A Hogwarts Murder Mystery

Chapter One - In Which There is Less Humour, and More Scene-Setting

Sirius Potter woke up, and for a stark minute could not remember what was supposed to happen that morning. He knew that there was something; something he'd been excited about, that had meant it had taken him hours to get to sleep. Was it something to do with Uncle Fred and Uncle George's shop? No, he'd been given a two-month bar on the last trip to Diagon Alley, after he'd got angry with another child and destroyed half of the shop's stock. Was it a new game or book? No, he didn't have any interesting new books at the moment. He stifled a yawn. Wait a minute: Mum and Dad had said something about Uncle Charlie coming over for a few days to look after Elaine and Brian. So that would be fun. But why wouldn't Charlie be looking after him? Where would he and his parents be... then he saw the black robes hanging on the back of the door, with the Hogwarts crest standing out, and he yelled in sheer excitement and exasperation: excited as he finally realised what happened today, annoyed that he had forgotten.

It was Hogwarts day! He was going to Hogwarts today! And, he remembered as his sleep-fogged memory began to clear, so were Mum and Dad. Dad was filling in for the Flying Teacher, Madam Hooch; and Mum was going with him to keep him company. And he, Sirius James Potter, would be able to show off...well, his Dad at least, even if Mum was dull and putting on weight, and never got herself onto Witch Weekly like Victoria Wood or Aunty Angelina.

He gave a whoop of joy, waking up the slumbering forms of his namesake's Grandparents in their portrait. They glared at him: Mrs Black turned her back on him, whilst Mr Black said, "For God's sake, boy! First you talk for hours last night, and then you don't even have the decency to let us have our well-earned rest!"

"Sorry Uncle Arcturus, Sorry Aunty Melania," said Sirius, in what he hoped were contrite tones.

"I should think so too!" said Melania, before remembering that she wasn't speaking to Sirius, and turning her back to him again.

Sirius bounced out of the room, singing "All Things Bright and Beautiful", which Uncle Percy* had taught him. Arcturus smiled at his wife. "Do you remember when ours were that age?"

[Percy Weasley had caught religion following his miraculous escape from the Ministry of Magic as it was stormed by Death Eaters. Since then, he had been preaching to anyone who would listen (very few people outside his hard-line evangelical sect), anyone who couldn't escape (generally children and the elderly), his Aunt Muriel (who was stone deaf) and his Uncle Bilius (who was stone dead). He had not spoken to Ron and Hermione since their wedding, performed when Hermione was several months pregnant, and he kept trying to sneak Harry and Ginny's children off to be baptised.]

Melania sniffed. "I remember that you threw the butter dish at Orion the morning he went, because he was singing some awful song along the lines of 'We're all going to Hogwarts'."

"Ah yes, fond memories. At least this one can sing."

~*~

It is a well-known fact in the wizarding world that, in the case of the Fidelius Charm, when a Secret-Keeper dies, he takes the Secret with him to the grave, leaving the subject of the Secret eternally hidden to those not in the know. It is a less well-known fact, for perhaps obvious reasons, that a Secret-Keeper can pass on Custody of a Secret to another, allowing the proliferation of the Secret to continue, or the Secret to be cancelled when Fidelius is no longer needed. The transfer of custody takes place via a Magical Will, and needs the Secret Keeper, a Charms Expert, and a good lawyer. Albus Dumbledore, who knew this, accordingly altered his Magical Will when he became a Secret Keeper for the Order of the Phoenix. And again when the original heir to the Secret, Sirius Black, was killed. And the new heir was the boy who inherited the house at Grimmauld Place that was the subject of the Secret: Harry James Potter.

Not, of course, that Harry did anything about this. When, following Albus Dumbledore's funeral, he was informed by letter that he had inherited not only a sizeable chunk of money, a rather attractive table from Dumbledore's office, a House-elf called Jinkey, a dusty house on the island of Islay and a seat on the Wizengamot, but also the custody of the Secret of Grimmauld Place, his immediate reaction was to stuff the letter in a sock drawer, and to head off to France for a wedding. Of course, he also inadvertently let slip the Secret to Severus Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange, which as we all know led to a sizeable disaster, but that is ancient history.

