t know about ‘mortal’, Scorpius, but yes, we have been described as enemies before. Probably quite accurately.”

Scorpius just waited for Potter to get to the point.

“I hope you don’t feel like I’m treating you any differently because of your father. I’m trying to make sure to treat you like any other student.”

Scorpius was surprised to hear the honesty in Potter’s voice. He sounded genuinely anxious at the idea that he was mistreating him because of his father. “No, sir, it’s fine,” Scorpius admitted grudgingly. Deep inside, he knew that Potter was treating him much more fairly than Father was treating Al, but he wasn’t going to admit it, not to anyone, and especially not to Potter.

Besides, wasn’t that a part of the natural order of things? Potter, the Auror, the famous hero, was a good enough person to not take out his dislike of his father on Scorpius, while Father - wasn’t. That was just what everyone expected to happen, after all.

“I’m glad to hear it,” Potter continued in his quiet, measured voice. “I know you hear a lot of stories about your father. It’s not a secret that he was on the losing side of the War. His side’s... indiscretions, shall we say?” he laughed for a moment. “It often gets publicised quite loudly.” Scorpius started suspecting Potter had heard the way the rest of the kids at school were whispering about him, what everyone thought must have happened. Dark magic. “We both did stuff we’re not proud of back then.”

“Oh, come on!” Scorpius forgot for a moment he was talking to a teacher. “You’re Harry Potter. What could you have possibly done that’s equal to - to - to Dark Magic?!” There. He said it. He said those words. And if Potter was going to give him detention for speaking out of turn, then to hell with it.

“I almost killed your father once,” Potter answered quietly and Scorpius stopped on the spot. What?

“He never told you?” Potter asked, and Scorpius shook his head.

Potter nodded. “Yeah, I guess he wouldn’t. It was a pretty tough year for him. We got into a fight that one time, and I used a curse without really knowing what it did. Turned out it was a lot more vicious than I thought it was. I’m not trying to excuse what I did,” he added. “Your father’s very lucky that there was a teacher around who knew the counter curse. If he hadn’t been there... But yeah. That’s not a story you hear very often, I guess.”

“Professor Potter, sir,” Scorpius asked all of a sudden, because he couldn’t stop himself from doing it, “what did Father do during the war?”

Professor Potter didn’t answer.

“Everyone always says he was on the wrong side of the war, that he served the Dark Lord, but what does that mean? What did he do? You know, don’t you?”

“I think, Scorpius, that this is a conversation you should be having with your father,” Potter said carefully.

“Yeah, well, he never talks about it, does he. I want to know! I’m not a kid anymore, I think I have the right to know why everyone says my father is...” he wasn’t quite sure he wanted to end that sentence. He knew the reputation his father had with the rest of the school - and outside it.

“It was a complicated time, Scorpius. People did things... It was complicated.”

“I want to know,” Scorpius insisted.

They both stopped now, in front of Greenhouse Five where his Herbology class had started five minutes ago, but Scorpius made no attempt to walk into the greenhouse. Instead, he stared directly at Professor Potter, unwilling to let the teacher escape the question. “He never talks about it,” he said again.

Potter looked at him in a strange way. Scorpius half feared he was going to shout at him, give him detention, or simply tell him to go to his class and leave him alone. To Scorpius’s surprise, when Professor Potter opened his mouth, he didn’t say any of those things.

“I was... we were on the run, that last year. Voldemort had taken over everything, and I was his number one target, so I had to run for it,” Potter said quietly. “And then, one day, some Snatchers - wizards who were working for him - caught up with me. Voldemort was based then in the house your grandparents used to own, Malfoy Manor. I don’t think you’ve ever been there? Never mind, really. Anyway, Herm - a friend of mine realised the danger we would be in if they recognised me, and she jinxed me so I wouldn’t look like myself. They still figured out it was me, so they brought me to Malfoy Manor, to hand me over to Voldemort.

“He wasn’t there. Your father and your grandparents were there. No one was sure whether it was me or not. They called in your dad, asked him to confirm it was me, because if they had called Voldemort and it wasn’t me, he would have killed them all. Just for mistakenly calling him in, when they were trying to be the best servants they could for him.”

Professor Potter was quiet for a moment or two. “Draco knew it was me. Of course he knew. We’d known each other for years, he recognised my friends, he knew it couldn’t be anyone but me.

“He didn’t tell them. He told them he didn’t know. He was terrified - terrified of the Death Eaters in his house, terrified of Voldemort, terrified of what would have happened if Voldemort had won, terrified of what would have happened if Voldemort didn’t win... but he didn’t tell them. He told them he didn’t know. He saved my life that day.”

The lump in Scorpius’s throat, that had been growing bigger and bigger the more Professor Potter talked, tried to burst out of him. His eyes stung, and no matter how furiously he blinked, they kept on stinging. In the end, he had to turn his gaze away from his teacher. He didn’t want him to see the traitorous tears that had left his eyes and were now rolling down his cheeks.

Professor Potter didn’t say anything. He just stood there in silence.

“It’s your last lesson for the week, isn’t it?” he asked all of a sudden, and Scorpius nodded, still looking away. “Tell you what, go to your dormitories. Go on, I’ll tell Professor Longbottom you aren’t feeling very well. It’s not the end of the world, if you miss one Herbology lesson.”

Scorpius turned around and fled back to the castle without a second’s hesitation.

-X- His watch had suggested that it was time for dinner already, but Scorpius chose to remain in the library, hidden behind the biggest book he could find, and listened to the rest of the students rushing by. Some where laughing and joking, some muttered unhappily, and none of them had noticed Scorpius, which was fine by him.

Every once in a while, he tried to return his attention to the book. It was a lost cause, of course. Harry Potter’s words still rang in his ears, as if he was standing right there above him, speaking them over and over again. He saved my life. It really didn’t help that the book he picked was Practical Defensive Magic and its Use Against the Dark Arts, revised edition. When he flipped around a few pages and ran into Harry Potter’s name (“The only wizard known to have survived the Killing Curse is Harry Potter, who has managed this unlikely feat twice...”) he closed the book shut.

Scorpius retreated further inside the library. The Defence Against the Dark Arts section was really the wrong one to spend his time in at the moment. Instead, he ended up in the biographies section. His finger skimmed past Tom Marvolo Riddle: the Rise and Fall of Lord Voldemort and fell on something safer, The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, an old, heavy volume about one of Hogwarts’ old headmasters. When a quick search through the table of contents turned up a whole chapter named ‘Harry Potter’, Scorpius threw the book from him in disgust. He gave up the idea of finding a book altogether, and just buried his head between his knees.

That was how Al found him, twenty minutes later.

“Oi, Scorpius,” he said, sounding much too cheerful for his own good.

“Go away,” Scorpius muttered from between his knees.

“You didn’t show up for dinner,” Al said.

“I’ve noticed.”

“I talked to Professor Longbottom earlier.”

Scorpius didn’t bother commenting. This couldn’t possibly end well.

“He said we should stop trying to magic the plant to grow. He said that even if we didn’t kill ourselves in the process we’ll probably end up killing the flower dead. He gave me this.”

Scorpius now lifted his head. If Al noticed that his eyes were red, or the tear tracks on his cheeks, he acted as if he didn’t. Instead, he stretched his hand, showing Scorpius a lump of smelly, brownish material.

“It’s a special fertiliser. Professor Longbottom said that it’s really hard to make Coedenlas flowers bloom this far up north. Something about the weather or the birds or both, I dunno. I kinda stopped listening after a while. Anyway, he said that this fertiliser should give it a good enough environment to start growing properly.”

Scorpius prodded the material with his finger. “This isn’t dragon dung, is it?” he asked suspiciously.

Al looked at the lump in his hand in alarm. “I don’t think so... he didn’t really say what it was... you think it’s dragon dung? Ew!”

“Well, don’t throw it here!” Scorpius said much too loudly. What could he do? It looked as if Al was going to let go of the lump there and then.

“But I don’t want to hold dragon dung! That’s just disgusting!”

“Well, you should have thought about it before you started walking round the entire castle with it! It’s not even in a bag!”

“That’s how Professor Longbottom gave it to me! You don’t think he’d have given it to me like that if it was dragon dung, do you?” he asked, trying to cling to that one last shred of hope.

Scorpius had a great amount of fun shattering that hope. “It’s Professor Longbottom,” he snorted. “He’s always going on about how we shouldn’t think fertilisers are disgusting and ‘stop being so squirmy’,” he made his most accurate impression of the Gryffindor Head of House - which was pretty accurate.”He’s capable of giving you dragon dung in your hand just to tell you later that you didn’t have a problem!”

“What’s that racket?” The librarian, Madam Pince, showed up at their corner. “What are you two shouting at here? This is the library, not the Quidditch pi - is this chocolate?!” She had spotted the huge brown lump in Al’s hand.

“No, Ma’am!” Scorpius said, a huge smile on his face. “It’s dragon dung!”

She gaped at the two of them in disbelief for one silent moment, and then -

“Out! Out! Get out of here! Get away from these books! Out!”

Scorpius got on his feet as quickly as he could, and they both ran out of the library, laughing. They only made it to the next corridor before Scorpius stopped. He heard an all too familiar voice, speaking all too familiar words.

“ - That pathetic excuse for a teacher, honestly, if he takes off one more point I’ll - ”

Al’s brother James and one of his friends came from across the corner, carrying a bunch of old and heavy Charms books, and froze on the spot when they noticed the two of them. James looked at Scorpius, then at Al. He didn’t finish his sentence - which Scorpius realised was, once again, about Father.

By now, Scorpius knew, all of Al’s family had already heard. That was the kind of family they were, wasn’t it? They always gossiped away. They always stuck their noses where they weren’t wanted. And they all knew now that he and Al were friends.

“What are you holding?” Al’s brother demanded.

Al was the one who answered. “Professor Longbottom gave me this, James, so keep your nose out of it.”

James Potter flushed. Scorpius sniggered at the scarlet that had spread all over his face - and that only caused Potter to flush even more. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, then took another look at Al and closed it again. Good, Scorpius thought vindictively for a moment.

He started to tell Al to come on, then stopped. He had never thought about it before, but Al really looked a lot like his father. Except for the glasses, which Al didn’t need, and the scar on the forehead, which Al - obviously - didn’t have, they looked almost identical. And as he thought that, the voice of Al’s father came back to Scorpius’s mind, together with his words.

And somehow it didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter what James Potter thought about his father, or what the entire school thought about him, or what the entire wizarding world thought about him. Harry Potter knew the truth - and now, so did Scorpius. And even if Father had never spoken about that day when he saved Harry Potter’s life, Scorpius knew, and that was all that mattered.

He shrugged, then smiled at Al. “C’mon, Al,” he said. “Let’s get that thing where it belongs.”

Chapter 7: Ghosts of the Past

“Get in here!”

“We can’t go in there!”

“Do you want Filch to catch us? We’ll get another detention! Get in here!”

“It’s - the - girls’ - bathroom!”

“We don’t have a choice! Come on!”

“Do you see them, my sweet?” a new voice was heard. Aaron and Hugo looked in panic at the corner of the hallway, which was keeping them hidden from the old caretaker - for the moment. But any minute now, they knew, Filch and his disgusting cat would walk beyond the corner and see them - and then they’d be doomed. There was only one hope left for them.

They walked through the door and into the girls’ bathroom.

Luckily, no one was in there except Houda and Lily, who were breathing hard. Outside the door, they could hear Filch. “Where have they gone, my sweet?” he whispered. “Perhaps through that door?”

The four of them froze - but no, Filch must have meant another door. It was long rumoured that Argus Filch knew every secret passageway inside the castle, and it appeared they were lucky enough to go inside a toilet that was right in front of such a passageway. In no time at all, the wheezing noises of the caretaker were gone, and the four dared breathing again.

“It’s lucky this toilet was here,” Aaron said at last.

“And even luckier no one was already inside,” Hugo now dared a smile. “Can you imagine what could have happened?”

“There would probably be a lot of screaming and Filch would have come running,” Lily said sensibly. “And then we would have got an even heavier detention - at least you two.”

Houda allowed herself a smile. “We did it, though,” she said - and the four of them started laughing. “I can’t believe we got away with it!”

“And Filch didn’t even see our faces! He doesn’t know it was us! We really got away with it!” Hugo said in obvious delight, and they laughed even harder.

“This is so much better than climbing on top of the Astronomy Tower,” Aaron agreed.

“Yeah - we didn’t get caught!”

“Yet.”

The laughter froze immediately at the new voice. Houda looked around - was it an older girl, ready to tell Filch they were the ones who had built a snowman in the middle of the corridor? A girl who was unhappy that two boys had found refuge inside the girls’ lavatory and was going to make sure Aaron and Hugo got punished?

But no - it couldn’t be. It was a girl - an older girl, too - but she wasn’t a student; she was a ghost.

Houda looked at her in interest. There were ghosts all around them, of course - there was Nearly Headless Nick, with his almost-severed neck; the Bloody Baron, who flew around the castle in his chains and was covered in blood and pretty scary; and other transparent people who had their gruesome death and came back to tell the tale to generations of unsuspecting Hogwarts students.

But the girl seemed different - for one, she was a girl, not that much older than they were. Another thing was her body - she didn’t sport any stabbing marks, blood stains, or other visible wounds. It looked like she didn’t die a terrible death like the rest of them.

“Oh, you wouldn’t turn us in,” she said at last.

The ghost of a girl eyed her. “Why not?” she demanded sulkily.

“Because it wouldn’t be very nice. We’re not bothering you - we’re just about to leave.”

“No one ever wants to talk to me,” the girl was almost in tears.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t realise you’d be - be - lonely, I guess.”

Houda was trying to be kind, but it only served to infuriate the ghost further. “Oh, yes! No one ever thinks I could be lonely too! That I would like some company! No one ever considers me!” She huffed.

“Well, we could stay, if you’d like,” Aaron said all of a sudden. “We just didn’t know you were here. We’ve only been to Hogwarts for a couple of months. We don’t know all the ghosts yet.”

The girl didn’t answer. Houda was sure she was looking for something else to complain about. Eventually, she was pacified by Aaron’s words. She didn’t start shouting again, but floated gloomily above them.

“What’s your name?” asked Houda, trying to be nice and get on the ghost’s better side.

“Myrtle,” the ghost sniffed.

“Nice to meet you, Myrtle.”

Myrtle shrugged - as much as the ghost could shrug. “No one ever means it,” she said. “Even people who come to my toilet only come here because they need something. Like a hiding place,” she eyed them all.

And then, she caught sight of Hugo. “Well, you look like someone who used to come here only when he needed a hiding place,” she pouted at him.

“But it’s only my first year!” he protested. “I’ve never been here at all! That’s not fair.”

“It was a long time ago,” she conceded for a moment. “Maybe you’re related to him.” All of a sudden, she eyed him suspiciously. “You wouldn’t know Ron Weasley, would you?”

“Hey - that’s my dad!” he said and started to laugh.

She didn’t laugh with him. Instead, she gave him an annoyed look. “Well, he only came here when he and his friends needed a place to brew Polyjuice Potion,” she said.

“Polyjuice Potion?” Hugo asked the ghost in interest. Lily, however, looked just as lost as Houda and Aaron were. For once, the Muggle-borns weren’t the only ones not in on the story.

“What’s Polyjuice Potion?” Houda asked.

“It’s a potion that allows you to look like someone else - but he can’t have brewed it here - not when he was in school!” Hugo said, incensed. “Who were these friends of his?”

“Harry Potter and Hermione Granger,” she said glumly. “They didn’t come to visit me either. Except when they needed to enter the Chamber of Secrets.”

Now even Hugo didn’t know what she was talking about. “What’s the Chamber of Secrets?” Lily asked, interested.

“It’s a secret chamber,” Myrtle said. Her voice turned all secretive and excited - it was clear she wanted very much to tell that particular story. “It was built when the school was built, a thousand years ago - and it had a monster in it! That’s how I died,” she finished dramatically.

“What, you entered the chamber?” Aaron asked.

“No! Why would I want to go into a secret chamber? No, there was a boy, a terrible boy, who set the monster loose - and he killed me!”

Lily gasped audibly, and Hugo was gaping at the ghost with eyes open wide. That obviously was the reaction Myrtle was hoping for, because she continued her story, looking rather pleased with herself. “You must have heard of that boy,” she said now in half a whisper. “He’s very famous.”

“What was his name?” Hugo asked immediately.

“Tom Riddle,” Myrtle said.

Now they all gasped. Houda remembered the name - it was in their history books, and in that biography they read in the library. That was Lord Voldemort, the evil wizard Lily’s dad had killed.

“You died during the War?” Lily asked, excited.

“No,” Myrtle now sounded irritated, “I told you, he was a boy then. He killed me before he was Lord - Lord -You-Know-Who. I was probably the first person he ever killed,” she said that with an air of a great achievement and pride. Houda thought it was probably an honour of sorts, if a somewhat dubious one.

But unlike Myrtle, Lily looked disappointed. Undoubtedly, she hoped Myrtle could tell her something about the War - but no, all she could tell them was about Voldemort as a boy, and who would be interested in that?

As if realising that, Myrtle immediately added, “But I was important during the War, too! Like I said, the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets was here. And Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger needed to go there to help defeat You-Know-Who.”

“Really?” Lily’s attention was back with Myrtle, and so was Hugo’s now.

“How do you get into the Chamber?” Aaron asked.

“What’s in there?” was Houda’s question. “Some sort of a secret weapon?”

“Why did they need to brew Polyjuice Potion - oh! Was that in order to defeat Voldemort? So he wouldn’t know who they are?” Hugo was rather pleased with himself over that deduction.

“Why wasn’t my dad with them?” Lily asked.

Myrtle didn’t answer. The sulky, unhappy expression returned to her face, and she looked more annoyed than excited by their questions. Her plan, it was obvious, had backfired. The four kids didn’t find her interesting at all - no, it was the rest of her story that they found interesting.

“Well, I don’t know about these things,” she sulked at them. “I never go in there. There’s something awful down there. I have better things to do - and better things to do than answer your questions! Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said and dived into one of the toilets.

“Ew,” was Aaron’s opinion.

“And I think you better leave!” a muffled voice was heard from the u-bend of the toilet.

Houda ignored her. Instead she started looking around the bathroom, through the cubicles - even the one Myrtle had disappeared to - and then looked at all the basins.

“What are you looking for?” Lily asked in confusion.

“Myrtle said the entrance to the Chamber was here - but I don’t see it anywhere.”

“It’s hidden, obviously,” Lily answered in an impatient voice. “Otherwise anyone could find it! What kind of a Chamber of Secrets would it be if it wasn’t a secret?”

“Well, it can’t be hidden too well, people have found it - your dad did!”

“Maybe we should ask him,” Aaron suggested dryly. All four of them laughed.

The rest helped Houda look for the entrance for a while longer, but after a few more minutes they gave up. Wherever the entrance to the Chamber was, it really was well hidden - or, at least, well hidden for the magical abilities of four eleven-year-old kids.

Houda sighed. “I guess Myrtle was right,” she said, defeated. “Let’s go.”

As the closest one to the door, Houda was the first to walk towards it and then open it slightly to take a peek outside. There was no sign of Filch or his cat. She drew her entire head outside the door, looked right, then left, then called behind her “Coast is clear!” and walked to the corridor. Lily, Aaron and Hugo soon joined her outside of the bathroom, and together, they started talking towards the Gryffindor common room.

“You know, it looks like Hogwarts has a lot of secret chambers,” Aaron said quietly.

“How d’you mean?”

“Well, there was the mirror we saw - and now this. The mirror was also hidden in the castle, wasn’t it?”

“I guess it’s ‘cause Hogwarts is the safest place there is - probably even more than Gringotts, seeing as it’s run by goblins.”

“Yeah - how come your parents keep their money in there?” Houda asked all of a sudden, remembering the day they went to Diagon Alley. “Aren’t they scared the goblins will take all their money?”

“I guess there’s some magic on the bank,” Lily said, frowning.

“Forget about the goblins for a moment,” Aaron said. “Think about it - if the mirror was hidden in that abandoned corridor - what do you think is hidden in the Chamber of Secrets?”

Lily snorted. “You heard Myrtle - something used to be hidden there, but not anymore. Not since the War.”

“Yeah, but she also said there was something there still,” Hugo objected. “And she didn’t sound too happy about whatever it was that was there.”

“But what if - ” Lily started, and they never got to hear what she thought, because at that moment, she screamed in surprise. A moment later, Houda screamed as well - not because Lily had screamed, but because she was hit with something very cold and very wet. A snow ball.

They had not realised that they walked back to where they had erected the snowman only half an hour before. By now, Peeves had discovered it, and took great pleasure in dismantling their snowman - and was doing a much better job of it than Filch, too. If only he hadn’t decided to ambush the next students who came along, and if only those students hadn’t been Houda and her friends... she ducked just as another snow ball was thrown towards her, and it hit Aaron instead.

“What - aargh!” he shouted.

“Go away, Peeves!” Lily said now, having recovered from her snow ball.

Peeves, however, wasn’t to be deterred from his new source of entertainment. Every time Houda or one of the others tried to pass through the corridor, their path was blocked by a new onslaught of snow balls.

The problem was that, even two months after they had started going to Hogwarts, they still didn’t know any way around that particular corridor to Gryffindor tower. There must be one, Houda knew - she was pretty sure there was more than one way to get from any one point to any other point in the castle. But they just didn’t know what it was - so they had no choice but to stay there and try and get beyond Peeves somehow.

Or, as it turned out, stay there and wait for someone else to come and rescue them. “Peeves!” they heard an angry voice behind them, and turned around.

It was Madam Potter - Lily’s mum. Her robes were wet, and covered with traces of snowflakes that hadn’t melted yet, her red hair was messy from the wind and snow, and she was carrying a couple of broken broomsticks.

Her wand was drawn; it seemed as if she was in half a mind to curse Peeves, if he continued. Peeves must have realised that, too - he quickly disappeared from the scene. With a small smile, Madam Potter Vanished the snow from the corridor and from everyone’s clothes.

“Thanks, Madam Potter!” Aaron said appreciatively as their clothes turned hot and dry.

“It’s a shame we don’t know the castle better,” Houda said. “We couldn’t think of a different way to get to the common room.”

“Yeah...” Lily said, and all of a sudden Houda got the feeling she wasn’t really thinking about their encounter with Peeves anymore. “I mean, Hogwarts is full of passageways and secrets rooms, isn’t it? And we don’t know any of them!”

Madam Potter laughed. “You’ll probably find them in time,” she said.

“Did you find any of them when you were studying here?” Hugo joined in with the questions. Houda did her best to hide her smile - and elbowed Aaron, who all of a sudden realised where the questions were leading and was doing quite a bad job of hiding his excitement.

“Yeah,” Madam Potter said. “For example, just here, this piece of wall is actually a door. It leads you to the fifth-floor corridor - and much closer to Gryffindor tower.”

“Oh - that could have helped us against Peeves!” Lily said, still sounding excited. “There could probably be secret passageways like that all over the castle!”

“There are,” her mother said.

“And secret rooms, too?”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Madam Potter said. “I think the only secret room I know is four floors up, and I’m not even sure if it’s still there anymore!”

“What - a secret room that can move?” it didn’t sound like the Chamber of Secrets, not if it was on the seventh floor and moving about, but the idea of a room that could disappear was exciting for various other reasons.

“Well - not quite - although it did tend to open at odd places when we needed it to,” Madam Potter said with a smile. “I think it was destroyed during the War, though. It was called the Room of Requirement. It would only appear when you really needed it, see - you had to think really hard about what you needed, and then it would show up. But then, during the War...” she stopped for a moment. “Well, I think it was damaged pretty badly.”

“I wish there was a map of all of Hogwarts, so we’d know all these things,” Hugo said.

Madam Potter gave him a calculating look, but then smiled. “You wouldn’t have half the fun of discovery, then! Anyway, guys, gotta go. And you - go back to your common room. Don’t go looking after any secret rooms tonight!”

She started walking in the opposite direction. Just as the four thought she was going to disappear, she paused, the turned on her tracks. “But if you are determined on going tonight, I have two pieces of advice for you,” she said with a wide smile. “One, you’d do well to start looking around the old tapestry on the seventh floor, the one showing Barnabas the Barmy and the trolls.”

They all looked at her in excitement. She was actually helping them have some fun! That was... unexpected, Houda had to admit.

“What’s the other one, Mum?” Lily asked.

“That it’s already half seven, and you really should go to your common room soon. I’d hate for the four of you to end up in detention. Again.” She smiled and left.

The four looked at her disappear - then looked at each other. None of them paid too much mind to her warning about the hour - they could deal with another evening of doing boring, repetitive work, like polishing the trophy room or writing lines. No, they were all excited at her first advice. As Houda looked at the faces of her friends, she knew they were all thinking exactly what she was thinking. They should go up to the seventh floor and look for the Room of Requirement.

“Well,” Lily was the first to speak the words out loud, “if we can’t find the Chamber of Secrets...”

On the seventh floor, there was a tapestry, of a man and trolls in tutu. Houda and Aaron stared at it for a moment and giggled, but then Lily said they needed to find the Room of Requirement and will they stop mucking about, so they stopped laughing and let her try.

She stared at the tapestry for a long time. Nothing happened. She stared at it some more. Nothing. Houda wondered for a moment whether they were all getting in the way - what if they were all thinking different things and confusing the room?

“Maybe we should step back?” she whispered to Aaron and Hugo. They nodded, and went back. Lily kept on staring at the tapestry.

Houda, meanwhile, was staring at the opposite wall. It was blank, boring and ordinary. It allowed her to think. If she was the one trying to get the Room of Requirement to open, what would she ask? That was what Madam Potter had said, wasn’t it? They needed to ask it to be something. What if, she thought to herself as she started pacing up and down the corridor, they could get the room to become something else entirely? Like - like the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, the thought came to her suddenly. After all, there was always more than one way to get anywhere in the castle. They just didn’t know all the shortcuts. And if the room could give them what they needed - well, what they wanted was the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. They needed the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

“Houda,” Aaron whispered and caught her sleeve. She looked up. On the ordinary, boring wall opposite the tapestry, a door appeared. The three of them looked at each other in amazement.

“Do you mind?” an annoyed voice was heard behind them - Lily was still concentrating hard on the tapestry.

Hugo stifled a giggle.

“Erm, Lily?” Houda said, trying hard not to laugh.

“What? I’m trying to concentrate here. It’s hard, you know, with you three talking and laughing all the time!”

“I think you can stop concentrating now.”

“I’m not giving up!”

“No, it’s just - please turn around?”

Lily turned around. Her mouth opened in shock at the sight of the door that hadn’t been there before. “How did...?”

“By accident,” Houda said. “I think. I don’t even know if it was me. I just thought - we could use another entry to the Chamber of Secrets.”

They stopped laughing now and looked at her. Hugo looked almost frightened. “You think that’s what’s in there?” he asked. “The Chamber of Secrets?”

“I think we should find out!” Lily jumped and made to the door, but then paused right before opening it.

“I think you should be the one to open it,” she told Houda. “You did it, after all.”

“Nah, we don’t know if it was me, and - ”

“Go on,” Lily said. “Open it.”

Houda smiled a nervous smile, and advanced to the door. She hesitated for a moment, her hand almost on the door knob. And if it were the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets - there was something there that made a ghost scared. Maybe they shouldn’t go there. Even if Madam Potter helped them find the Room of Requirement - she didn’t know they wanted to use it to enter the Chamber of Secrets. What if it were dangerous? What if...

No; no more ‘what if’s’, she decided, and opened the door.

Behind it was a small chamber. Its walls were black - covered by soot, by the look of it, and there was a strong smell of smoke in the room, even though the air was clear.

“It stinks in here,” Hugo whispered behind her. Houda nodded, and took a tentative step inside. There was nothing in the room, just the black walls, the odd smell - and another door at the other end.

“Well?” Aaron asked. “Is this the Chamber of Secrets?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I think it’s beyond that door,” Lily said quietly and her hand pointed at the other door. Her voice shook slightly. They looked at each other, Houda and Lily, and Houda knew Lily was thinking of the same thing she was - what was it, inside the Chamber of Secrets, that could scare a ghost?

Lily swallowed. “I think we should open the door,” she said.

“Yeah...”

They advanced towards the door, but reluctantly. Houda had to convince her legs to move - for some reason, looking at the door on the other end, Myrtle’s words became more and more real. She wasn’t so sure anymore she wanted to go inside the Chamber of Secrets.

They stopped in front of the other door, and looked at each other again.

“We could go back,” Aaron said quietly. “We don’t have to do this.”

“No,” Houda agreed. “We don’t.”

“We found the Room of Requirement. That’s cool enough. And it really is getting late,” Hugo added. “I’d rather not get into detention if we can avoid it.”

Lily said nothing. She reached a shaking hand, and opened the second door.

Behind the door, there was complete darkness.

“Lumos,” Lily whispered, and the tip of her wand came to life, lighting the darkness in front of them. It was a tunnel - a tunnel that looked almost like a slide. The surface was smooth, and the slope was very steep. They would definitely not be able to climb up it.

“We really don’t have to go, Lily,” Houda said quietly, and put a hand on her shoulder.

But there was a curious expression on Lily’s face. Not just her usual determination. She looked almost scary. “I want to go,” she said, and jumped into the tunnel.

Another moment, and Houda followed her.

It really did work as a slide. Houda felt like she was going down forever. After a while, the surface beneath her stopped feeling like stone, and started feeling like something else entirely - a pipe. Behind her, someone was screaming - or was it in front of her? She didn’t have enough time to think, as all of a sudden the slope was getting steeper and steeper and she was going faster and faster and she thought she heard a muffled bang somewhere in front of her and someone screamed again behind her and - BANG.

She got up and out of the way just in time - Aaron crashed on the floor right where she was, and then Hugo fell on top of him.

Everything was dark. She couldn’t see anyone. Lily’s wand must have gone dark, she thought, and then remembered her own. She pulled out the wand and lit it up to look around.

They were in a magnificent chamber. There were large columns, decorated with serpents. In front of her, there was a huge statue of a face, that looked monkey-like and had a long beard. And right in front of her -

It was a snake. No, she thought as she walked closer - it was a dead snake. But it couldn’t have been a snake - it was the biggest monster she had ever seen. It must have been twenty feet wide, with a row of ugly teeth - some of which, Houda noticed as she got closer, were missing. She reached with a shaky hand to touch the snake lightly - and all of a sudden, the skin of the snake disintegrated and disappeared in a cloud of dust. Once she stopped coughing and the air cleared, she could see what was left of the snake. It was only a skeleton now, fully preserved where it fell, years and years ago.

She tore her eyes from the monster, to see her friend’s red hair behind it. “Lily?” she asked tentatively.

But Lily wasn’t looking at the skeleton. She was looking beyond, towards the statue. As Houda stepped closer, she could see Lily had picked up something from the floor of the Chamber, something which had been forgotten next to the skeleton - a small, golden goblet, into which, she could see, someone had driven one of the monster’s teeth.

“Lily?” she asked again.

Lily was looking ahead, her eyes fixed on something - and now Houda noticed it too. It was - a ghost.

No exactly a ghost, Houda thought. It didn’t look anything like Nearly Headless Nick or Myrtle or any of the other ghosts in the castle. Ghosts were transparent, and lacked substance - but even they looked more real than this image - then this boy.

Because it was a boy - somewhat older than they were, perhaps James Potter’s age. He, too, must have been a Hogwarts student once, for he was wearing Hogwarts robes. He was sitting at the edge of the monkey-like statue, his head in his hands. He looked completely alone

Houda felt sorry for him - all the other ghosts, even Myrtle, walked around the castle. Why would this boy stay here, in this damp and scary place? She made to go towards him, but Lily’s hand shot and grabbed her. “Don’t go near him,” she whispered.

Her whisper seemed to alert the boy to their presence. He raised his head from his hands, and looked directly at them. It took one look at his face for Houda to step back. It was terrible. Despite his general lack of colour, his eyes were a distinct shade of red. And while his features were handsome, he gave off a feeling that Houda could only describe as ugly. He scared her. It scared her - she felt that, even though it looked like the ghost of a boy, it wasn’t really human. All of a sudden, she had no doubt that this was the thing in the Chamber of Secrets, the thing Myrtle was afraid of.

It - the boy - smiled. His smile made his face look even uglier.

“Well, well,” he whispered. “Some kids found their way to my home.”

Lily and Houda both took a step back. Another hand held hers - Aaron, coming up with Hugo from behind. The boys looked at the ghost as well, and Houda could feel Aaron jumping a little.

“Who are you?” Lily asked, staring at him.

“But how did you find the way to my Chamber, little children? No one ever finds their way here.”

“We did,” Lily said.

“That you did. That you did...” he studied her for a moment. Houda thought that, just for a moment, he flickered, looked somewhat older, but it must have been her imagination, because when she blinked, he looked the same age, but still smiling creepily, still studying Lily.

“You must be very brave, little Gryffindors,” he whispered. “Coming here where the monsters hide.”

“We’re not afraid of you,” Lily said, but her voice betrayed that she was, for a change, afraid. She saw something in that boy, Houda thought, something Houda didn’t quite understand.

“Who are you?” Houda asked this time, trying to understand, but both the ghost of the boy and Lily ignored her. The ghost was looking hungrily at Lily, while Lily herself was clutching even harder the small golden cup.

“You look like sweet little Ginny Weasley, don’t you?” the boy whispered.

Perhaps it was the mention of her mother’s name that gave Lily her confidence back. “I’m Lily Potter,” she declared. “Ginny Weasley’s my mum.”

The boy looked at her, his expression betraying - surprise? Amusement? “Lily Potter,” he repeated, then laughed. “I should have known. Your father has always been a sentimental fool,” he said. “And your mother really should have taught you better than to come in here to my Chamber.”

The taunts about her parents angered Lily. She stretched herself, looking much taller than she normally did, and stared at the ghost. “You can’t hurt me,” she said simply. “You’re dead. You’re a ghost.”

“But I’m not a ghost, Lily Potter,” he said pleasantly. “Can’t you see?”

Next to her, Houda could feel Lily trembling slightly. “No,” Houda said, trying to help Lily. “You’re less than a ghost, aren’t you? We’ve never seen you with the other ghosts. You don’t even look as real as a ghost!”

He shrugged. He didn’t mind the challenge. “An echo, then, perhaps,” he agreed, still pleasantly - still feeling anything but pleasant. “But you’d be surprised the influence that an echo could have,” he laughed.

“You’re dead,” Lily insisted again.

“Go on, stupid girl,” he said, focusing back on Lily. “Go away. Go away before you find me haunting your dreams. I think haunting the dreams of one Potter is quite enough for me.”

The boy laughed. Lily turned back and fled, dropping the golden goblet with a loud clunk on the floor. Houda wasn’t sorry to follow her friend and leave that echo of a ghost behind her.

Behind them, the golden goblet lay forgotten on the floor. The echo of a ghost, shaped like a boy, sat back at the statue, holding his head in his hands, in silence.

-X- James paused as he walked into the common room. His original intention was to proceed with Lysander straight to the Great Hall, where Hogwarts’ magnificent Hallowe’en feast was about to start. But in the common room, in a corner by the fire, he could see Lily sitting alone, her face buried inside a book.

She was acting like that for the past few days, he had noticed; often he saw her friends - Hugo, Houda, and that Muggle-born kid, Aaron - outside, playing or doing something silly, but Lily didn’t join them. For the past week or so, every time James saw her, she looked subdued and miserable, sitting on her own.

It was time, he thought, that he should check what it was all about. He knew his sister - she wasn’t prone to bad moods or depressions. Something was wrong, he was sure of it.

“You go down,” he told Lysander. “I’ll catch up with you.”

“You’re sure? The feast’s about to start.”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll be right there,” James insisted, and Lysander walked out of the common room. James, meanwhile, sat down next to Lily on the thick carpet.

She raised her head for a moment, looked at him, then returned to her book.

“Hey, Lily,” he said.

She shrugged and continued reading. He waited a second or two, then grabbed the book from her and closed it. From the tip of his eye, he could see the name: Tom Marvolo Riddle: the Rise and Fall of Lord Voldemort. What was she reading about Voldemort for?

“Give me back my book, James,” she said in an irritated voice.

“After you talk to me,” he said. “And if you don’t talk to me, you’re not getting the book back.”

“It’s a library book. I have to return it.”

He raised an eyebrow. He meant it, and he knew that she knew that. She tried to stare him down - and she might have succeeded, had it not been for the fact he really was worried about her.

After a minute or so of staring in silence, when she realised he wasn’t going to back down, she sighed. “What is it?” she asked.

“The feast’s about to start. Why are you here instead of down there?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ve barely come down to meals this entire week,” he said. “And you’re not hanging around with Hugo and Houda anymore. Did you have a fight?”

“No!” she said.

He raised an eyebrow.

“Really, James. We haven’t had a fight. I’m just... not in the mood, alright?”

“You’re starting to act like Al.”

“I’m becoming a teenager too, is it?” she repeated the words Mum and Dad said often during the summer with such earnest anger, that he had to laugh.

“Yeah, you are. See, the thing is, it turned out Al was acting like that ‘cause he was hiding something.” He paused for a moment. “You’re not secretly dating Scorpius Malfoy, are you?” he asked in the most serious concerned voice he could muster.

“What - Ew! No!” She said in a surprised and disgusted voice and started hitting him with her hands.

He laughed and laughed until she stopped and glared at him.

“Sorry, had to ask,” he said, the smile still on his face.

After a moment, he got the result he wanted - Lily stopped looking angry and smiled herself, even if her smile was small and slightly sad and not at all her regular smile. “Alright,” she said, “you asked and I answered, so don’t ask such stupid questions again.”

“What is it, Lily?”

She looked at the book again without talking. Her expression looked almost frightened. He looked at the book for a moment, then at her.

“He’s down there,” she whispered suddenly, in a miserable, terrified voice. “Lurking.”

“What - Voldemort? Voldemort’s dead, Lily. Dad killed him, ages ago.”

She nodded. “I know. He’s like... like a ghost. He said he’ll haunt my dreams. I keep on dreaming about him, he had scarlet eyes and such a terrible smile, James.”

She looked at the book for a moment. “He’s scary,” she said then. “Much more scary than goblins.”

“He’s dead, Lily. He can’t hurt you. And Dad wouldn’t have let him even if he could.”

She nodded, but still didn’t look satisfied.

He sighed. What on earth did she get into her head, he thought, and looked around for anything that could get her mind off that ridiculous idea. Perhaps, he thought, the book?

“Look,” he said, fetching back the book and opening it on a random page, “if you want to - hey,” he paused.

There was a picture on that page. It was taken, so the caption said, from the Quidditch World Cup, 1994, the first sighting of Voldemort’s sign and servants for thirteen years. It was an old picture, in faded colours, taken from the Daily Prophet, and depicted the campsite next to the world cup, and above it, a big smokey skull with snakes.

James had seen the sign before - recently. He knew it. What was it, what was it... and then he remembered. It was the sign on the arm of the wizard at the Hog’s Head, when they went there a couple of months ago. Why would anyone have Voldemort’s sign tattooed on their arm?

All thought of Lily left his mind. He knew who could help him now, and it wasn’t his little sister - no, it was his little brother.

“Look, Lily, really, stop worrying about it, and come down to the feast,” he said hurriedly. He needed to go down there. He needed to find Al. “Alright?”

“Alright,” she said finally, and got up.

He followed her down, but when they walked into the Great Hall, he didn’t sit down next to Lysander. Instead, he progressed until he located Al, who was seated next to Rose.

“Al,” he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, “I need to talk to you.”

“James, the feast’s about to start.”

“Yeah, I know, but I need a favour.”

“Now he needs a favour,” Al rolled his eyes and got up. “What is it?”

“I need to ask Scorpius Malfoy something, and I thought it might be - erm, you know, not completely awkward and inappropriate if you came with me. It’s a bit of a personal question.”

“Look, if you want to harass Scorpius about - ”

“It’s not about that,” James cut across him. “Honest.” He didn’t have time to hear lectures. This was important. For once, it was really important.

Al looked at him through slightly narrowed eyes, trying to find deceit, no doubt, then sighed. “Alright, alright.” He scanned the Slytherin table.

“I don’t see him here, though. They must still be on their way.”

“Can you come with me?”

Al nodded. “This had better be good, James, or I’ll hex you something awful.”

“It is. You have my permission to hex me with your best Bat-Bogey curse if you disagree.”

Al snorted. “Fine, let’s go.”

They left the Great Hall, Al at the lead, James following closely behind. He had no friends in Slytherin, and no reason to ever go to their common room. He had no idea where they were going. He half expected Al to go up one of the staircases, but instead, Al turned towards the dungeons. They walked the damp corridors for a few minutes, until they had reached a wall - or at least, what looked like a wall.

“It’s here,” Al said. “The Slytherin common room. But I don’t know the password.”

“I guess we’re going to wait here until - ” but James didn’t have the chance to finish that sentence, because at that moment a door appeared where before there was just a blank wall, and Scorpius Malfoy walked out of his dormitories, accompanied by a couple of other Slytherin boys.

“Al - what are you doing here?” he sneered at James.

“Look, Malfoy, I need to ask you a question. It’s kind of urgent. And, erm,” he looked for a moment at the other two boys. It was a sensitive question. He didn’t really want to ask it in front of anyone else.

Scorpius seemed to understand this, without James saying a word. He told his friends he will catch them later, then glared at James. “What d’you want, Potter?”

“There’s this sign. I think... Voldemort’s sign. A skull and a snake.”

Scorpius turned pale immediately. It was amazing how, pale as the boy was, he could still turn even paler. James now knew he was on the right track.

“What’s this?” he asked Al.

“I swear, Scorpius, I didn’t know what he wanted, he just said it’s important,” Al said immediately, and unlike Scorpius, he was flushed red.

“Look, I’m not trying to bait you or anything. Really, it’s important. What’s that symbol?”

Scorpius shrugged. “Like you said. The Dark Lord’s symbol.”

“Would anyone have it tattooed on their arm?” he asked.

Scorpius froze, then nodded briefly.

“You saw it tattooed on someone’s arm, or are you guessing?”

The look Scorpius gave him was full of venom. “I saw it,” he said, spitting the words. “My father has it.”

“Why? What does it... I mean... does it mean anything?”

“Death Eaters, alright? It was tattooed on Death Eaters. The Dark Lord’s inner circle. A way for the Dark Lord to communicate with the Death Eaters. Father wasn’t just on the wrong side, he was actually one of them! Happy?”

On any other day, the news that Professor Malfoy wasn’t just a creepy bloke with a questionable past but a full-blown Death Eater would have completely rattled James - or at least, would have given him fodder for years. Now, it didn’t matter anymore. Voldemort was gone for a long time, but all of his Death Eaters were supposed to have been killed or put away - if there was one of them, out and about and contacting the wizards’ worst enemies...

He had to tell Dad.

He turned on the spot and started running up the stairs, back to the Great Hall. “What’s the matter?” one of the boys shouted after him, but he paid them no mind.

Only when he entered the Great Hall did he pause. He had to tell Dad - but he couldn’t tell Dad, not without telling Dad how he came by that information. He could get into trouble - and worse, get Colleen, Lysander and Lorcan into trouble as well. And even worse than that, it would probably ruin any chance they had of ever using the secret tunnel to get into Hogsmeade ever again, even if they did manage that Disillusionment charm.

He couldn’t tell Dad.

But he had to.

In his hesitation, he scanned the teachers’ table. Dad wasn’t even there. He saw Mum, sitting next to Hermione on one side and Professor Scamander on the other, the three of them talking in low whispers. Maybe Mum was the answer. She was so much more sensible on these issues than Dad.

He approached the table quietly. “Mum?” he asked.

Mum stopped talking, and all three teachers looked at him, curious.

“What is it, James?” she asked.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Do you want to wait until - ”

“Now, please?”

She nodded immediately. His heart warmed at the thought - of course, Mum realised he wouldn’t have disturbed her if it wasn’t important. How didn’t he think of Mum before?

She got up and left the table. She took him and led him without another word to the end of the Great Hall, next to the small door which the teachers used to go in and out.

“What is it, James?” she asked in a serious voice.

“What if - what if you found out something important, right, something that you really needed to tell someone, but you knew that the way you found out wasn’t really...” he struggled with a way to express the question without incriminating himself or his friends - “well, it could get you in trouble. And other people, too.”

She studied him for a moment. “I think, James, that you’re old enough to recognise when something’s important and when it’s worth taking risks for.”

Yeah, that was Mum, too. Taking him seriously - but never offering an easy way out. At least she didn’t start questioning him immediately, like Dad would have, but let him decide on his own. Maybe that was what he wanted, he thought darkly. Someone to tell him that getting another detention over skiving out of Hogwarts was worth it.

“A couple of months ago, we discovered this... I don’t know how to call it. Passage. Near the statue of the one-eyed witch.”

“To Hogsmeade?” she asked him sharply.

“Yeah. To Hogsmeade. We didn’t know it led to Hogsmeade! We just saw it was a secret passage and thought it’d be nice to see where it went.”

“Okay, so you left the school even though you knew it was dangerous and that students of the school had been attacked in the past at Hogsmeade.”

“We didn’t know, I told you! But once we got there, we had to have a look around, you know?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, James, I don’t know. But this can wait for later. What happened in Hogsmeade?”

“We went to the - to the Hog’s Head. We didn’t want to go to the Three Broomsticks ‘cause Madam Rosmerta might have said something, so we went to the Hog’s Head.”

“And Mundungus Fletcher didn’t say anything?” she asked, and her nostrils flared - a sure sign she was angry. At least, James thought to himself - although he would never have dared to speak these words out loud - she was angry this time with Mundungus Fletcher more than she was with him.

“No, he didn’t. Anyway, we sat there, right? And on the other side, there was a goblin. And he was talking in Gobbledegook with this wizard and then all of the wizard’s papers spread around and I helped him gather them and when I gave them to him I noticed there was a tattoo on his arm and it was Voldemort’s sign.” He said all this with one breath, worried about any more disturbances. “It was a Death Eater, Mum. Talking to the goblin.”

“We’re going to see Dad,” she said immediately. She didn’t mention his breaking of the rules again, or said anything about the Hog’s Head or Mundungus Fletcher or the one-eyed witch statue. They just marched towards the small room that was given to Harry and Ginny Potter at Hogwarts.

Something was up. James knew it the second they walked inside. Dad’s travelling cloak was outside, spread on the chair. He was just tying his shoes, looking disturbed.

Mum opened the door, and let James in, then leaned on the wall, her arms crossed. When James looked at her questioningly, she just gestured with her head, as if saying, go ahead.

“Dad?” he asked tentatively.

Dad didn’t raise his head.

“Dad, I need to talk to you about something.”

“It’ll have to wait, James,” he said, his voice full of stress. “I have to go.”

“Harry.” Mum’s voice was sharp and worried. “You’ll listen to him now.” Dad raised his head for a moment in confusion, then looked at James.

“What is it, James?”

James repeated his story, of how they found the one-eyed witch statue and discovered the passageway to Hogsmeade and went to the Hog’s Head. “I just realised today what that symbol was,” he said, “there was this book and then I went to ask Scorpius Malfoy and he said it was something only Death Eaters had.”

Dad swore loudly. Even now, worried that he will get punished - and even more worried about Dad being so stressed and worried - James couldn’t help but be impressed. He didn’t think Dad knew language like that.

“Harry,” Mum said again.

“There was a mass breakout from Azkaban,” Dad said, looking grim. “The Death Eaters are gone. They must have planned it with the goblins.” He swore again, then looked at James.

“James, thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you soon, I promise. Ginny - ” he looked at Mum. “I have to go.”

She didn’t look surprised. “Don’t be too long,” she said quietly.

Dad put on the cloak and left without another word.

Chapter 8: Death Eaters

The mass breakout of Death Eaters had one effect no one had expected - no one seemed to care about the goblins anymore, not inside Hogwarts and not outside it. The news had broke out around breakfast, when the few kids who received the Daily Prophet saw the headline in the newspaper and shared it with everyone else. The story became more and more wild the more it was told and re-told, but no one even considered the possibility of the goblins’ involvement with the Death Eaters: James did not share the information even with his best friends. He didn’t need to be told that this was one thing his father would prefer to keep quiet.

There was plenty of excitement in the school even without this information. What two incidents with goblins had not managed to do, this had - some of the kids had been pulled out of school. James’s closest friends remained at the school - his friends were all children of teachers at the school, or people who had otherwise fought in the war. Muggle-borns, likewise, were mostly sensible enough to not even tell their parents that there was a wizard prison, let along that dangerous criminals had managed to escape from it. But some of the kids were not so lucky. Jenna Smith from Hufflepuff was gone within a day. Her best friend, Tamsyn Jones, was gone that same afternoon, even though her father worked in the Ministry. Lorcan had heard his mum talking about it, and said during one Care for Magical Creatures class that apparently her father had lost his first family to Death Eaters. “He’s not taking any chances,” he said.

Some kids had better luck. Trishana Finnigan and her older sister Priyanka had no problem with their parents, who had both fought Death Eaters in the war, but their cousin Esha’s mother had to fight with her father to keep her in school. The same thing happened with Colin Creevey, a first-year Ravenclaw, whose father had lost a brother in the War. Colin ended up staying, but he told anyone who’d listen how he had to pack five times, as he kept on getting owls with conflicting messages from his father and his mother, and by now had just kept his trunk ready.

Even Colleen wasn’t having an easy time. Her father had fought the war, and had been an Auror for years afterwards. But at the same time, he was Muggle-born, and so was her mother. She didn’t say a thing at first - not even to James. But a few days later, she hung back intentionally after Care for Magical Creatures.

“You go ahead,” James said to Lysander when he noticed she had collected her things with deliberate slowness. “I’ll catch up with you guys later.”

Lysander and Lorcan gave him a strange look, then shrugged and left.

“You’d think they’d realise I’d wanna spend some time alone with my girlfriend sometimes,” he said, trying to cheer her up.

“With the amount of time we spend together, you’d think I was their girlfriend too,” she answered. She didn’t sound amused - more concerned.

“What’s up?” he asked her quietly. They were walking slowly to the castle. It started raining, and James didn’t fancy getting soaked, but at the same time, he knew that if they reached the castle too soon, Lorcan and Lysander were bound to join them. Colleen must have thought the same thing. She was walking so slowly, that had she walked any slower, she’d be standing still.

“Mum wants me to go home,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

At that, James did stop in place. “What?” he asked, slightly too loudly, and lowered his voice when he saw her annoyed look. “You can’t be serious!”

“She does, though.”

“But that’s mental! You dad teaches here - your dad was an Auror! He fought in the War! Why would she want you to leave?”

“She’s Muggle-born,” Colleen must have thought this was an explanation, but it left James just as bewildered as he was before.

“Your dad’s Muggle-born too!”

“Yeah, but she’s a couple of years younger, isn’t she?”

Now, James was completely lost. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Colleen stared at him for a moment, as if he was the one not making any sense. “She couldn’t fight during the War, James,” she said slowly, as if explaining things to a child. “She was still a kid.”

“Nah, can’t be, my dad’s the same age as your dad, and your mum’s just a couple of years younger.”

“She was a kid then, James. I think she was younger than we are. She couldn’t fight.”

He shook his head, leaving that argument for later. “Okay, whatever, but that still doesn’t explain why she’d want you out of Hogwarts.”

“Because she’s afraid of Death Eaters, that’s why!” Colleen was almost shouting now herself.

James might not have been able to understand what he said wrong, but he did manage to understand he had said something wrong. He took Colleen’s hand and tried to calm her down. “Colleen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you or anything, I guess I just don’t get it. I’m really sorry.”

She shook her head, wiping a tear. “S’not your fault,” she said. “All your parents and family and everything were old enough to fight back then. Mum says it was the worst year of her life. She was too young to fight, and she couldn’t go to Hogwarts that year. But they didn’t let her just go to a Muggle school, and she had to...” she paused for a moment. “It really affected her, you know? It wasn’t a good time to be Muggle-born.”

“Hey, I’m sure it’d be all alright,” he said. He couldn’t think of anything better to say. “Your dad will calm her down, you’ll see.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, then sniffled. “Anyway, we need to get inside, you’re soaking.”

“You too.”

“Yeah, but I look elegant when I’m soaking,” she said, and he snorted.

Professor Thomas certainly looked harassed now, too. Colleen ended up staying at Hogwarts - it was her mother and her younger brother who had joined them at the school. But even then, neither Colleen nor her father looked any calmer.

“Professor Thomas,” someone asked during Muggle Studies a week or so later, “Didn’t you use to be an Auror? How come you stopped?”

“Yeah, I was an Auror for a few years,” Professor Thomas answered. “After the War, the Ministry needed quite a lot of people, you see - to round up all the escaped Death Eaters. There were constant attacks by some of the Death Eaters who weren’t captured. They weren’t really graceful losers,” he said without a lot of humour.

“Then what happened?”

“Then we caught them all, and the Ministry didn’t need so many Aurors anymore, and I thought it’d be nice to do something else.”

“Do you regret it now?”

“No,” Professor Thomas answered without hesitation. “The Auror Office is in pretty good hands, I think. And working with Muggles was just as important after the War as catching Death Eaters.”

The students didn’t understand his logic. All they saw was that the teachers were worried, and the parents were worried - and that, amongst all that, their Defence Against the Dark Arts classes had become the daily lottery of ‘Who will take the class this time’.

The fourth year Gryffindors, who had the class immediately after the breakout, ended up with a free period. But that evening, Neville showed up in the Gryffindor common room and told them they were not to skive off Defence, and that their presence there would be checked. James’s first class was with Hermione; Neville had taken the sixth-years the next day; Lily came back after another day and told them how they had Malfoy and it was horrible. James looked at her in confusion, but since Al was in the common room at the same time, he didn’t say what he was thinking - why on earth did McGonagall let the former Death Eater teach Defence? “And how come he didn’t end up in Azkaban?” he muttered to Lysander after their double-potions class the very next day. “They sent all the Death Eaters there, didn’t they?”

The whole school was excited when Dad showed up to take the class with the seventh-years and with Al’s year on Friday, but Roxanne reported that he had told them he’d have to leave pretty soon. James, his lips pursed, told Lysander not to wait for him and ran to find his father before he left again.

He found Dad in his and Mom’s small flat. They were sitting together with Hermione - and Ron. Had he known there were so many people there, he would have knocked, of course - but he didn’t, and instead just burst in. Dad was obviously in the middle of a sentence, but stopped talking as soon as the door opened, and James could only admonish himself - he should have tried to listen in a bit.

“Hi, James,” Dad said in a tired voice. He looked tired, too. He had dark bags under his eyes and there was the general air of weariness around him. A new, reddish scar stretched from his ear to his chin.

“Hi,” James said, stopping at the entrance uncertain. He wanted to start bombarding his father with questions, but between the small conference that seemed to be going on and the way Dad looked, he wasn’t so sure it was the right time. “I just wanted to see how you were.”

Dad chuckled. “I’m alright, James. Just a little tired. I’m afraid I can’t stay much longer.”

“But you just got here!” James protested. “Why can’t they get anyone else on it?”

“Everyone else is working on it, just as many hours as I am,” Dad said. “Andromeda’s threatening to have my hide if I keep Teddy at work for three days straight again. And Seamus and Padma haven’t seen each other for a week and they’re both planning my assassination.”

“Do you guys have any leads?” James asked eagerly, but Dad shook his head.

“You know I can’t tell you anything about that, James.”

James was sure Mum and Hermione exchanged the smallest of glances, but before he could latch on that to try and get Dad to talk, Ron got up. “It’s getting late,” he said. “We need to get going, Harry.”

“Right.” Dad got up as well, and gave Mum a small kiss.

“Be careful,” she said, and he just answered, “I’ll see you soon. You too, James,” he said and caught James for a hug, which James grudgingly returned. He would have preferred Dad to treat him like an adult and tell him things, rather than go all mysterious and hug him as if he were Lily’s age.

“See you, James - and behave,” Ron said and gave Hermione a kiss, too, and then the two Aurors were gone again.

James was halfway back to the Gryffindor common room when he remembered he never asked his father about the thing that had nagged him at the edge of his mind ever since his conversation with Colleen. But he didn’t actually need to ask Dad, did he? Teddy was born shortly before the end of the war and he was twenty-two, and Dad was born in 1980 which made him thirty-nine today and...

That couldn’t be right. He went over the dates again, but still ended up with the same conclusion. His dad was seventeen when he killed Voldemort.

That just can’t be right, he shook his head. James was fifteen, that was only two years younger. When he entered the Gryffindor common room, the first thing he did was grab Lily’s history book.

“Oi! What d’you think you’re doing?!” she protested.

“Just checking something...” he flipped through the pages until he got to the chapter about the War - no, wrong chapter, first war with Voldemort, he checked the table of contents in annoyance until he found the chapter about the Battle of Hogwarts.