When, however, he had defeated Voldemort, and blundered his way through four months of intensive study at the Burrow and eventually scraped his way through the NEWTs, it occurred to him to consider his future. When Hermione and Ron began to talk about their future careers, he considered that maybe it was time to live somewhere other than Ron's bedroom floor. This consideration turned itself into a certainty when Hermione turned out to be pregnant with Ron's baby, and Ron kindly pointed out that he wanted to share his bedroom with Hermione now, and that Hermione probably would not want Harry there as well.

It is a very common, when a person sets up their own home for the first time, for them to be faced with a whole range of accommodation problems. As Hermione pointed out to Harry, however, deciding which of your houses you will live in is generally not high on the list.

~*~

"Morning Sirius!" called Ginny, as she heard her eldest son thunder past the bedroom door on his way to the bathroom. Beside her, Harry buried his face in his pillow and groaned.

"What time is it?" he moaned from the depths of the pillow.

"It's seven o'clock, Harry," said Ginny sounding more patient than she felt. "Time for you to get up. Not only do we need to get Sirius ready for school, but thanks to you we have to get ourselves packed and sorted to go to Hogwarts, and we have to get Brian and Elaine sorted out, and we - in fact, why am I saying we when even Kreacher knows it's going to be me - so, I have to sort out Charlie's room before he arrives, so get up!"

Harry said nothing. To her amazement, she saw that he had gone back to sleep.

"Right then, if that's how it's going to be..."

She got out of bed, pulled on her dressing gown, and walked quietly to the bathroom, picking up her empty cocoa mug from the table by the door as she did so. Passing Sirius, she put her finger to her lips. He stuffed his hand into his mouth to stop himself giggling. Ginny swiftly filled the mug with cold water, and tiptoed back to her bedroom, Sirius at her heels. Standing over Harry, she spoke in deceptively sweet tones: "Harry, dear? Please get up."

"Not yet, Ginny," Harry mumbled. And then realisation hit him as swiftly as it had hit Sirius earlier that morning. His eyes snapped open and he rolled onto his back, and he shouted "NO!" - just in time to get a faceful of cold water.

Sirius laughed, Harry spluttered, and Ginny smiled grimly. "Next time, Harry, get up."

They dashed out of the room ahead of Harry's angry yells.

~*~

"Go downstairs, quietly, Sirius. You can check everything's packed in your trunk while I make you some breakfast."

"Okay Mum," replied Sirius, not really listening. They went down the stairs onto the first floor landing; there was a squeak, and Jinkey popped her head around her bedroom door.

"Jinkey and Dobby did not know master and mistress was awake, mistress!"

"Oh," said Ginny with a sweet smile, "Harry only just woke up."

Jinkey shook her head sadly. "And Dobby is still sleeping. He is very lazy elf, sleeps for hours, he does not realise the work mistress must do in the house."

"Oh, it's not as if there's much work for me to do," said Ginny (who was aware that the reason for this was that Jinkey and Dobby did most of it). "I'm only going to make Sirius his breakfast."

The elf stood on tiptoes with excitement. "It is young master's first day at Hogwarts! Jinkey remembers when Harry Potter started, Jinkey remembers how much food he ate that first night, and Hobby says to us all, "look how much he is taking", and it was the talk of our dormitory that night, mistress!"

Sirius giggled, and Jinkey smiled kindly at him. Ginny sighed. She'd spent years wanting a House-elf, and when she had married Harry she had become mistress of two, and employer of another, which should have made her happy. And what had she got? An ancient creature descending through spite into senility, an irritatingly talkative elf who was incapable of dusting in the dining room without knocking over the Old Hogsmeade china, and Dobby, who was simply annoying, although for some reason Harry liked him. More to the point, Dobby did not like her, which was probably why she did not like him.

"Can you help me with my trunk, Jinkey?" asked Sirius.

"Certainly, master!" said Jinkey excitedly, and both dashed down the stairs to the small parlour on the ground-floor, where Ginny had insisted Jinkey leave the trunk once it was packed (Ginny had sworn when she moved in that she had no intention of letting anyone get knocked down the stairs again, not after last time, and she had banned Fred and George from using their wands whilst visiting for the same reason).

"Be quiet!" Ginny hissed, but it was too late. Mrs Black had woken up.

Mrs Black had for a year been consigned to her old bedroom, when Hermione had used a clever modification of the Switching Spell to swap the painted images of Mrs Black and Ambrosius Dumbledore, whose painting Harry had taken from Islay to London for that purpose; Hermione had then tied Mrs Black to Ambrosius' old painting, and Ginny had rather gloatingly hung it up in the wreckage of Madam Black's boudoir. This imposed exile had ended when Harry and Ginny had named their first child Sirius; having been told this by Kreacher (who had headed there to tell her that 'the nasty mud-blood and blood-traitor were using the names of the Noble House of Black for their foul offspring'), she had had an attack of emotion, and had come to think of Young Sirius as the grandchild that she had never had. This had prompted Harry, Hermione, Ambrosius, Jinkey and Dobby to take pity on her, and, much to Ginny's displeasure, she herself had been forced to accept Mrs Black's return to the hallway (whilst Ambrosius had been moved to the Drawing Room, where Walburga often visited him). The change had, in Ginny's opinion, not improved Mrs Black: she had merely gone from shrieking nuisance to shrieking mother-in-law, and often backed took Harry's side in arguments. Oddly enough, the children adored her.

"Good morning Sirius, dear. You, Jinkey! Make sure he's dressed warmly. And make sure he wears flannel, I'm sure there's a chill in the air!"

"Walburga," said Ginny firmly, "there is no need for him to wear flannel. No-one wears flannel these days. And it's a beautiful day, a real scorcher! It's a shame he's going to be stuck on the train all day."

"Which is precisely why he should be dressed properly! What if he goes to sleep in a draught? He could get a fever! And with that weak chest of yours that you gave him-"

"We are not discussing my weak chest, thank you very much!"

"Well we should. You're risking his life! What do you think your mother would say?"*

[*Mrs Weasley, visiting Grimmauld Place for the first time after Mrs Black's triumphant return to the hall, had been aghast, and her shrieks of "What in God's Name were you thinking?" had succeeded in rousing Walburga. The ensuing row lasted two hours and four minutes (Harry was counting), during which everyone else gave up trying to stop them and wandered off to the Drawing Room, where Mr Weasley demonstrated his mastery of the corkscrew. Unfortunately for Harry and Ginny, when the argument was over (brought to an end, inexplicably, by confusion over the price of fish in Diagon Alley in 1955), the two now very hoarse women formed an Unholy Alliance dedicated to pointing out every shortcoming of the married couple, and giving identical advice. Since then, the Weasley family had en masse blocked any attempt by Mrs Weasley to commission a portrait of herself.]

"My mother," said Ginny, filling the word with all the contempt she could summon, "is no doubt too busy trying to keep my dad from throttling himself with a piece of electrick rope to care about where Sirius sits on the train! Sirius! I'll make you your porridge, okay?"

"Porridge?" said Mrs Black in horrified tones: one might imagine, when Hitler invaded Cechoslovakia in 1939, that Neville Chamberlain used the same tone of voice when saying, "Hitler's done what?"

"Yes, porridge. It's made of oats, you know."

"You can't send your son off to school just on a meal of porridge! He's a growing boy, he needs sustenance! I remember, when my Sirius and my Regulus were going off every term, I'd make them a good old-fashioned breakfast; you can't do better than bacon and eggs for young boys, and maybe some fried bread on the side..."

But Ginny was already walking towards the kitchen. As she shut the door she heard Mrs Black wail: "At least give him some jam with his porridge!"

~*~

Breakfast was a rather subdued affair. Elaine and Brian were miserable that Sirius was going away (though this was an improvement on the previous night, where Elaine had proved herself her mothers child (not to mention her grandmother's grandchild) by having a tantrum and shrieking that she wanted to go to Hogwarts as well). Ginny was still fuming, which she tended to do whenever faced with Walburga Black early in the morning. Harry, who these days tended to object rather strongly to being woken up early, was glaring pointedly at his wife and eldest son, and trying to appear as martyred as possible. Dobby and Jinkey, who had long ago learnt to categorise the oddities of the family as 'humans - not our concern - just clean up the blood when they're finished', were busy feeding their baby son, Morby, and checking up on their daughter, Kokey, who had a cold. Sirius, who was practically bouncing in his seat with excitement, and who was doing a not very thorough job of keeping himself from rhapsodising about Hogwarts, was merely worsening the moods of the rest of the family (and he had particularly offended Ginny by leaving most of his porridge - after she'd gone to the trouble of putting raspberry jam on it, too, and that stuff was expensive! - and making himself some bacon and eggs). They were all, therefore, rather relieved when, having waded through breakfast, they could retire to different parts of the house and - except for Sirius and the elves - sulk.