If he thought about it, he didn’t really need the chapter. He knew the date. They all did, they were forced to sit down at the memorial service at Hogwarts every year and be bored anew. But there it was, anyway: the second of May, 1997.

“What year was Dad born?”

“Huh?” she looked at him in confusion.

“What year was Dad born?”

“1980, no?”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

She looked at Hugo for a moment in exasperation, then turned back to him. “What’s that all about?”

“Did you know Dad was seventeen when he killed Voldemort?”

“Seventeen? That can’t be...”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Hugo looked at the both of them dubiously and opened his mouth to speak, but neither James nor Lily were paying him much attention.

“But they don’t accept people that young to the Auror office,” Lily said.

“Maybe they did back then?” James wondered aloud, then thought about it some more. “No, that still doesn’t make sense, then he wouldn’t have finished Hogwarts anyway.”

“See? You’re wrong here somewhere.”

“Erm, guys,” Hugo finally found his voice. “They didn’t finish Hogwarts.”

Both James and Lily looked questioningly at Hugo. All of a sudden, he looked much more uncomfortable. “Didn’t Harry ever tell you? They weren’t Aurors or anything, that happened after.”

“But...” Lily started, then stopped to think of her question, then started again. “But if Dad wasn’t an Auror then, how come he ended up being the one who killed Voldemort?”

Hugo looked from Lily, to James, to Lily again, looking more and more confused. Rose, who must have heard some of the conversation, sat down next to them. “Your parents never told you this?” she asked now, showing the same confusion as Hugo.

James wasn’t at all keen to admit that no, their parents had not told them almost anything about the War. And now that he thought about it, he was not so keen to admit that he never went to check things up, either. It wasn’t like all of this wasn’t in most of the newer history books. But Lily didn’t have such problems, and said immediately, “No, they didn’t. So, how come?”

“They were on the run that entire year,” Hugo said. “Mum and Dad as well as Harry. The only reason the battle was at Hogwarts was because they came here for some reason.”

“Excuse me,” James said in irritation, and despite the hour, made to leave the common room. He still had half an hour or so he could spend in the library, looking at books and trying to figure all of this out. Behind him, he could hear Al saying in a sarcastic voice, “Welcome to the Potter house, where no one ever tells us anything!” and for a change, he didn’t feel like telling Al he was being a prat at all.

He didn’t notice Lily slinking in behind him and out of the common room, either.

-X- Lily was not going to the library. The library was just likely to disappoint her - what could possibly be there that her parents didn’t want known? They weren’t likely to go to the Daily Prophet and spill all their secrets.

But she knew someone who did know.

It was with more than a few misgivings that she climbed the staircase towards the seventh floor and stood with her back to the tapestry, with a heart full of doubt that she walked into the Room of Requirement, and with nothing short of dread that she opened the door to the passageway into the Chamber of Secrets. Was it the wise thing to do? This was Voldemort, after all. She couldn’t be sure he would tell her the truth any more than the library books.

In the end, it was the conversation she had just left that made her open the door handle and jump into the tunnel. If her father could face the real, flesh-and-blood Voldemort and defeat him at age seventeen, she could definitely talk to a harmless ghost - not even a ghost.

No one had entered the Chamber in the week or so since she had last been there. It still looked exactly the same - just as dark, just as damp, just as scary. The golden goblet was still lying around on the floor, unwanted. And at the foot of the statue, the boy, the echo of a ghost - Voldemort - was still sitting down, just as she had last seen him, holding his head between his hands.

She took a step forward, then another. She didn’t think she made any noise, but she must have, because the boy raised his head and stared at her with scarlet eyes. Perhaps the ghost had another way of detecting her presence, the thought passed through her mind and she shuddered.

“Well, well, well,” the ghost Voldemort said. “If it isn’t sweet little Lily Potter.”

This was a bad idea, she realised the shivers went up and down her back under his gaze. The room looked even scarier than before now, dark and cold and uninviting, and she was alone. The transparent boy’s smile widened as he saw her fear.

“Why did you come back, little Lily Potter?” he whispered. “Didn’t Mummy and Daddy teach you better? Didn’t they tell you never to come back here? This isn’t a zoo, little Lily Potter,” his voice became menacing now. “You can’t look at the monster from beyond a glass case.”

“I’m not afraid of you!” she said, her traitorous voice shaking.

He laughed in delight.

“You know,” she said now with a bit more control over her voice, “I’d think with you being so lonely you’d try not to make the people who come here run away.”

“What makes you think I want your company, little girl?” he hissed in anger.

“You’re lonely,” Lily said in surprise, and all of a sudden, her voice didn’t shake at all. “You’re stuck here, aren’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

“You’re never up there with the other ghosts. No one knows you’re here except for Myrtle, and she doesn’t want to go anywhere near you. No one does. You’re here all alone.”

“Go away,” he said again. Now, Lily smiled.

“No,” she said and walked past the huge snake skeleton and right to the statue, where she sat down next to the ghost. “I think I’ll stay for now.”

He gave her a loathing look.

“How come you’re not up there with the other ghosts?” she asked. “I mean, I can’t imagine anyone wanting you there, of course, but after all, no one really wants to be around the Bloody Baron or Peeves, and they’re in the castle. Can they exorcise you if they know you’re here?”

“They can’t exorcise me,” he said in a sulky voice, sounding a lot more like a boy now than the scariest dark wizard of all time. “And I can’t go up.”

“How come?”

“Because I’m not a ghost, you stupid girl.”

“You look like a ghost,” she pointed out.

“Looks can be deceiving. Don’t I look like a boy to you?” he sneered, and sounded exactly like Al when he was in a bad mood.

“You sound like a boy, too,” she said.

Once again, he threw a dirty look at her. “I was Lord Voldemort, little girl,” he said. “The most magnificent wizard of all time!”

“Now you really sound like a little kid,” she said.

The boy jumped from his seat at the statue and Lily thought he would start shouting, but then he changed his mind and sat down again. “I suppose, to you, this is what I look,” he said in a resigned voice. “But still, I am not a ghost. Ghosts is the soul of dead wizards, who - ”

“Who were too afraid to die and so they sort of imprinted themselves, yes, yes, I know,” she cut across him impatiently. Once again, he looked at her with an annoyed look, but he didn’t tell her to stop talking again, which she took to be a good sign. “So you weren’t afraid to die?”

He sneered. “No,” he said, “parts of my soul died at different times. You can’t be a ghost when your soul is in pieces.”

“So how did you end up here like that?” she was genuinely curious now. She didn’t think he was lying. It was a ridiculous assertion, of course - this was Voldemort, of course he would lie if it suited his purpose. But for some reason, she didn’t think he was lying now.

He glared at her for a moment longer, a hungry, calculating look. A creepy look. She didn’t like it. “And whatever it is you’re planning, it won’t work, so don’t try anything,” she warned him.

He smiled his ugly smile. “Perhaps you are already playing into my hands, little girl,” he said.

“No, I don’t think so. You started calling me ‘little girl’ when you got angry, I don’t think I’m doing anything that could help you. And please stop calling me ‘little girl’, it’s annoying and I’m eleven already.”

He looked like he was going to make another scathing comment, then smiled. It looked like he was trying to make his smile friendly, sweet, perhaps even charming, but Lily found herself wishing he would smile instead like he did before, when he tried to frighten her. That smile was not as ugly as this one. “Two pieces of my soul died here,” he said. “It was enough to create this... echo.”

“So you’re not a ghost, you’re an echo of a ghost,” she summarised. He didn’t bother to answer. “And echoes of ghosts can’t travel around?”

“Obviously,” he sneered again. She didn’t chide him for his behaviour - at least she didn’t have to look at his creepy smile again. “So, this is why I am here, condemned to stay in this Chamber - forever,” he said now. “What’s your excuse, Lily Potter? Why have you come looking for me?”

“Because I wanted to.” She could tell that if she told him the real reason, he was unlikely to give her the information she was looking for. Better get it out of him in different ways, she thought.

“You wanted to come and see Lord Voldemort?”

“Why is that so surprising?” she asked.

“Because, little girl, I am the one who killed your grandparents. The woman whose name you’re carrying, Lily Potter, she died at my hands,” he said. “And her worthless husband, too, your grandfather, James Potter. He never had a chance. Neither of them did. None of them ever did.”

“And then my dad killed you,” she told the ghost, mostly to stop his boasting of all the people he killed. He wasn’t very happy to hear it. “That must have been a surprise for you.”

He wasn’t falling for it. His eyes gleamed scarlet again, interested and amused. “So you want to hear about that...” he said. “Why come to me?”

“Why not?”

“Surely, one of those who lived through it could tell you all you’d want to know?” he sneered. “Tell you how brave they were, how noble, how terrible I was and how they defeated me with their bravery against all odds?”

“Well,” she got up, “if you can’t tell me anything...” She started walking towards the passageway back to the school. Her heart pounding. What if she was wrong?

“Wait.”

She smiled and turned around. The echo of the ghost of a boy long gone looked at her, still hungry, still calculating, and yet - interested. “Come back here.”

“You’ll tell me what I want to know?”

“How do you know you can trust my story?” he asked.

“I don’t. I’ll just have to decide for myself.”

He smiled his hungry, ugly smile. “Wise decision,” he said. She sat down next to him again.

-X- Three weeks after the mass breakout, and life at Hogwarts was starting to get back to normal. There had been no attacks by Death Eaters anywhere. There was no sign of danger. Even the kids who had been pulled out of school were slowly coming back - Gwen Jones from Hufflepuff came back to school with her older sister Tamsyn. It was as if nothing had happened, except that Dad still hadn’t come back to teach.

By now, Al was hearing complaints about that all over the place. Professor Potter was obviously wasting his time chasing after Death Eaters, Professor Potter obviously didn’t think their Defence Against the Dark Arts classes were as important, why didn’t Professor Potter give up on that ridiculous hunt and just come back to give his class?

And the worst bit was that everyone thought the best person to answer these questions was Al. The rational part of his mind pointed out it wasn’t just him - James and Lily were asked the exact same questions, over and over again. Even Hugo and Rose, who everyone knew were related to Harry and that their father was an Auror too, were asked about it.

Most of the time, Al almost felt like the only person in the school who still cared about the Death Eaters. He cared about the Death Eaters because they kept Dad away, and he knew that Dad wouldn’t have been gone for so long unless it was important. He care about the Death Eaters because every time the topic was mentioned next to James, James became strange and evasive, and Al was sure that there was something more to the whole thing, and that James knew what it was. It just happened to be the one thing James ever kept his mouth shut about. Al cared about the Death Eaters because of the recent revelation they had about their father, and he couldn’t help but wonder what else did their parents keep away from them about the War.

And mostly, he cared about the Death Eaters because Scorpius cared about the Death Eaters.

Kids like Gwen Jones were pulled out of school, and everyone thought their parents were a bit too quick to worry, but still, it made sense. The teachers looked all worried, and everyone thought it made sense, because they all fought during the War, didn’t they? Even the stories came up now, as Professor Thomas started telling them one Muggle Studies class how he had to go on the run during the War, because he was Muggle-born and even Hermione found herself telling them about a cool piece of magic Professor McGonagall had done during the Battle of Hogwarts.

Scorpius, too, was thinking about Death Eaters, but as far as Al could tell, he didn’t tell anyone about that, except for Al himself. Al knew why, of course. There were other Slytherins whose families had served Voldemort during the War: in their year alone there were endless rumours about Albert Nott and Miranda Macnair, and he had heard the names of others, as well. He was sure Scorpius knew better. Those kids often walked with their heads bowed around the school and, ever since the breakout - which, Al suspected, included some of their families - tried to avoid most of the school altogether.

Scorpius had never been like one of those kids, as his father was a teacher at Hogwarts and not a prisoner in Azkaban. But as the days went by after the mass breakout, Scorpius started acting more and more like those kids, and less and less like the Scorpius Al knew.

Al had caught him, a couple of times, looking at Miranda Macnair, then shrugging and returning to whatever it was he was doing. Once after dinner Al searched the Great Hall, trying to locate Scorpius, and saw him talking quietly to a seventh-year kid called Augustus Carrow - and then shouted away quickly.

Scorpius, flushed, caught Al’s glance as he was leaving the Great Hall and shook his head. This was not one of the days he wanted to talk to his Gryffindor friend, apparently. Al couldn’t help but wonder whether it was one of those days he didn’t want to talk to his Potter friend, either.

He finally caught him during that week’s Defence class, when he abandoned Rose in order to sit with Scorpius. She looked annoyed for a moment - but just for a moment, then sat down with Gwen Jones to hear all about her forced holiday at home.

No one’s mood was improved when Professor Malfoy walked into the room - especially not Scorpius’s, Al noticed.

When Professor Malfoy told them to open their books and made incredulous noises that they had no knowledge of what Dementors were, Al took the opportunity to whisper to Scorpius.

“What’s up with you this week?”

Scorpius shot a glance at his father. “Father’s been unbearable - more unbearable than usual,” he admitted after a while. Professor Malfoy drawled on about Dementors, which apparently had hoods, and if there was anything more important about them, Al missed it in his much more interesting conversation with Scorpius.

“How come? Because of the Death Eaters?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well - I don’t know, I mean, they’re all in Azkaban and he’s out and teaching here, isn’t he?” Professor Malfoy was now lecturing them about happiness for some reason. Al gave up any attempt to understand what the hell he was talking about. “I don’t know if they’re too happy with your dad.”

Scorpius nodded again. “I think he’s scared of them,” he admitted at last. “I heard him talking about it a couple of times... he sounded afraid.”

Al didn’t know what to say to that. He had never seen his own father scared of anything. What did you tell your best friend when his dad was afraid of people who were evil enough and had enough of a grudge to try and kill him? Professor Malfoy was a bit more pale than usual, Al thought all of a sudden, as their teacher wrote the word ‘despair’ on the blackboard.

“And if that’s not enough,” Scorpius continued, “my grandfather’s coming to live with us.”

“What - the Death Eater?” Professor Malfoy was forgotten as Al stared at Scorpius in amazement. He would never have normally phrased it like that, but in this case... surely Scorpius wasn’t saying what he thought he was saying?

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Scorpius snapped at him. “You think Father would have let him into the house if he was a fugitive? He never even let me go there and see him!”

“Yeah, but I thought that was because he didn’t want you to go to Azkaban,” Al pointed out.

Scorpius shrugged. “I guess. He hates that place. He still visits my grandfather there every week, but he never takes me and he always says he’s not going to.”

“So, how come?”

“Just the end of his sentence, you know? I know the Death Eaters were sent there for life, but I guess the same thing that got Father out of Azkaban got my grandfather a shortened sentence, too.”

“So, that’s the first time you’re going to meet him?”

“Yeah, Mother’s been going nuts preparing everything, and my grandmother, too. They’ve been trying to make my grandmother’s room bigger for the both of them, that’s what Mother said on the letters, anyway. I don’t think Mother’s very happy there’s going to be another person in the house, though. She always complains how it’s too small, anyway.”

Al said nothing. It was no secret that the Malfoy family used to be one of the richest families in the UK - before the War, a long time ago. Al never said anything about Scorpius’s second-hand books and the fact that most of his robes were old, of course, he didn’t care, but he knew it bothered Scorpius, and that it bothered Scorpius’s parents even more. He looked for something else to say. “But aren’t you excited? He’s your grandfather,” he said in the end, but it turned out to be the wrong thing to say after all. Scorpius looked even more miserable. “What is it?” Al demanded.

“I dunno. It’s just - he’s a Death Eater, isn’t he?”

“What, you don’t want to meet him ‘cause he’s a Death Eater?”

Scorpius nodded.

“But - your father was a Death Eater too!”

Scorpius scowled, and didn’t answer. Al wondered whether he went too far. They didn’t normally discuss Professor Malfoy. He was fine with it, but Scorpius, he knew, wasn’t. Scorpius was more comfortable when they didn’t mention his father’s past. At that moment, if Al didn’t know better, he would have thought Scorpius was angry with him for not caring Professor Malfoy used to be a Death Eater.

For almost ten minutes, he sat and tried to listen to Professor Malfoy explaining more and more about Dementors, which seemed to be afraid of shiny animals and depress people, but Al was sure he must have missed some crucial information earlier on between the talk of cloaks and happiness.

“You know Albert Nott?” Scorpius whispered suddenly, and Al gave up any notion of listening again.

“Sure,” he said.

“His father was a Death Eater, too. And Nott acts all ashamed at school and everything, but he’s not when he’s in the Slytherin common room. I heard him talk about his father. Boasting about it. Like it’s cool, what his father is.”

Al said nothing, just waited for Scorpius to continue.

“Father never talks about any of that,” Scorpius said finally.

“Huh. I know how that feels,” Al couldn’t help himself.

“Yeah, but your father’s just weird that way, isn’t he? My father’s ashamed of all of it.”

“Well, that’s not that bad, is it? That’s the decent thing to do.”

Scorpius started copying the notes from the blackboard. His face was so deeply buried in his parchment, that Al wasn’t sure he heard him correctly when he said, “Maybe Father never took me to see my grandfather because he’s not ashamed of it. Maybe he should stay in Azkaban.”

Al didn’t have anything to say to that, and not long after, the bell rang.

“I want three feet on Dementors for Monday,” Professor Malfoy announced before letting them go, and all thought about Death Eaters left Al’s mind. Three feet! He’d have to sit down the entire weekend to write that damn thing.

“And I still have that ridiculous car essay for Muggle Studies,” he told Scorpius as they stuffed their books back to their bags.

“I don’t understand why we all have to take Muggle Studies, I heard it was optional once,” Scorpius joined in.

“You have to take the class because understanding of Muggles is important both for the better integration of Muggle-borns in wizarding society, and for wizards to become a part of Muggle society if they please.” That was Professor Malfoy, who walked in on the two of them without them noticing.

Al glared at him for a moment. It was the same answer - word for word - that Hermione always gave when she was asked the same question. But somehow, when Hermione answered it, she sounded earnest and sincere and Muggle Studies sounded important. Professor Malfoy’s sneer made it sound as if he was mocking Hermione.

“Off you go, Potter,” he said now. He obviously wanted to talk to Scorpius alone.

“See you,” Al said to Scorpius, who gave him a gloomy wave, and left the room.

He was right - he ended up wasting the entire weekend on essays, first on the one for Professor Thomas - “Dad has a car, why do they assume just because my parents are wizards I don’t know anything,” he grumbled to Rose, who nodded sympathetically - and then on the Dementors. After three feet of parchment, they sounded much more sinister than the snippets he had heard during the lesson. The only thing that cheered him up was Rose’s reminder that the Christmas holidays were starting in exactly one week, and he was unlikely to be stuck with another long essay for over a month.

It was, however, a small comfort, considering he spent his weekend in the library, instead of outside, playing in the snow like Lily and her friends. And when, on Monday afternoon, they walked into the classroom and saw Dad instead of Professor Malfoy, the torrent of complaints threatened to drown them all.

“Alright,” Dad said at last, trying in vain to regain the semblance of a normal lesson. “Those of you who have written the essay, you can hand it in for extra credit. Those of you who haven’t...” he looked amused for a moment, “should know that they should write the essays assigned to you, even if it’s by another teacher. Now, can we please settle down?”

“Have you caught them, sir?” someone asked then, and Al was surprised to see that it was Scorpius who asked the question. “Have you caught all the Death Eaters? Are they locked up again?”

“No, I’m afraid we haven’t,” Dad said. “But for now, until we get any new information, we don’t have a lot to go on, so we decided to go back to normal - albeit, somewhat more careful. You have nothing to worry about,” Dad was addressing the entire class now, but Al had the impression that he was still talking to Scorpius. “Hogwarts is the safest place there is. And you really should know about Dementors.”

The rest of the class turned out to be a lot more fun than anyone had expected. Dad had decided that, since they had already written an essay about Dementors, it was time for a practical lesson on how to fight them. He had produced a huge, silvery stag from his wand, and called it a Patronus; they spent the rest of the class trying to produce those Patronuses, and at the end of the lesson Dad looked very pleased, even though the only person who managed anything was Rose, and even then it was just shapeless vapour.

At the end of the class, Al didn’t continue to his next class, but dawdled in the corridor outside of the classroom. He wanted to talk to Dad, to ask him about the Death Eaters. Before he got the chance, however, someone else walked in - Professor Malfoy.

“Draco,” Dad greeted him amiably.

“Potter,” Professor Malfoy said in return.

“Can I have a word?”

“Sure,” Professor Malfoy sounded angry, and Al walked closer to the door, to listen.

Dad sighed. “Malfoy, if you have something to say to the Ministry - say it to the Ministry. Or tell me. Don’t pass on messages through the students,” Dad actually sounded irritated now. Al tried peering into the room.

Dad and Professor Malfoy were staring at one another, both looking rather angry.

“I’m not trying to pass on any messages, Potter,” Professor Malfoy finally said.

“Funny, I was under the impression Dementors weren’t in the curriculum until the fifth year.”

“Maybe they should be. Maybe it’s time the Ministry stopped being all gentle and started to actually do something.”

“What, and go back to Fudge’s days?”

“I don’t recall they were so bad.”

“Yeah. You wouldn’t.” Al risked another peek into the room. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought Dad and Professor Malfoy were going to curse one another. They were standing one in front of the other, their wands raised, both looking furious. Then Dad seemed to realise what he was doing and lowered his wand. “You know, Malfoy, you of all people should realise just how terrible they are.”

“Yeah,” Professor Malfoy said, then, after a moment’s hesitation, lowered his wand as well. “I hate them well enough. But if the Dementors were still there, this wouldn’t have happened.”

To Al’s surprise, Dad now threw his wand on the desk and sat down again, looking tired. He rubbed his eyes for a moment, then said in a completely different voice, “We’re going to catch them, Malfoy.”

“Are you sure of that? What are you doing?”

Dad now sounded irritated again. “The Auror Office’s strategy is none of your concern, Malfoy, and frankly, I have enough people to report to without adding you to the list as well.”

“But you are putting your best Aurors on it?”

“I’m putting all my Aurors on it, for -” Dad paused to compose himself again. “Everything else has stopped. Nothing else is getting done,” he said in a calmer voice, then laughed without mirth. “The one good thing that came out of this whole mess, the Finch-Fletchley appeal is frozen together with everything else.”

“I don’t care about Finch-Fletchley!” Professor Malfoy was shouting now.

Dad didn’t shout back. Instead, he spoke his next words softly, almost sympathetically. “The Aurors are watching over your family, Draco. They’re not going to get to them. You have my word.”

“Make sure you keep it, Potter,” Professor Malfoy answered and stormed out of the room.

“Don’t I always,” Dad muttered and stayed there, sat at the table.

Al didn’t walk in, like he meant to. The old questions left his mind, to be replaced by new questions, questions he knew his father would never answer.

-X- It was their last breakfast in the castle for the term. Everyone was already packed - except for Al Potter, it seemed, because Houda kept on finding his stuff in the common room. She finally got tired of it and threw a pair of socks at him that morning, after almost slipping on them - and then it turned out they weren’t his at all, and she escaped for breakfast.

“Where’s Lily?” she asked with mouth half-full. Hugo shrugged in response.

“Thought she was coming down with you.”

“Nah, she was already gone by the time I woke up...”

“I dunno,” Hugo concluded and took a bite of his toast. Next to him, Aaron groaned.

“What is it?” Houda asked.

“Letter from my parents. Apparently I’m going to spend the holidays studying geography or something.”

“What?! It’s the holidays!”

Aaron rolled his eyes. “They signed me up to that Muggle-education programme Professor Granger-Weasley talked to them about when she brought my letter.”

When both Houda and Hugo looked at him blankly, Aaron explained, “It’s this thing they’re doing so that I could also remain a part of the Muggle world if I wanted to when I’m out of school. As if.”

“So, what, you also have to study Muggle stuff?” Hugo looked almost horrified.

“Yeah. They want me to do my GSCEs as well as the O.W.L.s. This is so unfair!”

Houda tried to think of something to cheer him up, but couldn’t. The idea of studying during the holidays was beyond horrible. She was just happy her parents didn’t insist on that. She wasn’t sure whether Harry had told them when he brought her letter, but she wasn’t going to ask.

Finally, Lily emerged through the doors and sat down next to them.

“Where have you been?”

“Just had a couple of things to finish up,” she said.

Houda looked at her for a moment in confusion. Lily’s robes were a bit dirty - a black, soot-like substance was smudged at the tip of her robes and on her hands.

Lily must have noticed she was looking, because she said, quite loudly, “Anyway, I’m not very hungry. Hey - you think you’d be able to come and visit during the holidays?”

“I don’t know...” Houda thought about it for a moment. She hadn’t heard from her grandparents the entire term, and the memory of their last conversation still burned in her ears. Dad hadn’t mentioned them in any of his letters, but that could mean anything. Maybe they would prefer to keep her far away from the Potters during the holidays, simply to keep the peace with her grandparents.

“You have to!” Lily said, completely oblivious to the fear in Houda’s mind. Lily, of course, didn’t know Granddad Vernon and Gran Petunia at all. “It’s going to be glorious. I wish you’d come to Christmas dinner, we’re always at my grandparents’ and it’s so much fun, everyone’s there, all my uncles and cousins and everything.”

“Yeah,” Hugo joined in, “last year our cousins from France came as well.”

“My grandmother was going mental, so many people.”

“And then George started handing out exploding candy...”

“Even Ron started shouting at him! It was so much fun.”

“You should come!”

“Yeah,” Lily concluded. “Tell your parents to come along, I’m sure my grandparents wouldn’t mind. They got the coolest place in the world, honest.”

“We’ll see,” she said miserably. Aaron just groaned again.

“What’s with him?” Lily asked, and as Houda started explaining all about Christmas holiday geography, Professor Longbottom came and demanded to know what they were still doing at breakfast.

“The carriages are set to leave in ten minutes, guys,” he said, looking slightly harassed. “You need to get going.”

“Fine, fine,” they muttered and got up. Their trunks would be brought to the train by magic, they knew, so all they had to do was get up and walk. Lily gave a sad look at the toast - which made Houda think she wasn’t completely honest about not being hungry - but there was no time for that. Soon they settled outside the castle to board the carriages - amidst a record number of Aurors and teachers, they noticed.

“I wonder if things will get back to normal by the end of the holidays,” Hugo said.

“I don’t know, what’s normal for Hogwarts?” Houda asked.

Chapter 9: Sins of the Fathers

“Hey, what’s that?”

James was helping his father sort out some old boxes. Not quite, because what they were supposed to do was go and pay a visit to Teddy and his grandmother, Andromeda, but Al was taking forever again to get ready, and so Dad went back to the old boxes and James just started going through stuff, too.

Dad was now going through some old picture albums, and in James’s opinion, looking at the pictures more than arranging the boxes. James was doing a much better job of sorting the albums, but now an old photograph fell out, full of people whom he didn’t recognise, and didn’t seem to fit in any of the picture albums. “Where did it fall from?”

“Let me see,” Dad said, then took the picture. His forehead wrinkled in surprise. “I didn’t even know I had it.”

“What is it?”

“Mad-Eye gave it to me - Mad-Eye Moody, he was an Auror. It’s the original Order of the Phoenix, the group Dumbledore set to fight Voldemort - look.” He shifted the people in the photograph and showed a couple of people to James. “There’s your grandparents, James and Lily Potter. And that’s Sirius Black, my godfather.” He looked some more. “That’s Albus Dumbledore... and blimey, that’s Remus!”

“Teddy’s dad?”

“Yeah... I should bring this with us. I don’t think he’s ever seen pictures of Remus when he was that young.” Dad stared at the photograph for a while yet, pointing out someone every once in a while. “That’s Aberforth Dumbledore... I think these are your mother’s uncles, Gideon and Fabian... Neville’s parents, too - Professor Longbottom, I should say...”

Dad was so entranced by the photograph, that he didn’t notice that the phone rang. Mum sighed. “Hello?” she said, then twisted her face in a way that made it obvious to James she was not pleased. “Harry? Dudley’s on the phone.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “You did give him the instructions, right?”

“Yeah,” Dad jumped towards the phone, pocketing the photograph. “They can find Ottery St Catchpole with the GPS, though, and from there it’s pretty straight forward.”

“Unless they end up in Luna’s old house,” Mum laughed and Dad took the phone. “Yeah, Dudley?”

“Hey, what’s that?” Al finally walked into the room.

“About time.”

“Dad’s still on the phone.”

“Yeah...” James said and shot his father a look, to see whether he was likely to finish soon, and then they could continue to Teddy’s house.

Something wasn’t quite right. There was a curious, frozen expression on Dad’s face as he listened to whatever was said on the other end, and he was nodding even though his cousin Dudley couldn’t see it. When he answered, he talked in short, clipped tones, so unlike his own. Mum also figured out something was wrong, and looked at him curiously. Finally, Dad put the receiver down.

“What is it?” Mum asked immediately.

“You need to tell your mother we’re going to have an extra guest,” Dad said. His voice still had that clipped tone about it.

“Sure, I don’t think she’d mind. Who else is coming?”

“Petunia.”

“Petu - not your Aunt Petunia?!”

“Yeah.”

Mum’s nostrils flared in an almost dangerous way. She didn’t say anything - James had the feeling a lot more would have been said had they not been in the room. But they were, and she said nothing, just crossed her arms and pursed her lips, and let her nostrils flare.

“I’ll tell Mum,” she said eventually. “What about your uncle?”

“Dudley only said Petunia...” Dad now frowned as well. “Alright. See you soon.” Dad gave her a kiss on the cheek, then called James and Al.

“What was that about?” Al immediately asked.

“Nothing.”

“We’re going to be at dinner, you know,” James said.

“Then you’ll meet your great aunt Petunia and be polite,” Dad said, and, more quietly he added, “even if it kills all of us. Come on guys.”

They stepped into the fireplace and came out in Andromeda Tonks’s kitchen. It was full of Christmas decorations, with lights and glittering paper chains. Teddy was at the counter, trying to cook something. His hair was half white, half red, in the best of his Christmas tradition.

“Hey, Teddy,” James said as soon as he stepped out of the fireplace.

“Give - me - one - second!” Teddy said, then tipped his wand at the pot and turned around.

“This smells horrible,” Dad said with a smile.

“Yeah, well, I thought Gran had enough of cooking, you know what she’s like.”

“Yeah.” Dad rolled his eyes.

Meanwhile, Al came out of the fireplace. “How come you’re not coming to the Burrow this year!” he demanded as soon as he saw Teddy.

“Hello to you, too,” Teddy said, but the tips of his mouth twitched. “We got company this year. Gran’s finally back on speaking terms with her sister, so they’re here for dinner tonight.”

Dad rolled his eyes once again. “Christmas dinner with the Malfoys,” he said dryly. “That gotta be fun. But you are coming tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah, I already told Gran, and I think she’s kinda relieved, too. And I should do something to cheer her up - I have to go back to the Ministry around midnight and then she’s stuck with the Malfoys.”

“What? Why?”

“I pulled the Christmas Eve shift,” Teddy said in an unhappy voice.

“Your grandmother is going to kill me, you know that?” Dad said, and Teddy laughed. “Stone dead. As soon as she sees me, wands will be drawn.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t get too close to her if I were you. Keep a safe distance and all.”

Dad laughed, too. “Anyway, have you got a minute, I wanted to show you something...” he pulled out the photograph, and James looked at the two for a moment. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but for some reason, it made him jealous of Teddy. Teddy got to hear all about the War, he knew. Teddy told him once - Dad had sat him down before he went to Hogwarts, and told him he could ask anything about his father and the War and everything. He never did the same with James or Al or Lily.

Someone new walked into the room - Scorpius Malfoy. Oh, this visit was just becoming better and better, wasn’t it?

“Hi, Scorpius,” Al said.

“Hi,” Scorpius replied in an even more sullen voice than usual.

“What’s up with you?” Al asked, and James, more out of annoyed boredom than anything else, listened in.

“My grandfather,” Scorpius said shortly. The three of them looked out of the door into the living room, where James could see Professor Malfoy - and on the holidays, too! - with a man who looked too much like him to be anyone but Scorpius’s grandfather.

They looked very much alike, Draco Malfoy and his father. They both had blond hair, although the hair on Professor Malfoy’s father’s head looked more white than blond now. They both had pointy chins and grey eyes and an expression as if something died just under their nose.

But where Draco Malfoy always made sure to try and look as if his family still had the amounts of money they were rumoured to have lost after the War (even if no one was buying it), his father seemed to have given up on the notion. He was unshaven, and the stubble on his chin was at least three days old. His shirt was a few sizes too large, and seemed old and worn. His hair looked like a dead lump on his head, and too long in James’s opinion.

The thing that James had noticed the most, though, was not his external appearance, but the way he sat there on the armchair, fidgeting and looking around. Even now, when he was talking to his family, he kept on moving his gaze from one spot to the other, never letting it rest on any one thing more than a few seconds at a time. The three of them stood there and watched the Malfoys in silence. James had noticed that Scorpius was in no hurry to rejoin his grandfather.

“What’s up, guys?” Dad must have finished showing Teddy the picture, and joined them at the door. “How come you’re stuck here?”

Scorpius Malfoy gave him a worried look. “Hi, Scorpius,” Dad said, but Scorpius didn’t return the greeting, and then Dad looked up.

James had never seen his father change colours this fast. In the living room, Scorpius’s grandfather jumped from his armchair.

“What’s he doing here?” Dad snarled.

“Dad - it’s okay, it’s Scorpius’s granddad - ” Al tried to say, but Dad dismissed him on the spot.

“I know who this is. What is he doing here?” Dad already had his wand in his hand.

“Harry,” Andromeda jumped now as well. Behind her, Scorpius’s grandfather was pulling his wand, his grandmother seemed to try and push her husband back, and both Draco Malfoy and his wife looked from Dad to Mr Malfoy in apprehension.

“You know how you’ve always said I should get back in touch with my sister,” Andromeda continued in a low voice. “It’s just a family thing, that’s all.”

To James’s surprise, his father was shaking with rage. He looked at him, incredulous, as Dad completely ignored Andromeda and instead stared at Scorpius’s grandfather and took another step into the living room. “What is he doing out?” he demanded.

“Harry,” Teddy put his hand on Dad, trying to calm him down, but he just made Dad jump. “It’s all legal. He got released a couple of weeks ago.”

“It hasn’t been thirty years yet. You got thirty years.”

“I’ve been released on parole, Potter,” Malfoy spoke now, his voice full of venom and contempt. “Good behaviour. Perhaps you should have appealed to the Wizengamot, like your friends, Finch-Fletchley.”

“How didn’t I know about this?!”

“It was all in the files, Harry,” Teddy said quietly. “It just got buried under all the rest of the paperwork. I guess you didn’t have time to get to it, what with everything else that’s going on and Hogwarts and everything. Bad timing, that’s all.”

Dad swore.

“Mr Potter!” It was now Draco Malfoy’s wife who spoke. “Watch your language next to my son, please. You may not care what words your children use, but I do.”

Dad stared at the Malfoys for a moment longer, still shaking with rage and completely pale. All of a sudden, he turned back to the kitchen. “Al, James, we’re leaving.”

“Dad!”

“What - Dad - no!”

“Now.”

“Harry,” Teddy tried to talk to him, but Dad wasn’t hearing any of this. He stood next to the fireplace and glared until James pushed Al towards it.

“I’m not going,” Al tried to protest.

“Not now, Al,” James said, trying to somehow stop this from becoming an even worse disaster. The last thing they needed was for Dad to start shouting.

“No! I’m not going. We said we’ll stay here for a couple of hours and I want to stay here with Scorpius and Teddy.”

“Al,” that was Dad. He didn’t shout. Rather, his voice was low, almost soft. But there was something there, beyond anger - almost dangerous. Even Al looked up in surprise, almost in shock, at the sound of his voice. “We’re leaving. Teddy, Andromeda, we’ll see you tomorrow. Happy Christmas.”

They took the Floo straight to the Burrow.

Mum and Lily must have got there only a few moments before them. Grandma was still hugging Lily and going on about how she had grown when they got into the room.

“Oh, and look at you!” Grandma jumped immediately and hugged them. James returned the hug, but Al was still angry, and tried to wriggle out of her arms.

“Hi, Molly,” Dad said shortly and gave Grandma a kiss on the cheek.

“Harry, dear, how wonderful to see you!” she beamed at them. “But I thought you’d only get here in a couple of hours!”

“Change of plans,” he said.

Dad continued to be in a foul mood for the next few hours. Grandma looked in confusion both at him and Al, who was apparently not talking to Dad now, but instead sat by the fire and did nothing.

“What happened, James?” Grandma asked quietly.

“The Malfoys were at Andromeda’s,” he said.

“Yes, but Harry knew that before you came,” she said, confused.

“I don’t know, he didn’t know Scorpius’s grandfather would be there, and then he went all mental when he saw him.”

“Lucius Malfoy was there?” Granddad asked, an odd expression on his face.

“Don’t know what he’s called.”

“Professor Malfoy’s father.”

“Yeah, him. He was there.”

“He was a Death Eater.” Granddad obviously thought that was enough of an explanation.

“Yeah, but wasn’t Professor Malfoy a Death Eater too? And Dad doesn’t go all nuts when he sees him.”

It took a couple more hours before things started to make sense. Rose and Hugo came with their parents, and as the kids were sent to set the table, Dad was in the kitchen, talking to Hermione and Ron. James could hear a snippet here and there of their hushed conversation as he was walking in and out of the kitchen to fetch dishes - especially those bits of the conversation when Dad lost his temper and talked louder than he realised.

“I’m not letting my kids anywhere near that man!” was the first bit James heard. He didn’t hear Hermione’s response, but when he got back, Dad was talking again.

“ - Cedric Diggory’s body and laughed. He laughed, Hermione. And Diggory just lay there dead and he was laughing. Hell, he didn’t have any qualms about seeing a fourteen-year-old being tortured half to death right in front of his eyes, and there’s nothing - nothing! - to suggest he changed in any way.”

“It’s been twenty five years, Harry,” Hermione answered. “And things changed. He’s not going to torture James or Al or Lily in front of your eyes.”

“Yeah, and I’m not going to give him the opportunity - James!” Dad finally noticed it was taking James a long time to fetch those plates. “Get going, will you?”

“Sure, sure,” he muttered, but now he had a new target. He stacked the plates on the plate and told some of the younger kids to arranged them properly, and ignored their protests as he went to find George - who was his coolest uncle and also just about the only one who didn’t treat them as if they were all stupid kids.

George was sitting on the sofa in the living room, showing some Muggle gadget to Lily - probably trying to see if he could make a cool trick out of it, James thought.

“Hey, George, can I ask you something?”

Lily made a face at him, but his uncle put down the Muggle device and said, “Sure, what’s up?”

“And you promise not to act like I’m a stupid kid for asking?”

“That would depend on how stupid your question is,” George laughed, then said, “Sure, alright.”

“Who’s Cedric Diggory?”

George’s smile was wiped from his face. “Where did you hear that name?” he asked quietly.

James thought for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “Dad’s arguing with Ron and Hermione in the kitchen. About Lucius Malfoy.”

“Lucius Malfoy? What does Lucius Malfoy have to do with anything?”

“He’s a Death Eater,” Al joined in the conversation. James didn’t even realise he was listening. “He was at Andromeda’s house today and Dad lost it.”

“Yeah, and now he’s going on in the kitchen about that Cedric Diggory.”

“Oh.” George must have understood something, something that still escaped James. He looked from James to Al, to Lily and then to James again. “I think you want to talk about this with Harry,” he said carefully.

“Yeah, but Dad does think we’re stupid kids and never trusts us enough to tell us anything!”

George bit his lip for a moment. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again and thought for a moment. “Cedric Diggory was a year older than me and Fred... a few years older than your dad. He was murdered by Voldemort. Harry was there when it happened. I guess Lucius Malfoy was there too. Makes sense, anyway, from what your dad said.”

“But Dad saw a bunch of people murdered by Voldemort, didn’t he? Why is this one important?”

George shifted uncomfortably. “Look, James, you really need to talk to Harry about this. He doesn’t think you’re stupid, I guess he just thinks you’re too young for this.”

“We’re not,” James insisted.

“James...”

“We’re not,” James repeated again, and George sighed.

“Alright. That was the first time Harry saw someone murdered like that, James. He was... fifteen at the time, I think? No, hold on, fourteen, should be around fourteen then, yeah, in his fourth year, me and Fred were in our sixth year, so Harry was fourteen then.”

That was what Dad had said to Hermione, wasn’t it? Lucius Malfoy had stood and watched a fourteen year old tortured half to death... James just hadn’t realised he was talking about himself. He thought for a moment about the contempt in Lucius Malfoy’s voice. A man who tortured his father when he was younger than he, James, was today. And he was Scorpius Malfoy’s grandfather, and now Al and Scorpius were friends.

“Look, James, Lucius Malfoy is a nasty piece of a work, always has been, and there’s nothing to convince me he could ever be anything more. Your dad’s been through a lot, and he wants to protect you lot, and when it comes to Lucius Malfoy, I can’t say I blame him.”

“It was when he came back,” Lily said quietly. “The D - Voldemort. He wanted Dad, and Diggory just - well, he got in the way,” she finished, looking slightly embarrassed.

Her cheeks grew more and more red and she realised everyone in ear shot was looking at her. James and Al stared at her in surprise - when did she ever hear this?! But George had a weird expression on his face. If he was going to say something in response to Lily’s claim, they never knew - at that moment there was a knock on the door, and George jumped on the opportunity to drop the conversation and went to open it.

“Harry,” he called, as the door revealed Houda’s family.

Dad got out of the kitchen, still looking angry, and it didn’t look like the sight improved his temper at all.

“Hi, Dudley, Aminah, Houda,” he said.

“Hi, Harry,” Dudley said. “You remember my sons, Vernon and David?” the two boys were looking in amazement all around them. “And, uh, Aminah’s parents, Dawd and Mouna - ”

“How do you do?” Dad asked and shook their hands.

Behind them was another woman. She was thin and blonde and looked around with her eyes darting all around, and kind of reminded James of Lucius Malfoy. The way Dad had treated her, she might as well had been. He didn’t shout at her, nor did he kick her out, but he had that same frozen stance he had adopted when he first saw Lucius Malfoy sitting in Andromeda’s living room.

“Petunia,” he said coldly.

She nodded curtly. “Harry,” she said, in a somewhat nervous voice.

“You remember George Weasley.”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” she said, still nervous, in an apologetic voice.

Dudley looked at George and swallowed. Petunia’s eyes, on the other hand, had now landed on Al. She seemed almost taken aback, looking at him.

“That’s my son, Albus,” Dad said, his voice still cold. “And James. And Lily is here somewhere too.”

“Lily...” she whispered.

Everyone stood there at the entrance, looking awkward and uncomfortable, until his grandparents walked in and rushed everyone inside, and started talking excitedly to Houda’s grandparents. Houda walked in to find Lily and Hugo, and James took David and Vernon and introduced them to everyone. Dad’s aunt Petunia kept on looking rather lost throughout the entire thing.

Christmas dinner turned out to be the most awkward dinner James ever had the misfortune to attend. His grandfather spent most of the time with Houda’s grandfather, asking him all kinds of odd and rather embarrassing questions about Muggles, and only stopping when Grandma told him off. Aminah and Hermione hit it off quite well, which was a small blessing, because Dad was sitting next to Dudley and the two of them hardly exchanged a word. George tried to show some of the stuff from the joke shop to Vernon and David and got told off almost immediately by Grandma, to everyone’s great disappointment. Roxanne and Dominique went on and on and on about their N.E.W.T.s and bored that entire section of the table. And Petunia Dursley looked completely and utterly lost, and wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, not even to Houda’s family or Rose and Hugo’s Muggle grandparents, who tried engaging her in a conversation every once in a while.

Opposite them, the conversation raged on.

“‘Raiding squads’! Honestly, Harry, why don’t you call them assassins and be done with it?” Ron said and rolled his eyes.

“They’re going to areas we know are bases for goblin activity and just attack without warning, what else d’you want to call them?!” Dad answered in annoyance.

“So what, we should sit back and let the goblins attack us without warning and do nothing?”

“Because the past twenty years have been a resounding success...” George mused.

“Exactly,” Dad latched on to this. “Every time they go on another raid, we’re going back months in the negotiations.”

Ron snorted. “Those negotiations haven’t changed a bloody thing for the past twenty years - and you know it. It’s not the negotiations that bother you, it’s that you lost the vote last week.”

“We only lost the vote because I wasn’t there in time, seeing as I was busy chasing Death Eaters while those useless, good-for-nothing politicians - ”

“You know,” Hermione’s voice drowned Dad’s statement, “talking politics is never a good idea, and while I’m usually thrilled not everyone’s participating, there’s plenty of people at the table who can’t participate, so can we keep this for later?”

“Sorry,” Ron mumbled. Dad looked like he was going to finish talking about useless good-for-nothing politicians, but then Hermione raised her eyebrows and he went back to staring at his food.

“Don’t worry about us, we got used to all of this a long time ago,” Rose’s grandmother was laughing now. “When Hermione was growing up, the things she told us... Oh, but you must have gone through the same thing with Harry, I imagine, you know all about it!” She told Petunia Dursley.

Petunia mumbled something.

“And your husband, too - it’s such a shame he couldn’t come,” Rose’s grandmother continued, completely oblivious to her surrounding. But what had escaped her eyes had not escaped James’s. He saw it all - Petunia, mumbling, looking hard at her plate and flushing red, and in front of her Dad, who looked more and more like he did when he shouted at Lucius Malfoy.

“Yes, Petunia,” Dad said all of a sudden. His voice sounded unnatural and was full of nastiness. “How come you ended up coming?”

She pursed her lips. “Well, since Dudley ended up going here, there really wasn’t any point in having a Christmas dinner for two, wasn’t there,” she said. “Christmas is a time for family.”

“Well, you’re right. Family is important, magic or no magic, right?”

“Harry,” Mum somehow managed to hear this over her conversation with Aminah - or, perhaps, she had stopped the conversation when she heard Dad talking to Petunia. Finally, Rose’s grandmother realised something was wrong and was looking in confusion from Harry to Petunia. Petunia said nothing.

“How come Vernon didn’t come?” Dad pressed on.

She pursed her lips further, and still did not speak. Dudley answered instead, “We, uh, had a bit of a fight with Dad. Before term started.”

“His own granddaughter.” Dad asked in disgust. “Unbelievable. Well, I guess he’s got other grandchildren, the way he sees it.”

“Harry,” Mum said again, more sharply this time. But much like earlier, when he ignored Andromeda and Teddy and focused only on Lucius Malfoy, he ignored Mum now and focused his gaze back on Petunia. The entire table was listening in now, except for Roxanne and Dominique who were so deep into their conversation about the N.E.W.T.s that they just weren’t paying attention to anything else.

“I guess grandchildren, at least, are something worth ripping your family over, isn’t that right, Petunia?” The nastiness in his voice gave way to fury.

“That’s not fair,” she whispered.

“Harry, that’s enough,” Mum said.

“I’m just saying, funny how things change. So many years of hating and despising anything - anyone, I should say, that had anything to do with magic, but I guess even Petunia Dursley can mellow over the years, no?” Dad was doing a worse and worse job of controlling his voice and stopping himself from shouting. The rage that was seething out of him was visible to everyone in the room - even Roxanne and Dominique were now looking curiously at the show at the middle of the table. Dad just went on and on. “Your own sister, your nephew, but I guess you finally gave in to those screwed up genes of yours, to the fact that there’s magic in your family, and - ”

“Harry, that’s not fair,” it was Dudley now who spoke. He looked just as scared of Dad as his mother was. “Things change, people change...”

“Yeah, people change, everything changes! Lucius Malfoy and Petunia Dursley and only Vernon Dursley can be trusted to prefer sitting in a dark room all by himself than have Christmas dinner with wizards!”

“Harry!” Mum now jumped from her seat. Dad finally caught himself and stopped talking. “Help me get pudding, please. Now.”

But dinner was already lost. “We, uh, I think we should be going,” Dudley said and got up to his feet as well. Houda looked almost in tears. Lily gaped at Dad in shock. Al and Rose stared at each other in silence.

“No, Dudley, stay for pudding,” Gran tried, but Dudley shook his head.

“No, we still need to get to Bristol tonight, to Aminah’s parents, we’re staying there for the night. It’s really getting late.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s for the best, really, it’s getting very late.”

Houda gave Lily and Hugo an unhappy smile and said ‘bye’, weakly. Vernon and David both seemed completely confused - and not at all happy that they were missing pudding, but got up as well. Their grandmother simply fled the house. Aminah and her parents found Gran and bade everyone farewell, as did Houda’s father, Dad’s cousin, but he left the house without saying another word to Dad.

George, meanwhile, volunteered to help Mum with Grandma’s pudding, which turned out to be several cakes with a magnificent amount of cream. Dad followed them to the kitchen, but didn’t rejoin the table when the cakes were served.

It was just what they needed. No one could remain cross for long while confronted with one of those cakes. James watched his mother cut generous slices of the cake and hand them around, and made sure to get his, and when they all retired to the living room and started playing Exploding Snap, things were slowly getting to normal again. Even Dad came out of the kitchen eventually, and sat down with them with a bit of cake.

The night might have been salvaged after all, if it weren’t for the man who walked through the fire then.

It took James a while to realise who it was, and when he did, his mouth opened in surprise. It was Dad’s boss - Kingsley Shacklebolt, the Minister for Magic.

“Kingsley!” Granddad and Ron jumped at the same time. Dad got up, too.

“Oh, Kingsley, so great to see you here,” Grandma said. “I think we still have some cake...”

“Thanks, Molly,” the Minister said apologetically. “I’m afraid I can’t stay for long, though. I need a word with Harry.”

“What’s up?” Dad said. The Minister shook his head, as if saying ‘not here’, and they went outside.

James wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it, but as Mum watched them, she looked even angrier than before, when Dad had destroyed dinner. After five minutes or so, Dad rushed in, grabbed his cloak, gave Mum a kiss on the cheek and told her he had to go somewhere, and he’d be back soon. Mum said nothing.

By the time Dad came back, they were already back home. James was in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, when he heard raised voices from downstairs. He got out of the bathroom, his toothbrush still in his mouth, to see Al and Lily crouching on the stairs.

“Shhh,” Al said and put a finger on his mouth, and James nodded in agreement. If their parents realised they were overheard, the three of them would have no chance to actually hear what was going on.

“It’s Christmas, Harry,” Mum was saying now.

“You know I wouldn’t have gone if it wasn’t - ”

“Wasn’t urgent, yes. It’s always urgent. The emergencies never stop. When are you going to start delegating, Harry? What are you going to do when Kingsley retires, huh? You know they expect you to take over.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, alright? There’s plenty of time yet.”

“Not as much as you think. And you know perfectly well that’s not going to happen, either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dad’s voice was cold now.

“Exactly what you know it means. Harry, you ended up being an Auror out of some ridiculous sense of duty, and then you got sucked into all the Ministry’s politics because of - ”

“Because Kingsley needed me.”

“Exactly, out of some ridiculous sense of duty.”

“Yeah, I guess I should have just let Will Jones take over, and let the Ministry look exactly the same way it did in Fudge’s days. That would have worked. That’s the world you want to raise your children in?”

“So now you end up being a politician and hating every moment of it, is that better?”

“I ended up doing what I needed to do, yes, to make sure we never go back to how things used to be. So that our kids don’t have to live through what we had to go through. Is that so bad?”

“Right. Our kids. You should have heard what James said today to George. They think you don’t trust them. Your own children, and they don’t understand why you never talk to them with anything even remotely close to respect. You hated that when you were their age.”

“Is that what it’s about? About what James said? Come on, Ginny,” Dad tried to shrug it off now, “you know he’s too curious for his own good.”

“Like his father? Except that you had your cloak and your map and so all the mad things you did with Ron and Hermione never got you caught. You were just as bad. But no, Harry, this isn’t about what James said, this is about what you said.”

The louder Mum’s voice had become, the quieter Dad became. Now, at that, he spoke so quietly they could barely hear what he said. “I’m not going to pretend to like Vernon and Petunia Dursley.”

“No one’s asked you. And no one’s asked you to like Lucius Malfoy, either. You know I hate that bastard myself. But it’d be nice if you made an effort not to make it obvious to their grandchildren that you hate their family.”

Dad’s response to that was completely undecipherable. But whatever it was, Mum had stopped shouting, and just said wearily, “I know that they deserve it, Harry. And if I thought... if you were the kind of man to have such a nasty streak in him, I wouldn’t have minded. Because they deserve it. But that’s not you. It’s never been you. You know, sometimes I think... These are the times I hate your aunt and uncle the most, Harry. When I have to actually remind myself that you wouldn’t be behaving like that if it weren’t for them. For the damage they did.”

Dad didn’t answer.

“You were the one who kept on insisting after the war that we should all put everything behind us. You were the one who pushed Andromeda to make up with Narcissa Malfoy. You kept on being the one who told everyone over and over again that the war was over. And now everyone has managed to move on. Except you.”

“Lucius Malfoy - ”

“Lucius Malfoy would have got a life-long sentence like the rest of the vermin if it weren’t for you. You were the one who decided to testify in favour of Draco and Narcissa, should I remind you, when everyone told you - when we practically begged you - not to do it and just let the whole lot of them rot in Azkaban. Like they deserved. Did you ever believe any of this? Or did you think your ‘forgive and forget’ speeches were only relevant to get Draco Malfoy a reduced sentence because you felt sorry for him and insist on naming your kid after that bastard Severus Snape and that there’d never be any other consequences?”

Al got up. James and Lily both stared at him. ‘That bastard, Severus Snape’? The only thing they had ever heard of Severus Snape was that he was a brave man and had saved Dad’s life.

“Al!” James whispered. It looked like his younger brother was in half a mind to start walking down the stairs and demand some answers on his own. “Don’t.”

His foot already on the top step, Al stopped - but didn’t come back to where James and Lily were standing, either.

And downstairs, Mum kept on talking. “But he’ll never know, would he, not about Snape and not about Dumbledore” - it was the first time James had ever heard that name spoken in such a derisive manner, in any way but the deepest reverence - “because you don’t even know how to sit down with your own son and tell him the things he has the right to know.”

Dad still didn’t answer. Mum didn’t continue talking. The next thing they heard was the loud slam of the kitchen door, and James knew it had slammed behind his father.

He half-expected Al to rush downstairs and demand answers from Mum - but no, his brother walked into his room instead and slammed his own door behind him. Lily, looking on the verge of tears, walked to her room as well, and James rushed to the bathroom, to spit the toothpaste out, and with it the bitter taste it left in his mouth.

He knocked on Al’s door afterwards; there was no answer. “Al?” he tried. Still no answer. He opened the door anyway.

“Go away,” Al said quietly. He was lying in his bed, on his stomach, and staring at some book - but James could see he wasn’t reading it, not really.

“Nah, I’m your older brother, it’s my job to be annoying and not go away,” he said and closed the door behind him. Al turned around in his bed, presenting his back to James.

“C’mon, I’m sure Mum’s just angry,” he tried.

It didn’t work. Of course it wouldn’t - they both knew that their mother never said things she didn’t mean to, even when she was angry. And whatever he’d say, he knew it wouldn’t help Al, at least not now. James might have been named after important family members, after Dad’s father and his godfather, the war heroes, but Al was named after two very important people, after Dad’s mentors, and it had always been a great source of pride for him. James had the feeling that if Dad had only sat down with them and told them about those two people, whatever Mum said now wouldn’t have been so bad. There must have been some proper explanation to what she meant.

But that was exactly what she told Dad, wasn’t it? Dad never did that. Dad never trusted them enough to tell them the truth.

“James!” Mum called from downstairs. Great.

He looked at Al again and left the room.

Dad still wasn’t back by the time he went to sleep. Mum was in a filthy mood, Al didn’t show the tip of his nose outside of his room, and Lily sat in the living room, reading a book and looking generally miserable. James sent a letter to Colleen, telling her just how miserable Christmas had become, and eventually went to sleep.

-X-

The two Gaul warriors were thinking of another elaborate plot to defeat the Romans. Al just turned the page of the comic book when he heard his father’s voice. “What are you still doing up?” he said.

Al didn’t raise his head. “Reading.”

“It’s 2 a.m., Al.”

“It’s the holidays.”

Dad sat down on the bed. “What are you reading?”

Al pushed himself away from his father. “Just some Muggle comic book,” he said. “The Grangers gave it to me for my last birthday.”

He didn’t need to lift his head to know what his parents were doing now - Dad would be raised his eyebrows at Mum, Mum would just smile and shake her head, and then Dad would say -

“Well, alright then. Good night. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Fine.”

Dad stayed seated on the bed for a while longer. Al wondered whether he would decided to try to talk to him, and dreaded that possibility. It was hours after they had overheard the argument, but still he didn’t think he could talk to his father without shouting. And he knew it would just make everything a thousand times worse.

But Dad must have decided he was just in a bad mood, because then he got up and walked to the door. “Good night.” he said again, and when Al didn’t answer, he closed the door.

His father might have left, but Al’s concentration was hopelessly ruined. The questions he had managed to banish away until now settled back in his mind, and drove out everything else. He kept on staring at the two little Gaul warriors, but they didn’t seem as funny anymore. After another futile fifteen minutes, he sighed and decided he was hungry. He knew he should have just gone to sleep, but something in him rebelled at the idea. And besides, now the thought of the superb cake they had brought back from his grandparents’ house would not leave his mind.

He tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen. The cake stood there in all its glory - huge and full of cream and strawberries. He cut himself a big slice - much bigger than Mum would have approved of, he knew - and was just about to leave the kitchen when he thought he heard a knock on the door.

A quick glance at his watch confirmed the time. 2:37. Who’d be knocking on the door at this hour?

He tiptoed to the front door, the cake still in his hand, and stretched to look through the peephole. The only thing he could see was bright blue hair, but that was enough.

“Teddy!” he called as he opened the door and hugged him, cake and all.

Teddy didn’t smile and didn’t really hug him back. “Hey Al, what are you doing up?” he asked. Al had the sudden impression he was rather nervous.

“S’the holidays, no?” he answered. “Want a piece of cake?”

“No, I’m fine - listen, Al, I need to talk to Harry.”

“D’you know what time it is?”

“Yeah.”

Al sighed. “I’ll call him, hold on.”

He put down the cake on the small stand near the door, and rushed up the stairs. The bedroom’s door was closed - they could have gone to sleep already, Al thought gloomily, and knocked on the door.

They weren’t asleep, apparently. He could hear his father whispering, “Shhh!” and his mother giggling, and all of a sudden his father whispered again, “Don’t you dare!” Al rolled his eyes to no one in particular. What were they, three? Didn’t they realise he could hear them?

He knocked again, this time, also saying, “Dad.”

“Harry,” Mum said a bit louder inside, and Dad muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Aren’t they too old for bad dreams?” in a resigned voice.

“What is it?” Mum finally called through the closed door.

“It’s Teddy.”

“What about him?” Dad said now.

“He wants to talk to you.”

“What, on the phone?” Dad asked in a confused voice.

“No, he’s here.”

It wasn’t ten seconds before the door was opened. Dad was closing his robe, his glasses askew on the bridge of his nose and his hair a complete mess. He didn’t stop, thought, just rushed down the stairs to see Teddy. Al followed him.

Teddy was still at the entrance, right at the foot of the stairs where Al left him. He didn’t sit down, nor did he eat the cake. He was just pacing back and forth, drumming nervously with his fingers on the bannister.

Dad didn’t ask him what he was doing there so late. Nor did he ask how he was. He didn’t ask anything, only said two words. “Death Eaters.”

Teddy nodded. “They blew up a building in the middle of Muggle London. There’s a huge fire and everything, at least ten people dead. We’ve already got Obliviators there, trying to contain it before it spreads too far. Looks like they wanted to get our attention.”

“Well, they got it,” Dad answered. “Call everyone in, cancel all holidays, you know what to do. I want to catch those bastards. Were there any goblins with them?”

“Goblins?” Teddy looked confused. “No, not that I’m aware of.”

“Okay. Make sure the Obliviators interrogate everyone before they wipe their memories. Wounded, the lot. Get them to the hospitals if you have to. There’s Aurors working with them? Good,” he said as soon as Teddy nodded. “Give me a couple of minutes, I’ll put something on and come down.”

“Sure.”

By now, Mum was already in her dressing gown. She went down the stairs and stood next to Al, in front of Teddy. The three of them didn’t say a word to one another. Dad just rushed back up the stairs, past her and past Al, and into their bedroom. After about a minute he emerged again, not dressed in the robes he usually wore for work, but instead in jeans and a t-shirt.

Only at the door did he stop in front of them. “Ginny, I’m so sorry, I - ”

“Go,” she said softly.

Despite the stress, despite the lack of time, he stopped now to kiss Mum, a long, deep kiss. Then he put his hand over Al’s head. “Watch after your mum,” he said and left with Teddy.

Al and his mother stayed there behind the now closed door.

Chapter 10: Waiting for Tomorrow

I’m sure you’ve heard by now. Dad’s gone, too - he laughed about it and said his retirement didn’t last very long, but I could see he’s worried. Mum’s almost hysterical. Dad kept on telling her that Harry’s the best and nothing’s going to happen, but she doesn’t look too convinced. Looks like my Christmas turned out to be a disaster too. Things will probably calm down soon, though. Talk to you soon.
Colleen

Things didn’t calm down. They spent most of Christmas day at the Burrow. Andromeda didn’t show up in the end, but sent a owl with her apologies. The Malfoys had ended up staying in her house for the entire holiday - not a surprise, considering Teddy must have told them what had happened.

Al told James in whispers about the argument he had overheard between Dad and Draco Malfoy, and James thought that much like Colleen’s mum, Draco Malfoy and his family must be scared to death.

It didn’t matter that Andromeda didn’t come. It wouldn’t have been fun without Teddy anyway, and James knew that Teddy was with Dad - and with Ron. Hermione looked just as worried as Mum, and at some point, they went upstairs to talk about things without being overheard.

They went back to their home to sleep. His grandmother wanted them to stay at the Burrow, “Until things calm down, there’s no point in you staying in that house all on your own,” she said, but Mum said no. She didn’t say why, but James knew - she wanted to be home when Dad got there.

There was someone home when they came back - but it wasn’t Dad. James rushed upstairs because he heard noises coming from the bedroom, as did Mum, but the man there was unfamiliar. He had long, dirty blond hair, small beady eyes, and a huge nose. James was sure he’d never seen him in his life, and his mother’s reaction had confirmed that she hadn’t, either.

The man, however, seemed positive he had every right to be there. “Hi,” he said behind his shoulder as he opened Dad’s wardrobe and started shoving clothes into a bag.

“What’s going on?” Mum said. Her wand was out, and aimed at the man.

He blinked in confusion, then said, “Oh!” and all of a sudden, he started to change. The huge nose shortened, drawing back into itself; the black eyes turned a greyish brown, the stubble was gone, and the hair, while still the same length, turned light blue. It was Teddy.

“Teddy!” James said at the same time as his mother, who added, “You scared me half to death.”

“Sorry, Ginny. I forgot how I looked.”

Now she looked at the bag in his hand. “Harry’s not coming home tonight?” she asked.

“Sorry.” Teddy shook his head, looking slightly abashed, as if he had done something wrong. “Things are a bit hectic... I’m sure it’ll go back to normal soon.”

“Yeah,” Mum said quietly.

“Gotta dash, guys, Ron asked me to pick up some stuff for him as well,” Teddy now closed the bag and put it on his back. He put his hand on Mum’s shoulder. “He’ll be back before you know it, Ginny,” he said. Mum nodded, then shook her head, as if dismissing the whole situation.

“Go! Before he decides you took too long and takes it off your salary,” she said.

Teddy laughed in response. “No one’s taking a penny out of my salary. Hey, we’re all on holiday overtime, I’ll finally be able to afford that bike! See you, James,” he said and rushed down the stairs to the fireplace.

Dad didn’t come home the next day, either. They were supposed to go to Lysander and Lorcan’s for Boxing Day, or at least, that’s what he remembered Mum and Dad saying. Now, instead, Hermione came with Hugo and Rose. There was no respite from his worried family.

On one ridiculous moment he had written to Colleen and suggested he dropped by her house. The disappointing answer was that it would be better if he didn’t. Her mother was too upset, she said, and they were going to her grandparents’. He crushed the note into a small ball and stared at the rain outside.

“James, we’re up for a game of Exploding Snap, you’re coming?” Lily peered into his room.

“No, I’m fine,” he said and threw the paper into the bin.

“James, we’re up for a game of Exploding Snap, you’re coming?” Lily repeated, word for word. Not quite an innocent query then; he got the hint. “Yeah,” he sighed and got up from his seat by the window. “I’m coming.” He got bored of the game quickly, but it seemed the rest of them were a bit calmer when everyone was there.

By evening they had even more company. Instead of going to the Scamanders, Lysander and Lorcan showed up at their house, and Mrs Scamander entertained them all with stories about how she went hunting for Crumple-horned Snorcacks in the Scottish Lochs one time. It was the first time he saw his mother smiling in two days. If Dad just came back home now, he knew, everything would be alright.

The next morning he woke up and went for breakfast, only to find everyone already there - including Teddy. Teddy had a horrible gash on his cheek, and was bleeding furiously over the kitchen table. The small napkin he was holding to his cheek didn’t help at all.

Mum’s first aid kit was on the table, and she was looking for a potion to best stop the bleeding. James, of course, already knew them all, having been subjected to each and every one of them from the age of four onwards.

“Don’t use the blue one, it stings something terrible,” he said.

Teddy laughed, then twisted his face in pain. Blood started trickling down his hand and into his sleeve. “Hold still,” Mum warned him as she took out a small green bottle, and used a few drops on the wound. The bleeding stopped.

“There,” she said. “Good as new,” and passed her wand over his cheek to close the wound.

“Cheers, Ginny, you’re a live saver. Gran would have forced me to quit in an instant had she seen it.”

“She’s just worried, Teddy,” Mum said.

“What happened?” James asked, in between bites of his toast.

“A run-in with some Death Eaters. Damn, they still remember their curses after all those years in Azkaban.”

“Did you catch them?” Lily asked immediately in a hopeful voice, and was crestfallen when Teddy shook his head.

“We were close, but no luck this time. Actually, that’s kind of why I’m here. James, Harry said you actually got to see one of the Death Eaters that wasn’t in Azkaban before everything started?”

Lily and Al looked at him surprise. He hadn’t told them, of course. He knew Dad didn’t want him to share it with anyone. But now he just nodded.

“He asked me to see if you can identify that Death Eater.”

James thought for a moment. He remembered the goblin, with his beady and unkind eyes. He remembered what he talked about with Lorcan and Lysander and Colleen, he remembered how the Hog’s Head looked like, although that wasn’t hard as it was mainly dirty. He remembered the tattoo on the Death Eater’s hand. But he only had the vaguest recollection of the Death Eater himself. He just didn’t think the man was important enough at the time. “I don’t remember,” he said at last.

“It’s alright,” Teddy said. “I brought some pictures, to try and see if you can identify anyone.”

“I don’t know,” James said again.

“Hey, it’s worth a shot, no?” Teddy asked, and James had to agree that yes, it was.

Teddy brought out a book, full of pictures. They were, apparently, all Death Eaters. “We didn’t take out the dead ones,” he said apologetically.

“It might turn out that someone you thought was dead isn’t so dead after all,” James completed the sentence, and Teddy nodded. “Exactly,” he said.

James went through photograph after photograph. They were all old photos, must have been at least twenty years old. All the people in the photographs seemed unpleasant, and leered at him.

There were a few women there - apparently, they didn’t bother taking them out as well, even though the wizard he had seen was definitely a man. James didn’t pay them much attention, until he came by a photograph that looked disturbingly familiar.

“Er, Teddy,” he said quietly and pointed at the photo.

Teddy looked for a moment, biting his lip. “They really look alike, don’t they,” he said, and James allowed himself to breathe. It wasn’t Andromeda. Of course it wasn’t, he thought to himself, don’t be a fool. Dad would never have allowed Teddy to grow up with Andromeda had she been a Death Eater.

“It was her sister,” Teddy explained. “Bellatrix Lestrange.” And then, after another pause, “Harry thinks she’s the one who killed my mother.”

In a different day, James might have made a flippant comment about Teddy’s family. But between the memories of this Christmas and his own nervousness, he didn’t really feel like he could comment.

Instead, he tried to put Bellatrix Lestrange out of his mind and concentrate on the other photographs. Most of them didn’t look right. They had the wrong hair, or a nose so big that he was sure he would have noticed, or something sinister about them. That was the point, he thought - that wizard didn’t look sinister, just nervous.

“But what if I’m wrong?” he asked Teddy. “What if I’m going to dismiss someone because his hair has gone grey in the past twenty years or because he didn’t look as evil now as he did then?”

Teddy shrugged. “Then we’d be exactly where we started and no harm done.”

“And what if I identify someone who turns out to be the wrong one?”

“Then we’d have a wild goose chase for a bit. James, trust me. Don’t worry about it, alright? Just point anyone who might look to you familiar.”

In the end, James ended up picking four different photographs. The people in them didn’t look similar at all, and James looked at Teddy apologetically when he compared the four of them. “They don’t even look alike,” he said, “sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Hopefully one of them will lead us to the right track.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyhow - ”

“You have to go.”

“Yeah.”

“Teddy? How’s Dad?”

“Busy,” Teddy sighed. “And he’s making sure all of us are busy, too.” He laughed, and James allowed himself a laugh, too. “You’ll see him in no time,” Teddy promised. “A day or two, at most. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but we’re pretty sure we’ve got their trail. Your dad’s the best, James.” Teddy’s eyes lit up. It was obvious he thought of Dad with nothing short of admiration. “The Death Eaters who gave me this, they were trying to get Harry too, they were using some really nasty curses. This is nothing compared to what they threw at him. Nothing could touch him. You should see him in action - well, you shouldn’t, you’re way too young for that,” he amended, then smiled. “But he’s the best. This will end in no time at all.”

James had heard this once too many, and snorted in disbelief. Teddy just laughed again. “Honest. Harry and Ron are already following up a trail - again, don’t tell anyone, especially not your mum, alright? She’d kill me if she knew I told you and not her. Next time you see an Auror, it will be your dad. I promise.”

But the next time James saw an Auror, it was Teddy again. It was two days later, and he woke up in the middle of the night. He wasn’t sure what woke him up, and so he lay in bed in silence, thinking perhaps it was a dream. But no - he could hear someone walking downstairs. Dad’s back! That was the first thought that came to his mind. He checked the time, and it was the middle of the night, after 1 a.m. - just like him, too, he thought to himself, but couldn’t feel a grudge. He rushed down. The door to Mum and Dad’s bedroom was also open, and there was nobody in the room - a good sign.

But when he went down to the kitchen, it wasn’t Dad’s voice, speaking in a low, fast tone, as if afraid to be overheard. For a moment, he thought it was Ron - but then he walked into the kitchen and saw Teddy’s blue hair, his head bowed next to Mum’s, holding her hand.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Mum jumped. She didn’t even hear him come down. Teddy looked at him. He was a lot paler than he was the last time he had been there, and looked a lot more tired, as if he didn’t sleep at all those past few days. He wasn’t cheerful at all.

Mum looked tired, too. James was shocked to see her, hurriedly wiping a tear from her cheeks as she tried to hide it from him.

“What’s going on?” he asked again.

Teddy bit his lip. Mum looked away.

“Did something happen to Dad?” None of them answered. “Look, I’m not a kid anymore, I’m old enough - you said so yourself,” he turned on his mother. “If something’s happened to Dad, I want to know!” He knew he was probably looking ridiculous, standing there barefoot and in his pyjamas and demanding to be treated like an adult, but he didn’t care.

In the end, it was Teddy who answered. “We lost contact with him. And with Ron.”

“When?”

Teddy bit his lip again. “A couple of days ago.” Right after he was there, in other words, promising James that he’d see his father in no time.

James sat down at the table. “What happened?” he asked, more quietly now.

“We got some information about where the Death Eaters might be hiding. It wasn’t a very reliable tip, and Harry was afraid it was a trap or something. He didn’t want all the Aurors to go there without some concrete evidence. Even if it wasn’t a trap... could have turned out to be just someone innocent, you know? He didn’t want to send everyone there before we were absolutely sure. So he and Ron went on a reconnaissance mission, just to see what we’re up against.”

“And?”

“And we haven’t heard from them since.”

Mum wiped another tear.

James just stared at Teddy, hard. “What are the chances that they’re...” he didn’t want to say it. “Could something have happened to them?”

“James, Harry’s the best, and he’s even better with Ron at his side. If it were anyone else, I’d be worried, really. Two days is a long time, yeah. But with these two... Your father and uncle have been fighting together since they were your age. They did some impossible things together, you don’t know half of it. They’re going to be alright. I wouldn’t lie to you about that, okay? You trust me?”

James hesitated, then nodded.

“Then trust me on this. There’s nothing Harry and Ron can’t do together. Nothing. And they’ve been fighting dark wizards for years. They know what they’re doing. They’ll be alright.”

“But you’re looking for them?”

“Yeah, we’re on the clock, scanning the whole forest where they were last seen, the nearby villages, the lot. They’ll get to us before we’ll get to them, though, you’ll see.”

James stared at his hands for a moment. “What could have made them lose contact?” he asked finally.

When he raised his head, Teddy looked taken aback. “Well?” he asked.

“I don’t know, James,” Teddy admitted. “It’s not like them.”

“So something could have happened to them!”

“Look, it could be something as silly as losing their wands. And then they’re stuck walking home.”

“Oh, come on, how often does someone lose their wand?”

Teddy smiled now. “You’d be surprised. Someone disarms you, you dive looking for your wand in the wrong direction... next thing you know, the fight’s over and you’re without a wand. It happens more often than you’d think.”

James nodded, without much conviction. Teddy got up. “Walk me to the door?” he asked.

“Okay.”

“Ginny,” Teddy said, holding her hand again. She wasn’t crying anymore, just looking at him with a determined look.

“I’m fine, Teddy, really,” she said.

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know, okay?”

She laughed. “I was going to say the same thing to you,” she said.

“Good. I’m dying for one of Molly’s cakes. Come on, James.”

They stopped at the door. Teddy put his hand on the handle, but then talked to James. “Don’t say anything to Al and Lily, James,” he said.

“‘Course I won’t!” James said, his voice slightly too loud, then he lowered it again. “I’m not stupid, you know. They’d freak out.”

“Yeah.” Teddy smiled and made to open the door, but now James stopped him. He wanted to ask the question, but didn’t want to ask it near Mum.

“Teddy,” he said, and his voice shook slightly when he talked. “What are the chances something’s happened? That they didn’t just lose their wands or whatever?”

“There’s always a chance, James,” Teddy said, his voice just as quiet as James’s. He, too, didn’t want Mum to hear, James realised. “It’s a dangerous job.”

“So they could be hurt.”

“Yeah.” Teddy looked now right at James. “But I wasn’t lying earlier. Anyone else, I’d have assumed the worst by now. Not with your dad, though. He knows what he’s doing. He fought Death Eaters when he was fifteen, and from what I gather, he was quite good at it already then, alright? Now I really gotta go. See you soon.”

He hugged James and left.

James didn’t want to go to sleep. He went back to the kitchen. Mum was sitting at the exact same spot, her head in her hands.

“Mum?” he asked, and she raised her head. She wasn’t crying, he was relieved to see.

“Hey, James. Want some tea?” she asked, as if she realised he was looking for an excuse not to go back to sleep yet.

“Sure.”

She touched the kettle with her wand. It started whistling almost immediately, and she poured him a cup of tea.

“Man, I was I was seventeen already. I hate not being allowed to do magic outside school,” he said.

“Just two more years. You’ve managed fifteen already without doing magic at home.”

“Not true,” he pointed out. “Remember when I was eight?” She laughed. He didn’t know how to control his magic then, of course. No kid at that age knew. And whenever he had a fight with Al back then, things would break and smash. It drove his parents mad.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a kid with so much magic bursting all over the place,” she said. “Al and Lily weren’t half as bad as you were.”

“I’m special,” he declared, then drank a bit of the tea. “Is there any of Grandma’s cake left?”

“Go and check.”

“Ah, the days I’ll be able to use magic...” he said in resignation.

She snorted. “You’ll find it’s not really fun when you have pieces of cake smeared everywhere,” she said.

“I’ll just be more careful than you.” She raised her eyebrows in doubt, and the both of them laughed again. He cut her a slice, too - she didn’t ask for any cake, but he thought she could do with some. She ate it without comment.

He thought of what Teddy said for a moment. Dad and Ron did some impossible things together when they were fifteen. And wasn’t that what Mum had shouted at Dad on Christmas eve? “Mum?” he asked carefully.

“Mm?” she said with a mouth full of cake.

“What was Dad like, when he was my age?”

“Just as stubborn as you are,” she said.

“Come on.”

“I didn’t hang out with them at school too much, James. It was mainly Dad and Ron and Hermione together all the time.”

“Still. It’s not like I don’t know what Roxanne or Hugo are like.”

“He was stubborn. He got into trouble all that year, we had this horrible teacher, Harry was always in detention with her.”

“Dad? In detention?” What glorious news!

“Yeah,” Mum laughed. “Spent just about that entire year in detention - and the next, and that one was really annoying because by then we were dating, and instead of spending time together he was stuck in detention!”

“Next time he says anything about me getting myself into detention - ”

“You’d do well to remember that you’re a Prefect and he wasn’t,” Mum pointed out.

“So you started dating when you were in the fifth year?”

“Yeah. But just towards the end, most of that year I was dating Dean Thomas - ”

James spat half of the tea in his mouth and almost choked on the rest of it. “Professor Thomas?! Colleen’s dad? You dated Colleen’s dad?!”

“He’s a great guy,” she said in a whimsical way. “And very good looking. He looked even better back then.”

“Ew, Mum!”

“What? Don’t tell me you thought your dad was the first man I ever dated?”

“No, but - Colleen’s dad? That’s disgusting!”

She didn’t answer. He took it as an invitation to ask more. “How come Dad was already fighting Death Eaters when he was my age?”

She shook her head. He kept on staring at her, until she said, “It’s a long story, James, and things were - ”

“And things were different back then. Yeah, yeah. How come Teddy can know this stuff and I can’t? He’s not that older than I am!”

“He’s seven years older than you.”

“It’s not that much.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow. “Seven years ago you were eight years old. And we wouldn’t have had that conversation.”

She sounded annoyed, but not annoyed enough for him to stop. “And now I’m fifteen, and if seven years is a lot of time, then that’s a lot older than eight.”

She snorted. He kept on staring at her. Eventually, she said, “It’s easier, for your dad. To talk to Teddy. A part of it is because feels like he owes Teddy, because of Remus and Tonks, and a part of it is just because he’s not Teddy’s father.”

“Yeah, he’s his godfather!”

“It’s different. It’s not the same kind of responsibility. Harry’s...” she considered her words for a while. “You don’t know what it was like back then. And he doesn’t want you to know. And sometimes he doesn’t want to remember it himself, you know? It was a bad time, for all of us, but for him more than anyone. It’s not because he doesn’t trust you, James. It’s because he doesn’t know how to tell you all this.”

James opened his mouth to speak but the hour did its part, and despite himself, he yawned. It must have reminded Mum of the time. “Go to bed, James,” she said.

“Yeah,” he stifled another yawn and got up. “You’re going to sleep, too?”

“Soon.”

“Mum... you heard what Teddy said. It’ll all be alright.”

“Yeah,” she said. She didn’t bid him goodnight.

-X- They spent New Year’s at Hugo and Rose’s house in London. Their grandparents were there, too - their Muggle grandparents, who brought them a bunch of Muggle gifts. The five of them sat together, trying to figure out what each of those gifts actually were.

“That’s a computer game,” Hugo said with certainty about one small, rectangular box with colourful drawings on it.

“Could be a BluRay, though, couldn’t it?” Al asked, and James couldn’t help but thinking Al had no idea what BluRay was. He certainly didn’t have a clue.

“Nah, they know we don’t have a telly,” Hugo said.

“What’s that?” Lily showed another gift. They all looked at it thoughtfully for a moment.

“It’s another computer game?” Al asked dubiously.

“Can’t be,” Hugo said. “They don’t come with their own screen.”

“Mini-telly?” Rose suggested.

“Are you kidding? Mum will kill them, she told them a thousand times she doesn’t want a television in the house. ‘Sides, it’s too small.”

“Could be a computer,” James suggested. He was running out of ideas.

“No keyboard. Also, it isn’t large enough.”

“A mobile phone?”

“Too large.”

At that moment, their grandparents walked into the room.

“Granddad, what’s that?” Hugo raised the unknown object.

“It’s a tablet,” his grandfather said.

The five of them looked at each other, trying to pretend his words made sense.

“I’ll ask Mum what it does,” Hugo whispered, and put the mysterious ‘tablet’ on top of the pile.

They had finished with all the presents - and were deep into the process of trying to bake something in Hermione’s Muggle oven - when they heard the familiar noise of someone entering the house through the Floo. Hugo stopped with the flour in his hand, listening for an indication of who the new arrival might be. He needn’t have bothered - Hermione’s cry of “Ron!” was heard through the entire house. The five of them put everything down and rushed through the door and into the living room.

“Dad!” Hugo and Rose shouted at once.

“Hey, guys,” Ron said, and let go of Hermione only for long enough as to give his son and daughter a hug. Lily and Al also rushed forward, but James stayed behind and studied him for a moment.

Ron was filthy. Despite the change of clothes Teddy must have brought him, like he took for Dad, Ron’s clothes looked like he had stayed in them for a week - in a forest. He was full of mud and soot. His red hair could just as well have been brown, with all the dirt that was stuck in it. He clearly hadn’t shaved all the time he was away - his stubble was already a beard. There was a wound on his cheek, too, one that looked a few days old.

“Ron, thank God,” Hermione kept on saying. James realised she was sobbing.

He felt a hand on his shoulder - Mum.

“Ron,” she said, and he smiled a huge smile. “Hey, Ginny!” he said and hugged her, too. And then Hugo jumped in for another hug.

“You smell like hell.”

“Yeah, I need to take a long bath!”

“But where have you been?!” Hermione demanded.

Ron looked at her in confusion. “My wand was broken, I had to stop pursuing them. I had to walk all through that damn forest until I found some village - and even then, I had to start looking for houses that looked like they had wizards in them, so I could use the Floo back here. I should have called you, I know. If it would have taken me any longer to find a wizarding family I would have. But by the time I was anywhere near civilisation I thought it’s better to just get here as soon as possible, you know?”

“Oh, Ron!” Hermione said again, still sobbing, and hugged him a third time.

“Mum, it’s alright,” Rose mumbled, looking at her little brother with incredulous eyes. “He’s here.”

“But how come Harry didn’t tell you we got separated?” Ron asked once Hermione let go of him.

The room went absolutely still. James’s heart sank. Can’t be, he thought. No.

“What?” Ron looked from Hermione to Ginny to James, and back all over again.

It was James who found his voice first. “Dad’s not back yet,” he said.

Even through all the dirt, he could see see Ron had gone as white as a ghost. He looked for a moment at Hermione, who was no longer sobbing, but nodding slightly. “I need a wand,” he said. She handed him her own. He turned on the spot and disappeared without another word.

Mum just sat down on the nearest sofa, looking completely stricken.

James went back home with his mother not long after. Hermione wanted them all to stay, but Mum said she preferred they went home. Maybe Dad will be there, she said, even though she didn’t sound too convinced. Hermione held her hand for a moment, then they both hugged.

Al and Lily wanted to go with them, but James told them not to. “There’s no point in all of us sitting there doing nothing,” he said quietly as Mum gathered her stuff.

“We want to go!” Lily insisted.

“Lily, Mum will just be more nervous if you’re there. Really. Please, stay here with Hermione?”

Hermione, who had stopped helping Mum find her things and walked towards them, nodded. “I was just going to suggest the same thing. James, I think you’d better go back with Ginny... it’s not such a good idea to leave her on her own. But you guys are staying here.”

Lily pursed her lips. Al looked like he was going to start shouting - or crying - or both.

“Guys, please,” Hermione said. “You’re not going to stay here all the time, I’ll talk to Molly, we’ll all go there tonight, alright? Ginny, too.”

“If anyone finds out anything...” Al started

“We’ll probably hear before they do,” Hermione pointed out. That was the only thing that could convince Al. He nodded. Lily, who saw now she was defeated, stomped angrily towards the sofa and sat there with her arms crossed, but didn’t argue anymore.

“Don’t worry about her,” Hermione told James quietly. “I’ll cheer her up.”

“Hermione... if you guys do hear anything before we do...”

“We’ll let you know,” she said.

Staying at home proved no better than staying with Hermione. Mum sat in the living room with a book, but her eyes didn’t move and she didn’t turn the pages at all. James sat next to her. He wanted to try and talk to her about something funny that would keep her mind off things, like the night Teddy was there. But nothing came to his mind. They just sat there in silence.

An hour and a half after they got home, there was a knock on the door. They both jumped. Mum rushed to open it, but it wasn’t Dad, nor was it Ron. It was the Minister for Magic, accompanied by Teddy.

“Hi, Ginny,” the Minister said in his booming voice.

“Kingsley,” she said. Her voice was steady, and she was looking straight at him, as if challenging him.

“Can we talk?” he asked her.

“Sure.”

They went upstairs. James wanted to follow them, but Teddy grabbed him and shook his head. The two of them went back to the living room. Teddy sat down on the sofa, but James refused to sit. He stood in front of Teddy, his arms crossed, not unlike Lily’s when she heard she was staying with Hermione.

“What happened now?” he asked. “What’s he telling her. Is Dad...”

Teddy shook his head. He looked harassed and worried. His hair wasn’t his usual teal, but black and sombre. For some reason, it just made James more nervous. “He’s just telling her what we know, James.” He wasn’t talking anymore about how Dad was the best and how he wasn’t worried.

“Which is? What do you know?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

James could feel the temper rising in him. He had to bite down the anger, or he would have started shouting at Teddy. He knew what Teddy would say then - that he was acting like a kid, that this was exactly why he wasn’t being told anything, that he couldn’t be trusted. That was what Dad thought anyway, wasn’t it?

The resentment rose in him again. They were never told anything! And now Dad was missing and he was still not told a thing and the urge to start shouting was getting stronger and stronger and he didn’t care if it made him childish.

He took a deep breath. Even if shouting was the answer, Teddy wasn’t the right address. That really would be childish, he knew - Teddy had only been an Auror for four months or so. He probably didn’t know everything himself, and even if he did, it wasn’t his decision anyway.

He sat down next to man who had always been like a big brother to him. He thought of Teddy’s parents, who had died before he even got to know them, murdered by Death Eaters, before he asked his question. “Is Dad alive?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Teddy shook his head. “I can’t tell you, James. I’m sorry. But he is alive. And he’s going to stay that way.”

“Have the Death Eaters got him?”

Teddy didn’t answer. James discovered he couldn’t sit down after all, and jumped to his feet, pacing around the room. Teddy would have said no, he knew, if his guess was wrong. Which meant he wasn’t wrong, even if Teddy couldn’t confirm. That Teddy didn’t try to lie to him was a small comfort now.

“How can you know for sure he’s alive? You don’t know how the Death Eaters are working!”

Teddy bit his lip for a moment. “Because Harry is the Minister’s right hand man. He knows everything there is to know about the Ministry. They’re not going to kill him.”

James started protesting, but Teddy continued. “They’re not going to kill him as long as they think he can give them information about the Ministry. That’s how long he’s got. As long as it takes for them to realise he’s not going to give them what they want. That’s at least a couple of days yet.”

These words didn’t make James feel any better.

“James,” Teddy spoke quietly now, “we’re - the Ministry - we’re doing things we’re barely allowed to do. Kinds of magic we’d never usually even think about. Just to get your dad back. In fact,” he smiled a small smile, “if Harry knew what we were doing, he’d probably start shouting at all of us that we’re mad and irresponsible and what exactly are we thinking. He’ll probably do it anyway, once he gets the chance, if I know your dad at all. But that’s not going to stop us. Alright?”

When he didn’t answer, Teddy asked again. “Alright?”

“Yeah,” James said quietly, and sat down.

Teddy stayed with them even after the Minister came down with Mum and left the house. James thought he’d leave with the Minister, but Teddy said he still had a couple of hours, and spent the rest of the time telling jokes so ridiculous that even Mum ended up laughing, even though her eyes were red and puffy and her laughter sounded more like hiccups.

He volunteered to stay and wash the dishes in the kitchen for a bit, which James thought was rather odd, because Teddy hated doing the dishes. When he insisted on going up with James to pick stuff for everyone before they went to the Burrow for the night, the Knut finally dropped.

“Teddy,” he said quietly, trying his best to sound unconcerned as he shoved some of his pyjamas into his backpack, “you’re not by any chance assigned to protect us or anything, are you?”

“Why are you asking that?” he asked with such an air of indifference that James knew he was right.

“Teddy...”

“It’s a shot in the dark, but we don’t want to take any chances,” Teddy admitted.

“Why would they go after us if they’ve already got Dad?”

Teddy scratched his ear uncomfortably. “Your father’s a symbol for a lot of people, James. You know that. The way these people operate...”

“So what, we’re a symbol now too just because we’re his family?”

“James, these people escaped prison and after more than twenty years, instead of running off to some far away country where they can’t be found, start killing people again. What does that tell you about them?”

“That they’re stupid?” James suggested, but Teddy shook his head.

“They’re a lot of things, but don’t underestimate them and think they’re stupid.”

“Then what? What’s the point? No one believes in them anymore, Voldemort is long gone, what’s the point?”

“What indeed...” Teddy said quietly.

“D’you think they’ll try to do something to us? To get Dad to tell them stuff?”

“I think nothing’s going to happen,” Teddy said with such resolution that James didn’t ask again.

They finished packing in silence, except for the times Teddy picked up an exceptionally ridiculous shirt for Al or Lily and James had to tell him they’d never wear it in a million years. Then Mum called them from downstairs, and they picked up the bags and rushed down. James was to go with Teddy straight to the Burrow through the Floo network. Mum said she will Apparate to Hermione and Ron’s house in London to pick up Lily and Al.

They all met at the burrow some fifteen minutes later. Grandma already knew they were coming, and did her best to talk and talk and talk, James rather thought not to give them the chance to think too much. Soon Mum got there with Al and Lily and Grandma called them all for dinner and insisted that Teddy should stay, and then Hermione showed up as well with Rose and Hugo. George and Angelina showed up after dinner with Roxanne and Fred, who was back home after last six months in Brazil, and the Burrow became its regular hectic mess. It had its benefits, James knew. They didn’t have time to be worried. It wasn’t until they were all sent to sleep in the various rooms of the house that he had time to himself.

Even then, he still couldn’t show how worried he was. He was sharing a room with Al, and he didn’t want to give his younger brother any hint of what he knew. He was being a hypocrite, he knew - he was now doing to Al the same thing that almost made him shout at Teddy a few hours earlier. But thirteen, he decided, was a lot younger than fifteen.

Most of the next day was spent at the Burrow. They wanted to play Quidditch in the back yard, but Al all of a sudden got a headache. Al’s timing couldn’t possibly be worse - Mum needed cheering up, and besides, they almost never got the chance to see her play. James knew that even then they wouldn’t really see her play, simply because none of them was a match for her. He tried to get Al to join them by teasing that he was just afraid of the cold and the snow, but it didn’t do much good. If anything, Al just became more stubborn and unresponsive. Eventually, he gave up, and he and Lily ended up passing the ball on their broomsticks

He did get his wish a couple of hours later - Angelina and George showed up again, and they tried to organise a little game, James and Mum versus Angelina and George. It was one hell of an education for James - he had never been in a game this fast, even though there were only two players on each side. Mum, of course, didn’t really need him to get past George, but Angelina scored their side their fair share of goals - and got past James every time.

It was almost fun - almost, because Dad was in everyone’s mind. And when Angelina and George started reminiscing about some game they played during school and ended up mentioning both Dad and Uncle Fred, everyone became so, so quiet. And then it was already getting dark and cold

It wasn’t long after they all came back into the house that Mum declared they’re going back to sleep at home tonight.

“Ginny, stay tonight, no point in you staying there all by yourselves,” Gran tried to say, but Mum shook her head.

“I’d really rather just stay at home, Mum,” she said.

“Do you want me to come with you? Or Hermione, maybe?”

“No, it’s alright, besides, the zoo here needs you.”

Hugo and Rose started protesting being called a zoo, but Grandma just shushed them off, and the four of them departed through the fireplace back home.

James didn’t realise at first what was different. There was light in the living room, but he thought they must have forgotten to turn it off when they left. Mum was so nervous and had so many things on her mind, that turning off the light really was the last thing she’d think of. Then there was the sound, like water running in the pipes, but he didn’t pay it much attention, either. In fact, it wasn’t until he went to take off his shoes and put them at the entrance that he realised what was different. There, next to the door, where they usually were, he saw a pair of boots that wasn’t there before, covered with mud.

“Mum!” he called.

Mum was in the kitchen; Grandma had given them the usual amount of her delicious food, and Mum told Al to help her put it all in place. They hadn’t been to the door yet, hadn’t taken off their own shoes yet.

Now, she rushed to the door from the kitchen. “What is it?” she asked.

“Dad,” he said, and pointed at the boots.

“Oh, thank God,” she said. She grabbed the bannister for support, and James rushed forward, to make sure she won’t fall. She was terribly pale. “I’m fine,” she said and laughed, but there were tears in her eyes. “I’m fine. Just...” She didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she hugged James so tight. He didn’t mind. He just hugged her back, holding tight to her. Dad was alive and well and home. When she let go, she smiled at him again and ran up the stairs, rushing to find Dad.

“What’s up?” Al and Lily came in, too, and James just grabbed them both for a hug.

“Dad’s back,” he said.

They stayed there, at the entrance, sitting on the stairs and chatting in unending relief. For the first time in a week, they allowed themselves to be happy. Al was telling a bunch of really stupid jokes, which, James suspected, he heard from Teddy; Lily kept on babbling nonsense, talking for the sake of talking. After about half an hour, James had enough. For some reason, he started looking at Dad’s boots. Perhaps it was because it was the only thing of Dad’s he had seen for a week; perhaps simply because they were there.

They really were filthy - completely covered in mud. He could only imagine what Dad’s clothes would look like - probably worse than Ron’s. But the mud had a strange colour - parts of it were deep brown, others looked more reddish. A thought came to his mind - was it all mud?

He just reached with a hand to test the reddish substance on the boots, when someone said “Tergeo” from upstairs, and the boots were all of a sudden clean and shiny, as if new. He looked up, half in annoyance, half in relief.

Dad’s hair was only half dry and already sticking up in all directions. His old lightning-bolt scar was visible even more than usual - for some reason, it looked a lot more red now than James ever remembered seeing it. There were a couple of other scars next to it - new ones, James thought. Underneath his eyes there were dark bags. He had a huge bandage on his shoulder, and was in the process of pulling up a jumper with obvious difficulty - he had to put down his wand on the bannister in order to put it on. But beyond all that, he was wearing a huge grin.

“Dad!” Lily jumped first and rushed upstairs to meet him half way. He was still struggling with the jumper, and had to stop in order to hug her, then said, “Hold on, hold on!”, finished putting it on, and hugged her again. Al was next, and engulfed Dad in another hug.

Someone laughed - Mum, who was also sporting wet hair and was now in her comfortable house robe, was leaning on the door to their bedroom and laughing. “Let him breathe,” she warned.

James stayed at the bottom of the stairs. By now, the excitement of seeing Dad again, of knowing he was alright, had passed. Now he was mainly angry. Angry with a week of being worried sick, angry with the past couple of days in particular, with everything Mum had been through. Angry, he realised, because Dad had the time to get home and shower, rather than rush to the Burrow and tell them that he was okay as soon as he could. Angry that yet again he was hiding things from them, even when they weren’t about the past, but about the here and now.

“Hey, James,” Dad said, not yet realising just how angry James was.

“Hi,” James said coldly.

“So, anything interesting happened while I was gone?” Dad’s voice was casual and light-hearted. If he noticed James’s tone of voice, he pretended he didn’t.

“Not much,” James answered, trying to sound as indifferent as possible. “We were just sitting here worried sick for all that time without a scrap of news. How was your week?”

The words had an incredible effect, not just on Mum and Dad, but on Lily and Al as well. It was as if, all of a sudden, they remembered that they, too, had suffered all that week. James had expected them to say it didn’t matter anymore now that Dad was back and to tell him to stop being mean. Instead, Al stopped hugging Dad and took a few steps back, and Lily looked uncertainly at her two brothers.

“My week was just brilliant,” Dad said jokingly, trying to defuse the tension. It didn’t work. Now Al walked all the way down to join James, and Lily took a few steps back, too.

“I don’t think this is the time for this, James,” Mum said quietly from upstairs.

“It’s never the time, is it?” he answered. The door bell rang. He ignored it. “There’s always some excuse,” he continued, “some reason to pretend nothing’s going on or act as if we’re five year old or something.”

The door bell rang again.

“No one’s acting as if you’re five years old but you now,” Dad said, unable to hide the irritation in his voice. The door bell rang a third time. “Is no one going to get the damn door?” he said.

“No,” was James’s answer, and Dad just walked down to get the door himself.

“Harry Potter?” someone asked on the other side. They all stopped and listened now - who’d need to ask that question?!

“Yes?” Dad asked. In his voice, James could still hear the anger.

“I am Detective Inspector Jones, this is Detective Inspector Smith, we need to ask you a few questions.”

They all look at each other in confusion. Muggle police? What were they doing here?

“I’m sorry, this isn’t a good time,” Dad said. His voice changed - the anger was gone. It was completely unreadable now - and he could see his back, too, straight all of a sudden, tense. “Could you come again tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid it can’t wait until tomorrow, Mr Potter. This is about a man called Antonin Dolohov - ah, I see you recognise the name. Then perhaps it will interest you to know his body was found, not far from here?”

All of a sudden, Dad reached with his left hand behind his back. The right one was still on the door handle, and there was no change in his demeanour, nor in his voice, but the left hand was now wide open, stretched back, then opened and closed in an almost snapping movement. James understood all of a sudden. Give me a wand.

Mum grabbed Dad’s wand and rushed down the stairs to put it in his hand.

To the cops, Dad said in a pleasant voice, “Hold on a minute, I just need to - ” then brought his wand forward and aimed it at the two of them. “Obliviate,” he said quietly.

James stepped forward. He could see the two policemen now - they were big and tall and wore grey suits. One of them was holding a badge in his hand; the other - a photograph. And there was a strange, distant expression on their face.

All of a sudden, one of them shook himself up, as if from a dream. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Potter. Thank you for your cooperation,” he said, and the two of them left.

Dad closed the door and leaned on it for a moment. He looked exhausted.

“What was Dolohov’s body doing near here, Harry?” Mum asked.

Dad shook his head, then went to the fire. He stood in front of the fire, threw some of the powder in, said ‘Auror Office’, then again - “Seamus”.

A moment later someone appeared in the fireplace - Seamus Finnigan, Trishana’s father. “I thought Kingsley told you to take sick leave until the end of the week? I know for a fact he told us not to let you work.” He sounded impatient, almost annoyed, when he said that.

Dad rolled his eyes. “I know. I’m not working, this just can’t wait.”

“Can it ever?”

Dad ignored him. “You said Dolohov got away.”

Finnigan’s face darkened, and he was clearly angry when he spoke next. “He did get away.”

“Muggle police just came knocking. They found his body not far from here.”

Finnigan swore, then opened his mouth to say something, but Dad cut across him. “Get the Obliviators there now, and make sure they question anyone who was here before they wipe their memories. Also, I want to know who cursed him.”

“Look, Harry, I don’t think this is necessary - ”

“I want to know how he died,” Dad didn’t even let him finish the sentence. “Check the body and check the wands if you have to, okay?”

For a moment, it looked as if Finnigan was going to refuse, but at last he said, “Okay.”

“Alright,” Dad said.

“Get some rest, will you,” Finnigan said, then went through the fireplace back to the Auror Office.

“Sorry about that,” Dad muttered. Mum, however, was almost glaring at him. “What was Dolohov’s body doing near here?” she asked again.

The door bell rang.

Dad swore, and went to open the door again.

“And what do you want?!” he said with such hostility, that could be heard throughout the entire house.

“Now, now, Mr Potter,” said someone - a woman. James didn’t recognise her voice. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“No,” Dad said, rather rudely.

“I think you’d want to,” the woman said again. They walked into the room - the woman first, her head full of platinum blonde curls, her green eyes darting around the room. “Oh, and this must be your family! How wonderful!” she said.

Dad came in just behind her. He didn’t look pleased at all. “You’re not going to talk to my family, Rita, and we’re rather busy, so whatever you came here for, please just say it and leave.”

“My, my,” she said in mock concern. “I’m here to get your official comment on a story we’re running, Harry.”

He snorted. “You mean, your latest rubbish. The one story I’d like to read is how you ended up being the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Prophet.”

“Wouldn’t you just,” she smiled. Her smile looked insincere to James, but Dad didn’t comment, and she continued. “This story, however, is about the Death Eaters who escaped from Azkaban.”

“Ah, in that case, you should write that they’ve been apprehended and are transferred back to Azkaban as we speak, under maximum security. Feel free to add that the head of the Auror Office says that with quite a lot of satisfaction.”

“I’ll be sure to let my readers know, Harry,” she said, her smile still wide. James understood now what she reminded him of - a shark. “That’s not the story we’re running, though.”

“That’s the story you should be running.”

“Do you want to write it, too? I could just sign my name to it and it would be off to print.”

“I’ll be happy to sign your name for you on it as well.” His words sounded like a joke, but James knew his father well enough. He wasn’t really joking.

“I’m sure you would. In the meantime, our story is actually about how the Death Eaters didn’t escape because the Auror Office messed up in the first place, you’ll be happy to hear.”

“Oh?”

“Apparently, the goblins orchestrated the whole thing.”

James couldn’t help but admire his father, even for just a little bit. There was no change in him at all. “That’s the first I hear of that,” he said in the exact same tone as before.

“Is it? My sources tell me you were the one who somehow came up with that information, out of the blue.”

“Your sources are wrong.”

“How can you tell? Maybe they’re right and you just haven’t figured it out yet.”

“Your sources are wrong. Who are they, by the way?”

She ignored the question, and instead offered a new one of her own. “And how about those rumours that the goblins attacked Hogwarts again on Christmas Eve?”

“Also wrong.”

She laughed. “Is that the Auror Office’s official comment?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll just leave now. Don’t worry, you can read all about that in tomorrow’s Prophet,” she said, and turned to leave.

But then Dad called her name. “Rita,” he said, and she turned around, a victorious smile on her face. “Don’t print that story.”

“Free press, Mr Potter. You can’t tell us what to print.”

“Don’t print the story,” he repeated.

“Or else?” she said. He didn’t answer. She laughed. “Goodbye, Mr Potter.”

Dad was already halfway to the fireplace when Mum said, in a voice much sharper than usual, “It can wait, Harry.”

“I’m sorry, Ginny, I need to - ”

“It can wait.”

They stood and stared at each other for a while. Finally, Dad nodded. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

They ate dinner in silence. Dad tried to start a conversation every once in a while, or made a joke, but James refused to talk about anything but the last week, and eventually Dad gave up altogether. By the end of dinner he was already yawning loudly, and not long after he fell asleep on the sofa. His wand, which he had been clutching all night long, fell to the floor with a clunk.

James got up to his room, and did not come down again until he went to sleep.

He woke up once, in the middle of the night. At first he wasn’t sure what woke him up, until he realised there was some light coming in through the door. Someone had opened it and was standing in the doorway.

He didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. Dad. For a moment, the anger and frustration of that entire day - that entire week - came back to him, and he started turning in bed. Then he heard Dad’s voice. “It’s okay,” he said in a familiar whisper, “go back to sleep.”

The door closed again, leaving Dad on the other side. James stared at the wall a long time before he fell asleep again.

Chapter 11: The Headmaster's Portrait

The dread had been filling Houda up all through the ride to the small village. By the time the car had stopped and the GPS had confirmed they were in the right place, it had become full blown panic.

There wasn’t any real reason for the panic, she knew somewhere deep inside. Lily had become one of her best friends, and Harry was... until a week and a half ago, she had thought he was the coolest uncle in the world and the coolest teacher she ever had. Now she wasn’t so sure.

The ride to Bristol on Christmas eve, to Gran Mouna and Granddad Dawd’s house, was accompanied by an overbearing, awkward silence. Christmas day felt a bit subdued - and not at all because her grandparents’ house didn’t have a tree and decorations - but slowly, Houda thought, things were getting back to normal.

Until Boxing Day, that is, when her Granddad Vernon was supposed to come and pick Gran Petunia up and never showed up.

That Boxing Day, Houda wanted an owl more than anything in the world. She wanted to write a long, long letter, and send it to Lily, or perhaps Hugo. The day after that, she thought that the person she wanted to write to the most was actually Aaron. Maybe he will know how she was feeling. She didn’t know how his family was dealing with the fact he turned out to be a wizard; she hoped that it was better than her family’s reaction.

And then, on New Year’s eve, Granddad Vernon finally showed up, and everyone was very polite. That was the only way she could describe New Year’s. Grandma Petunia didn’t want to shout at Granddad Vernon. Granddad Vernon brought an endless amount of gifts to Houda - but hardly said a word to her. Mum walked around with her lips pursed and said almost nothing at all to anyone. Dad just looked miserable. After two days of that, Houda’s grandparents went home, and the only thing Dad was willing to say was that ‘What you see as a boy looks completely different when you’re a father’ and refused to elaborate.

The entire week made Christmas dinner at the Weasleys’ look cheerful and friendly.

The only thing that kept Houda going that entire week was the knowledge that it would be over soon, and then she’d be back at Hogwarts. Despite the slight nervousness she felt when she thought of Hogwarts - and whether Harry would say something to her about her grandparents - it was bound to be better than the tension at home. And maybe Harry wouldn’t say anything, and she’d be able to pretend none of it had ever happened and that someone as cool and important as Harry Potter didn’t happen to hate her grandparents with a fiery passion.

Then, one day before the end of the holidays, she woke up in the morning and discovered to her horror that before that time came, she was due a meeting with the family skeletons. Up close.

She already knew Dad had an important business trip that could not be postponed. He kissed her goodbye that morning, told her to behave and have a good term, and left with his suitcase. But then Mum told her she had to pack early, because something had come up at her work, too. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, “I have to leave today, I’m so sorry.”

“How am I supposed to get to King’s Cross tomorrow?” Houda asked. “With the huge trunk and all!”

“Well, your grandparents can give you a lift,” Mum said airily.

“Mum, you forgot! They’re going to Aden tomorrow with -”

“With my parents, oh my god, you’re right.”

The next few hours were spent in a rush of phone calls, arguments, more arguments, and more phone calls. Houda spent most of them alternating between watching television miserably and watching her mother trying to find a solution, equally as miserably.

The solution that was reached in the end was far from perfect to anyone’s opinion, and to Houda’s most of all. And so her grandparents showed up and took her, Vern and David. Her brothers were going to Smeltings, and were dropped off at the Polkiesses, who lived next to her grandparents in Little Whinging. And then the three of them continued to the Potters.

The silence in the car all the way to the Potters’ house was deafening. Houda almost hoped someone - her grandfather, her grandmother, even she herself - would start talking, even if only to shout. But no one did. And the dread just grew and grew. And now that they stopped in front of the house, she wasn’t sure she could get out of the car.

She wasn’t the only one. Her grandfather had stopped the car, but didn’t make any attempt to get out of it. Nor did he say anything. He just sat there quietly. Her grandmother sat next to him. And Houda, at the back seat, didn’t get up. They must have sat there at least five minutes, in total silence.

“Well,” Granddad said all of a sudden, and tried to smile, but it looked more like a grimace, “that’s it then, better be off, we need to pack our suitcases as well!”

“We’ll walk you in,” Gran said all of a sudden.

“Petunia...” Granddad started, but Gran shook her head.

“We’ll walk her in. She needs help with that trunk, anyway.”

“Petunia, dear,” Granddad started again, but he stopped when he saw her expression. With a frozen, terrified smile, he got out of the car and took the trunk out of the boot. Gran grabbed hold of Houda’s hand, and together, the three of them marched to the slightly secluded house.

It looked just like Houda had thought it would look. It was at the outskirts of the village - almost outside it, in fact, far enough from the other houses that it didn’t feel like a part of it. It was big, with a huge lawn in front of the house, where trees and bushes and flowers grew wild, so unlike the carefully cultivated garden in her grandparents’ house. It looked nice, but she could see from her grandparents’ expression they were not pleased.

They climbed the stairs in silence, and stood in front of the door. Granddad reached for the doorbell, then hesitated, but pressed it eventually.

No one answered.

“Did Aminah make sure they were home?” Granddad asked, sounding irritated and relieved all at once.

“Yes,” Gran said.

“Well, that’s just like them. Say they’re home and then it turns out they’re not and we drove all this way and - ”

The door opened. Harry was on the other side. Granddad fell silent immediately. If Houda wouldn’t have been terrified, she would have found his expression funny.

“Hi, Houda,” Harry smiled at her warmly, but then his expression turned a lot colder. “Petunia. Vernon.”

Gran said something. It might have been ‘Harry’, or perhaps ‘hello’, or maybe it was just an odd sound. Houda wasn’t sure.

“Well,” Granddad said.

No one said anything for a moment.

“So, this is where you live,” Granddad tried again. It sounded almost like an accusation.

“This is where I live,” Harry confirmed. He didn’t say anything more.

There was more silence.

“Well,” Granddad said again, “we really should - ”

“Is that them, Harry?” Ginny’s voice was heard from inside the house, and she showed up at the door. “Oh, hi there. Come on in, we’ve got some tea and cake for you.”

Houda didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her grandparents saw it as the height of rudeness not to accept such an invitation - even more rude than not being invited in the first place, she knew. She had heard her grandfather complain about rude neighbours a thousand times. But there was also no denying that they just wanted to leave there, as soon as possible.

Manners won in the end; defeated, grumpy, Granddad pushed the trunk into the hall, and the three of them followed Ginny and Harry into the living room.

It was huge. Right at the centre there was a huge fireplace - a real fireplace, not electric like at her home; Houda remembered all of a sudden that wizards travelled by fireplace to different places. There were a few stands with books - less than in her house, but more than at her grandparents’. And everywhere on the walls there were photographs - wizard photographs, the kind that moved. Her grandparents eyed them suspiciously as they sat on the sofa, but Houda looked at them with interest. Most of them were of the Potters - Lily and Al and James, with their parents and sometimes without, at a variety of different places. There were also a lot of photographs of the extended Weasley family - Hugo and Rose with Professor Granger-Weasley and their father; the Burrow, with Molly and Arthur Weasley; Roxanne and the people who must be her parents; and some of the others she had met at the Burrow on Christmas and hadn’t quite caught their names. And then there were old photographs as well, of people she didn’t know, but obviously people the Potters wanted to have on their walls.

While she was looking at the photographs, Harry came back with tea and cake. She joined her grandparents on the sofa and Harry and Ginny sat across from them on another sofa. “Lily and the rest are at the Burrow,” Ginny told her. “They’ll come back home any minute now.”

“Oh,” was all Houda could say. She was stuck in the living room and with the silence, then.

Harry poured tea for everyone. Every few seconds, he opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again immediately. In the end, his only words to her grandparents were to ask how they wanted their tea, and then all five of them sank back into the silence.

Houda helped herself to an extra large slice of cake. The only encouraging thing was that it was a very good cake.

“I hear you’re going abroad,” Ginny tried to liven up the atmosphere.

“Yes,” Gran said quietly. “With Dawd and Mouna. To visit Mouna’s family in Aden. They said it was a lovely city.”

“So I’ve heard,” Ginny said. Granddad grimaced, and Houda suspected he was trying to smile again. “It’s a good thing, to get away from this weather. Good for the health.”

“Yes,” Granddad said. “I just hope it’s cleaner than Majorca.”

Gran pursed her lips. Houda was sure there was something on her mind, but instead of saying it, she just drank her tea.

And then, out of nowhere, it came out. “You look like you could use a holiday like that too,” she said all of a sudden to Harry.

Harry, who had been sitting at Ginny’s side the whole time, saying absolutely nothing and not as much as looking at Houda’s grandparents, raised his head in surprise, mixed with anger. “Excuse me?” he asked coldly.

“You look ill,” Gran said again, much more quietly and sounding as if she regretted saying anything in the first place.

“I’m fine,” he said. Then, after another moment’s silence, “I’m surprised you noticed.”

“I always noticed,” Gran answered almost immediately. She narrowed her eyes and put down her cup. “You think I didn’t see? Those last few summers, how you shut yourself away, all those nightmares, you thought we didn’t hear? You lived in my house for sixteen years, you think I didn’t learn to know you in all that time?”

Harry jumped to his feet. “Well, you didn’t do much about that, did you?” he said. Gran remained on the sofa, drawing herself more into it.

“Harry,” Ginny said, much like she did during Christmas, but more softly. Unlike that dinner, Harry paused for a moment, and sat down again.

“Well,” Granddad gave a ghastly smile, one which was worse than his previous grimace, and put the teacup down with a shaking hand, “I think it’s time we - ARGH!”

Houda needed only a second to see what had set him off now. The fire in the fireplace turned green - and all of a sudden, Lily and her brothers materialised in the room, half-jumping, half-thrown out of the fireplace. No one seemed to think it was a big deal - except for Houda’s grandparents, who looked wildly at the fireplace and at the kids emerging from it.

“Hey Mum, Dad - Gran says we should go and have dinner at the Burrow - oh, hi Houda!” Al started.

Lily rushed to her and hugged her. Houda, slightly confused, hugged her cousin back. “Houda! It’s so great you’re here! You have to come with us to dinner at the Burrow, George is testing the new products for the shop and Hugo is there and everything!”

Swept by the mess, Houda almost didn’t have the chance to say goodbye to her grandparents. Right before they left, they called her and she gave them a hug. She returned to Lily then, but from her corner of her eye, she thought she saw her Gran offering her hand for Harry to shake. She didn’t see him taking it.

-X-

By the time the students of Hogwarts boarded the train back to the school, the recapture of the Death Eaters had been widely publicised. And yet, as the children found themselves on Platform Nine and Three Quarters, none of them could miss the sheer number of teachers who boarded the train with them. It was a rare occasion when a teacher travelled by train to Hogwarts; it was the first time in anyone’s memory that almost half the staff did so, including the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, who just happened to also be the Head Auror.

James was among the last to board the train. It was then his complete surprise to find his friends in a compartment with another person - Trishana Finnigan, who was crying her eyes out. Colleen was sitting next to her, trying to comfort her, without much success.

“What’s up?” James asked awkwardly.

Trishana raised her eyes from her hands long enough to stare at him angrily, as if his mere existence offended her, then went back to sobbing.

“Her father quit the Auror Office,” Colleen filled him in quietly.

“And you’re crying about it? Isn’t it a good thing?”

“Yeah, you would say that, wouldn’t you?!” Trishana glared at him again. “He’s just off to do something more dangerous!”

Once again, he stared helplessly at Colleen. “He’s joined the fight against the goblins,” she said.

“What, the raiding squads?”

At this, Trishana stopped crying. Instead, she got up and started shouting at him. “Raiding squads?! I guess that’s what your father calls it, then? I’m not surprised! Just so you know, some of us don’t think that we should sit on our backsides waiting for the goblins to kill us all!” And with that, she stormed out of the compartment.

There was a long pause before James spoke again, and when he did, he only asked, “What did I do?”

“Her father quit because your dad wouldn’t involve the Aurors in the fight with the goblins,” Lorcan explained. “To be honest, I do think he’s being a bit of an arse myself.”

James shrugged, then sat down next to Colleen.

“He’s always being a bit of an arse, though, that’s just how he is,” he said. “That pretty much sums up this entire holiday.”

“Yeah, I didn’t have such a great time, either,” Colleen said gloomily. “Dad was gone most of the time. Mum really got scared after a while. And she didn’t want it to be just the three of us, so we ended up spending all week at my grandparents in London.”

“Can’t be that bad,” Lorcan said, but Colleen shook her head.

“They’re Muggles, and they don’t really know anything about magic, and we didn’t know we’d be there that long so Michael didn’t bring his owl and there was no way to talk to anyone. And they keep on speaking to me in Hausa and then get upset when I reply in English.”

“Why don’t you reply in Hausa then?” Lorcan mused.

“Because I’m rubbish and I sound like a five year old, that’s why!”

“I’m sure you’re not that bad...”

She just glared at him, rather like Trishana had glared at James only a few moments ago. James, who could see this discussion deteriorating to shouting as well, tried to intervene.

“Hey, look on the bright side, your Hausa is much better than mine...”

It didn’t even earn him a chuckle. James sighed. It was going to be one of those days, apparently.

He had no idea how right he was. It wasn’t a minute after that the door of the compartment opened - to reveal his father.

“Hi, Mr Potter,” Colleen said.

“Hi Colleen, Lorcan, Lysander,” Dad said, then turned to James. “What are you doing here?”

“Going to school?”

Dad looked at him for a moment. “Prefects are supposed to patrol the corridors. You know that.”

“I’m patrolling them,” he lied without even pausing. “I’m taking a couple of minutes off. Prefects are allowed to do that, aren’t they?”

“Sure, just don’t sit here the entire ride, alright?”

Dad waited for James to mutter some sort of acknowledgement before closing the door of the compartment. He did so with obvious difficulty - his shoulder, still not completely healed from his encounter with the Death Eaters, must have been acting up again.

“What’s wrong with his arm?” Lysander furrowed his brow.

“He was hurt while chasing the Death Eaters,” James gave the concise version. He didn’t want to get too much into it - the memory of the anxious waiting of that entire week was still fresh in his mind.

Colleen, however, was looking at him strangely. “I thought he was...” she started, but didn’t finish the sentence.

“Was what?”

“Never mind.”

“Was what?”

“Just something my dad said,” she said quietly.

“What did he say?”

Colleen was clearly uncomfortable. “He didn’t say much,” she said, but James didn’t believe her. He stared at her until she sighed, then shook her head. “Oh, alright. Your dad was caught by the Death Eaters at some point, wasn’t he? Well, my dad was with the team that found the Death Eaters, and... well... he said...” she hesitated, then finally said, “well, it didn’t sound like your dad was very well when they got to him. He said he recovered really quickly and all,” she added quickly, “you know how my dad is, he kinda looks up to him. But I don’t know. He sounded a bit worried.”

James didn’t answer. After another moment, Colleen said, “I’m just glad Dad’s not an Auror anymore.” It didn’t make James feel any better. He remained silent, as did everyone else.

They were silent when Hermione knocked on the door of the compartment. “Just checking you’re making your rounds, James,” she said. She was cheerful, but James thought there was something a bit fake in her light manner. Perhaps he was wrong, though. It might have been himself.

“I am,” he said. She paused for a moment, the nodded. “Don’t stay here too long at any one time, though.”

“I won’t.”

She closed the door behind her.

“Say, do you ever actually do any of your Prefect duties?” Lorcan mused. James ignored him.

“Why did your dad quit?” he asked Colleen all of a sudden.

“What?”

“Your dad. He used to be an Auror. Still enough of one that they called him during the holidays, even though he quit ages ago.”

“Yeah...”

“So, why did he quit?”

Colleen looked confused for a moment, then shuffled uncomfortably. “He just... I don’t know, he wanted to work with Muggles. Both him and my mum are Muggle-born, after all.”

James liked Mr Thomas. He had never thought twice about his resignation - until today. Because if Trishana’s father quit over the Ministry’s policy...

Colleen seemed to understand what he was thinking. “I told you, he really looks up to your dad. I don’t think it had anything to do with the goblins.”

Then he thought about how thick-headed his father was, and all of a sudden, Mr Finnigan didn’t seem to be that wrong. “Maybe he should have,” he said. Colleen just watched him, clearly uncomfortable.

“If the goblins are working with Death Eaters, though,” he pointed out, “then that’s definitely Dad’s department, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but they caught all the Death Eaters, didn’t they?” Lorcan said, but Lysander immediately objected. “I think they didn’t catch some?”

“If there’s only a few of them, then they’re not much help to the goblins.”

“Maybe they only need a few Death Eaters.”

“Need them for what?”

“I don’t know, what do I look like to you, a goblin?”

“A bit, yeah,” James cut in. Lysander thumped him over the head.

“Oh look, you lot are having fun.”

James raised his head in surprise - it was Roxanne. They didn’t even hear her open the compartment’s door.

“You can join us, there’s plenty of fun to go around,” James suggested.

Roxanne was not pleased. “You’ve been sitting in here for ages, James. Time to start doing your duties as a Prefect - don’t argue,” she said before he even had the chance to open his mouth, “I know you’ve been doing nothing all morning but sit here and be miserable. Now off you go, before I give you detention.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.” She didn’t go away. Instead, she stood there, holding the compartment door wide open, challenging him not to get up. He thought for a moment about arguing, about refusing, but then decided it wasn’t worth it. She really would give him detention, he knew, and he didn’t feel like starting the new term having to do lines.

“See you guys later,” he muttered miserably and got up.

He didn’t take three steps before some first-year Slytherin crashed into him. “Hey! No running in the corridors!” he told the boy off, who sniggered at him and ran in a different direction. “Oi, you!”

He ran down the corridor after the kid, going fast past the other compartments.

From his own compartment, Al watched his brother for a moment through the glass door, then turned back to Scorpius.

“And then my mother called Severus Snape a bastard. And she said something about Dumbledore as well,” he finished his story.

Scorpius didn’t answer at first. Instead, he played with his wand for a bit, trying to make a chocolate frog double in size. He failed, of course - the chocolate frog quivered for a moment, then shrunk. Scorpius scowled at it, and tried again. Al watched his friend’s futile attempts to make more chocolate without a word.

Finally Scorpius offered his opinion. “I don’t know, Al - your father really is kinda forgiving, isn’t he?” He nudged the chocolate frog again with his wand.

“So you think there really was something about Snape and Dumbledore?” Al asked.

“It probably wasn’t that bad, I mean, why would he name you after them if they were horrible people?”

Al sniffled in distaste.

“Everyone’s looking up to them, anyway, don’t they?” Scorpius pointed out. He put down his wand on the seat next to him and looked at Al. “They really can’t be that bad, I mean, when someone really is horrible people don’t forget, just look at - ” Scorpius didn’t finish his sentence. He looked for a moment as if he’d been caught using a naughty word, then sulked again and returned to his chocolate frog.

“How was your grandfather?” Al asked tentatively.

Scorpius shrugged. His eyes didn’t leave the chocolate frog.

“Anyway...” Al leaned back on the seat. “I wish there was someone I could ask about Snape.”

“Ask your parents.”

“They’ll never tell me.”

“Ask Professor Longbottom.”

“He’ll tell me to ask my parents. And then he’ll go and tell them I asked about it.”

“You sure your father won’t tell you?”

Al didn’t bother with an answer. Scorpius looked at his frog, and a smile slowly appeared on his lips. “There is someone else you could ask, though,” he said.

“I thought about it,” Al said darkly. “But I don’t think he’ll tell me, either. Your dad hates me.”

“Father - what does Father have to do with it?”

Al blinked. “Wasn’t that what you were going to suggest? That I ask your father?”

“What - no! He’ll tell you to go away and leave him alone!”

“I know!”

“And then he’ll definitely go to shout at your father.”

“I know!”

“Then what did you suggest that for?”

“I didn’t! I thought you were!”

“I - what?”

The two boys looked at each other in confusion for a moment, then burst in laughter together. When the laughter had subsided, Al asked, “What did you mean, then? Who do you think I should ask?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Scorpius raised an eyebrow. “Severus Snape.”

“Dunno how to tell you this, Scorpius, but Severus Snape is dead.”

“I know that. But he was a headmaster at Hogwarts, wasn’t he? And all headmasters - ”

“Get a portrait when they die,” Al completed the sentence, and Scorpius smiled. “Exactly,” he said.

“We’ll have to break into McGonagall’s office, though,” Al said, doubt rising in him again.

“We? Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking of?” Scorpius asked, but Al could see he was joking. He threw a second chocolate frog at him, and Scorpius laughed and caught it. “We’ll find a way,” he concluded, and turned his wand back to the chocolate frog. Too distracted, he must have done something wrong - the frog exploded, showering chocolate all over the both of them.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Al shook his head. Scorpius pulled out his tongue, then started licking the chocolate around his mouth.

And then the train stopped.

It took Scorpius a little longer than Al to figure out something had happened. He was too busy licking the chocolate off his face. But when Al got to his feet, Scorpius frowned and then looked outside.

“We stopped,” he said.

“I’ve noticed,” Al rolled his eyes.

“We can’t be there yet.”

“‘Course we can’t! It’s, what, three?”

Scorpius glanced at his watch. “Yeah, just about. We’re still really far from Hogwarts.”

“Think we’ve broken down?”

“Let’s find out,” Scorpius said with an odd gleam in his eyes. The two boys left their compartment.

They weren’t the only ones - all over the train, heads were peeking from within the compartments, kids were running around looking for answers, and the prefects - James included, Al saw - were chasing after everyone and telling them to calm down and go back to their seats.

“Have you noticed?” Scorpius whispered to Al as they walked down the corridor.

“Noticed what?”

“Prefects are all here, your cousin Roxanne’s here - but where are the teachers?”

Al stood for a moment and took in what Scorpius had said. He was right, of course. Al couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before. Both his parents had boarded the train, as did Hermione and Professor Scamander and Professor Thomas, even Professor Malfoy - all of the teachers whose children were riding the train. So where were the teachers now? Where were their parents? They wouldn’t stay in their own compartment if something was wrong. They were more likely to check it out.

“Maybe they’ve gone to talk to the driver,” he suggested.

“All of them?” Scorpius asked sceptically. “They wouldn’t all fit.” He was looking now through one of the train’s windows. “Maybe they’ve gone down to check what was going on...” he said in a distant voice. When Al looked through the window, he could see what Scorpius had seen - Professor Scamander and Professor Malfoy, walking together around one side of the train.

They didn’t find any sign of the others. What they did find, however, was an open door, the one through which, Al supposed, their parents had disembarked the train.

“Let’s check it out,” he said.

“Are you crazy?” Scorpius looked downright alarmed by his suggestion. “What if they fix the train and we’re still outside? What if they start going without us? What if there’s something out there?!”

Al raised his eyebrows. “Well, what if there is something out there?” he asked. “You want to hear the gossip later after no one can understand what’s actually happened, or do you want to know first hand?”

Scorpius shook his head. “I’m so going to regret this,” he said. “And then I’ll blame you.”

“Deal.”

They tiptoed their way through the door and down the train. No one was there to see them and tell them off and so, encouraged, they walked adjacent to the train, taking cover under its shadow.

All of a sudden, Scorpius grabbed Al’s shirt and stopped him from going further. He then pointed ahead. Now Al could see them - Professor Malfoy and Professor Scamander were still there, their wands out and ready to strike at the smallest sign of trouble and their eyes darting around.

“Cheers,” Al whispered to Scorpius. “They probably would have cursed me.”

“This end is too dangerous,” Scorpius whispered back. “Let’s check the other end.”

Reluctantly, Al followed Scorpius. Perhaps there were more parents at the other end. Perhaps they’d be able to hear something - on this end, Professor Scamander and Professor Malfoy weren’t even talking to one another. The only thing that was likely to happen was that Al and Scorpius would get caught.

It took them three minutes to reach the other end. Al paused this time, for fear that there were more teachers on the other side - but the rear end of the train was completely abandoned. There were no teachers, no parents with wands, nothing. “Anything there?” Scorpius asked, and looked behind Al’s shoulders.

“Nothing,” Al answered. “Boring. Looks like we’re at the wrong end.”

He turned on his tracks, to go back to the other end of the train - then stopped. Something was blocking his way. Someone was blocking his way.

A centaur.

It was the first time he had seen a centaur from up close, except for the Hogwarts Divination teacher. This one didn’t look much like the centaur who taught at Hogwarts: his coat was a reddish brown, his face seemed larger, and he was studying Al in a surprised and not very kind expression. Al just gaped at him. No one had seen a centaur, not for years and years. And yet, here there was one now - at the same time as the train stopped. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?

Behind him, Scorpius hadn’t realised yet they weren’t alone. He was looking at the end of the train and going on and on about how weird it was and how the teachers wouldn’t just leave it unguarded and what were they playing at. Still staring at the centaur, Al searched for Scorpius with his hand and when he found a piece of cloth, tugged it hard.

“Scorpius,” he said in a low voice.

“What is it, Al, can’t you see there’s something going on here?”

“Yeah - there is. You might want to turn around.”

“Why would I want to turn around, no teacher’s coming from that dire - ah.” Scorpius, apparently, had turned around.

The centaur opened his mouth to speak. “Go back aboard your train, human children,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” Al demanded. Scorpius now turned to stare at him, and Al could read his expression as if he had spoken the words. What the hell are you doing?!

“You should go back aboard your train,” the centaur said again. “Now.”

“Why?” This time, Scorpius asked the question before Al even had a chance. There was something in the centaur’s voice, some urgency, that raised curious questions in the both of them.

“Because the train will start moving again soon,” the centaur said and frowned at them. Al had the impression that he couldn’t quite imagine how the two of them - two kids - weren’t listening to his suggestion.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“They did something, Al,” Scorpius said all of a sudden. Al looked at him in surprise - but he could see the logic behind Scorpius’s words. There was nothing there to suggest that, but that was the best explanation, both to the train stopping and to the presence of the centaur. The centaurs were the reason the train stopped. The centaurs - who everyone knew were working with the goblins, and what that woman said, a few days ago, the day Dad came back - “They’re attacking the school again, aren’t they?” Al realised all of a sudden.

The centaur looked at him in interest. Scorpius just stared at him in shock. “You think?” he whispered.

“Yeah - that’s why they’re all gone, isn’t it? It’s not that there’s something wrong with the train, but they’re needed at the school! The goblins are at Hogwarts right now!”

“You need to go aboard your train,” the centaur said again, then turned his back on them and cantered away from the train.

“Come on,” Scorpius pulled him towards the train. “Let’s get back.”

Al followed Scorpius without really noticing the train around him. He thought about the battle that must be taking place in the school at that very moment - again! And his father there, again, and probably Mum and Hermione and Teddy and Ron. What was it in the school that the goblins wanted so badly?!

-X-

By the end of their journey back to school, Al and Scorpius had moved on from goblins and back to Severus Snape. There might be nothing they could do about goblins and centaurs, but there was certainly something they could do about Al’s family. As the train pulled into Hogsmeade station, the two boys reached an agreement - they would try to visit McGonagall’s office. With any luck, they would be able to do so without getting detention. Or being hauled into her office by a teacher.

But planning an excursion into the Headmistress’s office proved to be much harder than either of them had realised. They had two classes together, one of which was with Al’s dad, and Scorpius flat out refused to make any sort of planning during Defence classes. He said it was because he wanted to listen to what Al’s father had to say and that the subject was important, but Al suspected it had something to do with Scorpius wanting to impress his father.

Unfortunately for the two of them, Professor Binns’ classes also did not provide them the needed cover; they did not feel like communicating about this in notes, and Rose promised to make Al’s life a living hell if he abandoned her during the long boredom of History of Magic.

Lunch hour did not offer respite - while it was alright for some houses to sit together, and Al had seen James sitting at the Ravenclaw table more than once, it was unheard of for a Gryffindor to sit in the Slytherin table, and Al was pretty sure that Scorpius would not be welcome in the Gryffindor table either.

No, the only choice they had was, once again, to find an empty corner of the castle and try and set their plans there. This line of action, however, proved just about as useful as their attempts, earlier in the year, to magically grow Scorpius’s flower.

Al’s father showed up every so often when they entered random classrooms that Scorpius was willing to swear he had some tracing spell put on Al; the spot on the seventh floor corridor, next to that ridiculous tapestry of the trolls in tutu, lasted for all of three minutes, until Lily showed up flushed and demanded to know what they were doing there; and they couldn’t go anywhere near the dungeons before Professor Malfoy showed up with an angry expression and told them to find another place to ‘waste their time’.

“I don’t think he wants us to be friends, despite what he told your father,” Scorpius said sadly.

Sadness, however, didn’t help them come up with a plan. Even the short moments they did manage to meet had left them completely stumped, and three days after their return to the castle, Al was on the verge of despair.

To both Al’s and Scorpius’s great surprise, their salvation came from James - and in the most unexpected way.

It was Thursday night, and finally, for the first time in three days, they had managed to find a place to hide, away from prying eyes. It wasn’t the best of places - they had settled next to the statue of the one-eyed witch in the third-floor corridor. It was far away from any of the dormitories, and from the path between the dormitories and the Great Hall, and therefore that part of the castle was less visited at those evening hours. They sat down next to the statue and started thinking of a plan, but none of their ideas survived scrutiny: they all ended with one or both of them in detention. Deep into their discussion, sitting on the floor, they hadn’t realised nine o’clock had come and gone. And that was how James had found them.

They didn’t even hear him approach, not until he said, rather loudly, “And you’re expecting not to get into detention now because...?”

Al jumped. Scorpius’s head bumped into the statue. James just leaned on the wall in front of them, looking annoyed - even though he shouldn’t be, Al thought. They weren’t doing anything wrong!

“We’re allowed to talk, you know,” he said. He didn’t try to hide his impatience.

“Not at half ten, you’re not,” James said, and Scorpius swore and looked at his watch.

“When did it become half ten?!” he demanded.

“When ten went past.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Al asked.

“Looking for you. I realised you weren’t in your dormitories and wanted to find out what new trouble you were getting yourself into.”

Al and Scorpius looked at each other, then at James. “No trouble,” Scorpius muttered. But Al suddenly had an idea.

“James - you were in McGonagall’s office this year, right? On the first day?”

“What are you telling him for?!” Scorpius looked at Al in shock.

“He won’t turn us in,” Al tried to calm him down, without much success. James, of course, was not helping.

“What makes you think I’m not going to turn you in, Al?” he asked.

“Because staying outside of our dormitories after hours isn’t the school rule we were trying to break,” Al said. Scorpius scratched his head in horrified embarrassment. James just gaped at Al.

“Albus, I know I’m not the school’s best Prefect or anything, but what on earth makes you think I’m not only going to ignore this blatant rule breaking of yours, but help you with another?!”

“Because,” Al said, victorious, “the rule we want to break is getting into McGonagall’s office.” Scorpius groaned, but Al ignored him. “I want to talk to the portrait of Severus Snape. About what Mum said.”

He had said the magic words. James was just as interested as he was in learning the truth behind the overheard argument. He studied Al in silence for a moment, an odd smile beginning to form on his lips. Scorpius, who had covered his eyes with his hands in horror of Al’s apparent stupidity, dared look between his fingers. When he realised James was actually considering this, he turned his head and stared at Al wildly. Al, meanwhile, was doing his best to bite down his smile, but even he was unable to do so when James finally nodded and said, “Okay.”

“Yes!” they both shouted together. They stopped when they saw James’s expression. “If you’re going to start behaving like that,” he said, “the deal is off.”

Scorpius nodded. “Okay,” he said. For a moment, Al thought of rebelling against James’s words - why was he acting as if they were two small stupid kids? But eventually, he nodded.

“Alright,” James said then, “let’s go.”

“What, now?!” Al asked in surprise. Scorpius seemed too shocked to say anything at all.

“Do you have a better time?” James asked. “We’re all already out of our dormitories, it’s late enough that McGonagall won’t be in her office, why not now?”

Because it was a complete surprise, because they weren’t ready, because they really hadn’t come up with what to ask yet, because he didn’t even think this was going to happen five minutes ago, because Al had thought about this and talked about this but he didn’t think they were actually going to achieve something. All those reasons passed through Al’s mind, but he soon realised the obvious - they were excuses, not reasons. James was right. If they were going to break into McGonagall’s office, this was the time. Any delay, and he’d probably never work out the courage to do it.

“Yeah,” he said out loud. “You’re right. Let’s go.”

Scorpius hesitated longer, but then said, “Alright,” in a small, worried voice, and joined the two of them.

The journey towards McGonagall’s office was not without its dangers - they were nearly caught three times. The first was Peeves - the poltergeist zoomed around the third floor corridor happily, singing to himself and looking for something to throw above Filch’s office. They were saved by James’s fast thinking: as soon as he spotted the poltergeist, he shoved the younger boys into the empty Ancient Runes classroom and closed the door. Peeves, who had heard something moving, came looking for the source of the noise, but at that very moment the Bloody Baron went past and Peeves disappeared.

The second was an even nearer miss, as they almost ran straight into Filch. The caretaker had come to investigate Peeves’s troublemaking, and went straight past the Ancient Runes classroom. The door was slightly open, in order to allow James to see when Peeves had left. For the long minutes it took Filch to go walk through the corridor and mutter to himself, the three of them stood against the wall, not daring to breathe. For one wild moment, Al thought they were caught - Mrs Norris started sniffing around the door, and Al was sure she had noticed James’s scent. Fortunately, Filch had only one thing on his mind, and urged his cat forward. She meowed at them once, then followed her master. They all breathed in relief.

The rest of the journey continued in relative safety. It was only as they were coming down the stairs towards the entrance to McGonagall’s office that they ran into trouble again - and this time from Dad. Harry Potter was walking down the same corridor they were trying to cross, talking with... a goblin.

“I can’t offer you what I don’t have,” he said quietly.

The goblin muttered in response. “The sword was in your hands, Harry Potter, when it was last seen. Do not lie to us.”

“I’m not lying. No living soul has seen the sword for two decades, we just don’t know what happened to it. If you only...” their voices became muffled as they went past a corner and out of sight.

“What was that all about?!” Al and Scorpius asked at the same time.

James rushed them through. “Never mind that now!” he said. “This may be our only chance, go!” But Al was sure he threw a curious look back as they walked towards the gargoyle that watched over McGonagall’s office.

Once there, it was no trouble at all. James said the password - which, luckily, had not changed since his last visit to the Headmistress’s office - and they stepped on the stairs, slowly rising towards the room.

It was dark and abandoned. James opened the door softly, afraid to make a sound, but there was no one inside the room. Still, Al heard snores. Could it be that the Headmistress was sleeping inside her office? Could they be this unlucky?

“Lumos,” James muttered, and Scorpius suddenly caught Al’s sleeve and pointed at the walls. “Look,” he said.

Al looked. Old wizards, older wizards, a witch here and there, the old headmasters and headmistresses of Hogwarts were all snoozing in their frames. None of them opened their eyes at the sudden source of light. None of them seemed to have realised there were intruders in the office.

Al pulled out his own wand and lit the tip. He passed the small source of light around carefully, looking at the various ornate frames and the names etched below them. The nearest was a wizard with a huge mane of brown hair, sitting in a red armchair. The inscription underneath said something like ‘Basil Fronsac’, but was too small for Al to read properly. The next was an old, old man, who seemed as if he was about to break inside his rocking chair. The name underneath the painting said ‘Ambrose Swott’. Next was an old witch with silvery hair - Dilys Derwent, according to the inscription.

And then his wand-light fell on the portrait of Albus Dumbledore.

Albus Dumbledore’s portrait was the largest in the room. It was fitted into a heavy gold frame, impressive and overbearing, Al thought. The man portrayed in it also seemed impressive and overbearing to him, but perhaps it was the nature of the moment. Albus Dumbledore had a long silvery beard that reached all the way to his belt. His wizard’s robes were purple, so different from McGonagall’s usual choice of black. His long nose was crooked, and on his eyes were half-moon glasses. He snoozes peacefully inside his frame.

Underneath the frame, Albus could read the inscription easily: Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, 1881-1997. Supreme Mugwump, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Hogwarts Headmaster 1956-1997. The list of the titles went on and on, and each one filled Al with more dread.

“That’s Albus,” someone whispered behind him - James. His older brother put a hand on his shoulder.

“And that’s Severus,” Scorpius said. They turned to look at the portrait Scorpius was now lighting with his wand.

The man in it couldn’t be more different than Albus Dumbledore. Severus Snape had greasy black hair, that hung in curtains around his face; his nose was large and hooked; and his robes were black and simple. The portraits were different in other ways, too - whereas Dumbledore’s portrait was the largest in the room, Severus Snape’s was one of the smaller paintings. It seemed as if he was hung there almost as an afterthought. The frame was wooden and simple, and even the chair Snape was sleeping on was less impressive. There were no titles or long inscriptions under his frame, only his name, Severus Tobias Snape, and the attached years, 1960-1998. He had been headmaster of Hogwarts for only one year. He had died when he was younger than Dad was today.

“He looks angry,” Al whispered. He wasn’t sure what gave him that impression - after all, Severus Snape was fast asleep inside his portrait. But something about him gave Al chills. Just looking at him felt hostile, a feeling he did not sense from any of the other portraits.

“Looks, you will find, can be deceiving,” someone said, and all three boys jumped. The voice came from behind them, but when they turned around, there was nobody there. Only the portrait of Albus Dumbledore - whose eyes were now open and he was standing up, smiling at them.

“Ah,” the old wizard in the portrait said. “It seems introductions are in order. I am, as you have undoubtedly figured out, Albus Dumbledore. You’ll forgive me if I don’t shake your hands, of course.” There was a twinkle in his eye, and the general air of light-hearted amusement. He didn’t feel like a headmaster at all - he was nothing like McGonagall.

“You are, of course, James Sirius Potter,” the portrait continued. James nodded without a word. “And you are?” he asked Scorpius.

“Scorpius Malfoy,” Scorpius answered, in a slightly defiant tone, but all the dead wizard could say was, “Excellent, excellent,” as if being Scorpius Malfoy was some sort of great achievement. Then he looked at Al. “And I would guess you are another Potter.”

Al swallowed. When he started speaking, his voice came all high and strange, so he swallowed again and started anew. “I’m Al,” he said, then elaborated. “Albus Severus Potter.”

Behind them, someone made spluttering noises. Al knew who it was even before he turned to look at the portrait. Much like Albus Dumbledore, the painting of Severus Snape was very much awake.

Snape’s dark eyes were narrowed. He stared at Al silently, the snorted. “Your father really is a sentimental fool,” he said in a malevolent voice.

“Or,” said another voice, much more kindly, “he is better at forgiving than you are, Severus.” Albus Dumbledore’s expression was sombre, but his painted blue eyes still twinkled behind his half-moon glasses.

Snape, once again, snorted. “You have always had too much faith in people, Albus. Potter simply did that to spite me.”

“Er,” James interrupted, “you were dead.”

“Exactly!” the portrait of Severus Snape said. Al couldn’t quite see the connection.

“But why are the three of you here after hours and, dare I say so, without permission?” Dumbledore asked.

Al sneaked a look at Scorpius, then James, then swallowed. They weren’t going to have that conversation instead of him. Of course they weren’t. He was the one who wanted to go. He should talk.

“Because of you,” he said, his voice sounding too high to his own ears. “I wanted to talk to you. Both of you. Dad’s always... I mean, my father always made it sound like you were his heroes. But then...” It was ridiculous. He was afraid of sounding childish, and these were two dead people. “Why did he name me after you if he didn’t like you? I overheard Mum calling Severus Snape, er, a name, and I don’t think she thought too highly of you too, Mr Dumbledore, sir.” He said all of that very fast. He knew that had he stopped or hesitated, he wouldn’t have been able to finish what he had to say. And now he could feel himself flushing and hated himself a bit for it. But at least he had asked his question. “Sorry,” he added hastily.

“Like I said,” Snape said, his voice full of contempt. “Sentimental fool.”

“You weren’t one of his favourite teachers,” James said all of a sudden.

Snape’s lips curled into a contemptuous smile. “Your father was an arrogant, attention-seeking boy,” he said, “who loved all the fussing around him and expected to get special treatment because of his... fame. I was the only teacher who refused to give him any special treatment. Of course he did not like me.”

“Severus,” Dumbledore’s portrait said now. He was no longer smiling.

“The boy wanted to know, Dumbledore. I have no doubt the world continues as usual, and that none of his blessed father’s less admirable traits have been divulged to him. Although,” he now surveyed the three of them with just as much contempt, “it would seem his children are as bad as he ever was - which is not surprising, considering he was just as bad as his own father. Here they are, are they not, ignoring school rules and coming here when they should be in their own dormitories. Like father, like son, Dumbledore - I have always said that about Potter, and I see this is true to all the boys named ‘Potter’. Your father thought school rules were beneath him too, boy, and broke them at every opportunity from the moment he set foot in this castle.”

“Severus, that’s enough,” Dumbledore’s portrait said again, but the dead Slytherin headmaster was not finished yet.

“No, Albus, they should know. Who would tell them the rest of it? Everyone talks about how their father had defeated the Dark Lord, but there they are, together with Scorpius Malfoy, and I assume no one has told any of these kids how the great Harry Potter almost murdered Draco Malfoy once.”

“Enough!” Dumbledore roared.

“You’re lying!” Al shouted at the portrait. The dead headmaster smirked, but said nothing more. Neither did the other portrait, the one of Albus Dumbledore.

“Come on, Al,” James said all of a sudden. “And you, Malfoy. We’re in enough trouble as it is, I think, we better go now.”

“Yeah,” Al said. He glared at Severus Snape one last time, then left the room with his head held high.

They didn’t say anything until they were all out of the room and James closed the heavy door behind them. Al leaned on the cold stone walls, looking at the closed door. What a terrible person, this Severus Snape was.

Before they had entered the office, he thought he would get answers to his questions from the portrait. He imagined a man who would be a bit like McGonagall - stern, slightly intimidating, but fair. He thought perhaps that was what Mum had meant when she called him a bastard - perhaps she had been on his bad side once too often, like James who often found himself told off by teachers, even by Professor Longbottom, who was one of the nicest teachers they had. But now he realised he didn’t want answers. He just wanted to remove that encounter from his mind. Severus Snape was unpleasant and vindictive and evil. He could understand why his mother didn’t like him. He just couldn’t understand why, no matter what the man did, his father insisted on respecting him.

“Hey, Al,” James said. “You know he was lying about Dad. I mean, I don’t know why Dad insists he’s all important and all that, and I’d really like to know - ” his voice turned ugly all of a sudden - “But there’s no way this Snape bloke was telling the truth about Dad. He was lying.”

“He wasn’t,” Scorpius said.

Al stared at Scorpius. He was pale and shaking slightly, but there was a stubborn expression on his face. “At least with that bit about your father and mine... that he almost killed my father. He wasn’t lying.”

“Yeah, I bet your father told you some stupid story about my dad,” James started angrily, but Scorpius didn’t back down. If anything, he looked more determined.

“No. Father never told me anything about it. It was your father who told me this. And you can call me a liar if you want to but it’s the truth and you only need to ask your father and see that he’d tell you the same!” With that, Scorpius turned his back on them and walked down the stairs. Al didn’t go after him.

He didn’t look at James, either. He knew James didn’t know Scorpius, and he had no doubt that he would start saying stuff about Scorpius now, but Al knew his best friend, and he knew that he wouldn’t be lying about that.

But James didn’t say anything. They stood there in silence, not looking at each other, for a couple of minutes more, until James said in an odd voice, “Come on. We need to go to the dormitories.” Al followed him without a word.

To himself he wondered how many more of Severus Snape’s words was true.

-X-
“ - And that’s all the time we have for today,” Professor Potter said as the bell rang. “For next lesson - hold on, hold on!” he lifted his voice slightly trying to get over the commotion of students shoving their books and their quills and parchments into their bags. “For next lesson I want two feet on werewolves.”

Everyone groaned, Scorpius included. They already had four feet on the goblin rebellion of 1608 from Binns, and as long an essay on cheering charms from Flitwick. His weekend was already shaping up to be a disaster.

“You coming?” Al asked Scorpius.

“Nah, we’ve got Herbology now. See you later,” he said gloomily. Al said, “Oh, see you, then,” and rushed after the rest of the Gryffindors.

But Scorpius didn’t join the Slytherin in their journey to Greenhouse Five, either. Instead, he took a deep breath and looked at his teacher.

Professor Potter hadn’t yet noticed he was still in the room. He took a bunch of essays out of his bag, and started going over them, writing a comment here and there with red ink. Scorpius finally got out of his seat and walked towards the teacher’s desk. He stood in front of the desk, but didn’t say anything. Professor Potter kept on marking the essays, oblivious.

Perhaps not so oblivious - Scorpius could see that he hesitated for a moment before he took another essay, but then pulled the parchment in front of him. Scorpius crossed his arms, slightly annoyed - what kind of behaviour for a teacher was that, ignoring a student? But as he watched Potter, he could see he wasn’t really marking the essay. His quill was dry of ink, and his eyes didn’t move over the rest of the essay.

“You’ll be late for your next class, Mr Malfoy,” Potter said eventually, his eyes firmly planted on the parchment.

Scorpius didn’t answer, but kept on standing there, his arms folded, staring at Potter.

Finally, Potter sighed and lifted his head. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked pleasantly, but with an edge of wariness to his voice.

“Why do you hate my grandfather?” the question just slipped out of his mouth. He never meant to ask it so bluntly, but now it was out and hanging there in the air around them.

Professor Potter put his quill down carefully.

“Don’t tell me you don’t hate him, sir,” Scorpius continued, feeling brave all of a sudden. “I’ve seen you.”

“I wasn’t going to say so,” Potter said, still pleasantly, still warily.

“How come you can forgive Father but not Grandfather? What Father did can’t have been that bad, because you’re okay with him and he’s teaching here and everything, and how different was Grandfather?”

“You don’t want me to answer that question, Scorpius,” Potter said quietly.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” all of a sudden the calmness was gone from Professor Potter’s voice. It had become rough and dangerous. His expression, too, had contorted into something ugly, something foreign, something Scorpius had never seen on his face before.

He had never imagined he could change his mind so quickly about a person, so often, until he had encountered Harry Potter. At the beginning of the year, when he only first met him, Scorpius had been suspicious and resentful of the great saviour of the wizarding world. He had heard of him for years at home, and he knew from Al that Potter didn’t like his family at all. Then, after their conversation a few months ago, he realised that against all expectations, he had come to look up at the hero of the War, even though in Scorpius’s own home he was not as appreciated as he was with the rest of the world. In fact, he had come to resent his parents, for their dislike of this hero, who was obviously a good and kind man. He was angry with his parents for not seeing what a great man Harry Potter was.

Now he was afraid of him.

“You don’t want me to answer your questions, Scorpius,” Potter said again, and managed to control his voice with obvious effort. “He’s your grandfather. He’s your family. You shouldn’t hate him.”

“And if you tell me, I will hate him?”

“Yes,” Professor Potter said plainly, without a moment’s hesitation.

“How do you know, sir?” he almost spat the last word. “What, did he do something so monstrous that no one could know about it without hating him? Do you think he’s such a terrible person that no one could possibly even like him?”

“Yes,” was not the answer Scorpius expected to get, and yet, it was the one he received, and with brutal honesty. Professor Potter looked surprised for a moment, as if he, too, did not believe he had said it.

Scorpius could feel himself flush. “And how do you know I’ll hate him if I knew more about what he did? I’m a Malfoy, just like Father and just like Grandfather. Maybe I won’t care what he did, maybe I’ll think it doesn’t matter?”

“You will care,” Potter said quietly. He was no longer angry. The calmness returned to his voice, together with something that sounded like sorrow, almost. “God knows I’ve had my differences with Draco and Astoria, long after the war. Still do, about a lot of things. But if they have ever done anything right in their lives, they raised you right. You’re thirteen and already you’re a better person than Lucius ever was.”

Scorpius stared at his teacher. He took a step back without even noticing it. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His mind was blank. Without another word, he left the classroom.

He wasn’t sure anymore whether he hated Harry Potter or admired him.

Chapter 12: Lily's Secret Chamber

One week, they tried to sneak into the Transfiguration classroom, and got caught by Hermione who demanded to know what they were doing there; another week, and it was the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom - and boy, was that a bad idea. They decided to stay away from classrooms at that point and settled on the seventh floor corridor, but it still didn’t help matters, because they kept on running into Lily there for some reason.

James couldn’t help but start feeling some sympathy for Al and his months of meeting Scorpius in secret.

“At least no one thinks we’re trying to get away to fight,” Colleen said with a wicked grin.

They weren’t doing what everyone thought they were doing, of course. Not that James would have minded, but they had more important things on their minds - namely, the Disillusionment charm. It was just the two of them - Lorcan and Lysander, thoroughly shaken by the Death Eaters’ escape, changed their minds about skiving off to Hogsmeade. “It’s too dangerous!” Lorcan insisted, and for once, Lysander was on his more cautious brother’s side.

Colleen said one evening that she thought she and James saw these things differently, because of their fathers. He wasn’t sure he agreed, but he was sure that he wanted to be able to get out of the castle every once in a while.

So here they were, more than a month after the beginning of term and into their attempts to master the charm, and they were still getting nowhere.

Colleen now looked at James critically. “Let’s try this one more time,” she said.

“What’s the point?” he moaned. “It’s useless. It’s too much for us. Dominique was right. We should concentrate on O.W.L charms.”

Colleen raised an eyebrow. “That’s not like you, giving up,” she said.

“Yeah, but I’m hungry and tired and I’ve had bloody enough of this rubbish. It’s obviously not going to work, and we still have a chance to make dinner.”

Colleen didn’t seem disheartened; if anything, she looked even more amused. “Well, we could,” she said reasonably, “and then stay tomorrow in the castle and try to have a Valentine’s Day date with Lorcan and Lysander, or we could try this one more time and maybe actually manage to get out of the castle on our own.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered. “That’s blackmail, just so you know.”

“A-ha,” she said, and cast the spell.

He didn’t realise what was happening at first. He thought Peeves must have found them, and spilt cold water on his head. He could feel it - something cold and wet trickling from his head and down his neck. “Aargh!” he said and looked up to find Peeves.

The poltergeist wasn’t there.

He raised his wand, to cast some spell that would force Peeves to reveal himself, when he noticed that his hand was transparent.Only then did he look at Colleen, and saw her pupils wide in surprise.

She did it.

He whistled. “You are amazing,” he said. “Truly, completely - amazing!”

“It’s like...” she looked at him, then blinked. When she moved her head this way and that, he could see that actually, she wasn’t looking at him at all. She was only looking in his direction. She shook her head as if trying to shake off a spell or a fly. “It’s like... I can see you. But at the same time - I can’t! I know you’re there. But if I didn’t know I don’t think I’d be able to see you at all. Even now, all I see is like - like a contour. This is so weird.” She shook her head again. “Now I just need to figure out the counter curse.”

“What? You don’t know how to counter it?”

“Well - I read about it - I know how it’s done in theory - but this is the first time we’ve succeeded! How was I supposed to practice it before I managed to Disillusion you?!”

She had a point, James had to admit, and still, he felt himself starting to panic. What if he was stuck? What if she won’t manage the counter curse? How would he explain it to the teachers - Professor Longbottom was bound to ask why he was trying this kind of magic, and Dad...

Dad! He was so deep in thoughts that he didn’t realise they weren’t alone anymore. “Hi, Colleen,” Dad said. He didn’t say anything to James, and despite himself, James found himself smiling. The charm really was working.

“Hi, Professor Potter,” Colleen said, half-horrified, but, as James could see, also a bit amused.

“What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I was just about to go to the common room,” she answered airily.

Dad gave her a strange look. “Isn’t the Ravenclaw common room on the other side of the castle?” he asked.

“The other side of the...? Yes, of course, but I need to give something to - to get something from James,” she corrected herself hurriedly when she realised she had nothing in her hands she could claim to give him.

“Alright,” Dad said, and if he suspected something, he said nothing, but continued on his way.

As soon as he disappeared from sight, James started talking excitedly, all worry forgotten. “Did you see that? Did you see how he didn’t even notice I was standing there?”

“You don’t sound worried anymore about the counter curse,” Colleen said.

“That’s ‘cause I’m sure you’ll be brilliant with it as usual. Come on, give it a go,” he urged her, and she tried, despite her obvious doubts. She succeeded in the third attempt, just as James was starting to get worried again. He felt again the feeling of water going down his collar - but this time it felt warm, not cold. And then, he could see his hand again.

“Excellent,” he said. The next hours passed with James finally mastering the charm, and then the two of them started planning what they would do tomorrow. But before they could go on their date, they had to get through the entire day. And that turned out much harder than they had imagined.

As it turned out, Colleen’s brother Michael and Roxanne had started dating. When morning came, it became obvious it would be impossible to walk the corridors that led from the Gryffindor common room anywhere near Ravenclaw tower without sneezing. James wasn’t sure what Michael Thomas considered to be romantic, but he couldn’t see how Roxanne would date him much longer if it involved covering the walls of Hogwarts with flowers.

If James thought the decorations had done all the damage they could, he was proven to be mistaken very, very loudly over breakfast, when Priyanka Finnigan and Marcus Macmillan got into a huge - and very loud - fight. He wasn’t quite sure how Michael’s decorations figured into the equation, but they came up in the shouting match quite often. The shouting match itself continued until Professor Longbottom came down and told them not to be so loud - the result of which was Priyanka bursting in tears and rushing out of the room, followed by her sister Trishana, and not before she threw Marcus a particularly dirty look. Marcus, confused, sat down at the table again and started shouting at the first years.

The flowers, thankfully, were gone by noon. Dominique and Alice Longbottom had declared them ‘thoroughly unromantic’ and got rid of the whole lot, to the cheers of the rest of the school. Upon reflection, James thought that he shouldn’t have been so surprised to see them kiss afterwards. After all, what was more romantic than getting rid together of the failed romantic gestures of other people?

That was when Colleen caught up with him. “You’re not going to fill the room with flowers, right?” she asked.

“Not unless you’re going to shout at me like Priyanka did,” he answered and tried to kiss her, but she evaded him.

“Later, got classes now,” she said.

“You sure you don’t want to skive off the last period?” he asked hopefully, but he knew it was a lost cause. Colleen’s last class if the day was Muggle Studies, and she wasn’t going to miss a class with her father. Even if it meant James had to sit through Double Potions.

As he made his way to the dungeons, he decided that no matter what, he would not be given detention today.

He listened to every word Professor Malfoy said. He did not say a thing to Lysander, all through the class, all two, long hours of it. He followed the instructions in his book to the letter. When he finished, his Draught of Peace was simmering lightly and definitely purple, if not the gentle shade of lilac the book claimed it should be. Professor Malfoy passed around and continued without comment, which, in James’s mind, was akin to the declaration of defeat on his professor’s part. He had brewed his potion well enough that even Malfoy could find no fault.

“You know,” Lysander said when they left the classroom, “I’m starting to think I should sit far away from you on Potions. You actually did well today.”

“Oh, to hell with that, who cares about potions anyway. All I was trying to do is - ”

“Not land yourself in detention, yes,” Lysander said, then lowered his voice. “Don’t go. It’s dangerous. The goblins attacked the school twice on Christmas.”

“Yeah, and that only means they don’t want to attack the school when kids are here! We’ll be safe, goblins don’t want anything with us.”

Still sceptical, Lysander bade him goodbye and left for the Great Hall. James, on the other hand, rushed to the sixth floor, where Colleen was already waiting.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“Had to make sure not to get detention in Potions,” he told her, and then continued to tell her the tale of his successful Double Potions class, only to earn much the same reaction as he did from Lysander a few moments before. “Can we forget about Malfoy?” he asked irritably. “Let’s go and have some fun!”

“Alright,” she said, then cast the Disillusionment charm. Much like yesterday, he could feel the feeling of cold liquid crawling down his head and neck, and when he looked at himself, he couldn’t see a thing.

“You next,” he said, and Colleen aimed her wand at herself and repeated the incantation. Now he could see the charm in action - in front of him, Colleen was becoming harder and harder to see. He imagined, at first, that the charm might follow the tingling sensation, that wherever it went Colleen would disappear, and that he would be subjected to a startling vision of a half-invisible Colleen. But instead, she just faded into the background.

“This is so bizarre,” he said, once she had completely disappeared - almost completely. It was like she had said yesterday - he could still see her, just about. More because he expected to see her than anything else.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to Hogsmeade.”

They climbed down the stairs to the third floor. It was harder than they had expected - there were kids running around the corridors everywhere, and they had to pay attention all the time and make sure no one was going to bump into them, no one was going to step on their toes, and that, under no circumstances, would anyone realise they were there. There was the chance that, if anything like that happened, Peeves would be blamed. James had learned more than four years ago that Peeves was everyone’s obvious, natural scapegoat, and the poltergeist took the job happily and with zest. But their invisibility wasn’t complete, and he didn’t want to take any chances that they would be seen by someone less keen to blame Peeves than the average Hogwarts dweller.

Eventually, they made it to the statute of the one-eyed witch. Colleen looked around, then James, and when they were sure there were no unwanted eyes watching them, James pulled out his wand and whispered Dissendium. The statue opened up to reveal the tunnel to Honeyduke’s.

It was only the second time they had taken the tunnel, but already it seemed much shorter and friendlier than it did the previous time. In no time at all - even though his watch insisted it took twenty minutes, just like last time - they were at the end of the tunnel, and on the other side was the Honeyduke’s cellar. They climbed out and left the shop quickly.

Hogsmeade on Valentine’s Day was different to Hogsmeade in October. The last time they were there, it looked dark and cold and abandoned. It might have been the hour - this time, it was still early when they walked into Hogsmeade. But more likely it was the day - while there were no flowers around, there were decorations of hearts everywhere, from the chocolate ones on display at Honeyduke’s to Madam Padifoot’s simply revolting café.

“Let’s not go there,” James said in disgust as he saw just how pink the place was.

“God, no,” Colleen agreed. “Let’s go to the Hog’s Head.”

“So romantic,” he commented, but she just shrugged. “The only place we won’t get told off, remember?”

They had removed the Disillusionment charm as soon as they walked out of Honeyduke’s, and were now walking down the street like any other couple. Colleen held James’s hand, and they walked side by side to the very unromantic Hog’s Head.

James was a little worried as they approached the dingy pub. After all, Mum certainly was not pleased to hear Mundungus Fletcher had allowed them to go in there. She might have talked to the barman, and if she had, he would probably prefer to give up the few Sickles they would pay him and kick the both of them out. Perhaps, he mused, she didn’t tell him anything - perhaps she forgot, as that was the day the Death Eaters had escaped; perhaps she thought they wouldn’t try to go there again, not with goblins and Death Eaters and what-have-you.

James felt slightly guilty as they walked into the Hog’s Head and encountered no resistance from the owner, who was too busy tending to other customers to even notice them. He was a Prefect; he was old enough to know better. It really was irresponsible of them to go into Hogsmeade.

But it was Valentine’s day, and they weren’t allowed to leave the castle at all since September, and it was just a one-time thing, he told himself. After this one time, he would never do it again.

Probably.

They sat down in a small table by the window. Even Mundungus Fletcher had attempted to put some of the spirit of Valentine’s day into the pub. It wasn’t pink - thankfully - and it wasn’t any cleaner - unfortunately - but there were some odd decorations that, if James closed one eye and tried to convince himself very strongly, he might believe were hearts.

Next to him, Colleen giggled. “Look,” she pointed at something. James suspected it was supposed to be a cherub. He didn’t ask.

“Look,” Colleen said again, but this time she was no longer giggling. For a moment, he thought she was talking about the cherub - she was pointing at the same direction - but then he realised what he was seeing. It was the same table the goblin had sat at when they first came into the Hog’s Head in October, but this time it wasn’t one goblin there. There were at least a dozen of them, sitting there, huddled together and whispering.

“How can he let them stay here?!” James muttered to Colleen. “How can he allow them to be here, after they helped Death Eaters?!”

“Maybe he doesn’t know,” Colleen answered. “Your dad didn’t want it publicised, did he? I know it was in theProphet, but he denied everything, and until the Ministry says something...”

“Well, everyone knows they attacked the school twice during the holidays,” James refused to be placated by Colleen’s logic. “They’re a danger to wizards and everyone knows that!”

“Not according to your father,” she said, but quietly. James didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like fighting about his father’s annoying belief in the goblins now.

“There’s the barman,” he said instead. The barman - Mundungus Fletcher - was walking straight towards them, in sure steps. Good, James thought, and started to think what he should order. Something special. Would he let them get away with ordering Firewhiskey? No, that might be pushing it. But perhaps... just a bit of wine...

But Mundungus Fletcher didn’t come over to take their order.

“Sorry, you two,” he mumbled and sounded genuinely regretful. “Can’t let you sit here. Your dad will kill me!” He started muttering then. “After all we’ve been through together, after everything I’ve done for him, and how does he repay me? Threatening me! In my own pub! And anyway - ” the mangy bartender stopped muttering and addressed the two of them again, “s’not safe for you to be here. Goblins might be lurking about.”

James stared at Mundungus. He couldn’t possibly be serious?! “There are goblins right here!” he said.

“Oh, this lot is alright,” the barman dismissed them without a second thought. “Won’t hurt a fly. Known them for years. But yeah, I dunno, thinking maybe I should kick the lot out. They’re friendly enough but there are others out there. Can’t tell which is which, can you? All look the same. Look at you with those beady eyes of theirs and their toothy smiles, ‘Sure Mr Mundungus, we’re just doing our business Mr Mundungus.’ Lurking about. Attacking people...” He frowned. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard? Although, you probably wouldn’t hear, would you, they don’t tell you nothing in that school of yours, just pointless stuff like spells you’ll never use, nothing about the real world...”

“What are you talking about?” James stopped the man’s muttering.

“Just last night. Another attack. Wussname, that Ministry fella.”

“What Ministry fella?” Colleen asked sharply.

“Will Jones,” the bartender said.

“Who?” James replied, but Colleen gasped. “What? Who is it?”

“It’s Tamsyn’s father! So that’s why she wasn’t in classes today...”

“Oh.” All spirit of argument had gone out of James. It wasn’t that he didn’t realise that the goblins’ attacks were serious, but the idea that they could attack someone from the Ministry - and the father of someone he knew - made the danger so much more real.

“You really should go back to school, Potter,” Mundungus said again. “Save us both the trouble.”

“Come on,” Colleen said in a defeated voice. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah...” They got up to leave. James threw one last glance at the goblins, who were still huddled in the corner. They didn’t look so harmless and innocent to him, but arguing with Mundungus Fletcher was unlikely to achieve anything - least of all him allowing them to stay in the pub.

“Some Valentine’s day date this turned out to be,” he said.

“Don’t worry. If we leave right now, we could still make the end of dinner,” she said in a hopeful voice. Then they finally exited the pub, and she paused. “Do you think we should perform the Disillusionment charm now?” she asked in an unsure voice.

“Does it matter? We could probably find a place next to Honeyduke’s, no?”

“Yeah, but - ” she hesitated. “I don’t know, I was thinking about what the barman said. About goblins, lurking...” she looked around, as if expecting a goblin to jump at them from a dark corner.

James considered this. She was probably right. It was unlikely that a goblin would jump at them at Hogsmeade - but then, last year, he would have thought it impossible for goblins to attack the village. Six months ago he thought it impossible that they would attack a teacher. And until tonight, he never even considered the possibility of goblins attacking parents of his classmates. And if he were absolutely honest with himself, he wasn’t at all sure they’d be able to fight them off. “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” he said, and Colleen performed the charm on the both of them.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, even after they had gone into Honeyduke’s and entered the secret tunnel - without alerting anyone or setting off any alarms. Something about being invisible like that made talking seem inappropriate. He opened his mouth once or twice, tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to him - nothing that seems to fit the situation. So he remained silent. Next to him Colleen was just as quiet. It left James all the time in the world to think.

“Do you think this war will ever be over?” Colleen blurted all of a sudden next to him.

James thought of the conversation during Christmas. “I don’t know,” he said. It sounded better than saying no, which was, basically, what his family had said. “It’s been going on ever since the end of the War. More than twenty years... I guess no one’s going to end it soon.”

“You’d have thought your father could have ended it already,” she said quietly. “I mean, if anyone can...”

“Then maybe it can’t be done.”

They reached the end of the tunnel, the one-eyed witch statue. “Hold on,” Colleen said. She was in front of him, and went up to check the corridor around. “Okay, coast is clear.”

They slipped out of the statue, and Colleen performed the counter spell.

“Um.” James looked around the abandoned corridor. “Feel like going to dinner? Maybe there’s some pudding left...”

“Oh, alright,” she said. They took one of the staircases that led directly to the Great Hall.

James was about to enter the Great Hall - and hope there was some of Hogwarts’ wonderful chocolate fudge still - when Professor McGonagall called his name. “Potter!” she said. He turned around in surprise - it wasn’t very often that they got to see Professor McGonagall.

“Oh, you and Ms Thomas are out of dinner, excellent,” she said, mistaking their proximity to the Great Hall to mean they had just left dinner, rather than just starting it. “Mr Potter, I need to ask a favour of you, seeing as you’re a Prefect. There’s an old witch who needs to be escorted around the castle. She’s a bit blind, so she can’t wander around on her own. Please show her around, she will tell you where she’s going.” Professor McGonagall said all of that with one breath, not allowing James to explain that he didn’t have dinner at all.

“Oh, there she is - Mrs Hornby! Mrs Hornby! Here, please!” Professor McGonagall waved her arms around, trying to catch the attention of elderly Mrs Hornby.

Mrs Hornby was a small, wizened witch, with wispy white hair, sporting a flowery Muggle-style dress and thick glasses, with lenses that looked more like the bottom of a bottle than glasses. In addition to being almost blind, she also leaned on a walking stick, and now started walking - extremely slowly - towards McGonagall and James.

He opened his mouth to say something to Colleen, but she just shrugged in helplessness, and mumbled that she would see him later. Before he could call after her, McGonagall turned to him again.

“Oh, where’s Ms Thomas? Never mind, never mind. Mrs Hornby, this is one of our prefects, James Potter.”

“What’s his name?” Mrs Hornby almost shouted.

“James,” James volunteered. “James Potter.”

“Potter, you said?” Mrs Hornby shouted.

“Yes, Mrs Hornby, Harry Potter’s son,” McGonagall said, almost as loudly. James looked for a rock to hide under, but, having failed that, tucked at Mrs Hornby’s sleeve.

“Mrs Hornby, I’ll get you where you need to go,” he said loudly and with resignation. “Please come with me.”

“Yes, you’re in good hands, just go with Potter,” McGonagall said, slightly too eagerly. James suspected she was looking for an excuse to get rid of Mrs Hornby. Who wouldn’t?

“I need to find a lavatory, boy,” Mrs Hornby said all of a sudden. James didn’t know where to bury himself. He was saddled by Professor McGonagall - for this?!”

“Er, I’m sure one of the girls could help you...” he started.

“What? No, boy! A specific one!” Mrs Hornby said. “Should be in the second floor!”

“I think there’s a girls’ bathroom there,” he mumbled, and started leading old Mrs Hornby towards the general direction of the second floor.

“You’re probably wondering why would an old woman such as myself come all the way to Hogwarts just to go to the lavatory,” Mrs Hornby half-shouted. James could feel himself reddening with embarassment. “Not really,” he mumbled. He didn’t think she heard him.

“I had a friend here at Hogwarts,” she explained. “She should still be at that lavatory.”

“I’m sure she is,” he told Mrs Hornby absently, and directed her away from the swamp on the Defence corridor.

Mrs Hornby didn’t even notice the swamp, and just rattled on. “Oh, how we teased her - and then she died. And I thought, well, I’m not getting any younger, you know?”

“Sure, Mrs Hornby,” James answered automatically.

“Of course I’m not. No one’s thought about that potion yet, oh, no, they’ll make a potion to make your eyes change colour and your hair grow and that would allow you to grow extra limbs or become a dragon but what really matters, no one bothers with!”

“Yes, Mrs Hornby.”

“So I thought I should see her again. We didn’t depart on the best of terms,” she lowered her voice now, as if whispering a secret to him. It would have been more effective had she not been shouting still. “I teased her, oh, so many years ago - and then she died! She could never really forgive me for it. So here I am. Better make amends while I still have the chance, I think.”

“Yes, Mrs Hornby.”

They made it to the second floor bathroom. “Oh, that’s the place!” Mrs Hornby said happily. “Now, don’t you go in, young man,” she said sternly - as if James even considered that option. “I will be a while, you just wait for me here, yes?”

“Yes, Mrs Hornby.” That had to be a record of bad luck. At least, he was soon rid of Mrs Hornby, who went into the bathroom to talk to her dead friend. To himself, James really, really hoped her friend was a ghost, and not a dead body, still left in the bathroom. With Hogwarts, one could never know.

He stood at the door of the bathroom in boredom for a minute or two. He couldn’t believe his luck - he was supposed to have a date with Colleen. Instead he was there, he had missed dinner, and now he was forced to wait for an old lady to get out of the bathroom. And all of a sudden, from the tip of his eye - it was Lily, he was sure of it. He’d recognise her plaited red hair everywhere. But it was already late - the first years were supposed to be in the common room soon. And she was out here in the corridors. Where was she going at this hour, all on her own?

Mrs Hornby forgotten, he left the door of the bathroom and followed his sister.

Lily climbed up a staircase, and he climbed up after her. He thought she would notice him, but she was deep into her own thoughts and never realised she wasn’t alone. When she went past the one-eyed witch statue, he tensed - was it possible she had discovered the passage to Hogsmeade? But no, she acted completely oblivious and kept on going. Climbing up, fifth floor, sixth floor... all the way to the seventh floor, she climbed and he went after her.

On the seventh floor she became nervous. All of a sudden, she was looking around. He hid behind a suit of armour just in time. Lily stared for a while at where he had stood not a moment ago, then continued walking. He followed, but made sure to stay a bit further behind.

He needn’t have bothered - Lily stopped in front of the tapestry of the trolls in tutu. He thought she had noticed him again, but she didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, she turned to the opposite wall, and paced in front of it three times.

Where before there was nothing but a wall, a door now appeared. Lily reached for the handle.

“Lily,” he said, and she jumped.

“James!” she nearly shouted at him. “What are you doing here?!”

“I was just going to ask you the same question.”

She looked down at her hand, which was still clutching the door handle.

“You have no business spying on me!” she said in indignation, and between her flaming red hair and the red hue her face had acquired, she looked like an overly ripe tomato.

“You have no business wandering around the castle this late, Lily,” he said. “You should be in the common room.” And then he remembered - this wasn’t the first time Lily had wandered into this part of the castle. She had disturbed Colleen and him several times in that very corridor, when they were trying to master the Disillusionment charm. “Why do you keep on coming here, anyway? What’s beyond that door?”

“None of your business!” she retorted so fast and so loud that he knew she was hiding something. He crossed his arms and stared at her. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s behind that door,” he said.

“There’s nothing behind that door, James.”

“Then open it and let me see.”

She didn’t move.

“That door wasn’t there a moment ago, and it wasn’t there when Colleen and I - well, it’s not usually there. How did you open it, anyway?” he asked.

“You need to think of what you need,” Lily said, jumping on the opportunity to divert the conversation into safer grounds. “And then you walk past it three times - and it appears.”

“And what were you thinking of?” he asked. She didn’t answer.

“I want to know why you keep on coming back to a door that isn’t there all the time.”

“If I open the door, will you go?” she asked finally, in a resigned voice.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On what’s behind the door.”

“I told you,” she said, sounding annoyed. “There’s nothing behind the door.”

He said nothing and she, after sighing theatrically, opened the door.

To James’s great surprise, she was right. There was nothing behind the door. Not quite nothing - there was a room there, a small and smelly room that looked as if a great fire had once burnt it. But the room itself was completely empty, except for another door on the other side. “See?” Lily said triumphantly. “Empty. Now go away.”

“No.”

“I showed you what’s in there!”

James’s arms were still firmly crossed. “You didn’t show me what’s beyond the other door,” he said.

Before, Lily was flushed and red. Now, all the colour disappeared from her face. “It’s my thing, James,” she said. Her voice shook. “It’s not your business what’s behind that door.”

“Tough,” he said. It wasn’t just curiosity now. Lily wasn’t the secretive type, and while it wasn’t impossible she would become so red while being caught doing something wrong, she wasn’t the kind of girl who would be scared to tell the truth. Her face, her expression, her voice... they all told James one thing. He had to find out what was beyond that door, not to satisfy his curiosity but for Lily’s sake.

“I told you,” she said in a small voice. “I already told you what’s in there.”

“When?”

“On Hallowe’en.”

Hallowe’en? When did he talk to Lily on Hallowe’en? What happened on Hallowe’en, he tried to remember. Hallowe’en was when... when the Death Eaters escaped from Azkaban. But when did he talk to Lily?

And then he remembered. Lily, withdrawn, sitting in the corner, and he tried to convince her to go to the feast, didn’t he? And she had a book, she was reading, reading about -

“Voldemort?!” he said, unable to stop himself. She didn’t respond. “Show me,” he said. She didn’t move.

James walked to Lily and crouched before her. He was a lot taller than she was - she was eleven years old and a bit short, while he was nearly sixteen and almost as tall as Dad these days. But he wanted to look her directly in the eye, and he wanted her to see him. “Lily, whatever is there beyond that door, I’m going there. Whether you like it or not. You can come with me and show me around. Or you can stay here. But you can’t stop me from looking.”

Lily averted her gaze from him. She looked almost on the verge of tears. Eventually she nodded, and opened the door. There was total darkness inside. He couldn’t see a thing. “It’s down, under the school,” she said. “It’s like a slide here.”

“Okay. You want to go first?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”

She jumped into the darkness. James shook his head. He must be out of his mind, he thought, and jumped in after her.

A minute or two - and a ride down the weirdest slide he’d ever been to - later, and he was in a huge chamber. Lily had already lit up her wand, and in the pale wand light he could see the chamber - huge statues, a snake’s skeleton - and the ghost of a boy.

“Is that him?” he asked, willing his voice to sound less scared and more reassured. Lily nodded. “That’s Tom,” she said quietly.

The ghost saw him, and raised his head. James recognised the boy. He had seen photographs of him, in history books... Lily was not wrong. It really was him. Tom Riddle. Voldemort.

“What’s that?” Voldemort hissed. “Who is this? Why did you bring him here?”

“I decided to come,” James said, pretending to be brave. “I want to know what you want with my sister.”

Voldemort no longer looked angry - in fact, he looked almost pleased. “Sister...” he said thoughtfully. “Which Potter are you, then?”

“I’m James. James Sirius Potter. And I know who you are.”

“And still you follow your sister to meet me,” Voldemort’s smirk turned nasty. “Intelligence was never much of a Potter trait, but you two... you’re setting records for stupidity even your father didn’t break.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Lily said all of a sudden, and James was surprised that her voice was, once again, full of confidence. He himself felt his throat had gone so dry that he did not trust himself to speak. “He’s just putting up a show. It makes him feel better, talking about Mum and Dad like that, but if you ignore that he can be quite useful.”

“Useful?! Whatever for?! Merlin’s pants, Lily, what on earth are you getting from coming here?!”

“Information,” she looked directly at him. She didn’t avert her gaze this time. “You keep complaining about how we’re not told anything. Well, I found someone who’s willing to tell me things.”

“Someone - that’s Voldemort!” he pointed at the ghost, who just smirked. “You can’t believe a word he says!”

She shrugged. It was so strange. There she was, behaving normally, behaving as if this was just any other conversation, any other argument with her older brother - and all the while, they were in the presence of the most dangerous wizard of all time. “You need to filter all the insults and megalomania and hateful nonsense about Muggle-borns and Dad, of course,” she said. “But what he says checks out. Like Cedric Diggory. He told me about Cedric Diggory before George did. And he told me more. Everything George said, he said before. So yeah, pretty useful.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” James declared.

“You are simply weak, James Potter,” the ghost interfered. “You’re too afraid to listen to me. Your sister - she has fire. She doesn’t mind taking a risk to gain what she wants.” The ghostly boy looked at Lily almost hungrily. It made shivers run down all over James’s spine. “She knows what she wants and she comes to get it, despite difficulties. You? You’re like your father,” Voldemort laughed a derisive laughter. “You’re not willing to do what it takes to gain your goals. Exactly like your father. Did you know he never actually killed me? He wasn’t willing to get his hands dirty, even if it meant getting rid of me. Do you know which spell he cast, that last battle? Expelliarmus.” The ghost laughed. “He counted on luck, your father. He doesn’t know how to end a war. Isn’t that the problem you’re facing right now?”

“Enough!” James shouted at the - thing. “We’re going, Lily.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said. “If I have to drag you out of here, I will.”

She gave him a loathing look. He could do it, of course - he was much stronger than she was. Lily must have realised it too, as she started walking towards the other end of the chamber, away from the ghost. Relieved, James followed her. He walked through the door without giving the ghost a second look. Lily said nothing.

She said nothing as she showed him the exit, and she said nothing when they were back at the Hogwarts corridors. As soon as they were back in the school, she started walking away from him, towards Gryffindor tower.

“Lily!” he called after her. She didn’t stop. “Lily!” he shouted again, then ran to catch up with her. Once again, his age and height turned to an advantage - he could block her way.

Her expression was full of venom. “So I didn’t talk to him tonight,” she told him. “Doesn’t mean I can’t go back there to talk to Tom another time. You can’t follow me forever.”

“No, I can’t. But I can tell Mum and Dad what you’ve been up to.”

Now she looked horrified. “You wouldn’t!” she said.

“This is Voldemort, Lily! Voldemort. Not Tom. Not some poor ghost. Not some kid.” He hadn’t realised how angry he was, not until that moment. But now he was so angry that he couldn’t stop shouting at her. “So get that ‘Tom’ nonsense out of your head. Call him by his name! Voldemort! This is who you’ve been talking to! And Dad needs to know he’s here and I’m going to tell him right now!”

“You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. And I will.”

“It’s after hours. You’ll get detention.”

“I don’t care.” He stormed towards Mum and Dad’s room - and now it was Lily who was following him.

“Don’t tell them, James, please don’t tell them.”

“I have to. They need to know he’s down there. They need to know students can find him.”

“Maybe they already know,” she tried. She didn’t sound like she believed it herself.

“No way. No way they would let him stay there if they knew,” he said, and they both knew him to be right.

“James... please don’t tell them that I’ve been going there, please,” she said. Her voice was full of fear. He stopped now to look at her. She was shaking, visibly shaking. There were tears running down her face.

“Oh, Lily,” he said, and hugged her. “What were you thinking, going there?”

She didn’t answer.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said now. “I won’t go there now. I’ll go tomorrow. And I’ll think of something... I’ll try not to tell them you’re involved. Alright?”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“But you know, if they go down there, if they talk to him... he’ll tell them. You know he will.”

“Maybe they won’t believe him,” she said, her voice still small and miserable. “Maybe they’ll say he’s a liar.”

“Maybe,” he said. Whatever he told their parents in the end, James had the idea Lily would not be able to get out of it completely.

“James Sirius Potter!” Someone shouted just then. James turned in surprise. It was Hermione.

And they were out of their dormitories, after hours.

Next to him, Lily looked absolutely terrified. She wasn’t terrified of getting detention from Hermione, he knew, but that, in an attempt to get out of another detention, he would turn her in. He had half a mind to do just that - this time, it really wasn’t his fault. But he wasn’t sure yet how to explain what was below the school without also explaining of Lily’s involvement, and he had promised her he won’t turn her in.

“What are you doing here?!” Hermione, who had reached them by now, demanded. “And Lily, too! How irresponsible of you, James! What kind of example are you setting your little sister?!”

“We didn’t mean to break the rules!” he argued. “We just had to see Dad!”

“Why?”

James bit his tongue. “It’s something we needed to talk to him about,” he hazarded in the end.

“Well, if it’s important, you can tell me,” his aunt said. He looked at Lily, then at Hermione again. “No,” he said in the end. “It’s not that important. It can wait until tomorrow.” Next to him, Lily breathed.

“Well,” Hermione said angrily, “if it can wait until tomorrow then there’s really no reason for you to be out here at this time of night. Twenty points off Gryffindor - each. And you’re both going to receive detention. And don’t think this will be the end of it, James. You don’t seem to care about those detentions, do you? I’ve had it with your nighttime strolling, James Potter. Now go straight back to your dormitories and stay there until tomorrow, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they both muttered and walked towards the tower. Lily said nothing until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, where she said the password and miserably disappeared into her dormitories. James followed her.

By the next morning, he still hadn’t come up with a good cover story. He still had no idea how to tell the story without turning Lily in. He could say he found the room himself, he supposed. Or that he found it together with Lily. Or, perhaps, that Lily had found it, but not mention that she’d been there more than once. He was still considering his options when he walked into breakfast.

Mum wasn’t sitting at the teachers’ table. Neither was Dad. James sighed. What a day they found not to make it to breakfast. He sat gloomily next to the Gryffindor table. Perhaps, he thought, they’d come in later. He should wait for them. He chose to sit in one of the spots where the teachers’ table was most visible, and from which he could also see the door the teachers always walked through. If they as much as put a finger into the room, he’d know. But breakfast had come and gone, and there was no sign of them.

Finally, he got up and left the table, a few minutes before the bell rang. His first class was Defence, but he didn’t want to wait - especially as he would have to wait until the end of the lesson to talk to his father. He couldn’t quite say ‘Voldemort’s ghost is hiding underneath the school’ to the entire classroom. He went to his parents’ room.

He knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. Where were they? He thought furiously. The anger rose in him. It was partially their fault, he thought. Dad’s fault. If only he’d been reasonable, Lily wouldn’t have felt the need to go to anyone who would talk to her, even when that person ended up being Voldemort. He would never have found himself in that situation in the first place. And neither would have Lily. He banged on the door. There was no reply.

The bell rang.

Angrily, he threw his bag on his back and trotted to the Defence classroom. He’ll just have to wait until the end of the lesson. And if Dad dared give him detention for being late... he might just speak in front of the entire class and to hell with the panic that would ensue. That would be Dad’s problem, not his.

But his father wasn’t in the classroom when he arrived, wasn’t sitting at his desk like he always did. James stopped, confused, and stared at the teacher’s desk for a moment before proceeding to his seat next to Lysander.

“How come your father’s late?” Lysander asked. “It’s not like him.”

“I don’t know,” James said, still frowning. “He wasn’t at breakfast, either. And he’s not in their room.”

“Maybe something’s come up again,” Lysander said. “Another goblin attack or something.”

“Maybe...” James said. There was the attack on Tamsyn’s father, after all. But he didn’t think this was the case. A goblin attack wouldn’t explain his mother’s absence, and she hadn’t been at breakfast either.

He was about to tell this to Lysander when Hermione walked into the classroom. “Class dismissed,” she said, and offered no explanation. No explanation, except - “James, pick up your bag and come with me.”

Lysander stared at him. Everyone stared at him. He stared at Hermione for a moment, then packed his bag.

“See you,” Lysander muttered. James didn’t answer.

He expected Hermione to tell him what it was about when they left the classroom, but she remained silent, just walked down the corridor. He was unnerved. She did not say anything, did not even look at him. Last night she said detention wasn’t going to be enough. They couldn’t be expelling him, could they? “Hermione,” he said, then corrected himself immediately. “I mean, Professor Granger-Weasley... what’s going on?”

She didn’t answer.

He couldn’t be expelled. He just couldn’t. He started to think of what to say to Hermione, how to convince her to give him another chance, but at that moment they stopped in front of another classroom. History of Magic. And Hermione popped into the classroom and asked Lily to come with her. And pick her bag. Lily wasn’t going back to her class, either.

Lily walked outside of the classroom, confused, and her confusion turned to fear when she saw James. She was thinking exactly what he was thinking. They were going to be expelled. ‘What’s going on?’ she mouthed to him, but he shrugged, trying to look less panicked than he felt. But the dread was rising in him. He couldn’t be expelled from Hogwarts. He didn’t sit his O.W.L.s yet! He would be unqualified! He wouldn’t get to be a wizard... they couldn’t... and Lily! She was only eleven years old! Surely they wouldn’t...

And then they stopped in front of the Muggle Studies classroom and Hermione said, “Dean? I need Al Potter. Take your bag with you, Al,” and Lily and James looked at each other with relief. They weren’t being expelled. Al wasn’t with them last night. It wasn’t about last night at all.

But as Lily started smiling, doubt started rising in James again. If this wasn’t about last night... why were the three of them pulled out of classes?

“Hermione...” he said. Now he noticed that she was looking harassed, tired, almost scared. “Did something happen?”

“Hold on,” she said, the first thing she said to him since she took him out of the class, and showed them into the now empty Transfiguration classroom.

James thought about a different conversation yesterday now. He thought about Tamsyn Jones, whose father, an important man in the Ministry, had been attacked by goblins. He thought of his own father, who was nowhere to be found this morning, not at breakfast and not at his room and never made it to class...

“You need to take the Floo from here to St Mungo’s,” Hermione said.

“Is Dad alright?” the question burst out of him as soon as Hermione spoke. “Did the goblins attack him? Is he okay? Have they done something to Dad?!”

Lily and Al were now staring at him, frightened. Hermione shook her head.

“Ginny.”

Chapter 13: In Times of War...

Notes:

Sorry for the unannounced rating change. I've been debating myself for a while whether to up it to 'Teen' or not, knowing that this chapter is coming, and caution won in the end.

James’s earliest memory was waking up in the middle of the night. He must have been three then, maybe four, and something made him wake up in the darkness. Someone was in the room. He opened his eyes and saw his father looking at him. He started asking his father something, but Dad just said “Go back to sleep,” and James fell asleep again, content and unconcerned.

His dad used to do it every once in a while. He would wake up to feel a presence in the room and realise his father was watching him sleeping, or he would hear him walking into Al’s or Lily’s rooms.

When James was eight or nine, before he started Hogwarts, he heard his mother talking to Hermione about it. “It’s amazing how the kids manage to calm Harry down,” she said. “Whenever he has these nightmares, he wakes up and immediately goes to check up on them - you know how he is. He won’t say anything, just look at them. And then he can sleep again.”

That was the time James had realised adults could have nightmares, too.

Now, as they walked into the waiting room in St Mungo’s behind Hermione, he could believe that all over again. Dad was pacing up and down the room. He was unshaven, with a small stubble on his chin. He hadn’t combed his hair, either - his hair looked exactly like Al’s, sticking up everywhere.

“Dad!” Lily was the first to run to him. He hugged her without a word. Then he collected Al for a hug. He looked at James for a moment, and James looked at him. As they were standing there, looking at each other, Dad allowed himself to lower a bit the pretence he showed Lily and Al - James could see not only the worry in his eyes. Dad was shaken, he was afraid, and there was something almost broken deep inside his eyes. James hugged his father tightly when Al let go. He could feel Dad shaking a little when they embraced.

“Harry,” Hermione said, and he hugged her too.

“How is she?” Lily demanded. Dad, who was still hugging Hermione, let go.

“I don’t know. They won’t tell me anything.”

“But she’ll be alright?”

“I hope so,” he said quietly.

Lily said nothing, but her face had gone pale, and stood in sharp contrast to her red hair. Hermione gave her a critical look, then looked at Dad. “Harry, you need something to eat,” she said. “Lily, Al, come on, help me get something from the tea room, alright?”

Lily started protesting, but then Dad spoke. “They said they won’t know anything for at least another half hour,” he said. “There’s no point in you guys sitting here staring at me.” He tried to smile, but his smile faltered after only a second.

“He’s right, Lily,” Al said quietly, and James was relieved that, at last, his little brother was showing some common sense. “Come on, let’s get some chocolate or something. I reckon Dad could use it.”

This time, Dad’s smile lasted a whole five seconds before disappearing again. James could hug Al.

Now that the younger kids were gone, James expected his father to say something. But Dad just sat down on the chair next to him without a word.

For five minutes they sat there, in complete silence. It felt like eternity. It felt like hell. James couldn’t think of a single thing to say. All he wanted to know was whether his mother would be alright, and he knew his father didn’t have the answer to that. Next to him, Dad fidgeted in his seat, tapped his foot, got up, sat down again, and all that in silence.

Through the glass door of the waiting room, he could see a familiar figure, gangly and red headed. Ron had arrived. Dad, he noticed, was looking at Ron as well. Ron didn’t come into the waiting room. Instead, he paused next to the information desk, and started talking to the mediwizard there. Dad’s eyes followed Ron all that time.

All of a sudden, Dad spoke softly. “When this whole thing just started, all those years ago, the first time we tried to talk to the goblins, I asked them, I said, ‘Are you stupid? why did you attack now?’ I told them that before we were on the brink of another war, everything was falling apart, the entire damn world was collapsing right in front of our eyes. So much suspicion and hatred and fear. So many people were afraid, they would have done anything to anyone to stop being afraid.” James wasn’t sure Dad even realised he was talking to him, until Dad looked at him for for a moment, then raised his eyebrows. “You know what they told me then? they said, ‘We’re tired of doing everything by the wizards’ schedule’.” He rubbed his eyes. “‘By the wizards’ schedule’. That’s what they said. Some time they found to be tired of us, it was.”

James didn’t quite understand why his father was telling him that, why now. But he didn’t get a chance to ask, because at that moment Ron walked into the room, and now James could see he was accompanied by someone else - the Minister for Magic, Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Ron was just as pale as Dad was. As soon as he saw James, he rushed to him, and they hugged. James usually avoided hugging his relatives, as he was fifteen and it seemed childish, but there were no such qualms today.

Dad didn’t rise to greet Ron in any way.

Just as he was letting James go, Hermione walked into the room with Lily and Al. Ron immediately went to hug them too. Only then did he turn to Dad. “How is she?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Dad repeated what he had said to the rest of them earlier. “They don’t know yet, that’s all they said.”

Neither Ron nor the Minister said a word. Eventually, Ron sat down next to Dad. “What happened?” he asked.

“Those damn school brooms. Some of them have been there since before we went to Hogwarts. Ginny’s been dying to replace them for ages. She finally managed to convince McGonagall to give her a budget for it. She wasn’t sure how many of them needed replacing, so she went to test them, first thing in the morning, even before breakfast. Won’t take an hour, she said. She wanted to get it done before the students woke up. Hagrid... he found her near the Quidditch pitch.”

“She was attacked inside Hogwarts grounds?” the Minister asked sharply.

Ron, too, seemed shocked. “Wasn’t it Teddy’s shift? I’m going to kill - ”

“It wasn’t Teddy’s fault,” Dad said.

“Harry, look, I know it’s Teddy, he’s my family too, but if he screwed up and - ”

“It wasn’t Teddy’s fault,” Dad said again. “It’s that damn hole in the schedule. Ever since Seamus and Katie resigned... Everyone’s been pulling double shifts lately. I told you all it’ll be over soon, and then Will Jones... I needed Teddy at noon today at the Ministry for the meeting. I told him... it’s my fault. Five-to-seven a.m. I thought, two hours, before all the students woke up but it’s already morning, the goblins won’t try anything. Especially two days after Will Jones. Just two hours. He’s been pulling double shifts for three weeks, Ron. I needed him fresh today. I told him if everything looked quiet around five a.m. to go home to get some sleep and report to the Ministry at noon. It’s my fault. Two hours, Ron. Two damn hours I didn’t have anyone to put there.”

“It’s not your fault, Harry,” Ron said quietly. “You couldn’t have known. You’ve been pulling more shifts than anyone else in the department, and you’re marking essays to boot. It’s not your fault.”

Dad said nothing.

“It wasn’t your fault, Harry,” that was the Minister now, in his impressive, booming voice. “I know you don’t have enough people in the Auror office. You’ve all been stretching yourselves lately. It’s going to change now. I promise you, whatever you want to do, we’ll do it. Just say the word.”

To James’s surprise, Dad didn’t look encouraged. Quite the opposite - he looked angry. “No,” he said, getting up on his feet. “You think I don’t know why you’re here? I’m not taking the raiding squads.”

“Oh for - Merlin, Harry, how long can this go on? How long are we going to sit on our arses while they do what they want?” That was Ron now. He got on his feet as well, and was now facing Dad. They both stared angrily at one another.

“The Auror office’s mandate is to go after dark wizards - ” Dad started and stopped abruptly when Ron lost his patience. The words he shouted surprised James - while he knew his uncle was prone to swearing on occasion, he had never heard him aiming such words at Dad.

But Dad’s surprise didn’t even slow Ron down, and neither did Hermione’s shocked “Ron!”. He just kept on shouting. “She’s your wife, damn it - she’s my sister! What more has to happen before you get off your high horse? The Aurors are the best trained combat wizards! And you’re refusing to let us win this war, out of some - some - I don’t even know what!” Ron shouted.

“Out of a sense of what’s right and wrong, Ron!” Dad started shouting too. “We go after dark wizards! That’s what the Auror office is there for! We’re not some sort of a wizard army! You know where that leads. This has never been what the Aurors stood for. We’re here to go after our own kind! Those who want more power, those who think they deserve to rule... I’m not going to go after goblins, they’re not trying to change our society, they’re not trying to force us to do anything, they’re trying to get what we’ve denied them for centuries!”

“For... that time is over, Harry! Stop thinking about the wars you’ve already fought and open your eyes to the war we’re fighting right now - or not fighting, because you refuse to acknowledge how bad it’s become!”

“I’m not throwing the Aurors into this war,” Dad’s face was still red, and he was still glaring at Ron angrily, but his voice had become quieter.

And then the Minister spoke. “This may not be up to you,” he said. Both Ron and Dad stared at the Minister. “In the end, I’m the Minister. I can order the Aurors to interfere without your consent.”

Dad straightened up, then looked at the Minister straight in the eye. “Then I will be happy to give you a list of people who could be a good head for the Auror office, Minister.” His voice was calm and cold.

“You wouldn’t,” Ron said next to him.

“Your name is definitely on that list, Ron,” Dad answered, not removing his eyes from the Minister. “But as long as I’m the head of the Auror office, the Aurors will not take part in this war.”

Dad and the Minister stood there and stared at each other. Ron looked from the Minister to Dad, with a worried expression on his face. James knew that like him, Ron had recognised Dad’s expression. He wasn’t faking and he wasn’t bluffing.

The Minister for Magic was the first to blink. “Okay,” he said at last. “The Aurors can stay out of it. For now.”

Dad said nothing.

“I need to go back to the Ministry now,” the Minister added. “Harry, I really hope Ginny is okay.”

“Thanks, Kingsley.” There was no hint in Dad’s voice now of the anger he had shown just a moment ago. He sounded only tired.

The Minister started walking towards the door of the waiting room, then stopped and turned back. “Oh, I just remembered, Harry. They won the appeal.”

“What appeal?” Dad’s weary voice sounded flat and disinterested. He was looking at his fingernails.

“Finch-Fletchley.”

Now Dad looked at the Minister. “No,” he said, his eyes darting wildly around.

“I don’t have the power to overturn Wizengamot decisions, they’re fully autonomic. You know that.”

Whatever little colour that was left in Dad’s face drained completely. He swayed dangerously, and for a moment James thought he was going to fall. But the Minister went on, as if he hadn’t noticed any of that. “Regulations require someone from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement there. Saturday at eleven. Don’t be late.”

His voice was light, his words seemed normal, but there was something as strong as steel in the way he looked at Dad when he said it. Dad said nothing, just sat down, looking thunderstruck. The Minister kept on standing there and waiting - James wasn’t sure whether he was waiting for Dad to start shouting or to signal he had understood. Looking at his father’s expression, he thought that Dad wasn’t quite sure which one of the options he should take. Eventually, Dad nodded, and Kingsley left.

All that was left now was to wait.

They sat there in silence. No one said anything. Hermione tried once or twice to convince them to go get something to eat, or talk to them, but no one cooperated with her, not even Ron. Eventually, she gave up and joined them on the blue plastic chairs.

They sat there for hours. The half-hour the Healers had promised became an hour, then two, then James stopped counting. Dad sat in a chair at one end of the row, Ron at the other end. Hermione sat somewhere in the middle, together with James, Al and Lily. Every once in a while, Dad got up, started pacing, then sat down again. Hermione got up at some point and brought him coffee. He then held the paper cup in his hand, but didn’t drink any of it. The coffee soon turned cold. Dad didn’t even seem to notice.

After five hours, someone finally entered the room. A Healer. “Mr Potter?” she asked gently. Dad stood up. His hand shook - some of the cold coffee was spilt from the cup. He put the cup down on the chair, then followed the Healer out of the room. They could still see the two of them talking through the glass walls of the waiting room, even though they couldn’t hear a word that was said. Someone sat down next to James - Lily. He hugged her tight as they both stared at their father and the Healer. Al was sitting right past Lily, but he remained by himself, biting his fingernails.

The Healer left. Dad didn’t enter the waiting room again immediately. Instead he leaned on the glass window. They couldn’t see his expression - only his untidy black hair, squashed against the glass. Lily started shivering in James’s arms, and he was sure she was crying silently. He wanted to tell her it was going to be alright, but his throat was dry and he knew his voice would come out all high and unnatural if he tried to speak, so he just held on to her even more tightly, and all the time willed his father to step into the room and say Mum was going to be fine.

Finally, Dad stopped leaning on the glass, and walked into the room. No one said anything, but they all looked at him.

“She’s stabilised for now,” Dad said. Al’s sigh of relief was heard through the entire room. Lily made an odd, strangled noise. James still didn’t trust himself enough to open his mouth. “It’s going to be a while before they can say for sure,” Dad continued, “but there’s a good chance. Your mum’s strong, guys.”

Al, however, stopped looking relieved. “What does it mean, they can’t say for sure?” he demanded.

“It means they’ve got nothing useful to say. It means she’s still in danger.” James stared directly at his father when he said those words, challenging him to lie, to tell him he’s misunderstood, anything. Dad just nodded.

Ron got up and left the room. James felt the urge to do the same.

When their grandparents arrived, a half-hour or so later, James almost hoped they would do the same as Ron and start shouting at Dad. But they didn’t. They listened to him explaining what had happened, and then Gran hugged him and Hermione, and Granddad shook his hand. James wanted to shout at them. Why were they letting Dad get away from his responsibility? But he didn’t shout. He didn’t think he’d be able to say anything if he opened his mouth.

Another hour, and someone suggested they went back to Hogwarts. “I need to go back,” Hermione said, almost apologetically. “And I think it’s better you three come with me.”

“But we want to know what’s going on with Mum!” they all protested at the same time.

“You will. I’ll send word as soon as we know anything,” Granddad promised.

“There really isn’t any point in you staying here,” Hermione said gently. “Come on, come with me to the fireplace. Harry,” she turned to Dad, who was staring at his palms. “Yeah,” he said absently. “Better you guys went back to Hogwarts. You’re all probably starving.” He hugged Lily, then Al. James remained standing next to Hermione, far from Dad’s reach. She looked at him for a moment, but when he stayed there, planted next to her, she just said gently, “Come on, let’s go.”

Classes were over by the time they made it to Hogwarts, back through the Floo to the Transfiguration classroom. The rest of the school was at dinner, but although hungry, James didn’t want to go into the Great Hall. The entire school must know by now, he thought. They would all stare at him, Colleen would be sympathetic, Lorcan would try and pretend he wasn’t looking at James while stealing glances at him all the time, and Lysander would talk too much. He didn’t want that. He didn’t think he could stand that.

Hermione must have noticed his reluctance. “Do you want to take your dinner here?” she asked quietly. They all nodded. She flicked her wand, and food appeared on the teacher’s desk, sandwiches and pumpkin juice. “Eat as much as you like, guys, I know you’re hungry,” she said. They didn’t eat a lot, though. As soon as James took a sandwich, he realised he wasn’t hungry after all, even if his stomach was rumbling and contracting in the most annoying way and he didn’t have a bite to eat since breakfast. He was surprised that he managed to finish one sandwich.

They sat there, in the classroom, long after no one was eating anymore. They all thought the same thing, James knew. They may have avoided most of the school, but there was still the common room, where the entire Gryffindor House would be waiting for them. Hermione didn’t push them to go there. James couldn’t find the words to thank her for that, so he said nothing.

They had to go, eventually. After sitting and worrying all day, they were exhausted and completely stiff. “Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s go to bed.”

Lily took another sandwich in response. James smiled despite himself. She was trying to stall. He was sure she wasn’t going to eat that sandwich. After five minutes or so, she put the uneaten sandwich down back on the plate, then sighed. “Fine,” she said.

“Al?”

“Yeah.”

“Good night, Hermione,” James said.

“Good night,” she answered quietly.

They climbed the stairs, all the way to Gryffindor tower, and James gave the password. He could tell from the Fat Lady’s expression that even the paintings had already heard the news.

It looked like the entire Gryffindor house was sitting in the common room. People were talking as they walked in, but as soon as they realised who had entered the room, the entire room fell into a hush. James, Al and Lily just stood there at the portrait hole.

“How is she?” Roxanne was the first to break the silence.

James had dreaded the question, but now that it was asked, it felt better than the silence. He was happy to answer. “She’s stable for now,” he said. “They don’t know any more than that. Or at least they haven’t told us.”

“Was it - goblins?” Rose joined in.

James remembered his father’s story. Anger filled him again, thinking of his father. “Yes,” he said. “Goblins. Here inside the school again.”

Rose gasped. Alice Longbottom stared at him with big eyes. Lysander looked scared.

“But I thought... the Aurors...” Alice didn’t quite know how to phrase the question.

“There were some problems with the Aurors. They don’t have enough people or something. I don’t know.”

Lily left the entrance now, and went to sit next to the fire. Al joined her after a moment, and James followed them. Lysander was sitting at the other side of the room, but today, he was going to sit with his brother and sister.

“What are they going to do now?” Roxanne asked quietly. “Will they have enough people to keep the school safe and go after the goblins? Or did they figure that if they go after the goblins they don’t need too many people here?”

“They’re not going after the goblins,” James said bitterly.

“What?!” It sounded like fifty different people had said the word at once. Like the entire Gryffindor House shared Ron’s anger - James’s, too.

“My father’s not willing to send the Aurors after them,” he said shortly.

“But - Ginny - she’s his wife!” Roxanne said, shocked. “She’s your mum! He can’t be serious!”

“Doesn’t matter to him. The Minister was there. And Ron. And they both thought like that too, that the Aurors would finally get involved now. Dad shouted them down.”

“And the Minister let him?!”

“Yeah. The great Harry Potter!” James’s anger and shock and fear all burst out now out of him, in bitterness and frustration. “He’s stuck on whatever stupid idea he has and they all listen to him and let him get away with it! Even the Minister! He won’t do it and they said okay!”

“But surely - the Minister - I mean, he’s in charge.”

“Dad threatened to quit,” he told them. “Said he wouldn’t stay in the Ministry if they joined the fight. They should have just let him quit,” he added bitterly.

The names Roxanne called Dad next wasn’t far off from the language Ron had used.

“Roxanne!” Rose said, shocked. “What are you saying? He’s your uncle too!”

“Ginny’s my aunt,” Roxanne said coldly. “Potter’s just married to her. And he doesn’t seem to care enough about my family, so why should I care about him?”

A hushed silence fell on the entire room again, but this time for a different reason. Everyone was shocked - Roxanne had always been so proud of her family connection to Harry Potter, had been one of the people who most admired him, and was one of the most vocal about how cool it was that he came to teach that year. And here she was, talking about him like that. Lily stared at Roxanne with huge eyes, then got up and rushed to her dormitories. There were tears in her eyes. Al got up as well, but instead of going up the stairs to his dormitories, he left through the portrait hole. Rose tried calling after him, but he ignored her.

James didn’t care. Roxanne was right. Lily and Al would realise it in the end. Dad’s priorities were completely messed up, and everyone had been paying the price for a long time - and now they were, too. It was all his fault.

He kept that thought as he went to sleep. It stayed in his mind all through the night, that was full of dreams of nasty goblins and his mother, disappearing. He woke up and it was the only thing on his mind. He ate breakfast mechanically, then continued to a boring History of Magic class. He thought about skiving, but realised it would do no good - he would probably stare outside the window whether he was in Gryffindor tower or in the History classroom. That way, at least, no one could try and engage him in a conversation.

From History of Magic they continued to Care for Magical Creatures. The usually wonderful class - perfect for conversation, and on the rare occasions he had bothered to listen, he enjoyed Professor Scamander’s stories of odd creatures - proved to be much less bearable than History of Magic today. It was the first time he had the chance the see Colleen, and just as he feared, she was sympathetic and understanding - too understanding. He didn’t want to discuss his mother with her. He didn’t want to discuss his mother with anyone.

He excused himself by saying that he wanted to listen to Professor Scamander. Colleen nodded and didn’t comment that they almost never listened to Professor Scamander.

The first class after lunch was Defence Against the Dark Arts. James wondered who they were going to get today. “If it’s Malfoy, I’m not going in there,” he declared to Lysander. “I don’t care if he gives me detention.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Lysander tried, but James cut across him. “It’s Malfoy. He never understands.”

There was absolute silence when he walked into the Defence classroom. It took James only a moment to understand why. It wasn’t Malfoy at the teacher’s desk, sitting as if nothing had happened.

It was Dad.

All of James’s anger, that had been boiling underneath the surface all day long, rose again. Why was he there? Why wasn’t he waiting to hear what’s going on with Mum? Did he not care enough to even stay near her to hear of the news?

He didn’t care that Dad had dark bags under his eyes, or that he was wearing the same clothes as he wore yesterday, or that he looked worried. It didn’t matter if he was worried and it didn’t matter if he was feeling guilty because it was all his fault and he was doing nothing to fix things.

“Take your seat, please,” Dad said quietly. James didn’t move. “Please seat down,” Dad said again.

“What are you doing here?” James demanded, still standing.

“Not now, James,” Dad gave him a look full of trepidation.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?”

“James, this isn’t - ”

“You don’t care about anything, do you? You don’t care enough about her to stay there and make sure she’s alright! And you don’t care enough to go out there and make sure the goblins don’t attack again!”

“James, please sit down, if you - ”

“No!” James was shouting now. He didn’t care that the entire class was looking at him. He didn’t care that his voice carried so far down the hall that kids from nearby classes were peering through the door. He didn’t care if the entire school heard. “Someone needs to stop the goblins! And who’s better to do it than you - but you won’t do it! You don’t care about us! About any of us! You care more about goblins than you do about your own family!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” Dad now rose as well, flushed and angry. “Going after the goblins would be the easy thing to do! Do you think I don’t want to stop them?! But there are lines you don’t cross, and maybe when you grow up a bit, you’ll learn that.”

Already angry with his father, the comment about being too young and immature had reminded James of all the wrong things, of all the times his father had let them down, treated them like kids. “To hell with you,” James said and left the room. He could hear his father shouting behind him. “James Sirius Potter!” he called, but James didn’t stop. He didn’t stop until he reached Gryffindor Tower. No one followed him.

He didn’t get away with it, of course. A few hours later, the portrait hole opened, and James raised his eyes from the book he pretended to be reading to see Professor Longbottom. “James,” he said.

James stuffed his book into his bag and got up. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly. He didn’t care that he’d have to pay now for his behaviour. It felt good at the time, and it still felt good now.

“Your behaviour today at class was unacceptable and inexcusable,” Professor Longbottom said quietly. “I understand that you’re upset, but you were completely out of line.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will not talk to a teacher in this school that way ever again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You will not walk out of classes again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you will serve detention tonight.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Report to the Defence classroom after dinner.”

“The Defence classroom, sir?”

“Your transgression happened during Defence, James. You will serve detention with your teacher.”

James bit down his retort. “Yes, sir,” he said sullenly.

Professor Longbottom opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. “Go down to dinner now,” he said. James picked up his bag.

“James,” Professor Longbottom said, and his voice was softer now, almost friendly. This was what James was dreading. He could deal with the anger, he could deal with being given detention, he could even deal with having to serve detention with his father. He didn’t think he could deal with Professor Longbottom trying to sort things out between him and his father. To his relief, this did not turn out to be the case. “She’s going to be alright. Harry heard from the hospital not long ago. It’s still going to be a few days before she wakes up, but she’s going to make it.”

James nodded. He didn’t trust his voice if he tried to speak now.

Half an hour later he walked into the Defence classroom. Dad was already there - or, perhaps, still there. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. Dad raised his head when he walked in, and nodded curtly. James was afraid he’d want to talk, use this punishment to try and convince him that his way was the right way. To his relief, he only assigned him an essay about goblin history in short, clipped tones, then returned his attention to his desk.

They sat there for three hours. James was reading and writing his ridiculous essay, while Dad was going over reports or essays or whatever it was he was busy with. James wasn’t sure he was really working - whenever he raised his head to look at his father, Dad was already looking at him.

When he finished - and he knew he did a terrible job of it - he raised his hand quietly.

“Yes?” Dad asked immediately.

“I’m done. Sir.”

“Very well. You may leave.”

“Yes, sir,” James said, put the essay on Dad’s desk, and left. Dad didn’t say another word.

-X-

Scorpius had finished his toast by the time Al came down for breakfast. He watched his friend with his red-headed Weasley cousin as they sat down the Gryffindor table. He wanted to go there, to talk to Al, and at the same time he was relieved that they sat there far away. Today it was comfortable that Al was a Gryffindor. He wouldn’t come to sit at the Slytherin table. And that saved Scorpius the need to admit that he had no idea what to say.

He was being a coward, he knew it. As he watched Al, he could see the way his friend was almost cowering in his seat, the way he avoided the rest of the school. Al needed his friend to come and cheer him up, not stare at him - like everyone else in the school - from the safety of his comfortably distanced house table and say that because he was a Slytherin and Al was a Gryffindor he couldn’t get up there and do something.

But he was a Slytherin. And Al was a Gryffindor. And he couldn’t go there. Maybe Al didn’t want him around at all. Maybe Al had enough of the rest of the school, and he didn’t need Scorpius hovering uncertainly above him too.

He should get up. He couldn’t get up. It was the right thing to do. It was a mistake.

“Scorpius,” Father came and turned the entire thing moot.

“Yes, Father,” Scorpius sighed.

“Have you finished your breakfast?”

Scorpius looked at the crust of the toast that was left, unwanted, on his plate and sighed again. He wished he would have eaten the toast slower, or that he could claim to still be hungry, but he knew his father was unlikely to believe him. “Yes, Father,” he said.

“Then come with me.”

Scorpius got up from his seat. Before leaving the Great Hall, he sneaked a glance at Al again. Al was playing with his own toast and still not looking at anyone.

When he came back from whatever it was his father had in mind, Scorpius decided, he would go and talk to him. Even if it included sitting in the Gryffindor table in front of all the Gryffindors in the school.

With his eyes set on Al, Scorpius hadn’t noticed there was someone else in his path, and avoided collision at the last moment - with Al’s father. Harry Potter looked at him apprehensively, then at Father.

“Don’t do it, Draco,” Professor Potter said. Scorpius looked at him curiously, then at Father, who flushed. Potter always had that influence on his father.

“I thought you’d be pleased,” Father said.

“Don’t take scorpius to Azkaban.” Scorpius looked at the two of them with growing confusion. Azkaban? Father never took him to Azkaban. Not even to visit his grandfather. Why would Professor Potter think they were going to Azkaban?

Father didn’t challenge the assumption. “I’m teaching him what my father should have taught me,” he said with what Scorpius could only describe as a sneer. “I thought you’d approve.”

“Not like this.”

“If you’re done telling me how to raise my child, Potter,” Father snapped and steered Scorpius away.

“What did he mean? Are we going to Azkaban? Why are we going to Azkaban?” Scorpius immediately bombarded his father with questions. Father didn’t answer them until they reached the fireplace in his office.

“We are going to Azkaban,” he confirmed.

“Why?”

“I’ll explain when we get there,” he said. “Put you cloak on and get in the fireplace.”

The first thing that Scorpius noticed when he came out of the grate was the chill. They were inside the building, inside a small circular stone room - but it felt as though they were outside, exposed to the winds. In front of the fireplace was a window, and when Scorpius went to look through it he could see they were high, at the top of a tower. Below them, the ocean was gushing.

“Don’t wander off!” someone snapped - Father, who had followed him from Hogwarts. “Come with me.”

Father opened the small wooden door and they climbed down a spiralling staircase. That place was even more freezing than the room, and despite his cloak, Scorpius started to shiver. “It’s cold here,” he complained to his father.

Father’s expression was dark. “Not as cold as it used to be when there were Dementors here,” he said.

“Were you a prisoner here?” Scorpius asked all of a sudden. “When there were still Dementors?”

He didn’t expect his father to answer, and was surprise beyond measure when he did. “Yes,” Father said. “A little less than six months. After the War.”

“Does Mother know?”

“Of course she knows,” Father snapped again. Scorpius was silent until they reached the end of the staircase. The small room at the foot of the staircase was full of people.

“Father... what are we doing here?”

“Do you see these two?” Father now pointed out two elderly people in the crowd. The woman was small and hunched, with silvery short hair. She stared at her fingernails. The man was bold and tall and looked around with an angry expression. They weren’t talking to anyone, and no one was talking to them. Now Scorpius had noticed they were not exactly in the crowd. People would sneak glances at them every few seconds, but then return to their own group to talk urgently in hushed voices. Every time they moved, the rest of the crowd shifted a bit - to keep their distance, the thought came to Scorpius all of a sudden. Everyone seemed to be just around them, but all the wizards and witches did their best to pretend they were not there.

“Who are they?” he asked his Father.

“Mary and Jacob Finch-Fletchley. They’re Muggles.”

“Muggles? What are they doing here?!”

“Their son was...” Father hesitated. “Their son is a wizard. He’s been in St Mungo’s since the end of the War. They rounded up Muggle-borns during that time, Scorpius, and locked them up. Some of them never recovered. Their son was one of those people.”

Father led him to the front of the room. Now Scorpius noticed a railing, a glass window - and a small room behind it. There was nothing in the room but a big, heavy chair, two cupboards, and a small counter. Scorpius also noticed that, much like the Finch-Fletchleys, no one was talking to him or his father, and everyone was hovering slightly, just beyond them, wherever they went.

“There were never a lot of executions in wizarding society,” Father said now, as they reached the railing. “We didn’t have much use for them. But every once in a while... the law exists, you know. They didn’t use the Killing curse, back in the old days they used Dementors for executions. The Dementor’s Kiss, it was called. The Dementor would suck out the prisoner’s soul.”

Scorpius looked at his father, horrified. Was this where he brought him? An execution? He looked around wildly. Everyone seemed just slightly uncomfortable, slightly unhappy... it could be, he realised.

And then his eyes fell on Professor Potter. Unlike everyone else, Potter approached the Finch-Fletchleys directly, and now started to talk to them quietly, urgently, looking much more uncomfortable and unhappy than anyone else in the room. Scorpius looked up at his father and noticed that his father was watching Professor Potter as well.

“He doesn’t like the idea of an execution,” Father said. “He probably thinks it’s beneath him. Doesn’t fit his image of a perfect wizarding society. But that’s what they wanted, the Finch-Fletchleys. For their son. They’ve been fighting the courts and the Wizengamot for twenty years. Finally, they won.”

A bell rang somewhere. “They’re bringing her out,” Father said simply.

Two tall wizards in black robes walked into the room in front of them. They were holding a small witch between them. She was short and pale. Her face reminded Scorpius of a toad. One of the wizards bent down to say something to her, and she shook her head. Gently, they sat her down on the chair. Chains sprung, as if out of nowhere, and bound her. The Finch-Fletchleys moved forward towards the glass window, and after them, so did the rest of the crowd. Professor Potter hung back.

“She was the one who was in charge of the Muggle-Born Registration Commission,” Father whispered now. “That’s how they called it. The department in the Ministry that was in charge of persecuting Muggle-borns and locking them up.”

“Are they...” Scorpius’s voice came a little louder than a whisper. “Are they going to give her to the Dementors now?”

“No. The Ministry doesn’t work with Dementors anymore. There’s a spell now that does it.”

He didn’t say anything anymore. Scorpius couldn’t quite find his voice to ask more. He wanted to look away, to look at anything else, really - at the Finch-Fletchleys, at his father, at Professor Potter, at the staircase - but he was mesmerised by the woman in the chair. She was so much smaller than the chair. That thought stuck in his mind and refused to leave.

She looked terrified now, she closed her eyes. One of dark-clad wizards’ voice carried in the air, as if he was standing right next to Scorpius. “Dolores Jane Umbridge. You have been found guilty by the Wizengamot of crimes against the wizarding society and against Muggle-born wizards and witches. You have been found guilty of persecuting innocent wizards and witches due to their ancestry and against the very spirit of wizarding law. You have been found guilty of abusing your position of power within the Ministry of Magic to spread lies and propaganda against Muggle-born wizards and witches and to incite for violence against them. You have been found guilty of wrongful imprisonment and torture of Muggle-born wizards and witches. You have been found guilty of inflicting unjust and unreasonable punishment on Muggle-born wizards and witches. You have been found guilty of directly or indirectly causing the death of two hundred and seventy two wizards and witches between August 1997 and May 1998. For your crimes, the Wizengamot and the Chief Warlock have sentenced you to receive the Dementor’s Kiss curse.”

The toady woman said nothing.

“Do you have anything you want to say?” the wizard’s voice sounded almost kind now. “You can say anything now.”

She shook her head again.

“Very well.”

The first wizard turned to the second wizard. One of them pulled out a golden goblet; the other a bottle. Green liquid was poured from the bottle and into the goblet. The first wizard then took the goblet and brought it to the woman’s lips.

“Open your mouth, please,” he said. She didn’t respond. “I need you to open your mouth,” he said again. He took his wand out, ready to force her lips open, but then she nodded and opened her mouth slightly. He poured the potion down her throat.

As soon as he finished, her eyes closed and her head drooped. The wizard returned the goblet to its place. The second wizard pulled out another bottle and poured a purple potion into the goblet. Like before, the wizard took the goblet again and walked to the woman. He lifted her head, opened her mouth, and started pouring the potion in. She didn’t resist. Some of the purple potion spilled outside of her mouth and unto her black and white prisoner’s robes. The wizard put down the goblet to wipe the spot before he continued pouring in the potion into the unresisting mouth. When he finished, he wiped the woman’s mouth and the drool on her chin. He returned the goblet to the counter. The second wizard was now washing the goblet.

The first wizard approached the woman again. He took her wrist between his fingers and checked her pulse. Content with the result, he told the second wizard they could continue.

They two wizard stood in front of the woman, shoulder by shoulder. The first raised his wand and chanted the incantation. White light came out of his wand, and hit the woman. She started gurgling. Three seconds later, the second wizard raised his own wand and said the same incantation. Blue light came out of his wand. The woman was now convulsing. She shook and thrashed in her bonds. The heavy metal chain cut through the skin of her arm, and a deep gash appeared and started dripping blood on the arm of the chair and on the floor beneath it. The white light from the first wand turned brown; the blue light from the second wand turned orange. The woman’s eyes flew open, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. Sweat droplets formed on her forehead, and she rocked back and forth in the chair.

And then she gave one last groan, and was still.

The two wizards lowered their wands. The first wizard returned to the woman, and like before, checked the pulse in her wrist. A second later and he nodded to the second wizard.

“Mr Potter?” The second wizard asked now. He sounded uncomfortable, almost embarrassed. “We don’t have authorisation for the, uh...” he never finished the sentence. Professor Potter left his place - far away from the crowd, far away from the window, far away from the room, far away from the woman - and entered the room in measured steps. The glass window went opaque. The public part of the execution was over.

Scorpius kept on staring at the now dark glass. It was as if he was hypnotised, ordered to stare at the glass as long as the woman was there, even though he could no longer see her.

The rest of the people were now slowly turning away, walking away from the woman whose soul had been destroyed by the order of the Wizengamot.

“She wasn’t a Death Eater,” Father said now. “She never officially joined, at least. But she supported the Death Eaters’ actions. This is what happens to those who support Dark Magic, Scorpius. This is what happens to those who help them.”

The Azkaban wizards were now leaving the room. They were pushing in front of them a trolley. On the trolley there was a lump - the size of a small woman - covered by a sheet. A person could still live after their soul had been sucked out of them, Scorpius knew that from his essay on Dementors. The woman was alive when the wizards had finished. But then they called in Professor Potter, and now she was dead.

“Come, Scorpius, we’re leaving now,” Father said. Scorpius’s legs felt like the oddest combination of lead and jelly, too heavy and at the same time too shaky, but after much persuasion, he managed to force them to move.

He gave one last look at the opaque glass. It was transparent again. The room was empty, all empty but the big, heavy chair, the two cupboards, the small counter - and Professor Potter. Professor Potter was leaning on the counter, clutching it with his hands slightly behind his back, and his wand out, held loosely in one hand. He had a nauseated expression on his face, as if he was about to vomit, and as Scorpius looked at him, he raised his eyes and and his gaze met Scorpius through the glass window. Something hardened in Professor Potter’s eyes at that moment. Scorpius averted his gaze and followed his father up the spiralling staircase and through the fireplace.

They didn’t go back to Hogwarts. They went home. Father said they will go back to Hogwarts tomorrow. Scorpius didn’t argue. He was glad he would not have to go back to the common room today, that he would not have to answer any questions about where he had been.

They arrived after lunchtime, but Scorpius wasn’t hungry. Father didn’t seem hungry, either. Scorpius just went to his room. He had an essay to write for Herbology, so he pulled out the book, but he could not concentrate on the words. He stared at the parchment, the tip of his quill leaving big splotches of ink all over it, but he didn’t write a word.

All he saw was the little toady woman in the big chair.

That was how Mother had found him when she called him for dinner. Scorpius closed his bottle of ink and put down the quill on the parchment. He followed her to the kitchen, where the table was set for five - Father, Mother, Grandfather, Grandmother, and himself. He sat at his usual spot, in the corner of the table. The table was only meant for four people.

Father came to the table next, and then Scorpius’s grandparents, and they started eating.

They ate in silence at first. His grandfather was the first to speak. “You were at Umbridge’s execution today?” he asked.

Scorpius felt the bile rising in his throat.

“Yes,” Father answered.

“You took Scorpius with you?”

“Yes.”

Scorpius wasn’t hungry anymore. “May I be excused?” he asked quietly. No one heard him.

Grandfather’s lips curled into a nasty smile. “My, my, aren’t you raising your son to be a good little citizen, Draco.”

“I give him what he needs to take care of himself in this world, Father, yes,” Father replied.

“Yes, you take him to executions of pure-blood witches by Muggles and allow him to befriend that Potter brat.”

“I’m giving him what I can. The name Malfoy, unfortunately, isn’t going to take him very far on the world anymore. Quite the opposite. And the Ministry will never allow him to gain even a fraction of the money and the influence we used to have. But friends like the Potters can take him places. Befriending the Potter boy was probably the wisest thing he has ever done, much cleverer than I ever thought, I admit,” Father answered.

Scorpius glared at his father and his grandfather. “I’m not Al’s friend because of his father!” he wanted to shout, but he was too afraid and it came out as a whisper, even quieter than his request to leave the table, and like that request, no one paid any mind to his words.

“Yes, great friends, blood traitors and half-bloods,” Grandfather looked at Scorpius now with unhidden contempt. “I’ll be honest, Draco, I don’t understand why you even bothered to marry into a pure-blood family. What does it matter that your son is of as pure a blood as you are, when he could find himself in a few years marrying a Mudblood and you wouldn’t even mind.”

“Don’t use language like that in my house!” Father roared.

“Have you lost all pride in who you are, Draco, that you are bothered by such words?” Grandfather retorted.

“I haven’t lost pride in anything! I’m as proud to be a Malfoy as I ever was, as proud of my blood as ever!”

“I haven’t noticed. You act just like a blood-traitor Weasley these days.”

“Go to your room, Scorpius,” Mother said quietly. Scorpius slipped from his chair and rushed to his room, and made sure to close the door behind him. His parents disapproved of that, but with the shouting, they were unlikely to notice. He started writing a letter to Al, but he couldn’t get past the first sentence. And every time he tried to think of possible things to write, the shouting from the kitchen got in the way and the only thing that came to his mind was what his father thought of his friendship with Al Potter. Not long after, he turned off the light and buried himself inside his blanket and went to sleep.

He woke up some hours later. He immediately knew what woke him up. Father was screaming loudly. His father had a nightmare again, and his familiar, terrified screams had woken up the entire house. Scorpius turned on the light and rubbed his eyes, putting his feet outside the bed, then changed his mind. They can assume he managed to sleep through it, he didn’t care. His eyes fell on the abandoned parchment, his letter to Al, and he scowled. He returned to his bed, and buried his head deeper under the weight of the blankets and under his pillow, but they could not keep out the noise. His father’s screams still carried through the thin walls of his room. He thought of Al in growing resentment. He was sure Al was never woken up in the middle of the night like that. Al’s father probably never had any nightmares at all.

Chapter 14: Walk the Line

The idea came to James at the end of the Care for Magical Creatures class. He looked at the vast grounds - full of places that could provide a hiding place for goblins; he looked at the great Hogwarts gates - closed now, but apparently, not a real obstacle for determined goblins; he looked at his friends around him - and wondered whether one of them was going to be hurt the next time.

And then he decided he didn’t want to sit there and wait for that opportunity to happen.

“You’re coming to dinner?” Lysander asked him.

“No, I think I’ll be going to Hogsmeade.”

His statement was met with absolute silence. “I really think dinner is a better idea,” Lysander said finally.

“No, I don’t think so,” James answered.

He had no doubt that behind his back, Lysander, Lorcan and Colleen were all looking at each other.

“What’s with this sudden Hogsmeade craving?” Colleen asked, with a bad attempt to sound casual rather than worried.

“Well, see, I fancy going there, seeing as our last trip was kinda ruined - ”

“By us not being allowed to be there and the barman of the Hog’s Head not wanting to get in trouble with your dad, which isn’t likely to change,” Colleen said. James ignored her.

“And, since people are attacked within Hogwarts anyway, their excuse of the dangers of goblins outside is kinda meaningless.”

No one had an answer for that. James raised his eyebrow and turned to his friends. “So, who’s coming?”

His three friends exchanged another look, and this time it didn’t look as if they minded that James could see them. “James,” Colleen said carefully, “I know you’re worried about your mum, and I know you’re pissed off, and I would be pissed off too, but... are you sure you want to do this?”

“No one’s coming then?” he asked, now angry with Colleen’s rational voice as well as with his father and the goblins and everything else, and started marching down the path to the gates.

“What - where are you going?!” Colleen called after him.

“Told you!” he called back, and he didn’t mind if Professor Scamander overheard. “To Hogsmeade!”

“But that’s - you’re not going through the gates!” Colleen ran towards him, not to shout the conversation all over the grounds. She did mind whether their teacher would hear. “You can’t possibly - James, you’ll be seen! Do you want to get another detention?”

“I don’t care if I get another detention,” he told her, completely truthfully. He really did not care anymore. “And yeah, I’m not going to sneak there anymore. Coming?”

“No,” she shook her head. “I’m not going. And neither should you.”

“Fine,” he shrugged. “As you wish,” and continued to walk down the path on his own. He knew Colleen would be standing there behind him, looking helpless. He didn’t care.

The gates opened with a flick of his wand. He looked at them for a moment - one last chance to change his mind, he knew, because after that, he would really be in trouble with his father. And that was it - it was the thought of his father that pushed him through the gates and towards Hogsmeade.

The road was dark and cold. The sun had already set, and James quickly pulled his robes around him and whispered Lumos to his wand. It all ended up rather pointless - holding the wand in front of him, the robes were little good for warmth, and while the little light from the wand was better than nothing, James could only see about five feet ahead of him before the darkness closed up on him from all sides.

A terrible thought crossed his mind in the cold, in the dark - what if he encountered goblins here, on the road to Hogsmeade? Before these recent week, he would have thought that being Harry Potter’s son would grant him a safe passage no matter what. Now that Mum had been attacked, he wasn’t so sure.

All of a sudden, the road seemed so much scarier. James swallowed and looked back. He could no longer see Hogwarts, the old castle hidden by the trees. It was the middle point of the road, and from here, it was the same distance whether he went back or whether he chose to go forward. He took another step towards Hogsmeade, then another, then another. He needed all his will power not to break into a terrified sprint towards the village. By the time he got there, he could just as well have run - he was breathing heavily and his heart was racing, as if after a great physical effort.

Now that he was in Hogsmeade - and on his own - he didn’t really know what to do. It was already getting late, and some of the shops were closed. Honeyduke’s, luckily, stayed open, but the post office was closed, as was Zonko’s, James noticed in disappointment.

He wandered around the village’s high street aimlessly. Hogsmeade was a lot less fun when he had no one to share it with and no one to ease his boredom. He was just thinking of giving up and going back to Hogwarts through the Honeyduke’s tunnel, when he saw a small figure slinking about.

There was no mistaking those ears, that nose, or the height of the figure. It was a goblin.

James clutched his wand. The clever thing to do, he knew, would be to turn back now and leave. The easy thing to do would be to keep on standing there indecisively; another moment, and the goblin would have been swallowed by the darkness and disappeared.

He started following the goblin. He wished now he would have stopped to Disillusion himself before he reached Hogsmeade. James had no idea what the goblin would do to him if he caught him, but he had the impression he didn’t much want to find out.

The goblin took a small path between the houses, and started trotting on the uncleared snow just outside of the village. James started questioning the wisdom of his actions in earnest now. Was the goblin leaving Hogsmeade? Would he go to some secret goblin meeting place? How far was James willing to follow him?

He had decided that if the goblin went past the hills, and Hogsmeade would no longer be visible behind them, he would turn back. But the goblin never strayed too far from Hogsmeade. He walked almost in parallel to the last row of houses of the village, and - just like James - seemed wary of losing sight of them. A few times he paused, and James paused too, his heart racing: was he overheard? Had the goblin realised he was being followed? But always the goblin kept on walking and James kept on following.

All of a sudden, James saw a familiar building, the last of the public establishments at Hogsmeade, and the goblin abandoned his caution to the wind and headed straight towards it. Now James understood where he was going, and fury rose in him all over again. The goblin was going to the Hog’s Head. He was going to sit in Mundungus Fletcher’s pub, make plans with his goblin friends, and Fletcher was going to do nothing about it, as usual.

They reached the Hog’s Head. The goblin entered the pub. James walked in after him.

There was a group of them, in the corner. The same corner, James thought darkly. Huddled and whispering in their language, like they did before. He walked straight towards them.

“Planning on attacking someone else?” he said angrily.

The goblins stopped whispering and looked at him. Some looked confused; others had nothing but malevolence in their eyes. One of them smiled a nasty smile and said something in Gobbledegook. The rest of the goblins laughed, and their laughter was just as nasty as their eyes and expressions.

“I said, are you planning on attacking anyone else?” he repeated.

The goblin’s eyes narrowed. “Go back where you came from, wizard child,” he said.

In response, James aimed his wand at the goblin. The goblin’s eyes followed the wand’s movement, then returned to James’s face. He didn’t move from his place. “This is a wizard pub,” James said. “Our pub. Maybe it’s you who should go back to where you came from.”

Another goblin started talking fast in Gobbledegook. One word was abundantly clear to James. He was proven right a moment later, when the goblin said in English, “Does your father know you’re here?” He said that with a sneer.

With the explicit mention of his father, with the sneering voice, and with the knowledge that right there in front of him, that goblin could be one of the goblins who attacked his mother, James lost control to the rage. He wasn’t even sure which spell he used, but all of a sudden the goblin was on the floor.

Immediately, the entire group of goblins jumped to their feet. There must have been a dozen of them - but James didn’t care that they surrounded him and didn’t care that there was only one of him and so many of them; he was the one with the wand, and they were just goblins.

“Now, now, what’s going on here?!” the barman shouted from the other end of the room, but James ignored him too.

A goblin tried sneaking up on him; he heard him just in time, and turned around and cursed the goblin. This time he knew which curses he was using, but for some reason, it was much less effective than the previous one. The goblin was sent back, but did not lose consciousness and did not end up lying on the floor. He simply retreated for a moment, before another goblin tried.

Then something hit James - he wasn’t quite sure what it was. Goblins didn’t have wands, he knew, but all of a sudden, he remembered that they had magic of their own, and that was when he was hit again and everything went dark.

He could hear a familiar voice. The voice sounded anxious, but James wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t even sure where he was - it was a bed, no? His own bed at the Gryffindor dormitories, he thought at first, and then realised it just didn’t feel like it. Wait, wasn’t he at the Hog’s Head -

His eyes flew open.

He was at the Hogwarts hospital wing, and his head was killing him. And the familiar voices which were speaking in hushed tones, he could see now, were Dad and Professor Longbottom. He closed his eyes and tried to listen to the two of them.

“... but Dung said James attacked them first,” Dad said.

“I know he’s got your temper and all, but Harry, I just can’t see him starting this for one simple reason. He’s not that stupid. One unqualified wizard against a dozen goblins? That’s not even stupid, that’s suicidal.”

There was a pause before Dad spoke again. “You don’t think...”

“Not James.”

“Yeah.”

“He did approach them, though,” Dad said after another pause. “There’s about ten witnesses saying he came in straight after the goblin and went directly to them.”

When Professor Longbottom answered him, his voice sounded urgent. “Look, Harry, I know what you’re thinking, there has got to be some perfectly reasonable explanation for this, alright?” Another pause. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Dad said at last. “It’s just... with Ginny at St Mungo’s and everything, and I can’t help thinking what could have happened if James...” his voice trailed and he didn’t finish the sentence.

“It didn’t happen, though. Stop thinking that. You’ve got enough to worry about without adding scenarios that never happened to the list.”

“You two do realise he’s been listening to you for at least a minute?” a new voice was heard, much closer to James - Hermione’s. The game was up. James opened his eyes and sat up.

Dad didn’t approach him immediately. Instead, he remained where he stood. Professor Longbottom looked uncertainly at Dad, then at James.

“How are you feeling?” Hermione asked quietly.

“Fine,” he answered.

“Do you remember what happened?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Dad said, and there was no hint of the uncertainty and worry that were in his voice just a moment ago. Now he just sounded angry. “Then you can start by telling us what you were doing in Hogsmeade in the first place.”

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. Professor Longbottom looked again at the both of them. “Harry,” Professor Longbottom said gently, “would you mind if I did this?”

Dad thought for a moment, then nodded. Professor Longbottom walked the few feet to James’s bed, and sat on a chair near him.

“That is an interesting question, James. After the attack on Hogsmeade last year, no student is allowed at the village. It’s been like that since September. You know that. How did you end up in Hogsmeade?”

“I went there.”

“Through the one-eyed witch tunnel?” Dad asked, his voice angry again.

“Harry - please, let me handle this?” Professor Longbottom asked again, his voice still calm and quiet. “Did you go through the secret passage, James?”

James looked at the two of them. He didn’t care if they knew, he thought. He didn’t care one bit. “No,” he said loud and clear. “I went through the main road. Got out of the gates.”

“When did you leave?” Hermione asked all of a sudden.

“Before dinner.”

“Around five?”

“Yeah.”

“The main road’s very dark this time of the year around five, James,” she stated. She wasn’t accusing him of anything - not yet, at least, just stating the fact.

“I know,” he answered. “I have a wand.”

“Harry,” Hermione now turned to Dad, “is that even possible? Through the gates?”

Dad nodded. “Could be, yeah,” he said, and still his gaze was fixed angrily on James.

“Okay,” Professor Longbottom said hurriedly, as if afraid Dad was going to start speaking again, “you made it to Hogsmeade. Then what?”

“Then I noticed the goblin.”

“You did go after the goblin?” Professor Longbottom asked quietly. There was an odd, restrained tension in his voice.

“Look, I wasn’t going to attack them or anything! I mean - I didn’t mean to. That just happened! I don’t even know what curse I used, it just sort of... happened. On its own. But yeah, I wanted to tell them to get the hell away from Hogsmeade. I don’t care that there was an attack there last year - there are attacks now, here! What difference does it make that we can’t go to Hogsmeade if we’re not safe in our own school?” he demanded.

“That’s not up to you,” Professor Longbottom said, still quietly. “That was Professor McGonagall’s decision, and until she lifts the ban on Hogsmeade visits, you cannot go there on your own. Especially not at night,” his voice turned sharp. “James, you’ve already avoided being reprimanded once over this, due to the circumstances,” and James knew he was talking about the time he had seen the Death Eater at Hogsmeade. “To be honest with you, that was because we all had more important things to worry about at that time. But if I had even imagined you’d continue going there, even after you realised the danger!”

“Like I said,” said James stubbornly. “The danger’s everywhere. And until he does something about it, doesn’t matter where we are.”

Dad opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out, Professor Longbottom said, “Harry!” in the same sharp tone he had used with James a moment before. Dad closed his mouth. Professor Longbottom’s back was turned to Dad that entire exchange.

“You’re a very bright kid, James,” he now turned back to James, “and you’re old enough to know that Hogwarts rules are there for a reason. And you’re definitely old enough and bright enough to know that some things you just do not do. Your actions today did not only show complete disregard for the school rules, but to your own safety and to a lot of the values our entire society is built upon. This goes far beyond the boundaries of the school. I’m afraid this forces the matter out of my hands. I’ll have to discuss what’s going to happen now with Minerva.”

James stared at him in shock. McGonagall? They were bringing McGonagall into this?

“You will stay here for the rest of the night. Madam Promfrey wants to keep you under observation. Tomorrow you will return to your classes, at least until...” Professor Longbottom hesitated. “We’ll let you know what’s going to happen.”

James knew what he was talking about. He was talking about expulsion. Was it really an option? “Professor Longbottom?” he asked quietly.

“Yes?” Professor Longbottom’s voice was no longer sharp, but had returned to its usual pleasant calmness.

“What are the chances - I mean, am I going to be expelled?”

Professor Longbottom’s expression didn’t soften. “I don’t know,” he said. He got up from his chair next to James’s bed. Hermione got up as well. “Good night, James,” she said quietly.

“Come on, Harry,” Professor Longbottom said. The three of them started walking towards the door.

“Sir?” James said. Professor Longbottom paused, then turned back to him. “For what it’s worth... I’m sorry.”

None of them answered.

It wasn’t the worst night in James’s life - no, that had been a few days ago, when he thought his mother might die. Or, perhaps, a few weeks before that, when he learned his father was at the hands of the Death Eaters. But it was definitely somewhere in the top five. Try as he might, he just couldn’t fall asleep that night. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Professor McGonagall’s stern face, telling him he was expelled. That he would never become a fully qualified wizard.

Before he knew it, it was morning, and Madam Pomfrey walked into the hospital wing, declared him ‘completely fine!’, and told him to dress up and go down to breakfast. James walked down the stairs, each step filling him with more dread.

Lysander was already at the breakfast table. James sat next to him without a word. After another moment, Lorcan and Colleen joined them. Down the table, he could see Al and Rose, eating quietly. They, too, were not exchanging a word. James hoped beyond hope none of his friends will say anything. He didn’t think he was quite up to tell them what had happened.

Instead, his eyes wandered to the teachers’ table. Dad was there, sitting next to Hermione and - Ron. “What’s Ron doing here?” he asked just as Lorcan opened his mouth, grateful for finding a topic of conversation that was not about him.

“Um. He’s replacing your mum,” Lorcan said quietly. “Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw is in a week.”

James swore. He had completely forgotten about Quidditch. He didn’t need Roxanne to come shout at him to know he was, at least for the moment, out of the team - although he was sure he would feel the brunt of Roxanne’s anger soon. Instead, he looked at the teachers’ table once more.

Something wasn’t quite right between his father and his aunt and uncle. Hermione was sitting between Dad and Ron, and talking to each of them in turn. But it was obvious, even from here, that Dad and Ron weren’t really talking to one other.

Ron was still angry, James knew. He also thought Dad was completely off his rocker. James wasn’t being childish with his anger and expectations that his father will finally do something. Other, older and more experienced wizards, were thinking the exact same thing.

“What’s going to happen with you?” Colleen asked all of a sudden, and James tore his gaze from Ron.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “They haven’t decided yet.”

“Is it possible...” Colleen hesitated. The answer was probably written all over his face. She didn’t finish the sentence. The rest of breakfast was spent in absolute silence.

James concentrated on his toast and pumpkin juice. He knew that above his head and over his shoulder, his friends were looking at one another, each one trying to find a way to start a conversation. He was glad they didn’t find the right thing to say. The silence left him mostly relieved. Once he finished his toast - in record speed, no less - he got up to leave. “I’ll see you in class,” he mumbled. They nodded.

“James!” someone called his name. He didn’t turn around. “James!”

James started walking faster towards the door, but the caller was faster than him. Three steps before the door, he felt a hand on his shoulder. With a sigh, he turned around and peered at Ron’s worried face. “You okay?” Ron asked.

“Fine,” James mumbled.

Ron looked slightly embarrassed. “Listen, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but...”

“I’m off the team,” James completed dully.

Ron didn’t look relieved. “Basically, yeah,” he said. He sounded almost apologetic.

“Figured as much,” James said. “Does Roxanne know?”

“Yeah. What were you thinking?”

James looked at Ron’s face. Ron didn’t look at him accusingly, like Dad, nor did he show Professor Longbottom’s disappointment. His question seemed genuine.

“I was thinking my mum’s in the hospital and it doesn’t matter that we’re hiding here, there’s a war outside and I want to fight. Like you guys did. It affects us, we’re not protected from it in any way, and I think I’m old enough to fight, especially if the Ministry isn’t doing a damn thing.”

He said ‘the Ministry’, but he could see from Ron’s eyes that he knew perfectly well what he meant - Harry Potter wasn’t doing a damn thing.

Ron didn’t disappoint. He didn’t admonish him, nor did he tell him he was too young. “I know how you feel,” he said simply. “I know it’s frustrating. But you shouldn’t risk your life in such a foolish way. Say what you will about what we did, we never went into such dangerous situations on our own, not even Harry. I’m not going to ask you to promise me not to do it again. I think you yourself realise in just how much danger you were last night.”

James nodded. Now, in morning and away from goblins, he could admit - even if only to himself - just what a fool he had been the night before. “Why can’t Dad be as sensible as you,” he muttered.

Ron chuckled. “I’m pretty sure he’s asking himself why can’t I be as sensible as him,” he said.

“Yeah, but if you were the head of the Auror office, the Aurors would have gone after the goblins by now,” James pointed out.

Ron thought about this for a moment. “You know, when we were kids, there were times I was so jealous of him, how he always got all the attention and everything. Then, the older we got, the more obvious it became that it wasn’t just attention he was getting, but also a huge amount of responsibility. I may disagree with him every once in a while, but I’m always glad I don’t have to make the decisions he has to make, James. It’s not an easy position to be in.”

“But you think he’s wrong this time.”

Ron hesitated, then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “But I can understand why he insists he’s not.”

“That’s not what it sounded like at the hospital.” He wasn’t quite sure when the discussion had become an argument, but he really didn’t want to hear Ron defending Dad now.

To his surprise, Ron shrugged and dismissed the whole thing. “We had a fight,” he said. “It happens quite often, you’d be surprised. I shout at him, he shouts at me, especially when it comes to work... we’re both a bit stuck in our own ways. Doesn’t mean I think any less of him.”

James snorted. It most certainly didn’t look like that on breakfast, but he didn’t think he’ll get any other answer from Ron.

“Whoops, here comes trouble,” Ron said all of a sudden, and James turned around into a storm of Roxanne.

“I - cannot - believe - you!” she shouted at him. She didn’t even acknowledge Ron, who raised an eyebrow in amusement and left James to his fate. “Now you get yourself banned from the team? Now?! We’re going to be flattened by Ravenclaw!”

“Sorry...” James muttered. Roxanne wasn’t going to be placated by apologies, though, and he spent the next fifteen minutes being shouted at, until Professor Longbottom showed up and told them to take it outside or lower their voices. James slightly resented the use of the plural, as he definitely did not raised his voice - Roxanne didn’t give him the opportunity to open his mouth. But considering everything - and that his fate was still very much in the hands of Professor Longbottom and a few others - he didn’t say a word.

His mood didn’t improve during classes. His first class was Herbology, and when Professor Longbottom asked him to stay after class, he knew it couldn’t be good news. The rest of the class looked at him curiously - by now, everyone had heard what had happened (or, at least, some version of it), and he could hear the whispers behind his back as the rest of the students left the greenhouse. Everyone was wondering whether this was it, whether James Potter was going to be expelled. And no one was contemplating this more than James.

He walked to Professor Longbottom’s desk. He couldn’t quite look at his Head of House, and instead stared at his fingernails.

“Please sit down,” Professor Longbottom said heavily. James sat with a sinking feeling. He waited for Professor Longbottom to speak. After a few seconds of silence, he raised his head. Professor Longbottom was studying him quietly.

“Sir?” he asked tentatively. “Am I...” his mouth went dry, and he swallowed and tried again. “Am I expelled?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Professor Longbottom said gravely. “I discussed the matter with Professor McGonagall and your father last night, and we haven’t reached a decision.”

“What do you think should happen with me? Sir?”

“I don’t know,” was his answer. “I haven’t decided yet, either.”

James nodded and returned to staring at his fingernails.

“However,” Professor Longbottom said now, “you’re not going to stay in the school without punishment, whatever happens later. You will serve detention with me every night for the next two weeks.”

James nodded.

“Please come back here after dinner. I’m not going to give you lines, there’s plenty to do here in the Greenhouses and frankly, I could do with the help.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And please take this detention seriously, James. Your attitude might very well influence my decision one way or the other.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Off you go then.”

James got up to leave. He hesitated at the door - for a moment, he thought of asking Professor Longbottom what had his father said on the matter. Did Dad think he should be expelled? But then he decided he wouldn’t quite know how to handle the answer if it turned out to be positive, and left the greenhouse without another word.

Detention with Professor Longbottom turned out not to be so bad after all. The work was meticulous and boring, and involved a lot of dirt and he almost got bitten by a Venomous Tentacula at one point, but Professor Longbottom’s attitude towards working in the greenhouse was ‘Why make it boring?’ and so he got to hear a range of stories about Tibetan Turnips. In no time at all, it turned out four hours had passed, and Professor Longbottom told him to go back to his dormitories, and that they would continue tomorrow.

James’s good mood lasted about five seconds after he entered the dormitories. It wasn’t just the way everyone was looking at him. He was behind on most of his essays, and with detention looming every day for the next couple of weeks, he couldn’t afford to give in to his exhaustion, but instead had to sit down and start writing them. In no time at all he had developed a splitting headache. Lysander looked at him critically, but said nothing when James declared himself too tired and closed the book with a thump. Tomorrow’s Potions essay was going to be dreadful, but if James was honest with himself, it would have probably been dreadful either way.

The next evening of detention turned out to be much shorter. Not half an hour after he walked in and started watering the Venomous Tentacula - much more carefully than the day before - Professor Thomas walked into the greenhouse.

“Neville?” he called softly. James looked up in interest - and almost got bitten for his curiosity.

“Careful there,” Professor Longbottom said, and left the greenhouse to talk to Professor Thomas outside. He returned two minutes later. “James,” he said, “Ginny woke up.”

The watering can fell on the floor and the water was spilt all over James’s robes and shoes.

“Never mind that,” Professor Longbottom said when James swore and looked for something to dry the water with, “just go with Dean. He’s taking you to the hospital. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

“Thanks, sir!” James said, excited, and smiled in relief. It was the first moment of happiness he felt since his mother was found unconscious near the Quidditch pitch.

“Give Ginny my love, alright?” Professor Longbottom said with a smile.

“Will do!”

Al and Lily were already there, waiting outside the greenhouse excitedly. They quickly followed Professor Thomas to the Muggle Studies classroom, then stood in the fireplace and called for St Mungo’s hospital. Professor Thomas took them quickly to her ward, then opened the door to her room.

It was a large room, with six beds, all occupied. James only glanced at them, until he located his father’s untidy hair at the last bed, next to the window. They rushed towards it.

Mum’s eyes were closed, but she was sitting up. She was very pale, but Professor Thomas had already warned them about that - healing took time, and the goblin’s attack was a strong one.

Dad was sitting by her side, holding her hand in his. The three of them slowed down as they walked near, worried she might have fallen asleep again, but Dad smiled and nodded, as if to say, ‘You can speak’.

“Mum?” Lily asked tentatively. Mum opened her eyes, and her face broke into a smile. Lily laughed in happiness, and even James could feel the relief spreading through him.

“Hi guys,” Mum whispered. “I hear I gave you all quite the fright.”

“It’s alright,” Lily said and started to sniffle.

Mum reached to draw her to a hug, but got tired half way and in the end, her hand lay limp next to her. At that, Lily almost jumped on her to hug her, but Dad caught her before she could do it. “Careful,” he said. “Be gentle.” Lily nodded and hugged Mum carefully. Al and James came next.

Mum looked a second too long at James; he had the feeling she had already heard about the incident at Hogsmeade. But she didn’t say anything and he didn’t want to bring it up, so he just hugged her lightly and grabbed a chair next to her.

She looked at their faces, then smiled again. “I know this all looks very scary,” she said. “But I’m going to be fine. That’s what the Healers are saying and they know what they’re talking about.” She shifted a bit in her bed, then her face contorted in pain. Dad immediately jumped up and asked if she was alright, to which she reassured him she was fine, but he still looked at her in doubt and then turned his gaze to the three of them. James knew what was going to happen now.

“Guys, maybe it’s better you let Mum rest for a bit,” he said.

“No, Harry, it’s alright, let them stay,” Mum said.

“You’re completely exhausted, they could come back tomorrow.”

“It’s really okay, Harry.”

“Are you sure?”

“She said it’s okay,” James said, annoyed.

Dad shot him a look. “I don’t think you’re in quite the position in this argument at the moment, James,” he said. James flushed.

“Don’t, Harry,” Mum said. “Not now.”

Dad nodded, and James shot him his best ‘See?’ look, only to receive cold annoyance from Dad.

Lily started telling some ridiculous story, possibly to defuse the tension, but Mum must have been very tired - her head drooped and she fell asleep in the middle of Lily’s sentence. Lily stopped awkwardly, and looked at Dad for questioningly.

“Maybe you should wait outside for a moment,” Dad suggested in what wasn’t really a suggestion, and they nodded and left. Professor Thomas stayed in to talk to Dad.

It wasn’t three seconds after they left the room when Lily rounded up on James. “Can you go one minute without having a go at Dad?” she demanded. “Can’t you wait until after we’re visiting Mum? What did you go and start a fight in there for?”

“I didn’t start a fight,” he stammered, slightly cowered under his little sister’s glare.

“No, you just continued it!” She wasn’t buying any of it.

“Actually, Dad was the one who continued it now.”

“Oh, shut up,” she said, annoyed, and sat down on the chair.

“What, you’re not talking to me now, too? You don’t think that he’s being - I mean, you were here! Right here. Just a few days ago.”

“It’s not worth fighting in front of Mum,” she said.

“I guess.” He sat down next to her. “I’m sorry, Lily. I didn’t mean to upset you. Or Mum.”

“I just really hope she’ll be better soon,” she said miserably.

“I know,” he answered. “I really hope so too.”

Al sat down heavily next on Lily’s other side. They waited the next couple of minutes in silence, until Professor Thomas came out.

“She’s awake again,” he said in an encouraging smile. “But maybe all of you at the same time isn’t such a great idea. Lily, Al, maybe you’ll come in, and James will come in later?” he asked.

Lily and Al both jumped and ran to the door, where Al stopped, grabbed Lily to stop her from running into the room, then they tiptoed in together. Professor Thomas sat down next to James.

“You know,” he said quietly, “your father got on a lot of people’s nerves after the War. We were on the brink of another war back then, you see. Our side won, but their side started it, and for a while, most of us thought, why should we be the nice ones?” He got out an apple from a pocket deep inside his robes and offered it to James. James shook his head in refusal, and Professor Thomas bit the apple down thoughtfully. “I was... well, for a while there I didn’t want anything to do with the wizarding world at all, you know? I hated being a wizard, after I had to run for such a long time. I hated that I was a wizard because of the Death Eaters and their supporters. Because where it put me as a Muggle-born. Then the Death Eaters started attacking again, they couldn’t accept that they lost. It was the sort of... they thought if they lost, we should pay a price, too.” He laughed, a laughter without mirth. “As if we hadn’t already.

“That’s when I became an Auror. I couldn’t stop being a wizard, and giving up my wand while there were Death Eaters attacks would have been sheer stupidity, so I became an Auror, to fight them. At the same time as Harry. And he... He was very much against doing to them what they did to us.”

“Let me guess,” James said darkly. “You all saw how right he was.”

Professor Thomas chuckled. “Not at first. It took... it took a long time. A lot of fighting. I think there are a lot of people today who still don’t see it. But yeah, at some point in the past twenty years, I realised your father was right then.”

James got up. “Look, sir, I don’t need to hear how my father’s always right in the end right now,” he said, trying to disguise the annoyance in the end.

“I wasn’t trying to say that,” Professor Thomas looked taken aback. “I’m just trying to open your mind to the possibility he might not be wrong. Or that things are simply more complicated than just right and wrong on this.”

There wasn’t a single answer James could think of that would not have been rude, so he said nothing at all. After another minute, Lily and Al walked outside and told him to go see Mum again.

She still looked weak and still had her eyes closed half the time, but she smiled when she saw him. “You need to be there for Lily and Al until I get out of here, alright, James?” she said, and he nodded and said that yes, he would. “And James...” she shot a glance at Dad, then smiled at him again. “Don’t get into trouble.”

“I won’t,” he said.

“Now go on with Dean. I’ll be out of here in no time.”

“Sure,” he said, kissed his mother on the cheek, and left the room. Professor Thomas led them back through the Floo and into Hogwarts.

He was a lot more cheered up that evening - and had a decent amount of time for his essays, unlike the night before - and so, actually had a chance to reach the required three feet for Transfiguration, although there was little to salvage there on the matter of quality, he knew. And his mother would be out of the hospital soon. He woke up the next day feeling much more refreshed and much more relaxed.

He never got the chance to hand over his Transfiguration essay to Hermione, though. Half an hour into the class, Professor McGonagall herself walked into the classroom. “Professor,” she said quietly, “I need Potter.”

James could feel the blood draining from his face, just as he could feel everyone’s eyes on him. Professor McGonagall never came down herself, unless it was something extremely important. This wasn’t some administrative thing. Have they decided to expel him in the end?

“James,” Hermione said softly. James’s legs shook as he got up, left his books on the desk, and marched to the door. Professor McGonagall studied him for a moment, with her stern eyes, pursed lips and unreadable expression, then told him to follow her. They walked through the corridors of the school without a word, until they reached the gargoyle that guarded the Headmistress’s office.

Professor McGonagall spoke the password, and the gargoyle jumped aside to reveal the staircase. She got on the first step, and gestured to him to do the same. He swallowed and followed her all the way into her office.

She looked at him again as they reached her desk. “Sit,” she said quietly. He sat down without a word. She went and sat on her own chair, then continued to study him in silence.

“I have had a very long conversation with your father last night,” she said.

“What did he say?” James asked, defeated.

“He made some passionate arguments on why you should remain at Hogwarts,” she answered. “That you are young and have been going through quite an ordeal as of late. However, as upset as you are with recent events, and as young as you are, you are still old enough and are capable enough of rational thought to understand the implications of your actions. And while the events with the goblins may have gone... out of hand,” she now looked directly at him, “your leaving school and following the goblins in the first place do not go under that category.”

“Yes, Professor,” he said quietly.

“And so, I would like to hear directly from you what has happened,” she said.

For the first time since she appeared in his classroom, James allowed himself some hope. “Does this mean I’m not expelled? Professor?” he added hastily.

“It means that, having listened your father’s arguments last night, I’m willing to hear you out.”

He spent the next fifteen minutes telling her everything, and being as honest as possible. He knew that lack of honesty could not help him now. At the end of it, she nodded.

“Very well, then,” she said. “I will let you know once I have made my decision. In the meantime, you are to continue your detentions with Professor Longbottom.”

“Yes, Professor,” he said.

By the time he had left McGonagall’s office, the lesson was already over. Lysander waited for him next to the gargoyle with his bag and his things, looking nervous, as if it was his own fate that was being decided up there.

He breathed in relief when he saw James coming down alone. “You’re not expelled!” he said.

“Not yet,” James said. “They haven’t decided yet.”

“How long are they going to take?!”

“Don’t,” James warned him. “I’d rather this than... you know.” He didn’t have to finish the sentence. Lysander knew what he meant.

“Anyway,” Lysander said, “we need to get going.”

James groaned. Their next class was Potions.

It was the most difficult class James had ever attended in his life. Professor Malfoy, of course, had already heard the story of Hogsmeade and the goblins, just like the rest of the staff. But unlike the rest of the staff, he shot James an unpleasant smile as soon as he walked into the room. James swallowed. He knew what that meant.

He couldn’t afford not to listen in Malfoy’s class. He couldn’t afford to provoke him in any way. He had to be a model student, even in Potions. But his Potions Master knew that as well. The next two hours were a slow torture, with unpleasant comments shot at James’s direction all the time by Professor Malfoy, with the hope, no doubt, of provoking him into doing something foolish. James had to bite down his retorts so often that he was afraid he might end up piercing his tongue.

James had never been so relieved to hear the bell. After that Double Potion class, he could stomach anything. Including Defence Against the Dark Arts, another class in which he had remained absolutely silent and simply scratching at his parchment. His father didn’t say a word to him during the entire class.

At the end of that day, he walked again to Greenhouse Five, to serve his detention. He was surprised at his own good mood - he wasn’t playing Quidditch, and he was facing three, maybe four hours of re-potting Venomous Tentacula, but the hours went by fast with Professor Longbottom’s stories, and his mother would be out of the hospital soon. And there was a chance he would be allowed to stay at Hogwarts.

The smile was erased from his face as soon as he entered the greenhouse and saw his father sitting at the desk, rather than Professor Longbottom.

Dad raised his head, then said quietly. “Neville had to leave unexpectedly. He asked me to sit here in his stead.” He paused, as if thinking of something else to say, then shook his head. “He said you knew what to do.”

James went to the Venomous Tentacula without a word, and started working in silence. He kept his silence for three whole hours, moving the growing Tentacula plants from the small pots to the larger ones, and all that time not uttering a word. Dad didn’t speak either.

After three hours, he called his name.

“Yes, sir,” James answered coldly.

“I think it’s enough for today,” Dad said.

“Yes, sir,” James answered and picked up his things.

“James,” Dad said all of a sudden. James stopped, then looked at him defiantly. “I know that you feel frustrated about everything that’s happening, and I know that you feel helpless, and I know that it’s not... I know it’s hard.”

“Do you?” James asked before he could control himself. Dad wrinkled his brow. “People who know how hard it is want to be out there and do something! While you’re just sitting here and making sure your hands are still clean!”

“You think this is about me? This isn’t about - for - this isn’t about me feeling better with myself! You think I don’t want to be out there doing something? But there is a line! You draw a line and you don’t cross it, not ever, because once you do, you can never go back! Never! You’re too young to know what war - what real war is like! What it can turn the best people into, what it can turn you into, what it can do to the whole damn world, unless you draw a line and stick to it.”

“I’m not too young!” James retorted. “I can understand if you did. You were fighting when you were my age! You were allowed to do something! What do you know about sitting down here as people I care about are attacked and every time I want to do something about it all anyone can say is how I’m too young and too immature and don’t know what I’m doing! Stop telling me how young I am, you fought at fifteen too!”

“Yeah, I did,” Dad rose now, his face flushed and angry. “And I got Sirius killed. Yeah, I didn’t listen to people who were older and much wiser than me, and as a result Sirius Black died. Is that what you want? Do you want to see someone you care about die in front of your eyes because you messed up because you’re so damn sure that you know everything? Do you know how hard it is to see people you care about hurt, and know that it’s your fault, that it happened because you screwed up?”

“I’m not as stupid as you think I am,” James answered. He didn’t shout. All of a sudden, his anger had transformed into something else. Something quiet, something almost calm, something that could wait. “And the way I see it, people you care about still end up hurt,” he said to his shocked father. “Maybe you’re just still screwing up. Now, if I may go, sir.”

Dad said nothing. James picked up his things and left the greenhouse and back into the castle. Once inside the castle, his feet took charge, while his mind was full of thoughts about the argument with his father. He didn’t realise he wasn’t going to Gryffindor tower. He only realised where he was when he looked around and noticed, all of a sudden, the tapestry of trolls in tutus.

He turned around to the wall in front of the tapestry. It was blank. The seventh floor corridor was empty. James should have gone back at that moment, should have went back to his dormitories, he knew it, there was no doubt in his mind what the right course of action was.

With a sense of destructive recklessness, he walked past the empty wall three times.

Chapter 15: Cross the Line

“You know,” said the ghostly boy with a smirk, “you Potters really are stupid.”

James glared at him. “Shut up,” he said.

“No, I don’t think so,” the Monster said. “You came to me, James Potter. I think you want to hear me talk. Perhaps you want to hear of your namesake?” he raised his eyebrows in amusement. “James Potter. Perhaps you want to learn how he died? A friend of his had betrayed him, you see. Gave his whereabouts - well, to me,” the Monster smiled at him. “And when I went there, the fool didn’t even have his wand with him. What a quick death it was.”

“Shut up,” James said through gritted teeth.

“Oh? You didn’t come here to hear about your grandfather then? Then, perhaps... your father?” the Monster now laughed in victory. “So full of self-righteousness, that man, isn’t he?”

“In your case, for a pretty good reason,” James said.

“But in your case?” Voldemort asked. James didn’t answer. “Perhaps, in my case, he has a right to be. After all, I haunted his life since before he was born. But in your case? His own son. His eldest son, the one he named after two of the most precious people in the world to him, James Potter and Sirius Black.” James still didn’t answer. “I wonder... does he still hold himself responsible for that fool Black’s death?”

Despite himself, James nodded.

“That was... one of my more brilliant plans, if I may say so myself,” Voldemort boasted. “I planted the idea in his mind, the images, that Black was my prisoner. I needed Potter at the Ministry, and I lured him there - quite successfully, might I add. He nearly got Granger and Weasley killed as well as his godfather that night. A pity,” Voldemort said now. “He would not have been able to defeat me, in the end, if it were not for Granger and Weasley. He never really could do anything on his own.”

James didn’t understand why he wasn’t telling that hateful ghost, that travesty of a being, to shut up. The truth was he found his words interesting, even if he lied to himself about it, even if it hurt him to hear them as well.

“Are you the reason he refuses to fight?” he asked all of a sudden. “You said... before, when Lily was here - you said Dad didn’t try to kill you.”

“No, he did not,” Voldemort said. “He was always a weak fool. What would he have done had he managed to disarm me, but not kill me? Would he have put me under arrest?” Voldemort laughed now. “Put me on trial, in front of the Wizengamot, then - put me in Azkaban with no Dementors?”

“He’s not fighting the goblins now,” James said quietly. “Even when they hurt people he cares about.”

The ghost of Tom Riddle didn’t smirk this time. “For once, I think your father is not being completely foolish about this,” he said quietly.

That just angered James more. Now Voldemort was agreeing with Dad? What better proof did he need that he was wrong? Except that Dad wasn’t there and couldn’t see how the biggest monster in wizarding history was agreeing with him. “And why not?” he demanded instead.

“Have you ever asked yourself, boy,” Voldemort whispered, “what is it the goblins want?”

“Everyone knows what they want! They want independence! They want us to give them wands! They want... how can they even think we’ll ever give them those things when they’re attacking people and the school and all?”

“No, you foolish boy. Not the big things they want. The smaller things. Think, Potter, even someone as thick headed as yourself can figure it out. They have attacked Hogsmeade, they have attacked the school. More than once. They have attacked teachers and Ministry employees. What is it they want?”

“The sword,” James remembered now that conversation he had with Colleen, Lysander and Lorcan, all those months ago. “They want the sword of Gryffindor.”

“And...?”

“But it’s not in the school? They’re not stupid, they wouldn’t keep it here when the goblins have already proven they can break in here at will!”

“And yet, they keep on breaking in here,” Riddle said with a triumphant smile.

“But it can’t be here,” James insisted. He got up and started pacing. The sword couldn’t have been there. If the goblins wanted it so much, it must be too dangerous, and no one would risk having it around. And besides, it was lost. Everyone said so. And he was sure he remembered his father saying it once... perhaps even to a goblin. The sword was lost. The goblins would be nothing but foolish to look for it in Hogwarts.

And yet... and yet.... and yet, obviously, they wanted something. Something that would lead them to the sword, perhaps? Something that could give them the sword. Something that was hidden at Hogwarts, something that his father knew about, something that he knew put the entire school at danger but still didn’t move away.

James sat down again next to the ghost. “Suppose,” he started, then faltered. “Suppose there was something else the goblins wanted. Right here in the school. And suppose - it’s like you said, isn’t it? They attacked three people since the beginning of the year.”

“They did,” Riddle confirmed.

“Professor Cattermole, who teaches here and knows the school. And Tamsyn’s father, who works for the Ministry - where does he work?”

“The Department of Education,” Riddle said carefully.

“And Mum. Who also works in the school.”

“And knows your father very well,” Riddle added. James looked at him sharply.

“You think they attacked her because she’s married to him?”

“You think it possible they attacked her without knowing who she was?” Riddle retorted.

“They started with school staff. But that didn’t help them. Then they went for the Ministry, but that didn’t help them either. So their next target was - someone who knows Dad very well.” He was getting excited now. Things were slowly starting to make sense. “Whatever it is in the school they want, Dad definitely knows what it is and where it is and they’re trying to get it from anyone who isn’t Dad.” Which meant... “We could be in danger too. If they thought Mum knew it because of Dad, they could just as well think his children know about it. They could be going after Lily next.” Or me, he didn’t add. He thought about the goblins at the Hog’s Head pub.

“Are you sure you were the one who attacked first?” Riddle whispered the same question that was in James’s mind now. He assumed he had performed magic without meaning to, he assumed his magic had taken over in an unconscious way and that he had accidentally attacked that goblin - but what if he was wrong? It had all happened so fast... What if the goblins were the first to attack? What if they saw him and recognised him and thought perhaps he could give them what they wanted?

“And if they got what they wanted...” Riddle said.

“The attacks would stop. They’d leave us alone. All they want is freedom. They don’t want to enslave us. What difference does it make if they get what they want? They’re not - you,” he said, almost apologetically.

Next to him, Tom Riddle shrugged. He didn’t seem to care much. “Your father will never give them what they want,” he said. “He has the power. Didn’t he stand up to the Minister for Magic himself? The great Harry Potter threatened to quit, to make his disapproval of the Ministry known, and the Minister himself gave in. You think, if Harry Potter would say, ‘I have a way of ending the war’, that people would not listen?”

“Then why doesn’t he? Why don’t they give them what they want?”

Tom didn’t answer.

“You know,” James accused him. “You know why he doesn’t give the goblins what they want. Why he insists on stupid negotiations that don’t go anywhere instead of just ending this once and for all.”

Tom nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed. “I know.”

“Tell me.”

“I think you know already too, James.”

James thought of the conversation he had with his father, back at the hospital, the day Mum was attacked. And then he understood. How stupid he had been! How did he not realise this before? His father had said so, right there and then. He said - the wizarding world was on the brink of another war after the War, after Voldemort was defeated. The only thing that kept them together was the fight against the goblins. And didn’t Professor Thomas say the same thing? So much hatred and fear because of the Death Eaters, wizards hating wizards, wizards attacking wizards, until the entire world threatened to be destroyed, and the only thing that saved them was that they had a common enemy to fight against - the goblins. The negotiations had been going on for twenty years but no solution had ever been reached.

They didn’t want a solution, he thought. They didn’t want peace. They wanted war, because they thought the wizarding society wasn’t strong enough. That was what Ron had said. Dad was too busy fighting the wars he had already won.

“They don’t want the goblins to stop fighting,” he said quietly. “If the goblins got what they wanted, everything will be alright again. And they think - Dad thinks the Death Eaters will come back then. He thinks wizards will kill wizards if there are no longer goblins to fight against.”

Tom said nothing, just looked at him with his transparent, scarlet eyes. In James’s imagination, their colour looked a bit stronger now, a bit more red. His mind was drawn back to the goblins. The goblins wanted something from the school, but no one inside was willing to give it to them. That’s why they were attacking people, that’s why they attacked Mum. If only someone with access to the school was willing to give them what they wanted...

“Then the attacks will stop,” Tom said.

James got up on his feet again, but not to pace back and forth idly. Now he knew what he had to do. He knew where he had to go. He was the only one who could end this war. Without another word, he left the chamber through the exit Lily had shown him only a week ago.

Once outside, he cast on himself the Disillusionment charm. Three attempts, and he succeeded. And then - to the one-eyed witch statue.

It was cold and dark and raining in Hogsmeade. Not a single soul could be seen outside. They were all hiding indoors - inside their own homes, or perhaps in the Three Broomsticks. Some of them, he knew, found their escape from the rain in the Hog’s Head. He cast on himself the counter curse for the Disillusionment charm, and proceeded to Mundungus Fletcher’s pub.

To his relief, there were many people there, so many patrons were hiding from the rain inside, and he could slip in unnoticed. Right to the corner where, as usual, the goblins sat and whispered amongst themselves.

The goblins stared at him in confusion as he pulled up a chair and sat down next to them. Their confusion only grew when they recognised him. “Are you interested in another one of our curses?” asked the goblin next to him.

“No,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

“We have nothing to talk about, Potter’s son,” said a different goblin, the one in front of him. From the way all the goblins were looking at him, James assumed this was their leader.

“I think we do,” he said to that goblin. “I think we could help each other.”

The goblin snorted. “Stop wasting my time, Potter’s boy.”

“You want something from inside the school,” James said. “But you can’t get inside to get it. I could get it for you.”

Some goblins started smirked and sniggering, but they stopped abruptly when they saw their leader’s expression. He wasn’t mocking James now, but studying him, a curious expression on his face. “And why would you do that, James Potter?” he asked.

“Because I want to see the war over. And that’s the only way it will be over,” he answered.

The goblin looked at him sharply. “Even if you are sincere,” he said, stressing the word ‘if’, “you cannot give us what we want. We want the Sword of Gryffindor.”

“No,” James shook his head. “You know it’s not inside Hogwarts. My father has told you so, and he wouldn’t lie.”

“How do you know your father did not lie?” The goblin looked amused. Despite himself, James grew angry.

“Hey, don’t you go calling my dad a liar!” he said, in slightly higher tones than he meant to. It was his luck that with so many people inside, no one had overheard him.

The goblin didn’t mind being shouted at, though. Rather, he looked even more amused. “You are an interesting man, James Potter,” he said. “Here you are, defending your father’s honour - at the same time as you come to betray him.”

James flushed. Then shook his head again. “I’m not here to betray him,” he said. “I’m here to correct his mistakes.”

“But you are correct,” the goblin said, as if he didn’t hear James’s last sentence. “It is not the sword that is hidden inside the school, but something else. Something that could lead us to the sword. It is - ”

But even the goblin’s authority over the others had its limits. Three goblins interrupted now in rapid, angry Gobbledegook. Their leader replied them in the same amused, quiet tones he had used with James, then studied James again.

“Can you fly, James Potter?” he asked.

“On a broomstick, yeah, sure,” James answered, slightly confused.

“Good. We will leave now. If we are to accept your offer of help... well, as my colleagues here have reminded me, this is not my decision to make alone.”

“Erm, leave now?” James asked, more confused, and somewhat concerned. “It’s almost nine. I should be in the dormitories by nine, I shouldn’t get too far away from them.”

“You should not be here at all,” the goblin said. His expression suggested he was raising an eyebrow - even if James still wasn’t sure goblins had eyebrows.

“I know, but I - where will we be going?”

“To meet another one of our leaders,” the goblin answered. “We will not make this offer again, James Potter. If you are sincere in your wish to end the war,” the goblin smiled, “then you will come with us, right now.”

“Okay,” James said, and the same recklessness he had felt all evening took over him again. “But I don’t have my broom with me.”

“A broom can be arranged,” the goblin dismissed his concern. “Let us go.”

They sneaked through a backdoor to an alley behind the pub - the same alley James had seen the goblin sneak in through only a few days ago. They stood there for a couple of minutes in the cold and rain, he and a few goblins, who were joking among themselves in Gobbledegook.

For a moment, reason rebelled within him - Merlin’s pants, what was he doing, standing there in the dark with a bunch of goblins? They could kill him without hesitation. They probably would, if they thought it would help them achieve their goals. But in an odd way, that thought calmed him down. They hadn’t killed him yet, and they needed him alive to achieve their goals - and their goals weren’t that bad after all, were they? He was safe there.

If he repeated it often enough, he might even start believing in it, he thought.

Just as he was starting to get worried again, and thinking that perhaps he should give up that foolish idea and leave, the goblin leader arrived with two brooms. “One for you, James Potter,” he said, “and one for me.”

“What about the others?”

“Goblins have different methods of travelling,” the goblin answered shortly.

“Then what do you need a broom for?” James asked.

“So that you could follow me. Mount you broom, James Potter,” he said, and got on his. James copied him, and they kicked into the air.

They flew east, away from Hogwarts, and towards the mountains. James looked down at the mountains, at the forests, at the lakes, and made sure not to miss the goblin in front of him. The goblin didn’t make any attempt to check whether James was behind him, nor did he seem concerned that the wind was freezing and that James’s knuckles were stiff and that he was afraid he would fall off his broom.

After about twenty minutes - which felt like eternity - James could see a small clearing in the woods ahead of them. It looked like their destination - the goblin started descending towards it, and James followed him. The closer they got, the surer James became that they were headed in that direction - he thought he could see campfires now, and perhaps movement.

Another five minutes, and they landed on solid, if muddy, ground. The goblin immediately took the broom away from James. They did not want him to wander away - or perhaps return to Hogsmeade on his own, James thought. Without a broom, leaving the camp site was impossible. The forest was all around them, and beyond it was one of the highest mountains in the area.

“Sit here,” the goblin said roughly. James sat without protest. He sent his hand to his wand. It was more to feel better than anything else - if the goblins decided to do something to him, he knew, he had no chance of fighting them off. But the wand felt safe, and right now it was the best he could do.

“I would advice against pulling that thing when you’re around here,” someone said, and James jumped.

It wasn’t a goblin - it was a centaur. The centaur was big - bigger than Professor Firenze, at any rate. And unlike Firenze, his coat was reddish-brown, but seemed a shade of dark, blood red in the light of the fire.

“It makes the goblins nervous,” the centaur continued. “Wands. And offends them. Reminds them what the wizards are denying them.”

“Oh,” James said. Of course. He felt foolish now, and let go of his hand.

“Of course,” the centaur said, clearly amused, “one could argue that not pulling your wand would be equally as foolish. If the goblins do decide to attack you, you have no way of defending yourself, young wizard.”

“I think,” James voiced his thoughts from earlier carefully, “that if the goblins decided to attack me, I wouldn’t stand a chance either way.”

“Ah,” the centaur was obviously pleased with the response. “Intelligence. Well - almost,” he said and moved his head sideways.

“What d’you mean ‘almost’?”

“Well, you are here,” the centaur said. “That is foolish to the extreme.”

“Look,” James said now angrily, “I’m here on important business.”

“How important can the business of a fifteen year old boy be?” the centaur asked.

“It’s about - ” James started, then paused. “I can’t tell you.”

The centaur raised his eyebrows. “You can’t? Or you won’t?”

“I don’t know who you are,” James said. “I don’t know if I can trust you.”

The centaur’s smile widened. “Well, well, Goprink,” he said, and the goblin leader from the pub appeared out of nowhere, “looks like you have managed to find a sensible wizard, after all.”

The goblin smiled. “Told you,” he said. “You want to hear him out.”

“Now, James Potter,” the centaur said, and James realised the centaur had known who he was the entire time. “Tell me. Why is it that you want to help us in our war against your own people?”

James swallowed. “I know what the war is about. Why it’s... why it’s still going on.” He pulled out his wand from his pocket and played with it nervously. “I know my father’s not going to end it. I don’t want to see people I care about hurt anymore!” The centaur nodded slightly. “My mum’s in the hospital. And none of this would have happened - I mean, if you get the sword the war will be over, right? You’ll have got what you wanted and you’ll stop.”

“Yes, James Potter,” the centaur said gravely. “If we get the sword, the war will be over.”

The centaur turned away from James now, and looked at the flame. James remembered all of a sudden the stories of the Divination teacher, Firenze - was the centaur trying to tell the future in the flame?

“Do you know, James Potter, how the centaurs joined the war?” the centaur asked softly. “We had many arguments about it. Many discussions. It is not our way, you see, to join in the wars of men - or against men.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“It was foretold. There was a time, the prophecies hinted, that the centaurs will be required to stop sitting idly, as the wizards ruined our world and thought themselves superior to us - to us! - and find our own allies, in our war against man.” The centaur looked almost hypnotised by the fire. “There was a chance, once. When the fates could go one way - or the other. We sat and waited out your war. We sat and waited out the aftermath of your war. We waited to see if your ways would change. If centaurs and wizard-kind could live, once again, together. Not in friendship, perhaps, but in some sort of acceptance.”

“And then what happened?” James swallowed.

“Wizards behaved as wizards do,” the centaur’s voice was full of contempt. “They did not care to undo the wrongs they had committed - not to us, at least. They were too busy with their own affairs.”

“They were on the brink of another war,” James said, and the centaur’s eyes shot towards him, no longer mesmerised by the fire.

“Yes, and they found the solution by fighting us,” he said. “But we can end this. There is a mirror in your school. Not a regular mirror. An enchanted mirror. Hidden somewhere, deep within the school.”

“And what can the mirror do?” James asked eagerly.

“Do?” the centaur repeated. “The mirror can do nothing. It is a mirror, not a horse.”

“Then what happens? When...” James all of a sudden had an idea. A memory, perhaps. Of a mirror, a mirror that wasn’t a mirror, and when he looked at it, he did not see himself as he was now, but a memory. “What does it show people who look into it?”

The centaur now smiled, a real smile, not one of contempt, and James knew he was right. That was the mirror they were talking about. “The mirror will show the watcher their one true desire. Do you desire to end this war, James Potter?”

“Yes.”

“Do you desire to help us end this war, as wizard kind has proven itself incapable of doing so by itself?”

“Yes.”

“Do you desire, then, to find the Sword of Gryffindor for us, and thus allow us to end this war, once and for all?”

James nodded. “Yes.”

“Very well. Then return to that school of yours, and look into the mirror. When you have, come back and tell us what you saw.”

The centaur cantered away.

The goblin looked at him leave. “You are a lucky man, James Potter.”

“How’s that?”

“If he would have doubted your sincerity, you would not have been allowed to leave this place alive.” The goblin smiled now his unpleasant smile, and picked up something from the ground - a broom. “I think,” he said, “you will be able to find your own way back to the school. Don’t be too long before coming back to us.”

“I won’t. You can count on it.”

The journey back to the school was just as hard and freezing as the journey towards the goblin camp, with the additional problem that James was now alone and wasn’t completely sure where he was going. He rode west as much as he could - and as much as he could recognise where the west was, but he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when he saw the Hogwarts towers from a distance.

Now he had a different mission, which was getting back to his dormitories without being caught. The mirror, of course, he would have to leave for tomorrow - it had to be after ten, and no time to be wandering about.

He landed the broomstick in the Astronomy tower, and hid it where it could not be found - hopefully. He then tiptoed down from the tower, through the corridors, until -

“Potter.”

James’s heart sank. But at the same time, the voice was a boy’s voice, not a teacher’s. He turned around to see Scorpius Malfoy. Great. “Get off, Malfoy, what are you doing outside of your dormitories at this hour?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “After all, I’m not the one who’s in danger of expulsion.”

James looked at him in horror. The little brat was obviously enjoying himself. But he was right - James was on shaky ground as it were, and if Malfoy decided to talk... “You wouldn’t,” he said, trying to sound much more assured than he was, but he knew that Scorpius Malfoy had every reason in the world to want to get one over him, and very little reason - if at all - to spare him.

To his surprise, Malfoy nodded and said amicably, “Don’t worry. I won’t turn you in. Still think you’re a prat, though.”

“I don’t need the lecture, Malfoy.”

“Oh? I think you do. You’re busy pretending you’re misunderstood and convincing yourself it’s all your father’s fault, when in fact I can tell you...” Now Malfoy hesitated for a moment, then seemed to pluck up courage from somewhere. “I love my father,” he said defiantly. “But your father isn’t just cool. He’s a really good person. And if you can’t see it, you’re the prat, not me.”

“Go to bed, Malfoy,” James said. He had to bite down his real retort, the one that pointed out that if his father was such a good person, how come he let this stupid war go on for so long? But he didn’t say it, of course, not now and not to Malfoy.

Malfoy just shrugged and went away, probably to his dormitories. James made it to the Gryffindor common room without any more uncomfortable encounters.

The next day, he felt like he was sleep-walking the entire day. His thoughts were with the mirror, with his meeting with the centaur and the goblins, and he couldn’t concentrate at all on the subjects being taught. It was beyond luck that he didn’t have neither Potions nor Defence that day. He rushed through dinner, intending to go look for the mirror right away, when Lysander asked him about his detention and James realised he had to go to the greenhouse. He groaned in frustration. Lysander looked sympathetic - but not sympathetic enough.

“Good luck,” he said, and James hurried to Greenhouse Five.

He was immediately encouraged when he saw that Professor Longbottom was there, and not his father. Yesterday’s disaster would not be repeated.

“Hi, James,” Professor Longbottom said. “Sorry about yesterday, I had to go on urgent business to St Mungo’s.”

“It’s okay, sir,” James said.

“I heard your detention didn’t go as well last night,” Professor Longbottom said.

“Really, sir, it was fine,” James said. He did not want to talk about his father.

Professor Longbottom seemed to understand that. He nodded quietly, then walked with James towards the Venomous Tentacula. “You’ll forgive me if we’ll work on them again,” he said. “Their venom really is useful, and Professor Malfoy told me the school supplies are running short - they’re really useful for some of the N.E.W.T.s potions - or so I’m told,” he said with a little smile, “I was never one for potions.”

“Good thing the school has the plants then,” James said, trying to sound interested. His mind was firmly on the mirror.

“Yeah. The school has a lot of useful plants like that. One of the reasons I like the greenhouses here so much. You can’t find a better collection anywhere in Britain,” Professor Longbottom said proudly.

“Yeah,” James answered, still distracted and not very interested.

They worked in silence for a bit. For some reason, Professor Longbottom wasn’t telling his funny stories today. James was thankful - it saved him the need to pretend he was listening. Professor Longbottom could already see he was distracted - he had to save him twice from being bitten by the creature in the pot. It would have done no good to have to feign interest in some story about the common Gillyweed.

“My father passed away last night,” Professor Longbottom said quietly all of a sudden.

James’s attention was, at last, given to his teacher. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. He didn’t quite know what to say more than that. “Was he ill long?”

“You could say that,” Professor Longbottom said. “He had been in St Mungo’s almost my entire life. My mother, too.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were tortured by Death Eaters. They were Aurors during the first war. After Voldemort fell the first time, Bellatrix Lestrange and a few other Death Eaters found them and tortured them until they lost their minds. They never really knew me.”

James looked at him, horrified. He couldn’t imagine such a thing - his own father had grown up without parents, of course, but his parents were dead and that made sort of sense, in a way. That someone’s parents could still be alive, but it wouldn’t matter anyway... it was a horrible thought. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said again.

Then he thought some more. “Bellatrix Lestrange... I know that name, don’t I?”

“She was Andromeda Tonks’s sister,” Professor Longbottom said, and James remembered now the photograph of the witch who looked so much like Andromeda, but had that haughty look about her, that hatred in her eyes.

“She killed Teddy’s mum,” he remembered all of a sudden.

Professor Longbottom nodded. “Teddy didn’t have any parents, too,” he said gently. “James, I know it’s hard, what you’re going through now. And I know that you’re scared for your mother, and I know that you’re angry with your father, and I think I know better than you do just how much you’re like him with that hot temper of yours,” he chuckled at that last bit. “And that you’re as stubborn as he is, and just like he’s sure he’s right, you’re sure you’re right, and neither of you is willing to budge an inch.”

James would have usually been angry, hearing such words. To his surprise, he didn’t mind them much when they came from Professor Longbottom. He nodded, instead of arguing.

“But you two love each other, and care for each other, and you need to be there for one another. You’re lucky that you have each other. So many families have been destroyed and torn apart.”

James didn’t answer. Professor Longbottom didn’t seem to mind. They continued working in silence, and after a few more minutes, Professor Longbottom started with his stories. But instead of telling him about the origins of the Venomous Tentacula, he told him about how, once in his first year, he accidentally found a huge three-headed dog hidden in the school together with his father, Hermione, and Ron.

They finished before eight. Professor Longbottom said he still had some things to take care of at St Mungo’s, and that James had done enough work for the day. James said thanks and rushed out of the greenhouse and into the castle. Normally, he would have gone to complete his essays - he had one for Defence about the Patronus charm which he hadn’t even started yet, but there were more important things. He needed to find the mirror. Find the mirror - and find the sword.

It took his a while to retrace his steps from the night of the first attack. It had been such a long time ago, that he wasn’t even sure where he had found the corridor, only that it was in the third floor.

He opened doors at random, but couldn’t find it. It was like the corridor had vanished. But he refused to give up. Another door, then another, then another... and all of a sudden, he was there. He recognised the corridor by the dust. No one had entered there since he had escorted Lily and her friends out, all that time ago. He could still see their footprints clearly on the floor, around the undisturbed dust. He walked in, jumped through the trapdoor, and continued all the way to the last chamber, to the place where the mirror was kept.

He paused when he saw it. He didn’t know what it did then; he did know now. He looked up at the magnificent, ornate golden frame. He could see now that there was an inscrption there, letters that were etched on the frame above the mirror, covered with dust as well but still readable. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. He looked at the writing again, trying to make sense of it. “Erised stra...” he mumbled. It didn’t make a lot of sense. Perhaps, he thought, it was an ancient spell. It didn’t matter, though - he didn’t come there to look at the frame of the mirror. He came there to look at the mirror itself.

He walked in front of the mirror.

In an instant, the image changed. Until that moment, he could see his reflection in the mirror, like any old mirror and much less enchanted than some of the mirrors in the Burrow. But now it all changed. Instead of seeing his reflection, he saw - a memory. He remembered what it was. A picnic with his family, a trip they had taken together right before he had started Hogwarts, almost five years ago. They were on the edge of a short cliff in Cornwall, right next to the sea, and he could see the seagulls ahead. And Dad took out a broomstick, his old Firebolt, and gave it to James while he took the Cleansweep Eleven from Mum, and they flew and passed the ball around and laughed and just had fun.

Despite himself, James couldn’t help but smile. It was one of those perfect days. But then he looked closer at the mirror in confusion - the James in the mirror wasn’t eleven years old. He was much taller, and he looked older, and he wore his hair a bit longer, like James wore it now. It wasn’t his memory after all. It was something different. He sat in front of the mirror and looked at his mother laughing and Al making faces and he and Dad playing Quidditch on broomsticks, up above.

He got up after fifteen minutes. This wasn’t going anywhere. His mind was full of his discussion with Professor Longbottom, he decided. He’ll come back tomorrow. He really should finish that Patronus essay, too.

On his way back to his dormitories, he passed through a familiar door. His father’s office, here at Hogwarts - it was for both his parents, but only his father stayed there now, as his mother was in the hospital. Dad must be very lonely, he thought all of a sudden, and out of an impulse, he knocked on the door.

“Yeah,” he could hear his father’s voice. He opened the door and walked inside.

As soon as he saw him, his father’s expression hardened. It was nothing like the laughing man in the mirror - now he looked full of trepidation and wariness, like he had looked every time he talked with James lately.

“I’m sorry, James,” he said quietly. “Whatever it is, it will have to wait. I have to leave soon.” James noticed there was a bag on one of the chairs.

He started nodding, but when he opened his mouth, he said, “I don’t want to fight anymore, Dad.”

Dad stopped. He looked at James, his expression softened, the trepidation was gone and gave way to something else entirely - relief. Love. Then he crossed the distance between them in three fast steps and hugged James tightly. “I don’t want to fight anymore, either,” he answered. Then he let go of James. “Let’s not fight from now on, then, shall we?” he asked, but there was a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips and James could only grin and say, “Sounds about right.”

“I have to finish packing, though. You can stay if you like,” Dad hurried to add, and James sat down on a chair next to the bag Dad had been packing.

“You’re going to see Mum?” he asked.

Dad shook his head. “I wish,” he said, sounding discouraged. “I haven’t missed her so much since that time she had an international tour with the Harpies for three months.” He considered it a moment. “Or since...” he paused, then looked at James. Something changed in his eyes. “Or since I had to leave her and go find a way to destroy Voldemort and couldn’t contact her for almost a year,” he said softly.

He sighed, and his voice returned to its regular tones. “No, I have to go meet with the goblins. There’s a chance we might be able to make some progress in the negotiations. A very small chance,” he hastened to add, “but I can’t afford not to try.”

James nodded. The idea that his father’s efforts might not be genuine looked almost silly now. But Dad and he were finally on good terms again, and he didn’t want to ruin it by saying anything, so he said nothing.

“You’ll go see Mum tomorrow,” Dad said now. “I’ve asked Neville - he, uh...”

“He told me about his father,” James said.

“Yeah. Well, he’ll be going to St Mungo’s again tomorrow, so I’ve asked him to take you guys with him along the way.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Dad nodded, then flicked his wand. A big, heavy stone basin flew to the table, and landed there. Dad looked at it with a similar trepidation to the one he had given James when he entered, then aimed his wand to his head. A silvery material left his mind in long strands and was put in the basin - a Pensieve, James now remembered.

“What are you doing?”

Dad finished casting the spell. “Professor McGonagall agreed to lend this to me,” he said. “Negotiating with the goblins... it can be tough. Not something you want to do with too many distractions. It helps - taking away some of my worst memories, putting them away in the Pensieve for a bit, it helps me concentrate on the goblins without becoming too emotional. Too distracted.”

“Do you... does this mean you don’t remember these things you put there anymore?”

Dad shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said. “Removing the memory doesn’t take it away completely. It just makes it... less accessible, I guess? Not as sharp. And if the memory isn’t a pleasant one, then it won’t be as painful anymore. But it’s still there.”

“Would you ever want to remove them completely?” James asked. Taking away painful memories didn’t sound so bad to him.

He thought, perhaps, he had asked a stupid question, but Dad’s expression was serious when he sat on the chair next to James. “Sometimes,” he said, and James was surprised to hear the honesty in his voice. “Sometimes I think... all that pain, why do I need to remember all that? And then I feel a bit ridiculous and like a kid who’s asking ‘why me’?” Dad played with his wand for a moment. “I did think that for a time. Maybe not exactly ‘why me’, but you know... no,” he said all of a sudden, and his voice was full of a wonder. “You don’t know. Thank God, you don’t know. But sometimes I did wonder, why couldn’t it just stop. All those things I’ve seen, all the good people I’ve lost... Yeah, sometimes you just want to forget.”

“Then why don’t you?” James asked quietly.

“Sometimes it feels like I would be betraying them. Sirius, and Remus, and Fred, and Dumble - and Dumbledore. They were too young to die. Well, maybe not Dumbledore,” he said with a smile, “even though, to lose him when we did... but Sirius and Remus and Fred for sure. Too young. And others, too. And they live in our memories, and that’s it, so not remembering them, even the hard times, even seeing their bodies, or seeing them die. It would feel like giving up on them. I can’t do that.”

“Even though it hurts?”

Dad chuckled. “Dumbledore told me once that the fact it hurts proves I’m human. I still think there was quite a bit of rubbish in that,” he confessed, “but I think I understand now a bit better what he tried to say.”

“Dad...” James was now thinking of the dead headmasters of Hogwarts. “Dumbledore... and Snape...”

“Yeah,” Dad said quietly. He seemed to understand what was on James’s mind. “They weren’t perfect. Severus Snape... he definitely wasn’t perfect. But he saved my life. On more than one occasion. And he did the most dangerous things. The most difficult things. Without a thought to himself. Sometimes I wish I had his determination. His ability to go with what he believed in, until the very end. He was a good man, in his own way. Even if at times it was hard to see it,” he grinned with that last sentence, then got up. “And now I really have to get going.”

“We’ll be right here, waiting for you,” James said. “And do our best to help you, whatever way we can,” he added, thinking about the sword.

Dad, of course, didn’t know what he was talking about, and just nodded. “Yeah, you do that,” he said. “Don’t annoy your sister.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t give your brother a hard time.”

“I won’t.”

“And give your mother my love,” Dad’s voice was softer as he said those words. James just got up to hug him goodbye. “I will,” he promised.

“Then everything’s going to be alright,” Dad said and left the room without saying goodbye.

Chapter 16: Draw the Line

The only decoration in the room that had been assigned to Scorpius’s father at Hogwarts were two photographs.

The first was of of his family: it had been taken when Scorpius had turned eleven, and included Mother, Father, Grandmother, and Scorpius himself.

The second was also of his family, but Scorpius wasn’t in it. It had been taken long before Scorpius was born. There were only three people there - Father, when he was eleven, and Grandmother and Grandfather. They were photographed on the background of Malfoy Manor. There was a peacock in the photograph too, and it was going in and out of the frame behind them.

Harry Potter’s Hogwarts room, however, was completely different. It felt a lot more like home - there were books there, and a cloak lying around outside of its proper place, and quite a lot of photographs. None of them were of Harry Potter with his parents; instead, there were photographs of Al and his brother and sister, of all of their family together, of Rose Weasley’s family, and a whole gang of red-haired people who must have been the extended Weasley family Al was always talking about. There were old photographs too, and Scorpius had no idea who were the people in them.

He didn’t mean to enter Harry Potter’s room; it just sort of happened. He knocked on the door but it wasn’t closed properly and he just thought he’d check if his teacher might be there (even though Defence class was taken by Mr Weasley today) and then he was inside the room.

And now he was looking at Harry Potter’s photographs. He felt a little guilty - after all, this was someone else’s private room, and that just wasn’t done. But his curiosity was strong enough to override his reluctance and guilt.

One of the photographs was different from the rest. Just one. The boy in the photograph was about Scorpius’s and Al’s age, and he looked so much like Al, that Scorpius had assumed at first it was another one of Al’s photographs, with some of his Weasley cousins - until he noticed the boy had glasses. He picked up the photograph. Now he could see the scar.

The red-headed boy next to Harry Potter was definitely a Weasley. Probably Mr Weasley, he realised. And the girl was - she looked a bit like Professor Granger-Weasley. All three of them were laughing. Scorpius didn’t know what they were laughing about, but it didn’t bother them, of course, because the photograph must have been at least twenty-five years old, and they had been laughing all that time. They weren’t well-dressed, like Father was in his childhood photograph; they were all wearing hideous jumpers. There were no peacocks in the background. But they looked a lot happier than his father did.

The memory of the arguments between Father and Grandfather came back to Scorpius’s mind. His face darkened and he put the photograph down. He wondered why didn’t his father have any photographs of his school friends.

He must have put the photograph down with much more force than he meant to; the table rocked a bit, and he thought for a moment that the water in the basin would spill. And then he paused and looked at the basin. Why would Professor Potter have a basin full of water on his table and why didn’t he put it away when he left the school?

Then he got closer and saw it wasn’t water. He wasn’t even sure if it was liquid. It might have been a gas - at least, a very liquid-like gas. Or maybe it was gas-like water. He wasn’t sure. It wasn’t transparent, either - it was silver.

And then Scorpius realised what it was. He had heard of those things - it was a Pensieve. Which meant, there could be memories inside. Harry Potter’s memories. He shouldn’t have touched it, he knew. Entering Harry Potter’s room was bad enough; watching his memories was a gross violation of his privacy. But his curiosity took over him, and he convinced himself that he’d watch just a little bit, just one memory, and then get out again. He just wanted to see. So he looked inside the Pensieve.

His grandfather was in the first memory. In a graveyard. He heard his voice beneath the hood, heard his name spoken by the Dark Lord. His grandfather was in the second memory, too - a fight raged in room after room, full of strange things; he wasn’t the only one there though - this time Scorpius saw also Professor Longbottom, Mr Weasley, Professor Granger-Weasley, Madam Potter, and Professor Scamander. And him again, and the old man, Albus Dumbledore.

His grandfather wasn’t in the third memory, but it didn’t give Scorpius any comfort. His father was there, on the top of the Astronomy tower. Scorpius realised now he didn’t know how to leave the memories, how to get back up to the room, even though he wanted to do it so much, and he had to watch until the end, watch the role his father had in Albus Dumbledore’s death.

The next memories went past in a haze. His family appeared again in only one of them, but that served as a small comfort by now. And then Scorpius found himself back in Harry’s Potter room.

This stuff wasn’t in the history books. None of that. Scorpius’s father didn’t appear in history books. Even though he had served his sentence in Azkaban, even though he had the tattoo on his arm, even though he used to be a Death Eater. He was never mentioned in the books - at least, not by name. Scorpius had checked. He had read their history books cover to cover and looked for his father’s name in them. He never found it. He never found any of it. His grandfather had been mentioned by name, but it was always things like how he had used his money and influence to prepare the ground for the Dark Lord, or that he was sent to Azkaban. Nowhere did it say he was there at the graveyard, or at the room with the veil, or that he had sent his son to murder Albus Dumbledore. Not a single book spoke of what went on in Malfoy Manor then, not long before the end of the war.

Scorpius’s eyes fell now again on that one single photograph, the thirteen- or fourteen-year-old Harry Potter with his friends. How could he laugh? he wondered. With all those memories. How could he be happy and laugh? The boy in the photograph offered no answer. His laughter seemed to almost mock Scorpius.

He left the room in a hurry. He didn’t think he could stay in there for another second. Even if leaving the room wouldn’t make the images in his mind go away.

He didn’t check the corridor was clear before he left, he didn’t even think about it, all he thought about was his grandfather and Potter and the terrifying Dark Lord, and so he was caught completely by surprise when he heard the shocked voice of Professor McGonagall. “Mr Malfoy!” she shouted.

He looked up, and realised that the Headmistress had seen him leave Professor Potter’s room. Behind her, at the other end of the corridor, he could see Al’s untidy hair.

“What were you doing in there?” she demanded. “Professor Potter’s private room! How dare you!”

“I... uh...” He didn’t know what to say.

“Come with me! Now!” He followed her. What else could he do? She led him all the way to her office, and told him to sit down. “And don’t you dare move while I get your father,” she added and was gone again.

Scorpius looked around in misery, but McGonagall’s office was just as scary empty as it was when she was in the room. Right in front of him was the portrait of Albus Dumbledore. The old wizard was sitting and snoozing peacefully in his chair, but all Scorpius could see was his father, standing in front of him in the Astronomy Tower, and then Harry Potter, sobbing beside the body. He didn’t want to turn his head and see the portrait of Severus Snape.

Instead, his eye caught sight of the Sorting Hat, on McGonagall’s shelf. She was already furious with him. It didn’t matter if he got into more trouble, he thought. He put the hat over his head, and just like two years ago, the hat covered his eyes and everything went dark.

“Ah,” the hat said. “Scorpius Malfoy. I see your head is full of thoughts. Some of them are not your own,” the disembodied voice sounded amused.

Scorpius shrugged. He didn’t know if the Hat knew it, though, so he thought instead, “How do you decide who to put where?”

The hat sniggered. “If I recall correctly - and I am never wrong about these things - you chose your house.”

Scorpius still remembered that day, over two years ago. He had been so nervous and so terrified and all of a sudden the hat said, ‘You would do well in Gryffindor.’ Gryffindor? Scorpius had asked in alarm. He knew what his father would have said had his son being put in Gryffindor. ‘Could I also be in Slytherin?’

The hat said yes, and Scorpius asked it to put him in Slytherin, and when the hat had next spoke, it had shouted Slytherin, and that was it.

“Could I have been a Gryffindor?” he asked the hat now.

“Of course,” the hat said lazily. “Quite a successful one. In some ways, more than in Slytherin.” Scorpius pulled the hat from his head and returned it to the shelf. He went back to the chair, to sit quietly until Professor McGonagall returned with his father.

Father was furious. He hardly entered the room before he started shouting at Scorpius, as if Professor McGonagall wasn’t even there. “What were you thinking? How dare you? What were you even doing in there?”

At last, the shouting stopped - but now, Scorpius realised, he was expected to give some answers. “I was looking for Professor Potter,” he said to his knees.

“Well, you obviously failed to find him in his empty room,” father answered sarcastically. “Why didn’t you leave there as soon as you saw it was empty?”

“I meant to,” Scorpius was still staring intently at his knees.

“I was talking to Al Potter in that corridor for over a minute, Mr Malfoy,” Professor McGonagall said. “Why were you in there for that long?”

“I meant to leave,” Scorpius said again.

“What kept you there, then?”

“There was a Pensieve,” Scorpius whispered now. “On the table.”

“You looked into someone else’s memories?!” Father exploded, but all of a sudden Professor McGonagall said, “Professor? could I have a word with Mr Malfoy here - in private?”

Scorpius didn’t look at his father, and didn’t hear a response, but a moment later, the door closed. He was alone with Professor McGonagall. Scorpius shrank even more into his seat.

“Professor Potter borrows that Pensieve from me every once in a while, Mr Malfoy, did you know that?” she asked, and her voice wasn’t angry anymore. There was something heavy in it, something sad. He shook his head, not daring to look at her face. “He does that when he leaves to negotiate with the goblins. He says the negotiations are so tiring that he risks losing his concentration. And that sometimes, when that happens, he runs the risk of being distracted by some of his worst memories.”

“I was angry with him,” Scorpius whispered, his gaze still fixed on his knees. “I almost shouted at him. I was angry because he hates my grandfather. And he said...” he couldn’t repeat Professor Potter’s words. Not now, when he finally understood them. The unfinished sentence just stayed there, together with Harry Potter’s words, between Professor McGonagall and himself.

“He lied to me,” he said all of a sudden, remembering the one memory of what must have been Malfoy Manor. “He said Father had saved his life. But all he did was stand there and be useless and... and...”

“Professor Potter did not lie to you, Mr Malfoy,” Professor McGonagall said, and sounded stern again. “This is how he sees these events. He had testified as much in your father’s trial. He would not have done so had he not truly believed your father had saved his life. I remember his testimony...” she thought for a moment, then said, “he truly does believe that.”

“You saw him testify?” Scorpius couldn’t help but ask.

“Of course. On of my students was on trial, and the other was testifying. Of course I would be present!” She said, then sighed again. “Some wounds run too deep, that they can never be healed, and even acknowledging their existence becomes painful. The War is such a wound for a lot of people. But I truly wish your parents would have found it in them to talk at times about it.”

Finally Scorpius dared look up. Professor McGonagall wasn’t angry anymore. She looked at him and her expression was full of pity. “Stay here, Mr Malfoy,” she said, and went to talk outside with his father. Scorpius didn’t know what she had said to him, but when they entered her office again, Father simply said to come with him.

Scorpius followed his father, not to his office, but into an empty classroom, where his father opened the door and told him to enter. Scorpius entered the room without another word. Whatever Professor McGonagall had told his father, it didn’t make him any less angry. When Father finally turned to look at him, he was furious.

“You don’t enter another’s teacher office without their express permission, is that understood!” he barked, and Scorpius nodded. “And Potter’s more than anyone!”

There was such a contrast between Father now, so righteous and angry, and the way he was in Professor Potter’s memory - young, nervous, terrified. “Why?” Scorpius asked all of a sudden.

Father paused in the middle of his lecture. “What?”

“Why?” Scorpius repeated, now slightly stronger. “Why Potter’s, more than any other teacher?”

“You know why!”

“I don’t, actually,” Scorpius wasn’t sure where he was drawing the courage to say these words. Perhaps from the hat, from the thought he could have been a Gryffindor, the house in which bravery was most valued of all other traits. Perhaps from the thought of a boy his age, with glasses and a scar, standing up to the Dark Lord himself. “I don’t know whether it’s because you’re ashamed of what you and Grandfather have done, or because you just hope others won’t remember!”

To his surprise, Father gave a short, bitter laugh. “You think they will ever forget?” he asked. “You think they don’t remember every time they look at me? Or at you? McGonagall, Longbottom, Granger, Weasley, and oh, yes, precious Potter, they look at you and they know exactly who you are. And they’re never going to forget. Oh, they’ll let you go to Hogwarts like everyone else and they’ll even let you befriend their children, but they’ll always keep an eye on you. They’ll always watch you. Make sure that you know your place, the place they have designated for you. They look at you and all they think is Malfoy, and they know it, and their kids know it, and I know it, and the only person who seems not to know it is you.”

Scorpius shook his head. “You’re wrong,” he said. “You’re wrong.”

“You can’t be one of them,” Father said, and his voice, although softer now, was even more full of bitterness than before. “They’ll never accept you as anything else. You’d do well to stop pretending that they would. You have been dealt a pretty lousy hand in life, my son. And they will pity you for it, but they’ll always be wary of you. And they’ll always choose the wariness over the pity.” Father threw his wand on his desk. “Now go,” he said, “and don’t let me catch you doing that again.”

Scorpius left. He had only taken five steps in the corridor, when someone behind him shouted, “Malfoy!”

It wasn’t the use of his surname that shocked him, nor the anger and venom in the voice, but the identity of the speaker, for Scorpius recognised the voice without even the need to turn around: it was Al.

“Malfoy!” Al shouted again, and Scorpius turned around now. “What were you doing in my dad’s office?” Al demanded.

“None of your business,” Scorpius muttered.

“He’s my dad, it is my business!”

Something in Al’s anger, in his voice, and perhaps in the lingering words of Father - they all stayed in Scorpius’s mind, and although he opened his mouth to apologise, the words that came out were, “Piss off, Potter, and stop sticking your nose in matters that don’t concern you!”

Al looked taken aback for a moment - then pulled out his wand. Automatically, Scorpius pulled out his. They looked at each other like that for a moment, unsure what to do next, when -

“Al Potter!” someone shouted. Professor Longbottom. “Mr Malfoy - what’s going on here?”

“I was just thinking what curse to cast on Malfoy,” Al snarled.

“Al!” Professor Longbottom said, clearly shocked.

“Go on, Potter, just try!” Scorpius retorted, and earned himself a sharp and cold, “That’s enough, Mr Malfoy!” from Longbottom.

“No, I don’t think it is,” Al said, and Scorpius said, “Like hell it is,” at the same time.

“Detention!” Professor Longbottom roared. “The both of you! Now walk away - now! You too, Malfoy! To your dormitories!”

Reluctantly, angrily, Scorpius started retreating towards the Slytherin common room. Behind him, Al was being led by Professor Longbottom.

The third floor corridor remained empty for a few more seconds, until Lily Potter came out from behind the one-eyed witch statue, then continued the same path she had walked before her brother and his friend - or, perhaps, enemy - showed up. She was walking the same way she had seen her old brother, James, walk, just before the fight almost happened. James was no longer in sight, but Lily had seen enough before she was interrupted to know where he had gone - through the same corridor she had discovered on her first week at Hogwarts. He was going to look at the Mirror.

-X- For a moment, the Mirror showed an old piece of clothing - a hat. James recognised it - it was the Sorting Hat. But why would the Mirror show him that, he did not know. It didn’t matter, anyway - the image in the mirror had changed once more, and now James was looking, mesmerised, at that old memory again, at the old dream, at the picnic in Cornwall, the summer before he had started Hogwarts, the summer when everything changed.

They had spent most of that summer in the Burrow. Just the four of them - Mum, Lily, Al, and he, James. Dad wasn’t with them. And Mum, he could see, was upset. Usually when they came to the Burrow Mum was all relaxed and happy - she always said the best thing about the Burrow was that Gran liked taking care of them so much, that Mum could go on holiday. But she wasn’t relaxed and happy that summer, not at all.

James probably wouldn’t have noticed it a year before. He was a kid back then, he didn’t notice such things. He could see it now with Al and Lily - they ran around with whatever kids who were in the Burrow and they didn’t realise anything was wrong. But James did.

Maybe it was because it was the same summer Percy and Audrey had split up. Percy had the least sense of humour in the whole family and was always serious, and that’s why he was James’s least favourite uncle, but that summer he was much worse than usual. And the way Mum walked around the house reminded him of Percy.

He finally got the courage to ask her after a whole week of not seeing Dad and not hearing from him.

“Mum?” he asked quietly. “Have you and Dad split up?”

“What? No!” she answered immediately, then said, “No, Jamie, we’re fine, we’re really fine.”

“Then where is he?”

“Something came up at work,” she answered, and he thought she sounded all tense again.

He didn’t want to think she was lying to him, of course, because why would she lie? But he had asked Dad once, after they had watched some Muggle film at the Grangers’, if that’s what he did as an Auror - whether he had to chase people, and pretend he was someone else, and was in danger all the time. Dad had laughed and said no; most days he just had meetings and then had to sit in his office and read reports from all the other Aurors, that was what he had said, that it was a bit like Mum’s job, except that Mum got to do most of it from home and when she had to go out it was for Quidditch games and so it was a lot more fun than his work.

But he didn’t think Dad would be gone for so long if it were just sitting in meetings and in his office all day long.

In the end, Dad came back - after almost three weeks away. He was dirty and tired and obviously hadn’t been sitting in an office all that time. And then he said he’ll make it up to them and to hell with work and took them all to Cornwall.

James didn’t tell his parents he took his school books with him to Cornwall. They were interesting and he was still fascinated by them, having only got them at Diagon Alley a few days before. He was sure Mum would be worried he’d ruin the books. She had a thing about keeping books nice and whole, without dog ears or markings. He looked at them at night, full of charms and spells and stories, after Al fell asleep. That was when he read his name in the book - at night.

Well, not his name; not exactly. His father’s name, actually. On the second of May, 1998, the history book said, Harry James Potter had defeated the evil Lord Voldemort during the Battle of Hogwarts, and the whole wizarding world was freed from Voldemort’s tyranny. Harry Potter was given his Order of Merlin, First Class for this accomplishment. The book didn’t say what happened to the evil Lord Voldemort.

He didn’t think about it the next morning. Dad had given Lily her toy broom, then pulled out his old Firebolt, and James got all excited. “Hey,” he said, “can I try your broom?”

Dad looked a bit reluctant. “I know it’s an old broom,” he said, “but it’s still very fast.” They didn’t bring Mum’s broom to Cornwall, of course, because that broom wasn’t old at all and still an Olympic-rate broom, and there wasn’t any reason to bring it with them. But Dad’s ancient broom was still better than the Cleansweep, even if the Cleansweep was newer, and James had never been allowed on it. Dad always said he was too young.

“C’mon, Dad,” he said, and then Dad laughed and said, “Alright, but watch yourself.”

James jumped gleefully on the broom. It was much better than the Cleansweep - it was almost as if the broom was alive, as if it could read his mind. James flew here and there, enjoying the speed and the wind, and all of a sudden Dad was racing him on the old Cleansweep, and on the Firebolt, James was winning. It was a close win - and James had no doubt that if Dad had the Firebolt there would never have even been a race, but just for once, he won the race, and it felt so good.

After the race, they came down again, and Mum teased the both of them.

“Bet Mum could have won on the Cleansweep,” James laughed at his Dad, and Dad grumbled and said that he could fly too, thank-you-very-much, even if he didn’t get the chance to play professional Quidditch. Mum had teased Dad mercilessly after that.

It was late afternoon before James had asked his question. Dad was sprawled on the blanket, reading a newspaper, while Mum went with Lily and Al into the water. James had stayed behind with Dad. “Say, Dad, what happened to Voldemort?” he asked.

“What?” Dad asked, distracted.

“After you defeated Voldemort. What happened to him?”

Dad stopped reading the paper. James could see because his eyes weren’t moving anymore and his hands were frozen in place, but it took him at least another minute before he folded the paper. “You know what happened to Voldemort,” he said with impatience in his voice, a tone he almost never used with James.

James thought about it for a moment. “Voldemort died,” he said.

“Yeah.”

James considered this for a moment. He never knew anyone who died; he only knew about people who died, like Uncle Fred or Dad’s parents and his godfather or Teddy’s mum and dad. They weren’t real people, though, like Voldemort wasn’t real. They were just people who died a long time ago.

But he was already old enough to understand what death was.

“Do you kill people now too?” he asked.

“No, of course not. Can I go back to my paper please now? Didn’t you bring a book or something?” There was still that impatience in Dad’s voice.

Dad seemed to have forgotten about it not long after. They both joined the others in the water, which were cool and fun and everyone was laughing again. Actually, everything was going just well until dinner, when someone joined them.

He was a big man, tall and overbearing, and he intimidated James a bit. Mum greeted him like a friend, but he could see she wasn’t very happy that he was there. Dad introduced him as his boss, Kingsley the Minister for Magic, and told them, “This is the most important man in the country,” but he said it with a smile so James wasn’t sure how serious he was.

They had a nice chat during dinner - Kingsley the Minister asked James all kinds of questions, and got really excited when he heard he was going to start Hogwarts soon. But then, after dinner, he sat down with Dad and they started talking. They talked a lot more quietly than usual, and if James wouldn’t have been sitting near them he wouldn’t have even heard them, but because he was sitting and reading by the fire, he managed to catch most of the conversation.

“James looks like a great kid,” Kingsley the Minister said.

“Yeah, he is,” Dad answered.

“I was just thinking, it would have been nice if the war ended by the time he goes to Hogwarts.” When Dad didn’t answer, he continued, “I’m sorry about all this. I know things got... out of hand.”

“Yeah,” Dad answered.

“It has brought up some interesting possibilities we haven’t considered yet, though,” the Minister said. When Dad next spoke and asked, “Like what?”, he sounded reluctant and tense.

“Like, why do we have to wait for an assassination plot before we mobilise the Aurors? I’ll be honest with you, Harry, I don’t understand how we didn’t think about this before, here we have the perfect people to fight the goblins, already combat trained and everything, why didn’t we put any Aurors on this before?”

“Because the Aurors’ job is to fight dark wizards,” Dad said. His voice was measured, clipped, precise. He actually sounded a bit like Percy, which was odd, because Dad and Percy were nothing alike.

“Yeah, but how many dark wizards are there these days?”

“There was that wizard in Norway - ”

“That’s exactly it,” the Minister didn’t even let Dad finish. “We’ve started loaning you guys to other countries so that you’ll have something to do!”

“Dark wizards are usually everyone’s problem,” Dad said and still sounded very much like Percy. “Grindelwald and Voldemort both proved it. It’s in our interest too to stop these people before they become powerful enough to be a threat to everyone.”

“Yeah, but Harry, there hasn’t been a dark wizard like Grindelwald or Voldemort since - let’s admit it, since Voldemort. Our pressing problem is the goblins.”

“How do you think I got that tip?” Dad asked all of a sudden. Finally, he sounded like himself.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The tip. About the assassination. Who do you think gave it to me? The goblins. Ringank might be losing his influence amongst his people, and the opposition is definitely louder than ever, but you think he would ever consider, even for a moment, to turn the rebels over to us rather than deal with them himself? No way. He gave me that information as a personal favour, because he wasn’t sure he would get there in time.”

“He didn’t get there in time,” the Minister said darkly.

“And he wouldn’t do it the next time if he felt I wasn’t neutral on this issue, and then where will we be?” Dad insisted.

“Neutral? You’re a wizard, Harry, you’re not neutral. The trust of a goblin is more important to you than winning this war?”

“The knowledge that we’re following our own damn laws is important to me,” Dad answered quietly.

“I’m not sure we have the luxury to think like that anymore.”

“That’s why you’re the Minister, and not me,” Dad said.

The Minister smiled. He didn’t look amused - he looked sad. “Yes, Harry, but we’ve been down this road before. You know as well as I do that saying ‘Harry Potter doesn’t think we should do it’ would only take me so far with the people who are becoming more and more restless and afraid now. This doesn’t end well, not for you and not for me.”

“Do you trust my judgement?” Dad asked. It wasn’t a challenge - at least, it didn’t sound like it to James. It sounded like a real question.

“Of course I do,” the Minister answered immediately. “I’ve trusted it since the first time I’ve met you. You know that.”

“Then if you ever trust me on anything, trust me on this. Engaging the Aurors against the goblins would be the worst thing we could ever do. We won’t win the war. We’ll just destroy ourselves in the process.”

“And how do you suggest we win this war?” the Minister asked sharply.

In front of the Mirror of Erised, James blinked. He remembered that day so well, almost every word in the conversation between his father and the Minister - but he couldn’t remember his father’s answer to that question. Perhaps he never gave an answer. On the Mirror, in front of him, he could still see that day - see himself, flying on his father’s old Firebolt. There was no sign of the sword. He shook his head. When he wasn’t looking at the Mirror, he was angry with himself and frustrated - how could he not see the sword? But when he was looking, he was captivated by that stupid memory.

“James?” he heard the voice and jumped. It was only Lily.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I - well, I followed you!” she said, and he could see the defiance on her face. He couldn’t blame her - after all, he had followed her as well, and not so long ago.

“Whatever for?” he asked.

“‘Cause you kept on disappearing. I thought... I thought maybe...” she bit her lip, then drew a deep breath. “I thought maybe you were going to talk to him.”

Him? It took James a few moments until he realised who she meant - Tom. Of course! How could he have been so stupid? Tom could help him!

“Nah,” he said now quickly, to get the idea out of Lily’s mind - and also to get her to leave, so he could go and look for Tom. “I’m just looking at this mirror.”

Lily wrinkled her brow, and looked at the mirror critically. “It’s just a mirror,” she said, then moved closer to James. “I don’t get what you’re - oh!” She must have stood now properly in front of the mirror, James realised.

“What do you see in there?” he asked gently.

“Mum.”

James got up to hug his little sister. “She’s going to be alright,” he said. “She’s getting out of the hospital next week, then everything will be fine.”

“Yeah...” Lily didn’t look encouraged at all.

“Really. You heard what the Healers said the last time. She’ll be fine. Come on now, let’s go back to the dormitories.”

But as soon as they reached the Gryffindor dormitories, and when Lily was already halfway in, James mumbled some excuse about forgetting a book during his detention, and doubled back. He didn’t go to Greenhouse Five, though. Nor did he go back to the mirror. Instead, he climbed up to the seventh floor, went through the disappearing door, down the slide, and into Tom’s chamber. In no time at all, he was telling Tom all his problems.

“I just can’t make the mirror show me the sword,” he said in frustration.

“You must concentrate!” Tom said. “You don’t want it badly enough!”

“I do,” James protested, then sighed. “I guess I just...” I guess I just want things to be the way they used to be more.

More out of looking for something to do with his hands than anything else, he picked up the goblet that was lying on the floor.

He had noticed the goblet in his previous visit. It was hard not to - it was an old, golden goblet, with a huge fang shoved right through it. James now looked at it, and for the first time, he noticed something else - there was a badger etched on the golden cup.

“Hey,” he said. “That’s Hufflepuff’s symbol! A badger! What is it doing on this cup?”

“It belonged to Helga Hufflepuff,” Tom said.

James looked at him in confusion. “Then why would anyone put a huge fang through it - and then forget it in this dingy cellar? No offence,” he added quickly. Tom didn’t seem to mind.

“They had to destroy it,” Tom explained, “in order to destroy me. This is how I ended up here. Two pieces of my soul were destroyed in the same place, enough to create this echo - surely your sister had told you that? No? Well, one of them was in this cup. I thought - what a better receptacle for my soul than a powerful artefact by one of the mightiest witches who has ever lived?”

“So this thing has cool magical powers?” James asked in interested.

“Had. Now it is simply an old broken goblet.”

“But - what happened to it? The magical power, I mean, did it just dissolve or...”

“Stupid boy,” Tom snorted. “Magic such as this does not simply dissolve. It moved on to the closest thing it could find - another highly magical object, owned by one of the Founders of Hogwarts.”

“Which is?”

Tom smirked, and James all of a sudden understood. “The sword!” he shouted in excitement. “It’s moved on to the sword!”

“Yes, Potter.”

All of a sudden, an idea came to him. “And was that the only one? Or were there other artefacts like that?”

“They were all destroyed,” Tom said quietly. “During the war. The sword is the only thing left.”

The power that must be in the sword now, James thought excitedly. Why, if someone got their hands on the sword, they could... they could...

The cup fell from his hand to the floor with a twang. He jumped on his feet, and stared at Tom - at the ghost - and all of a sudden, he remembered his own words to Lily, maybe a week before. This wasn’t some harmless ghost. This wasn’t a boy, just sitting there in boredom and craving some company. This wasn’t ‘Tom’. This was the darkest, most evil wizard of all time. This was Voldemort.

“You liar,” he said, his voice coming out of his throat low and angry, and still not reflecting the turmoil inside him. His hands shook. “You liar!” he shouted. “They weren’t - they weren’t going to end the war once they got the sword!” He remembered again the centaur’s words, now much more sinister than he realised a few days ago. If we get the sword, the war will be over. “They want the sword - ”

“So they can use it, yes,” Voldemort said lazily. There was none of the understanding and kindness James had seen in him before - perhaps he had only ever imagined them.

“You almost made me betray everyone,” James now whispered, the full brunt of his actions - of what could have happened - falling on him. “You almost made me betray Dad.”

Voldemort just looked at him in contempt. “It’s a shame,” he said. “If you were a little more stupid, just a little bit more, and it would have succeeded. Well,” he amended, “a little more stupid, or a little less busy worrying about your precious father.”

“Go to hell,” James said, then turned back and left the ghost alone.

-X- James didn’t talk to anyone when he went back to his dormitories - just before nine, too. He didn’t say anything to Lysander, just complained of a headache and said he was going to sleep. But lying awake in bed, for hours and hours on end, all he could think about was how he wished his father would have been there.

It wasn’t only because now he had - finally - fully appreciated just how dangerous the creature in the cellar was. It wasn’t only because he wished so badly to tell his father of the ghost, even more than before. He wanted someone to confess to, someone to tell him he wasn’t at fault, or that there was no harm done. That it was okay, because he had caught himself just in time, that he hadn’t turned anything over to the centaurs and goblins. That it was going to be alright. But there was no one to say it to him, and he was left, all that night, thinking of the disasters that could have happened had the goblins got the sword, had he given them the sword, and then the thoughts turned into nightmares and finally, at five a.m., he fell into an uneasy sleep, his conscience not letting go even in sleep.

It didn’t help that his first class was Potions. When Lysander, who had noticed he was not getting out of bed, shook him to get him up, James was on the verge of muttering that it was Potions and he could skive off once. Except he couldn’t - not until there was a decision about his expulsion, and, if he were honest with himself, probably not after, either.

“You still have a headache?” Lysander looked at him, slightly concerned. “You don’t look so well. Maybe you should go and see Madam Pomfrey.”

There was something tempting in the suggestion, but James shook his head. Better get up than go all the way to the hospital, where Madam Pomfrey would declare everything was alright with him and he’d still have to go to Potions.

He dressed up and went down to breakfast without really noticing his surroundings, then followed Lysander to Potions. He said nothing to Lysander all lesson long, but as his mind was on Lord Voldemort and goblins rather than potions, he managed to severely mess up his Invigoration Draught, which somehow turned yellow instead of blue and, if James wasn’t much mistaken, hissed at him.

Professor Malfoy was just about to make a nasty comment, when the entire classroom hushed. James and Malfoy were the last to realise what had happened - they both lifted their heads from James’s disastrous potion at the same time, to see Professor McGonagall.

James found that breathing had all of a sudden become difficult, and it had nothing to do with the foul smell coming off his cauldron.

“Potter,” she said softly. “Come with me.”

There was sadness in her voice, and an uncharacteristic softness, almost pity, in McGonagall who was always harsh and stern.

He was being expelled.

Despite legs made of lead and butterflies in his stomach, James nodded and left everything on the desk, together with the hissing draught, and followed McGonagall in silence. She offered him no word of comfort, simply walked, a few steps before him, all the way through the school corridors. Was this the last time he was seeing these corridors as a student? Would he even be allowed to get his things? In his mind, he imagined McGonagall insisting that he should take the Floo back to his empty house. His parents’ disappointed faces when they would next see him. His friends - as they were walking, the bell rang, and students started pouring out of classes. James imagined they all were watching him, that they all knew what was going on.

They reached the gargoyle. Professor McGonagall gave the password and it jumped to life, clearing the way. She walked to the spiralling staircase, and James followed her up the rising stairs and all the way to her office’s door.

Professor McGonagall paused for a moment before the door to her office. She put her hand on James’s shoulder and opened her mouth to speak, as if there was something she wanted to say, then closed it again. She looked at him in silence, and then, finally, “You better go in, James,” she said.

He nodded, then opened the door. He barely even registered that McGonagall had called him ‘James’, rather than ‘Potter’.

Everyone was in the room - almost everyone. Mum was still in the hospital, and Dad was away, negotiating with the goblins, but everyone else was there - Hermione and Ron and Professor Longbottom and even Teddy. Their expressions were... James looked from Ron to Hermione to Teddy. Hermione’s eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. Ron was clutching his wand, looking stricken. And Teddy - Teddy was sitting down, his face in his hands, shaking.

Professor Longbottom’s face was completely unreadable.

This wasn’t about James at all. He wasn’t being expelled. There was no relief as he realised that, no joy. As soon as he saw their faces, as he realised what was really happening, he wished all of a sudden that he was being expelled, wished that more than anything else in the world. He didn’t feel the butterflies in his stomach anymore, nor the lead in his legs. An odd numbness spread all through his body. And despite that, his hand shook, and he shook his head with it, as if that could be enough to prevent what was coming.

“Sit down,” McGonagall said quietly. James sat down. His mind went completely blank.

“Harry...” Hermione started, then her voice broke. Tears appeared in her eyes. James’s mind refused to work, his mouth refused to open to let the words come out, the question he wanted to ask most of all, the last shred of hope.

Ron was now kneeling beside him, stricken and ashen faced. He, too, had tear tracks on his face. James could never remember seeing his uncle crying. “He went to negotiate with them,” he said quietly. “With the goblins.” James nodded. He knew that already. “We don’t know what happened yet,” Ron continued, his voice shaking as violently as James’s hands. “All we know is that he’s... something went wrong. He understood them more than anyone else, probably more than any other wizard alive. He negotiated with them a thousand times. We don’t know what went wrong this time.”

“Is he...” James’s voice came out in odd rasps. He didn’t sound like himself. He didn’t even sound human. This couldn’t be happening.

“I am so sorry,” Ron whispered.

“Can you... I mean, from the - ” he couldn’t say it. He swallowed, then tried again. “Can you get any information if you check the... the body?” his voice came out in almost a whisper, and Ron’s face darkened, his expression turned uglier.

“They didn’t return the body,” he almost spat. “They want to negotiate for it.”

Something kicked in through the numbness. Confusion. James looked at them all and his confusion turned to anger. All of a sudden, his voice returned, loud and strong. “What?” he asked. How could they not see it? It was obvious! “You haven’t seen a body? They’re lying! It’s Dad - he survived Voldemort - he survived the Killing Curse! Twice! It’s Dad! He’s not going to - to - to be killed by some stupid goblins, they’re lying! It’s obvious!”

“They’re not lying,” Hermione said quietly. “They gave us something else as proof.”

The excitement, the hope that had took its hold over James for a few seconds, evaporated. “What is it?” he asked, and hoped beyond hope that it would be something stupid, something that didn’t mean anything, something that could be just goblin trickery.

But it wasn’t to be. Teddy was holding the proof in his hand, and James didn’t need it handed over to him to know it was genuine, it was real, to know all was lost, because he had seen it a thousand times, it was as much a part of his father as his arms or his legs or the scar on his forehead. Eleven inches, holly and phoenix feather.

Chapter 17: ... The Law is Silent

“We tested the wand,” Teddy said quietly. “It’s genuine.”

James knew it before Teddy spoke. He held his father’s wand in his hand and felt the familiarity - it wasn’t as warm and pleasant as his own wand, but the wand knew him, and he knew the wand. He could not imagine not seeing his father not using the wand anymore. “Is it possible they just took the wand?” he asked. He knew it was a fool’s hope, but he asked anyway. His father would not have given up his wand willingly, not for anything in the world.

“The wand... towards the end, the spells Harry used... he was fighting for his life in the end,” Teddy said, still so quietly. James let go of the wand, which fell to the floor with a soft thump. Teddy didn’t pick it up.

“Lily and Al. Are you going to...?”

Teddy looked for a moment at Hermione. “Ginny doesn’t want to tell them yet,” she said. “Not before she’s out of the hospital.”

“That’s not until next week.”

“I know. It might not be up to her, though. It might be that - ”

She didn’t get to finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. The Minister for Magic walked into the room, without knocking, and volunteered the rest in his booming voice. Whenever James had heard him, he was always so calm - but today he sounded angry.

“The cat’s out of the bag,” he said. “Skeeter knows. I could probably have convinced her to keep quiet about it if it were anyone else, but Harry... no chance. She won’t listen, no matter what I do. If I ever find out who is talking to her...” he didn’t finish the sentence, but James knew that whoever that was, they would not be happy. He remembered the Minister’s gaze - like steel, the way he had looked at Dad in the hospital, challenging him to disobey his orders. And Dad...

There was a sharp pain in James’s chest. His vision blurred. He drew breath noisily, trying to suppress the pain, trying to make his eyes stop stinging.

The noise alerted the Minister. Only now he noticed James was also in the room, and walked towards him. He stopped at the chair and offered his hand. James took it, still completely numb except for the pain in his chest that would not go away and the lump that was now forming inside his throat. “I’m sorry,” the Minister said. James nodded.

“We need to tell Al and Lily,” Hermione said all of a sudden. “If the Prophet knows, then by evening everyone will know. We can’t let them hear it from the other students.” She got up from her seat, then wiped her face. “I’ll go fetch them,” she said quietly. She didn’t go directly to the door, though, but to James, and hugged him tightly. He could barely bring his arms to wrap around her, let along squeeze her back.

“You need to be strong for them,” she whispered in his ear. Then she let go and left McGonagall’s office.

Ron got up as well. “We need to go,” he told Teddy. Teddy nodded.

“Go?” James asked. “Go where?” Where could they possibly be going now?

Ron turned back to him. “We’re not going to let them do this, James. We have some information about where the goblins are. The ones who did it. They’re going to pay, I promise you.”

James got on his feet. “You’re involving the Aurors in the war,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Dad didn’t want that.”

Ron took a deep breath. “I know, James. But things are different now.”

“But Dad didn’t want that!” All of a sudden, James was shouting. “Dad did everything he could to keep the Aurors out of the war! He said it was wrong!”

There was something hard in Ron’s expression now. “Harry believed we could make peace with the goblins,” he said, “and they killed him for it. Teddy,” he called and left the room, following the Minister.

Teddy, looking lost and confused, squeezed James’s shoulder for a moment, then rushed out after Ron.

“You can’t let them do that,” he pleaded with Professor Longbottom and Professor McGonagall. McGonagall sat down heavily on her chair. Professor Longbottom shook his head. “It’s not up to us, James,” he said quietly.

“But it’s wrong, you know it’s wrong!”

“James, listen to me,” Professor Longbottom said, quietly but firmly. “Hermione is about to come back with Al and Lily. I’ll take you all then to see Ginny. I know how this feels, I know you’re in shock, I know... I know how this feels. But this isn’t the time to talk about it.”

Defeated, James sat back on the chair. He couldn’t find the energy to argue about this, not with Professor Longbottom. His gaze fell on something on the floor. Dad’s wand. He picked it up, but he barely felt his fingers touching the cold wooden wand. Only the lump in his throat swelled.

-X- Hermione was right. By evening everyone knew.

They spent most of the day at St Mungo’s. Mum was still in the hospital, only due to be released the next week. She was quieter than usual, but then, so were they. They just sat there, the four of them with Gran and Gramps, and none of them knew what to say to the others. Bill arrived at some point, and then Percy and George, and all of a sudden they were talking about the Battle of Hogwarts.

Any other day, James would have been thrilled - thrilled that they were finally talking about it, thrilled to finally hear about it, thrilled that no one seemed to care they were there and listening - they even talked to them, George talked about Uncle Fred and Bill mentioned Tonks, Teddy’s mother who was a friend of his at Hogwarts, and then Gramps all of a sudden started to talk about Dad and how he had turned himself over to Voldemort and everyone thought he was dead and all of a sudden he was alive.

James had never heard that story. Gramps told it quietly, morosely, and almost with wonder. Voldemort had brought the body with him, he said, and everyone started fighting again and all of a sudden - “And all of a sudden we heard Harry cast a Shield charm to protect your grandmother,” Gramps said, “and then it was just the two of them.”

But there was no body this time. No hint of a last-minute miracle rescue. James didn’t feel any better, hearing how Dad had beaten the odds back then. Not when it didn’t look even remotely possible now, not when they were sitting there talking about him and he was gone.

And then it was evening, and Professor Longbottom showed up again and told them gently that they needed to go back to Hogwarts. They wanted to say - all three of them were adamant about it. They said they wanted to stay with their mother, but James felt inside that most of all, he did not want to return to Hogwarts. But it was a hospital, not a home, and they couldn’t stay there.

Gramps suggested tentatively that they returned to the Burrow instead. “No, Dad,” Mum said and sounded so tired. “It’s better that they go back to Hogwarts and have something to do rather than stay at the Burrow all day long and stare at the ceiling.”

It was a pretty sensible thing to say, of course, and still James couldn’t help but think it would have been better had she not said it. He dreaded returning to Hogwarts. But his grandparents thought that there was sense in Mum’s words, so they followed Professor Longbottom to the fireplace, and from there, back to Hogwarts, and right in time for dinner.

The Great Hall was quiet and subdued when they walked inside, a few minutes late. And nowhere was it as subdued as around the Gryffindor table. Dad wasn’t just a teacher - he was also one of the most famous Gryffindors to have ever lived, and definitely the most famous Gryffindor who was still alive in their lifetime. The entire Gryffindor House considered him as theirs, as someone to be personally proud of. And yet...

And yet, when James and his brother and sister walked into the Great Hall, a hush fell all around them. No one was even whispering with their friends. Most students didn’t even look at them, just stared at something indistinct, that happened to be in the exact opposite direction to them.

The three of them settled at one end of the Gryffindor table, which was mostly empty. James could see Lysander from the tip of his eye, getting up from his seat at the other end, undoubtedly to walk to them, but someone pulled him down - Roxanne. She didn’t get up, and James was grateful for that. He didn’t think he could really talk to Lysander at that moment, and his silent presence next to them would not have cheered him up, either. Quite the contrary.

Someone did come to sit next to them, though. To James’s surprise, it turned out to be that prat, Scorpius Malfoy. He sat down next to Al with his plate, all the way from the Slytherin table. To James’s even greater surprise, Al seemed okay with this. Scorpius said something, and while Al didn’t reply, James could see his face break into a smile for just a second, before the smile wavered and died. Maybe Malfoy wasn’t such a prat after all.

A few seconds later, and Lily’s friends - Hugo, Houda and Aaron - sat down next to her. They struck up a small chat, nothing important, but it somehow returned the illusion of normal life to the table. Another minute or two and Colleen, Lysander and Lorcan joined them. They didn’t try to talk to James. Instead, they ate in silence, joining every once in a while to the conversation of the younger kids, until there was a pretty lively conversation about dragons all around him.

James could see it helped Lily, if just a bit. But in his throat his food got stuck on the way, around that lump that stayed there since the morning and refused to go away.

There was only so long they could stay in the Great Hall. Most people had already finished their dinner. They left the Great Hall, in pairs or thirds, and every once in a while, someone clasped James’s shoulder in an attempted gesture of support. All it did was remind him that his father will never do the same.

He didn’t have an appetite to begin with, and now he stopped eating completely, just stared ahead at no one in particular. Next to him the conversation on dragons went on, as if it were the most interesting subject in the world. All of a sudden, he didn’t feel like he could keep on listening to it, and got up.

“I’ll see you guys later,” he mumbled, then left the Great Hall. No one came after him.

He didn’t know where to go. He didn’t want to go to the common room. It would just be full of people, people who would look at him with pity and sorrow and wouldn’t know what to say to him and he just couldn’t take it, not after a whole dinner of the same thing. The library was similarly a problem - it would close soon, so even if he did go there, it wouldn’t serve as a long time solution. He needed to find somewhere to go.

Without realising it, his feet took him the same path he had walked every night for the past week or so - to Greenhouse Five.

Professor Longbottom was there. He could hear his voice. But he wasn’t alone. Someone else was there, someone whose voice James knew so well.

“This isn’t what I signed up for, Neville,” the man said - Teddy, then sniffled. “This was never what I wanted to do. And I kept thinking, if Harry was there...”

James walked into the greenhouse. Teddy was covered with blood, his robes all muddy and red. His sleeve was torn, to reveal a nasty cut, and another one on his chin. And he was crying.

He stopped talking when James walked in, and both he and Professor Longbottom looked up in surprise.

“James,” Professor Longbottom said, in surprise at first, then his voice softened. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to ask what I should do today,” James said quietly.

Professor Longbottom looked at him in confusion, until understanding dawned. “Oh, James,” he said, “you don’t have to do your detention today.” James didn’t leave the greenhouse, didn’t move. Another moment, and Professor Longbottom nodded. “Perhaps this is the best option,” he said. “Get you busy. Thinking about other things. Let’s continue with the Tentacula, what do you say?”

James nodded, and went to fetch the endless pots of Venomous Tentacula.

Five minutes later, he had just finished to move one Tentacula into a proper pot, when two other kids walked into the greenhouse - Al and Scorpius Malfoy. They, too, had been given detention by Professor Longbottom, he remembered all of a sudden. It seemed Al had pretty much the same idea as James. Working in the greenhouse would be better than sitting in the common room.

Al and Malfoy soon were given their own plants to re-pot - although, he noted, their Tentaculas were significantly smaller than James’s. Even Teddy joined in. They all worked in silence for a few moments, until Professor Longbottom started telling a story - a funny story about the time he was working with Dad as an Auror, and a potential dark wizard who turned out to be a Squib who attempted magical gardening. Even James found himself laughing at the story - the thought of his father and Professor Longbottom, sneaking upon a hedge and attacked by overgrown vines was too funny. Until -

Boom.

Professor Longbottom froze, his sentence unfinished. Teddy’s wand was already raised, his eyes closed, and he was sniffing the air with his ears perked. Al started asking what was going on, but Professor Longbottom immediately barked, “Silence!”

Boom.

The whole ground shook.

Boom.

Whatever it was, it was getting closer.

“Get down,” Teddy whispered all of a sudden. “Under a desk, or behind a cupboard or something. Out if sight. All of you - move!”

They immediately obeyed. In one corner of the room, Al and Scorpius hid behind a cupboard. In the other end, James crouched under one of the desks. Teddy and Professor Longbottom walked towards the door, then peered outside.

It took only a few seconds. All of a sudden, Professor Longbottom was whispering, “Can we turn off the light? So they won’t know we’re here?”

Teddy shook his head. “They must have already seen it by now. The only thing we’d do is confirm there’s someone in here.”

Teddy was now crouching, out of sight, next to the door. Professor Longbottom went to cover the door from the other side. They weren’t moving. All James could hear was their heavy breathing. And then someone opened the door.

It was a small figure. He couldn’t see him very well, not with the lights that were exploding outside, but he could see enough to be certain - the pointed ears, the long nose, the short stature - it was a goblin. What took place next happened too fast for James to follow.

All he knew was that Teddy was crouching in his corner, probably hoping the goblin would go away; the goblin progressed and entered the greenhouse; someone coughed; the goblin located Al all of a sudden - then Teddy jumped and there was a blinding flash of light and all of a sudden Teddy was lying on the floor.

“Teddy!” Al shouted and jumped forward.

“Al!” James and Professor Longbottom shouted at the same time. The goblin paused, tensed, and Professor Longbottom started sending curses his way. James did, too - the best hexes he could think of, which, while not being as good as Professor Longbottom’s, could still help. Al was now crouching in the middle, covering his head with his arms, not daring to move in either direction, not towards Teddy and not back to his hiding place.

And then three more goblins arrived.

“Stupify!” James shouted and aimed his wand at them. “Stupify!” On the other side, he saw Professor Longbottom casting non-verbal spells, one after the other.

One goblin was down - but there were two more; one of them was advancing now, advancing towards Teddy - towards Al. “Al!” James shouted again - but no use, Al would’t move, Al wouldn’t lift his head, and James was already trying to figure out how to get there, how to drag his little brother out of harm’s way, when someone else did just that. Scorpius Malfoy lunged forward, grabbed Al, and dragged him back.

“Stupify!” James shouted, full of relief, that had turned into horror immediately. The goblin was now advancing towards Teddy. “Stupify!” He missed. The goblin kept on advancing. No, James thought desperately. Not Teddy. Not after Dad - he shouted again, another curse, and the goblin fell, inches before Teddy. Professor Longbottom had managed to defeat the other goblin at the same time. For the moment, they were saved.

James crawled now towards Teddy. Don’t be dead, he thought desperately. Don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead. Please please please. Professor Longbottom arrived there a second before James, and was checking Teddy’s pulse. James looked at him, hoping for some good news - anything but bad news.

He only breathed again when Professor Longbottom nodded. “He’s alive,” he said. But his voice was still anxious. “Help me get him on his side, we need to stop the bleeding.” Professor Longbottom tried to roll Teddy, then his face contorted in pain. James looked at him and saw that not all of the blood on his robes was Teddy’s.

With James’s help, they rolled Teddy over, then Professor Longbottom passed his wand over Teddy’s wound and started muttering some incantation. The bleeding had gradually stopped, but Teddy’s eyes were close, his breaths were shallow, and he wasn’t moving at all.

“We need to get him to Madam Pomfrey.”

“Is it safe out there?” James whispered. There were no explosions anymore, none that he could hear, but Professor Longbottom didn’t answer, and instead he froze and signalled to James to remain quiet - and remain on the floor, next to Teddy. With his wand in his hand, Professor Longbottom walked to the door, and now James could hear it too - footsteps. Someone else was coming.

“Who’s there?” a voice asked - a human voice. James didn’t recognise it, but it didn’t matter - it wasn’t a goblin. He breathed.

“Seamus!” Neville called, and the man burst into the greenhouse and now James could see it was Trishana’s father.

Someone joined him - Al and Scorpius had crawled out of their hiding place, and stopped next to James - next to Teddy. “Please don’t be dead, Teddy,” Al whispered to the unmoving man, “please don’t be dead, you can’t be dead, don’t be dead.”

“Neville!” Mr Finnigan said. “What are you - is that Lupin?” His eyes stopped, not on Teddy, but on James next to him. “Is everyone here alright?” he asked quietly.

“We have to get Teddy to the hospital wing,” Professor Longbottom said, and the urgency in his voice was clear. “Is it safe out there?”

Mr Finnigan was still looking at James when he nodded. “Yeah, yeah, all safe for now.”

Professor Longbottom flicked his wand, and Teddy was lifted in the air, moving towards the castle before Professor Longbottom. His limbs were hanging limp from his body, and after a while, his arm started bleeding again, leaving a trail of small droplets of blood on the floor of the castle’s entrance and up the stairs.

The hospital wing was full of people when they got there - and James’s heart skipped a beat when he saw Lily among them. She was standing, and she looked alright, and still he rushed to her as soon as he walked through the door.

“Lily!” he called. She turned to him, looking scared - but he couldn’t see any visible wounds, nor any blood anywhere on her robes.

“I’m fine, James, I’m fine,” she said.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“Aaron.” She gestured at her friend, who was lying in one of the hospital beds. He looked much better than Teddy - there was a huge bandage on his chest, but his eyes were open and alert. “We were on our way to the common room when we ran into goblins.”

“Inside the castle?” Professor Longbottom asked sharply. He had just finished lowering Teddy gently into a bed, and Madam Pomfrey rushed to them.

Lily nodded, and then James heard another familiar voice - Hermione’s. “A small group made it inside. It was lucky I noticed them, or this wouldn’t have ended well.”

“They attacked the students?”

Hermione nodded. The shock was crashing over James in waves. It couldn’t be, they couldn’t, the goblins had done their best until that time to keep the students of Hogwarts out of the fights. What could have happened to change that?

He sat down on one of the beds.

“James?” someone asked softly. It sounded wrong for some reason, and when he raised his head, he realised why. McGonagall was also sat on a bed, her arm and leg covered with bandages, and was now looking at him, her eyes full of concern, her voice almost shaking.

“I’m fine,” he said.

She closed her eyes. Now that he looked at her, she looked more worried than he’d ever seen her. “Make sure you all stay fine,” she said, and there was only the smallest trace of her usual stern self in her voice. “We’ve lost too many Potters in my lifetime.”

He wanted to say something, but was distracted by Ron’s raised voice. They could hear it all through the hospital wing now, even before he entered through the doors. “I want to know where this information came from!” he demanded, then burst through the doors. The person he was shouting at was none other than the Minister for Magic himself. “I want to know how this could have happened!”

“This is a hospital!” Madam Pomfrey barked at them immediately. “Keep your voices down!”

“Sorry, you’re right,” Ron mumbled, then rushed to Hugo. “I heard what happened, you’re alright?”

“Yeah, Dad, I’m fine, Aaron got cut a bit but Mum saved him.”

“This isn’t like the goblins,” Hermione said. “What happened, Ron?”

Ron didn’t answer. He looked instead at Lily, who was standing next to Hugo, then at Al and James. “You guys are alright?” he asked in a strained voice. James nodded. Ron still didn’t avert his gaze and made sure to check them with his eyes, as if suspecting they weren’t lying. Only when he was satisfied they were, in fact, all well, did he turn back to the Minister.

“I want to know where that information came from,” he said, his voice just as angry as it was before, if somewhat lower. “I want to know if we were set up for this.”

“I understand that, Ron. I will check with my sources and see what I can do.”

“I want to know whose fault this is!” Ron couldn’t help but raise his voice.

“It’s our fault.” James jumped - Teddy had regained consciousness. His face was nearly grey, and he had to drag himself up to a sitting position with obvious effort, and all the while he was looking directly at Ron. “We should have checked.”

“Teddy, lie down,” Ron snapped, but Teddy shook his head. “We should have checked!” he said louder, the pain clear in his voice.

“What happened?” Hermione asked again. Ron looked from Teddy to her and to the Minister, and didn’t reply. The Minister didn’t offer an explanation, either.

It was Teddy who spoke in the end. “We had information. Where the goblins were camping. At the Isle of Skye. We went there.”

“I was told the information was solid!” Ron said, sounding angry again.

Hermione looked at Teddy, not at Ron. “There weren’t any goblins there?” she asked quietly.

“Oh, there were goblins there. It just wasn’t a military camp. It was their families.” Teddy rubbed his eyes. “We didn’t check before we attacked. We were all so angry, Hermione. We wanted... We didn’t know,” he said. “We didn’t check.”

“They said it was one of the bases they were sending the attacks from,” Ron said, and his voice was no longer angry. He sounded almost pleading.

“We stopped. As soon as we realised who we were attacking. But it wasn’t soon enough.” Teddy looked at Ron again. “We should have checked.”

“So what happened here today, that was revenge?” Hermione asked slowly, quietly, as if making sure she understood them correctly.

“Yeah,” Teddy whispered, then his voice grew stronger. “Yeah. We killed their children, so they came here to kill ours.”

“I didn’t know,” Ron whispered.

“Harry wouldn’t have...” Teddy started, then stopped. His eyes filled with tears.

Ron walked to his bed, and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” he said softly. “I know.”

James couldn’t take his eyes off the two of them. None of them could. He didn’t bother looking at the door when he heard it open. He didn’t even register the noise until he heard the voice.

“Who did it?” someone asked hoarsely. “Which one of you was it?”

Professor Griphook. He was standing at the door, his face contorted with rage, and asked again, slowly and intently. “Which one of you was it?”

“Griphook, calm down,” Ron said sharply.

Professor Griphook didn’t calm down. Rather, he stared at Ron, as if it were the first time he had seen him. “Weasley. You were his friend. All these years. Doing everything together,” he whispered. “Potter and Weasley. From the beginning. You would be the one to take his place.”

“Griphook...”

It happened so fast. James didn’t even see the goblin move, barely saw the scuffle, just the result - Professor Griphook had somehow managed to get hold of a wand - Hugo’s wand. And now he was pressing it to Hugo.

Hugo didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. He looked paralysed with fear, staring with big eyes at his father.

“Griphook!” Ron shouted and took a step closer to the goblin. “Let him go!”

“How many goblin children did you kill today, Ron Weasley?” Griphook whispered. His eyes seemed to almost sparkle.

“Griphook... let him go...”

“How many?!” the goblin demanded.

“It was a mistake, it was an honest mistake, we didn’t know, let him go, that’s my son, let him go!”

“I know who this is,” the goblin said, the hatred unmistakeable in his voice. “I know perfectly well.”

Ron’s eyes opened wide as he shook his head. He raised his wand at the goblin, but didn’t cast any spell. James looked wildly from Ron to Hugo and the goblin. There was no way to curse Griphook without hitting Hugo too. Perhaps from behind... James started moving slowly, hoping the goblin would not notice him, and that he could reach behind him and perhaps use a spell - any spell - to set Hugo free. Did Griphook even know how to use a wand? He must have.

Hermione got there before he did. “Stupify,” she said quietly. The curse hit both Hugo and Griphook, and they both fell to the floor. She jumped to take the wand and grab Hugo. Griphook hit the floor with a thump. “Rennervate,” she said the counter curse, her wand aimed at Hugo. He opened his eyes.

The entire room was quiet, holding his breath, and so they could all hear Hugo asking weakly, “Mum?”

“It’s okay,” she answered softly, “it’s over.”

“Get him out of here,” Ron said, his voice hoarse. “Back to the dormitories, all of you. Get them all out of here!” He walked now to the unconscious goblin on the floor. “As for him...”

“Ron!” Hermione said sharply.

“I’m just going to take him somewhere where he can’t do any more damage,” Ron said resolutely. “Him and the centaur both.”

“Firenze?” she asked, shocked. “Firenze wouldn’t - ”

“And yesterday, did you think Griphook would?!” Ron retorted. “They’re dangerous. Both of them. You’ve heard them a thousand times, they want to go back to their kind, and what’s the best way than this?” he gestured wildly at Hugo.

Lily started crying next to James. He wanted to wrap his arm around her, but couldn’t get himself to move, just stared at his aunt and uncle. Everything was wrong. It was all wrong. None of it was supposed to go that way.

But it was happening. Ron had flicked his wand, and now the goblin was hovering in the air, much like Teddy had a few minutes ago. The goblin’s unconscious body floated outside, and Ron marched out of the room behind it. The Minister followed him, talking quietly and urgently. Hermione looked defeated. “Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll walk you to Gryffindor tower.”

James started following her when all of a sudden he heard his name. “Potter.” It was Madam Pomfrey. She had finally finished bandaging Professor Longbottom’s wound and was now eyeing him critically. “I want to have a look at you.”

“I’m fine,” he said automatically.

She raised an eyebrow and gestured at his robes. They were covered with blood - Teddy’s blood. He started explaining it was Teddy’s, not his, but she wouldn’t listen. She insisted he stayed behind.

Another minute and she reached the same conclusion as he had told her. By now, the hospital wing was empty, only the wounded were there on the beds - and Scorpius Malfoy, who did not go with Al and the rest to Gryffindor tower, of course, and looked completely lost.

Professor Longbottom realised it at the exact same moment as James had. “I’d walk - argh,” he said as he tried to get off the bed, and his arm twisted in an unnatural way.

“You’re staying right here,” Madam Pomfrey said sternly.

“Someone needs to walk Mr Malfoy to his dormitories.” Malfoy started saying he could go on his own, but Professor Longbottom shook his head. “Not today, Mr Malfoy.”

“I’ll do it,” James said quietly.

Professor Longbottom considered it for a moment. He didn’t look happy with the idea, but eventually nodded. “Okay. But go straight back to your dormitories afterwards, James. No trips tonight. No shortcuts. No anything. Slytherin, and then back to Gryffindor.”

“Yes, sir,” James said, then jerked his head towards the exit. “C’mon, Malfoy.”

Malfoy looked alarmed for a moment, then nodded and walked out of the hospital wing. James followed him and they walked in silence towards the lower part of the castle.

Their path took them past the closed door of Dad’s office. James averted his eyes from the door. He didn’t want to see it, the name ‘Professor H. Potter’ on the door, to remember that the office was empty behind it.

He looked instead at Malfoy, but Malfoy was looking at the door. All of a sudden James remembered. Malfoy had been caught in Dad’s office - only yesterday. That was why he and Al were in the greenhouse today, he got detention for it. It felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like the life of someone else, someone who knew his father would return home when everything was said and done.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

“What for?” Malfoy’s voice was flat and disinterested.

“Jumping to save Al like that. If you hadn’t...” If Malfoy had not saved his little brother today, there might have been another dead Potter for McGonagall to mourn over.

“He’s my friend,” Malfoy said simply. James didn’t challenge his assertion.

They walked in silence the rest of the way. Once at the dungeons, Malfoy stopped in front of a blank wall. “We’re here,” he said. James turned to leave, but then he heard Malfoy calling him. “Potter?” Malfoy sounded almost scared.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. About your father.”

“Yeah.”

“I got this feeling we’re all going to be sorry, for a very long time,” Malfoy said quietly, then spoke the password to the wall and entered the Slytherin dormitories.

James started climbing up towards the Gryffindor dormitories. His legs took him automatically through the same path he had walked with Malfoy. He could hardly see where he was walking. Only when he reached his father’s office again did he stop. He couldn’t pass by that door without doing anything.

He walked up to the door. There it was, the small name plaque. ‘Professor H. Potter’, it said, as if it were any sort of indication of the man who occupied that office. Until yesterday. His fingers trailed the name on the plaque. Scorpius Malfoy had said everyone will be sorry, now that his father was gone. He was right. Tonight was just the beginning. For once, Scorpius Malfoy was on top of things. Scorpius Malfoy...

He had entered the room. And had watched his father’s memories. And if Malfoy could do it... James had a right. It was his father. He didn’t belong to everyone, even though sometimes it felt like that. He belonged to them - Mum and Al and Lily and James. He pushed the door open in determination.

It was on the table, just like he remembered. McGonagall’s Pensieve. And inside it... James took a step forward, then another step.

Something caught his eye on the table. One of the photographs was out of place. He picked it up gingerly, and couldn’t understand why that one, out of all the photographs in the room. Dad didn’t have a lot of childhood photographs - in fact, he had none from before he went to Hogwarts, and even then, he didn’t have a lot. This was one of his Hogwarts-time photographs, from the Quidditch World Cup - just him with Hermione and Ron, laughing about something. They kept on laughing, all of those years.

James stared at the photograph hard. It was ridiculous, how much fourteen-year-old Dad looked like Al in that photograph. If it weren’t for the glasses and scar, he would have thought it was Al. Something started stinging in the corner of James’s eye.

No, he shook his head. No. He put the photograph down and blinked furiously, refusing to cry. Instead he walked straight to the Pensieve and threw his head in.

The graveyard, the Department of Mysteries, the Astronomy tower, Godric’s Hollow, Malfoy Manor, the forest. Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange; Cedric Diggory and Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore and Uncle Fred and Remus Lupin and Severus Snape. He emerged again, perhaps a few minutes later. Perhaps a thousand years. It didn’t feel like he left at all. His mind was full of images, of events he had never heard about, had never even dreamt about, but they offered no escape, no respite from reality.

How could his father be gone? He could he leave them? They didn’t know what to do without him, without the hero, the saviour of the entire wizarding world. James didn’t know what to do without his father. He curled down on the floor, and for the first time since morning, allowed the tears out in a howl of misery and pain.

Chapter 18: Memento Mori

Boom. The entire castle shook. James woke with a start.

For one blissful moment, he had no idea where he was and why he was there. And then the events of the day came back in a rush. He was in his father’s office, and the goblins were attacking the castle again in revenge. And Dad wasn’t around to talk to them and make them stop.

It was wrong. It was all wrong. And it won’t be alright again, because the only way to fix things would be for his father to still be alive.

James looked at the Pensieve. That was the last memory there - his father, walking to his death, walking to meet Voldemort - and then surviving. The Pensieve didn’t say how he survived; that must not have been as painful a memory as everything that came before it, James thought. As for the victory, that was not likely to be there - that he only knew from his grandfather’s story. The Pensieve didn’t show him what everyone else had thought at the time - were they like him, curled, full of despair, positive that there was no hope left, even though there was hope, because Dad didn’t die, he survived and defeated Voldemort.

And if he could survive Voldemort and come back to save everyone else against all odds, why couldn’t he do the same now, when he faced the goblins? If the only way to make things better was if his father were still alive, then why couldn’t he still be alive, miraculously survive, and come save them all?

Because that was what he saw in the Pensieve, really. He was wrong; they were both wrong, he and his father. These were not the worst moments in his father’s life, these were the moments when his father had always beaten the odds. The moments he always survived, even if it made no sense that he would.

He knew what his father would have said to that. He would have probably called James immature, or hint that it was stupid, to believe that just because James needed him to be alive, he could be, he would be. But James didn’t care. He got up, sniffled, and wiped his face. He wasn’t going to sit there, to cower from the goblins, and think it was all lost. He was going to find his father and tell him that he had to come back home, because they needed him. Because James needed him.

He looked around, slightly confused. He had no idea what time it was, except that it was the middle of the night. He had no idea what to do and how to achieve his great plan to find his father, to prove that his father had once again beaten death, but he knew he had to do it quickly. It must have been twenty-four hours since the goblins had announced that Dad was dead, possibly more. James was running out of time. Even if they were lying. It was like Christmas, in a way. There had to be some time to allow for action, but not if they were going to waste it on crying and thinking it was all lost.

But where to begin? On Christmas, Ron had been with Dad most of the time. He knew where he had disappeared, and so the Ministry knew where Dad was, more or less. James didn’t even know where Dad had gone to, all he knew was that he went to meet the goblins. Presumably, he went to the goblins’ own camp. Dad was like that - he had learned to speak the goblins’ language, he probably had no problem visiting them right in the enemy’s stronghold.

And no one knew where the enemy’s stronghold was. Ron certainly didn’t - if they had, they would have attacked that camp, not the one with families of the goblins. The only wizard who did know the location of the camp was Dad, because he’d been there. And James. Because he’d been there too.

He needed a broom.

James walked to the door and opened it a crack. The corridor was completely empty. He wasn’t surprised - the students would be sleeping in their dormitories, or else hiding. And the teachers must have all been outside, with the Aurors, fighting the goblins.

He still tiptoed out, and closed the door softly. He didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence. As if to remind him of the danger, the entire castle shook again. The battle was going on and on. If the goblins made it into the castle again... but no. They wouldn’t. He would get to the Astronomy tower first, then get Dad, then manage to stop this whole thing.

The climb to the Astronomy tower had never felt this long. He was terrified that he would be caught by a teacher, or perhaps by Professor McGonagall. He had no idea whether the wounded were still in the hospital wing, or whether they had joined the fight. If he knew Professor McGonagall at all, she would be out there, fighting the goblins, protecting the school.

After a walk that felt like eternity, he made it to the tower. There, exactly where he had left it only a few days before, was the broom, the same broom the goblins had given him, the same broom that had taken him to the goblins’ camp. Twenty minutes’s northeast of Hogwarts, he told himself. That was all it took.

He mounted the broom and started flying.

From up above, the battle looked almost like a game. Here a flash of light, there a small dark figure advancing. But it wasn’t a game. It was real. He hadn’t realised just how many goblins there were, not until he could see them, all of them, from up above, rushing at the castle.

For a moment he was worried; what if McGonagall and the others had put protective spells around the castle? What if the skies were blocked? It definitely looked as if some advanced spells were blocking the goblins on the ground. But he passed above the walls of Hogwarts without a problem. The teachers were not afraid of what could arrive from the sky - or, perhaps, never got the opportunity to protect the castle in that direction.

He continued his flight towards the goblin camp.

Twenty minutes later, and he started panicking. Was it possible he got the direction wrong? Perhaps he veered too much east, or too much north? Or not enough? Shouldn’t he have seen the goblin camp by now? But all he could see beneath him was the forest. Trees, trees, trees, and perhaps, if he looked down carefully, he could see dark spots between the trees, a clearing between the woods, just like - that was it. That was the camp, beneath him.

It didn’t look like it had a few days ago, when James had first made the journey. There were campfires then, and movement. It looked abandoned now. There was no one there. Were they all at Hogwarts, attacking the school, trying to kill wizard children in revenge for the goblin children who had died? He didn’t know. And if there was no one there, was there still a chance his father was there? He didn’t dare ask that question, not even think about it. Instead, he started descending, looking for a spot to land his broom.

He found it, right outside the camp. He didn’t need to worry about goblins spotting him. Just as he had seen from above, the place was deserted. But now, up close, as he walked into the camp, he knew it wasn’t deserted because of the attack. The goblins who had made it there did not join the effort to destroy Hogwarts.

They were dead.

He looked around in terrified fascination. Something - someone - had attacked all those goblins. There weren’t so many there, he saw, there were less bodies than the goblins he had seen alive a few days ago, and the dead centaur here and there definitely did not come up with the amount of centaurs who were in the camp a few nights ago. Some of the goblins got away, some of the centaurs got away - or perhaps, he thought, some of the goblins and centaurs had killed the others.

There were so many of them, covered with blood, their eyes open but unseeing.

For a second, nausea took over him. The blood, the bodies, he couldn’t look at it. He shook his head and forced himself to move forward. He had to. If his father was there, he was the only one who knew about it, and the only one who could help him. His father never cowered from such situations, James told himself off. His father would have gone on. James should, too.

He didn’t dare think the obvious - what if his father’s body was lying there, somewhere, between the goblins.

“Dad?” he asked in a whisper. There was no answer. “Dad?” Just the dead goblins all around him. He stopped and rubbed his eyes and started looking around again. All he could see were dead goblins. He had to focus. Maybe... something... anything - was that black hair, over there?

He paused. It was black hair. Human black hair. Buried somewhere underneath the goblins. He didn’t dare move. He didn’t dare breathe. He wanted to go there so badly, and yet - and yet he couldn’t. He couldn’t, not until he knew that the owner of that black hair was still alive, wasn’t going to be like the goblins, covered with blood and his eyes open and glazed and unseeing.

“Dad?” he whispered again.

There was no response.

And then - a cough. Something moved. Was it there? Was it his father? It looked like it was the same place, like whatever was shaking these bodies could also be the owner of the black hair... James ran and ran until he reached the goblins and started shoving the bodies away, one by one.

The impossible had happened. The miracle was true - another miracle, once again. Harry Potter was alive, despite everything.

Dad was covered with blood. His robes were in tatters. James could see the wounds underneath them, and the fresh blood. His father coughed again, and relief washed over James. His hand shook as he grabbed his father, as he tried to pull him out, but Dad was so heavy, too heavy, and James couldn’t drag him out.

“Dad,” he repeated in whispers, “get up, wake up, I need to get you out of here.”

His father stirred, but his eyes did not open. He opened his mouth, and blood trickled out.

“Dad,” James said now, louder and stern, almost as stern as Professor McGonagall. “You need to wake up. I need to get you out of here, but I need your help. Wake up.”

His father moved again, coughed again, and opened an eye. “James?” he whispered, or rather, tried to whisper, because only his lips moved. Almost no voice came out, except for a gurgling sound.

James laughed in relief. “It’s me, I’m here, I’ve come to take you home, I’m here to take you to Hogwarts, we need to go.”

“Who... else...”

“No one else. Just me. Come on.”

Dad blinked, but didn’t move. He made the gurgling sound again, but didn’t make any attempt to pull himself out from between the bodies. He closed his eyes. The relief drained out of James just as it had appeared - Dad was still alive, but he wasn’t doing well at all.

“Dad. Stay with me. Please. I need your help. I need you to help me, alright? And stay awake, I need you to stay awake, please stay awake, please don’t die...”

Dad opened his eyes again, then nodded. “Get... out...” he muttered.

“Yeah, we need to get out of here. I got a broom here, we’ll take it back to Hogwarts, alright? But I need you to help me get you out of here, I can’t pull you myself.”

“Wand...”

James looked at his father in confusion, then at his wand. Of course! There were spells for that, weren’t there? And while he didn’t know the spell Professor Longbottom had used to move Teddy around, he knew a couple to make Dad a bit lighter, and perhaps even to move him, just a bit. Wingardium Leviosa wasn’t much good for heavy objects like people, but it might just give him the push he needed. He aimed his wand at his father and said the incantation. Dad moved, just an inch, then another, then another. It was all James needed. Now he could grab him and push him out.

Out in the open, not obscured by dead goblins, James could see just how badly his father was wounded. The blood was flowing freely out of some of the wounds, while others looked so deep that there couldn’t possibly be any blood left in them. he remembered what Teddy had said about Dad’s wand - he was fighting for his life in the end. He certainly looked that way. His face as grey and ashen, and he could barely keep his eyes open.

There was no way he could carry him back on the broom. There was no way Dad could hold on. But he couldn’t leave him there - not in this condition. Even with this impossible miracle, James could see it wouldn’t be long before his father would be dead.

“Dad,” he knelt in front of his father, taking Dad’s hand in his. “I’m gonna tie you to me, so we could take the broom back, and you wouldn’t fall, okay? That way we’ll both get to Hogwarts. But it’s going to be a bit uncomfortable.”

Dad snorted. Or maybe just tried to breathe. James wasn’t sure. He decided to assume it was a snort, because if it were, then maybe Dad’s condition was better than it looked after all. He quickly climbed to the broom, then pulled his father behind him, again using the levitation spell, and then aimed his wand again. Small ropes shot out of the wand and engulfed the both of them. He put his father’s hands around him anyway, just in case.

“Hold tight,” he told his father and kicked up to the sky.

He was flying as fast as he could, but the broom was heavy with the weight of the two of them, and his father was barely holding on. He could feel him slipping, and shouted behind, above the wind, “Hold on! Just a little bit longer, you need to hold on!” He could feel his father’s hands loosen their grip on him. “No!” he shouted. “Hold on!”

“James...” his father’s voice came in a rasp and sounded nothing like his father usually sounded.

“It’s okay, I’m getting you to Hogwarts.”

“Land... broom...”

“No, Dad, we’re almost there, only fifteen minutes to go, only ten, we’re almost there.”

“Land... please...” Dad’s grip slackened some more.

Now James could feel the panic rising. What if his father fell? Was this what he was trying to tell him? He scanned the ground, and when he found another small clearing, isolated between the mountains and the trees, he made for it.

As soon as he landed the broom, he released the magical ropes that bounded his father and jumped to check on him. Dad was as cold as ice and shaking violently. James swore - he didn’t think about it, but above, with the winds and the clouds, it was so much colder, and with so much blood lost... his father was now in the danger of freezing to death, too.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he whispered, and started pulling off his robe to cover his father. He would do with the jumper underneath. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about the cold, I’m sorry.”

But as he tried to cover his father with the robe, his father’s hand shot and grabbed him. Despite the blood loss, despite his wounds, his father’s grip was as strong as steel.

“James... in my pocket...” Dad rasped.

“It’s okay, we’re almost there, we’re almost - ”

“No! Listen to me,” Dad said in a hoarse voice, then had to pause and breathe. His voice came out again in rasps, almost in a whisper. “My pocket... take...”

“I will, I will,” James said, and sent his hand to his dad’s pocket, but Dad shook his head. “Chest pocket... inside...” James opened the robe, and searched for a pocket on the inside - and then he found it. There was something in there. Papers. Dad’s blood was smeared all over them.

“Important... You need to get that... Kingsley... get that to Kingsley.”

“We both will,” James said clearly and sounded much more confident than he felt. “You’ll give it to him yourself.”

“If I don’t - ”

“You will!”

“James. Stop. Listen.” He could see the effort in his father’s eyes, the pain it was causing him, just to speak, and nodded.

“I’m listening, Dad,” he said.

“Whatever happens. Kingsley. Give it to Kingsley. Tell him... tell him... binding... magical...” Dad started coughing again. Blood trickled down his mouth. There was no time to lose.

James hauled him back up on the broomstick, covered him with the robe, then used the ropes again to tie the two of them together so he wouldn’t fall, and kicked up towards Hogwarts.

Ten minutes later and he reached the Hogwarts grounds. The broom kept on above the walls, above the grounds, straight to the Astronomy tower. Beneath him, there was no sign of the battle, no explosions in red and green, no small figures on the ground. It was over. The castle, it seemed, was safe for another day.

He landed the broom on the top of the Astronomy tower. Immediately, he turned to check on his father - his breathing was shallow, his skin clammy, and his eyes were closed. “Dad,” James called quietly, but Dad didn’t even stir. “Dad...” he whispered again.

A moment’s hesitation, and he rushed down the stairs and towards the hospital wing. It only took five minutes, but they seemed like forever.

The lights in the hospital wing were on; the room was packed. It seemed like after a war - in a way, James knew, it was. Madam Pomfrey was rushing around, giving potions and casting healing spells. Some of the seventh-year students, those who knew enough about Potions and Charms and were already planning their career as Healers, were helping her. Some of the teachers, too, were treating the wounded, even though those teachers were wounded themselves: Professor Longbottom still had the wound in his arm from before; Professor McGonagall had acquired a new gash on her cheek; and Hermione did her best not to put any weight on her right leg as she performed spell after spell on one of the Aurors.

No one looked up when James walked inside. No one noticed him. As far as he could tell, no one had even heard him - mayhem ruled, and barely anything could be heard over the commotion.

He walked to Professor Longbottom; he was treating Ron, but Ron was on his feet and didn’t look as bad as Mrs Finnigan or Professor Flitwick.

“Ron...” he started. Both his teacher and his uncle jumped.

“James!” Ron said in shock, and the call alerted Hermione as well, who was standing nearby. He looked him up and down in concern - no wonder, James realised, as he was covered in blood. “Are you hurt? Did you run into goblins?”

“I’m fine. Dad...”

“They haven’t returned his body yet,” Ron said in confusion. “We don’t - ”

“No - he’s alive! He’s here! I need you to help me get him here!”

Ron and Hermione looked at one another. Then Hermione looked at James critically. They were thinking he was confused, he thought, they were thinking he got hit by something the goblins did. “James, let me check if you’re - ”

“I’m fine! That’s not my blood! It’s Dad’s! He’s here at the top of the Astronomy tower and I need you to help me get him here because I don’t know how to do it myself and if we don’t get him here soon he will die!”

“I’ll go,” he heard a voice - Teddy. Teddy still didn’t look very well, but he could now stand on his feet. James felt a rush of gratitude to Teddy.

“I’ll come with you,” Professor Longbottom said quietly.

“We’ll all go,” Hermione and Ron said together. Hermione cast a quick spell in James’s direction, undoubtedly to check whether he really was alright. He ignored her.

Without waiting further, James turned on his heels and started running the distance back to the Astronomy tower. None of the others were running after him - they weren’t in any shape to run.

When he reached the top of the tower, he couldn’t even see his father. Had he not known where he had left him, covered with James’s own robes, he wouldn’t have been able to guess. As it were, he could only see a dark lump, slightly darker than the space around it.

He rushed to the lump - to his father - with growing dread, the same dread he had felt before in the goblin camp. What if, while he was gone... No; he could hear Dad’s rasping breath beneath the robe. “It’s okay,” he whispered, even though he knew his father couldn’t hear him. “They’re coming. It’s okay.”

The others didn’t seem to take him too seriously - it had taken them forever until they got there. But at last they arrived, and then - “What’s that?” Ron asked in a strained voice. “Where James is...”

Teddy was already running. He crouched next to James and stared at Dad. “Harry!” he called. The rest appeared in an instance.

“Is he...”

“He’s still alive,” Teddy confirmed. “Merlin... Harry... How did he...” Teddy was rambling now.

“Come on, help me get him to the hospital!” James said, and they all returned to their senses. Professor Longbottom flicked his wand, and Dad was lifted in the air; Hermione started casting spell after spell, undoubtedly to prevent Dad from bleeding more, to prevent any more damage. Ron tried to wrap Dad with the robe. Teddy just stood there, shaking.

It took longer to get Dad back to the hospital wing - ten whole minutes until James rushed and opened the door. This time, their entrance did not go unnoticed. The room slowly turned quiet as more and more people noticed them walking in, noticed there was someone floating in the air, in front of them - and then realised who the wounded man was.

Someone gasped. Padma Finnigan got on her feet with obvious difficulty, tried to look closer, as if to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. “Is that...?” Professor Scamander asked.

“Madam Pomfrey,” Hermione said, her voice clear but shaking. “We need a bed. And we need you.”

At that exact moment, the Minister walked into the hospital. “Ron!” he called and hurried towards them. “I heard - someone said...” his eyes fell on Dad. “Is he...?”

“He’s alive,” Ron said, and all of a sudden, James remembered what Dad had asked of him.

“Minister,” he said quietly. The Minister didn’t hear him - he was too busy asking how could Dad still be alive, how did he get there, and other unimportant questions.

“Minister!” James said again, loudly. The Minister stopped mid-sentence and looked at James. “Dad said to give you this.” He handed over the papers from his pocket - crumpled and blood-stained, but they were readable. Now that James handed them over, he saw the writing on them - not in English, but the same writing he had seen all those months ago in Hogsmeade. Gobbledegook. And then he understood. “He said it was a binding magical contract,” he said.

The Minister’s eyes widened in surprise. He stared at the papers for a moment, then called Professor McGonagall. He pointed at something on the paper. “Isn’t that the goblin word for...”

“Peace,” she said. Her hand shot to her mouth, and her eyes travelled to Dad. “He did it.”

“Macmillan!” The Minister roared. Someone showed up behind him.

“Get this translated! As soon as possible!” He pushed the papers into his aide’s hands. Macmillan barely walked two steps towards the door, when the Minister shouted again.

“Macmillan! And tell them to check it through legal!”

“Yes, sir.” Once again, the aide managed two steps before the Minister’s booming voice stopped him again.

“And call Seamus! Stand them down! Stand them all down!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And tell legal to check that these battles today aren’t a problem!”

“Yes, sir.”

“What the hell are you still doing here?!” the Minister roared, and his poor aide rushed through the door, afraid of any more instructions.

The Minister turned his attention to Dad. “He did it,” he said. “I didn’t believe... he did it.”

In all the commotion, Madam Pomfrey now wheeled Dad’s bed to the corner, further away than anyone else. James followed her. “Get back to your dormitories,” Madam Pomfrey snapped at him between applying potions and spells.

“No, I’m staying.”

“James,” Ron tried, “this isn’t - ”

“I’m staying right here!”

“Let him stay,” Professor McGonagall said. She had followed the Minister to the corner of the room and was now looking at Dad, a strange expression on her face. And then she looked back at James, and gave him a rare smile. “Let him stay if he wants to.”

Madam Pomfrey looked at her sullenly, as if about to argue, then nodded. James grabbed a chair and sat down, far enough not to get in the way, but close enough to make sure he could see his dad all the time.

He stayed there even after Madam Pomfrey said she had done all she could for him, even after she had sent a message to the Healers of St Mungo’s and requested help in transferring Dad to the hospital. He stayed there even after most of the wounded were released from the hospital, and the few who remained went to sleep. The hospital was dark now, Madam Pomfrey was busying herself elsewhere, and all around him he could hear the deep breaths of the sleeping.

His father’s breathing had become more regular too, more relaxed. He wasn’t out of danger yet, that was what Madam Pomfrey had said, but if they got him to St Mungo’s in the morning, he would be alright. James nodded when she said so, but still refused to go to his own bed. “I’ll stay here,” he said, and this time, no one argued.

He tried to stay awake, to make sure his father was alright, but he fell asleep at some point. Then he woke up again - he wasn’t sure what had woken him up. Another goblin attack? No, the castle was completely still. Perhaps it was a dream, he thought and was about to close his eyes again, when he saw light reflected in something in front of him. His father’s eyes were open.

He didn’t say anything. James wasn’t sure he could. He just lay there, his eyes open, looking at James.

“It’s okay,” James whispered. “It’s just me. Go back to sleep.”

Dad closed is eyes, and so did James.

-X-

“James,” someone called his name. “James.”

He opened his eyes. He was lying in bed, but it wasn’t his bed. Whose bed... he was in the hospital wing. It took a moment before he remembered everything, and then he sat up with a jump.

Professor Longbottom was standing in front of his bed, with no sign of his wounds from the night before. Other than the two of them, the hospital was completely deserted.

“Dad - ” he started, but Professor Longbottom smiled.

“They moved them all to St Mungo’s hours ago,” he said. “He’s going to be fine. And...” Professor Longbottom hesitated, then said, “I guess it will do no harm to tell you, everyone will know soon enough. The treaty checked out. He knew what he was doing with it. The war is over. We talked to the goblins. There won’t be any more attacks, on the school or anywhere else. He did it. He ended this war, too.”

Professor Longbottom was smiling now, a huge smile, but James’s eyes stinging with tears all of a sudden. He tried to blink them away, but couldn’t. Why was he crying now, when everything was fine? It was ridiculous! His father was going to be okay, and the war of twenty years was over, and everyone would be celebrating and happy and why was he crying?

“It’s okay to feel a little overwhelmed,” Professor Longbottom said quietly. “That’s quite some news - and you’ve had quite a difficult day yesterday.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just...” James shook his head. He didn’t really have the words to explain. “Do they know why the goblins tried to kill him? If they just signed a peace treaty?”

Professor Longbottom nodded. “Harry told us what happened. There were two factions of goblins. He was negotiating with their leaders, the people who had the authority to negotiate for all the goblins. Another group of goblins didn’t want them to sign the treaty, no matter what. They tried to kill everyone there, to stop them from signing it. But they were too late.”

“But if the goblins who wanted peace are dead, doesn’t that mean the war will just start all over again?”

“No. There are plenty of goblins who want this peace - actually, it’s a pretty good deal they got from Harry. And goblin magic and contracts work a bit differently to wizarding ones.”

“Like the goblins in Gringotts,” James said.

“Exactly. Like the goblins who kept working in Gringotts all through the war. It’s a different kind of contract. As soon as it became public, they can’t back down, unless some pretty serious things happen - and that’s quite unlikely,” Professor Longbottom added hastily, as if to reassure James. “Harry already talked to them. They agreed that the circumstances yesterday are special enough that the agreement will not be annulled despite the fighting. They trust Harry enough to accept that - and I think they probably feel a little guilty as well.”

James thought of yesterday, but not about how his father turned out to be alive. He thought of how everything went wrong, when they all thought he was dead. “What happens when he dies?” he asked quietly.

“What?” Professor Longbottom asked, taken aback.

“This worked because of him. And then they agreed the treaty is still valid because of him. This whole peace - that’s thanks to him, isn’t it? What happens when he dies? Even if it’s naturally, even if it’s in a hundred years, what happens then?”

“I don’t know,” Professor Longbottom said quietly. He sat now on the bed next to James. “You know, back at the end of the war, the very end... your father came here, and then Voldemort came here too.”

“He had to turn himself over,” James said automatically, thinking of the memory he had seen in the Pensieve. “I know.”

“Yeah,” Professor Longbottom looked down for a moment. “Voldemort thought he had killed him, and then he came back here and announced it, that Harry was dead, and - ” he looked now at James. “I know it’s hard. He’s your father, but he’s also a symbol for everyone else. We all want a bit of him,” Professor Longbottom chuckled, and even James smiled. “You can’t understand what he means for the rest of us,” he added as an afterthought, “but that’s a good thing. You shouldn’t understand that. Not ever.”

Then Professor Longbottom jumped on his feet. “Anyway,” he declared, “time you got out of here. Professor McGonagall wants to see you in her office.”

“McGonagall?” James looked at him in confusion.

“There’s still the unfinished business of your breaking the school rules,” Professor Longbottom said, and James stared at him in horror. After everything - after all that had happened - they couldn’t possibly - “I think it it would be okay if I told you that you won’t be packing your bags today,” Professor Longbottom said carefully, but with a twinkle in his eye. “But off you go, before she changes her mind.”

Relieved, James climbed down from the hospital bed and rushed through the door and to McGonagall’s office. He hesitated for a moment before the great oak door, then knocked.

“Come in,” he heard McGonagall’s voice from behind the door. He pushed the door open and walked into the room. “Sit,” she said.

He sat down in front of her. She studied him quietly with her stern expression, and all the relief he got from Professor Longbottom’s words evaporated. She didn’t look very likely to let him off the hook.

“Your father also had a penchant for breaking the rules of this school when he was a student here,” she said all of a sudden. “In his second year, he had done some ridiculous stunt that almost caused his expulsion. By the end of that year, he must have broken a dozen school rules more, and that resulted in his receiving a special award for services to the school - after saving several students’ lives.”

James didn’t quite dare ask the question he was thinking, and when Professor McGonagall had next opened her mouth, he was glad he didn’t.

“You are not about to receive a special award for services to the school,” she said sternly. “However, I think we can put the matter of your expulsion away for the moment.”

“Thank you, Headmistress,” he said weakly.

“I expect you not to break any more school rules, Mr Potter.”

“Ever?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking.

Her expression was as stern as ever, but he was sure he saw the edges of her mouth twitching. “For the rest of this year, at least,” she said, and he broke into a smile.

“Yes, Professor,” he said.

“Off you go, then,” she said, and he jumped out of the chair and left her office.

-X-
It was hard to believe, but life at Hogwarts continued normally. The news, mixed with a generous amount of ridiculous rumours, spread around the school; classes continued as usual, with the exception of Defence Against the Dark Arts, which once again had no professor to teach it, and Astronomy, as no one was quite sure what to do with Griphook; and on Saturday, Gryffindor was playing Ravenclaw in the Quidditch House Cup.

Roxanne caught up with James on Friday, looking almost apologetic. “Look, you’re a great player, and I want you to play, but Professor Longbottom said you’re still not back on the team,” she said.

“It’s okay,” James said with a smile. “Don’t worry about it.” He knew if his ban from the team continued all the way to May he would probably be angry and upset about it, but right now, only days after the excitement and with both his parents alive and soon to be well, nothing could ruin his good mood, not even sitting and watching the Quidditch game from the stands.

And so, on Saturday morning, he joined Al and Lily as they were walking towards the Quidditch pitch. “Shame you’re not on the team,” he told Al. “Should be a Potter there playing.”

“I hate Quidditch,” Al said all of a sudden. James stared at him in shock. How could anyone hate Quidditch?

“You’re just yanking my chain,” he accused his little brother.

“Nope. Hate it.”

“Are you sure you’re my brother?!” he demanded, and then -

“Well, I certainly hope so, seeing as I was there when he was born.”

Dad’s robes were loose, looking more like hospital robes than real ones. The colour still wasn’t back to his face, and the old lightning-bolt scar looked red and angry. He was leaning on a walking stick. But there was a huge smile plastered all over his face, and James needed all his self control not to jump on him in greeting - Dad looked too frail to withstand it.

“Dad!” Al and Lily shouted and rushed to him. Dad hugged them, loosely and weakly but with much enthusiasm. Then he let go of them and looked at James.

He studied James for a moment, then a smile appeared on his face, and James could feel himself cracking a smile too. He rushed forward and hugged his father. Dad’s hands wrapped around him too, and while they weren’t their usual strength, and it felt as if Dad was using him for support as much as hugging him, James didn’t mind one bit.

Eventually they broke free of each other, and Dad looked at him again, the smile still on his face. “You saved my life,” he said.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” James answered.

“I seem to remember telling you not to try and play the hero,” Dad said, but there wasn’t any anger in his voice, only amusement. And something more. “Come on, let’s go watch the game,” he said. They walked towards the Quidditch pitch, Dad half leaning on his walking stick, half on James. Everyone stared at them walking with mouthes open wide, gaping in awe at Harry Potter.

There were benefits to watching the game from the stands, especially with Dad’s commentary, who seemed to be slightly exasperated with the Gryffindor team. “Who are these chasers?” he demanded after James’s replacement fumbled an easy pass. Another time, he made such a frustrated voice that James couldn’t help but ask, “What?” and in response, Dad pointed at the other end of the pitch, where the Golden Snitch was flying around, unnoticed by either Seeker.

Gryffindor won - by ten points, and only because the Ravenclaw Seeker was “Completely incompetent, what is he doing on the team?!” as Dad complained.

The stands were slowly emptying around them. Lily drifted somewhere to discuss Quidditch with Aaron, and somehow, James wasn’t quite sure how, Scorpius Malfoy had managed to lure Al into the promised victory party in the Gryffindor common room. A few minutes later, and the only people still sitting in the stands were James and his father. Dad didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get up.

“You’re missing the party,” he said quietly.

“I’m sure they’ll save me something,” James answered.

“You know, James, there’s one thing I haven’t quite managed to figure out,” Dad said all of a sudden, and James knew he wasn’t talking about the game. “Do I want to ask how you knew where to find me?” Dad was now looking at James, as if trying to read his mind.

He didn’t look angry, but James was still full of shame. Shame that he had gone behind his father’s back, shame that he had almost betrayed him, shame that he ever believed Tom Riddle.

Voldemort. In the end, he never got the chance to tell his father about the ghost’s presence.

“There’s a room,” he said quietly. “A chamber. Hidden underneath the school. A huge room, with statutes and everything, and there’s this huge dead snake there.”

“The Chamber of Secrets?” Dad asked sharply. He sounded almost shocked.

“I don’t know how it’s called. And he’s - I meant to tell you. And then everything happened and I never got the chance.” James stared at his fingernails now. “I never should have listened to him.”

“Listened to whom?”

“I didn’t - I wanted to tell you! I was looking for you, and then Mum was attacked and I forgot.”

“Listened to whom, James?” Dad asked again. He sounded worried, almost afraid, and James thought he must already know the answer.

“He’s a ghost. He says... not exactly a ghost. He said two pieces of his soul died there.”

“Voldemort.” Dad’s voice shook when he said the name. James nodded, still looking at his fingernails. Next to him, Dad got up.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to see this,” Dad said.

“I’m coming with you.”

Dad opened his mouth, probably to say no or argue, but then closed it again and nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Alright, I suppose you should. Maybe it’d be better if you did. Come on.” They walked together into the castle.

To James’s surprise, Dad didn’t go to the seventh-floor corridor. Instead he chose a girls’ toilet on the second floor.

“Er, Dad?” James asked. “Why are we going here?”

“This is the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. Where did you get in from if not through here?”

“The seventh-floor, there’s this room there.”

“The Room of Requirement,” Dad’s forehead wrinkled in surprise. “That’s... one hell of a detour. Come on, this way is faster. Less climbing,” he said, then entered the toilet. He stopped in front of one of the basins, then let some odd, hissing noises out of his mouth. The basin opened to reveal a slide, much like the one from the Room of Requirement. “After you,” Dad raised an eyebrow. James threw himself in, and could hear his father entering the slide behind him.

There was a tunnel, completely dark and damp, and the light from their wands didn’t offer even half of the encouragement James felt from his father’s presence. Dad had a bit of trouble walking down the tunnel with his walking stick and his wounds, but James helped him through some debris and they went forward. And then the tunnel came to an end, with a solid wall, and two serpents carved on it.

Dad paused. He didn’t make the weird hissing noises to open the wall, like he did the basin. He stared at it, an odd expression on his face. Worry - no, James realised. Not worry. Fear.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly. “It’s just a ghost.”

Dad smiled a weak smile. “Yeah...” he said, and didn’t sound too convinced. Finally, he rolled his eyes, muttered, “What am I doing?” and put down the walking stick next to the wall.

“You don’t want - ” James started, then Dad shook his head.

“Better not show Voldemort any sign of weakness, huh?” he said, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He hissed again, and the door opened.

They walked inside.

The ghost of Voldemort didn’t look like a boy anymore. He didn’t look now the way he appeared to James in his previous visits. He was fully grown, a tall man with a snake-like face and a horrible expression. Only the scarlet eyes looked the same. It was Lord Voldemort, exactly as he looked in the old photographs, just as terrifying, just as horrible.

“Harry Potter,” he said in contempt.

“Tom,” Dad answered, quietly and carefully but with determination.

“Pity,” Voldemort said. “I really hoped you would die this time.”

To James’s surprise, Dad finally managed a smile. “Not today, I’m afraid,” he said quietly.

“As I said,” the ghost spat. “Pity.”

“What are you doing here, Riddle?”

The ghost Voldemort didn’t reply, just stared at Dad with obvious hatred. Dad nodded. “I doubt you can be exorcised, although I’d love to give it a try. But I can’t let you try and interfere again. I’ll be putting some spells around this chamber. No innocent child is going to find their way in here again.”

“Someone will,” Voldemort hissed.

“And then what, Tom? You’ve lost. You’ve lost twenty years ago. What are you going to do now, see the rest of us fall and burn in flames? See the entire wizarding society destroyed as revenge?”

Voldemort didn’t answer.

“The war is over, Riddle. It’s been over for twenty years. Time to let go.” Then Dad turned to James. “Come on, James. Let’s go.”

They started walking towards the door, towards the exit, when the ghost called suddenly, “Potter!”

Dad turned.

“You think I don’t see the fear in your eyes?” the snake-like ghost whispered. “You think I don’t know your fears and your nightmares? You may hide it from the rest of the world, but not from me, Potter. Deep down you’re still that boy who relied on luck and other people to save him!”

To James’s surprise, Dad didn’t argue or protest. “Maybe,” he said, and his voice was a lot calmer than it had been until that point. “But I don’t think you’re a very good judge of that.”

He started walking towards the exit again. Voldemort called his name again, “Potter!”, but Dad didn’t stop. He walked with sure steps until they reached the door, then opened it to let James through. He then walked through the door himself and closed it behind him.

Only then did he stop, leaned on the wall, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.

It was another minute before he opened his eyes. He looked then at James, raising his eyebrows. “Well, that’s one unpleasant man, even years after he died,” he said dryly. His voice shook a little, but James pretended he couldn’t hear.

Dad pulled out his wand, aimed it at the door, and started whispering incantation after incantation. James didn’t recognise any of them. A few more minutes, and Dad was done.

“There,” he said. “I don’t think even the Room of Requirement could get past that... I hope.” He smiled again, and looked his usual confident self. “I’ll ask Hermione to drop by anyway. Come on then, we’ve been in this stinky cellar long enough.”

They didn’t go to the Gryffindor common room. It felt silly, but James didn’t really want his father out of his sight - not yet. So he accompanied him, all the way to his office. Dad didn’t say anything, just opened the door, and waited for James to walk in.

They weren’t the first into the office. Lily and Al were there too, and with them Hugo and Rose, and Scorpius Malfoy, and even Houda. They were all talking while sitting on the floor of the small office, because there weren’t enough chairs in the room. They stopped talking when the two of them walked into the room, but none of them asked James anything, nor did they say anything to Dad.

Dad didn’t tell them to get out, or asked what they were doing there. Instead, he walked quietly to the Pensieve, the same Pensieve where James had seen his memories, the worst of his memories. Dad paused for a moment, and picked up the photograph next to the Pensieve, the one from the Quidditch World Cup. It didn’t look weird to him that the three children there were laughing, apparently, as he smiled when he put it back in its proper place. Then he aimed his wand at the Pensieve, whispered something, and the long grey strands shot through his wand and into his mind. It looked almost painful, and the expression on Dad’s face made it look even worse, but then the smile returned to his face.

Scorpius Malfoy, however, looked mortified. “Professor Potter,” he said, his voice shaking.

“I know,” Dad said quietly.

Malfoy looked at his feet. “I’m sorry.”

Dad put down his walking stick carefully, then sat down on the chair vacated hurriedly by Houda.

“Sir,” Scorpius started again. “Those memories...”

James remembered those memories; it felt as if they were just as relevant to Scorpius Malfoy’s family as they were to his own.

Dad, however, shook his head. “It would have been easier had you heard about it before seeing it,” he said. “I guess some things are still painful. Not very easy to talk about, even to you guys, even to those who should know.”

“That’s what Professor McGonagall said,” Scorpius said quietly.

“Very wise woman, Professor McGonagall,” Dad answered. “Maybe it’s time you did hear about it properly. All of you.”

But if Dad was going to start talking, he gave no sign. His eyes weren’t fixed on anything in particular, just staring at the empty space.

“Dad?” James asked quietly, and Dad shook his head and looked at him. “Are you going to tell us about it? About the War?”

“Maybe it’s time,” Dad answered. “I just... I don’t even know where to begin. There’s so much of it, and it was all so complicated.”

He thought for a moment, wrinkled his forehead, trying to figure it out. “Maybe with Voldemort? He was born - no, that doesn’t feel right. Not Voldemort.” His gaze fell on Al. “Maybe with Severus Snape and my mother. They knew each other, you see. But...” He looked as if something was escaping him, something wasn’t quite right, then his gaze fell on Houda and he smiled.

“No,” he said. “I think I got it now.

“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal - thank you very much...”

Notes:

The last line, of course, is taken from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

...And that's it. Hope you enjoyed it, dear readers! Much like this story was a loose sequel to War is Over, I am planning a loose sequel to this one which should be called War Without End - and much like this one to War is Over, the world would be the same world and the story will have similar themes, but it won't be a direct sequel. I'm not quite sure when I'll get to write it, so it might be a while yet.