Two and a half hours later, however, noticeably more cheerful, the Potters assembled in the small parlour behind the dining room. Ginny reached up to the over mantle, and picked up the wooden box containing the Floo Powder.

"If you'd like to do the honours, Sirius?" she said, smiling.

"What do I say?"

" 'The Old London Coach House'. And remember, speak clearly. Your father once messed it up, and ended up in Knockturn Alley looking like a street urchin."

"I know, Mum. You've told that story plenty of times before."

"In fact, I should probably go first. Your father can go last, can't you dear?"

"Of course, dear."

Picking up a handful of powder, Sirius tossed it onto the fire. Its orange flames changed to a deep emerald green, and Ginny stepped into it. "The Old London Coach House!" she said, and was whirled away in an instant. Sirius stepped forward, but before he could step into the fire -

"Wait, sir!"

It was Dobby and Jinkey, who had burst into the room, clutching a package, via the back stairs. Looking up, Sirius saw Walburga - to whom he had said good-bye a moment before - stride into the portrait of Cepheus Black, which hung above the fire. Cepheus, rather alarmed at this intrusion, moved to the edge of his picture frame, clearly waiting to run.

"What is it?" asked Sirius curiously, as Jinkey handed him the package. Mrs Black answered him.

"It's an everlasting sweet-tin," she said smiling. "It's a bit out of date - I took it to school, and I know that Dardan's Delight hasn't been sold since the Muggle fire-war - but it will always be good if you're peckish."

"Thanks, Aunty!" said Sirius enthusiastically.

She smiled again; Harry snorted, muttering, "Didn't give your son that did you?" Mrs Black, who had keen hearing, flushed slightly, but ignored him.

"I also got Jinkey to rustle you up a good lunch. What your mother gave you couldn't keep a puffskein satisfied - I mean, cheese sandwiches and an apple, does she want you to stuff yourself with that chocolate rubbish Freya Frigsham always used to push around in her trolley? - and you'll do yourself no favours if you go hungry. That, on the other hand, should satisfy a growing boy."

Sirius looked inside the package, and discovered his lunch underneath the tin (which was adorned with snakes wrapped around a skull). It consisted of cold ham, sausages, fried bread, chips (which were wrapped in ever-warmed paper), a sealed bowl full of trifle, four bottles of butterbeer (Walburga, who was by no stretch of the imagination an example of responsible and considered parenting - or, in Ginny's opinion, general living - had a particular weakness for alcohol, and had once told Dobby that there was no harm in letting Brian have a bottle of butterbeer with his dinner when Harry and Ginny were out; the rest of that evening was one which everyone had tried to forget, with the exception of Brian who had been unable to remember it the next morning) and a slab of rich currant cake which Sirius suspected was part of that which Hagrid had sent them the previous Christmas (Ginny had only managed to cut it by using the wood axe, and had discovered that even then it was mildly easier to cut through a flagstone with a butter-knife; four broken teeth, one cracked jaw and one crushed chest - the result of dropping crumbs - later, and the family had simply consigned it to obscurity in the pantry; staleness had made it, if anything, harder, and Jinkey had been forced to keep it in the stove for several weeks in order to soften it). His heart lurched inside him: this might have been due to emotion, but was more likely due to the sight of the meal, which he suspected could do enough damage to make the funeral industry a minor fortune. Even so, it was the thought that counted, and he was pretty sure that 'cholesterol' was not a word Mrs Black had any familiarity with.

"Thanks Aunty," he said again, and he carefully stowed the package in his trunk. He said goodbye to the elves and the portraits again, stepped into the fireplace, cried out, "The Old London Coach House!" and with a whoosh of sparks was gone.

~*~

The Old London Coach House, Sirius was fascinated to discover, was a pub. Admittedly, if it were 'just' a pub, it would be rather a let-down. This particular pub, however, was packed with wizards and witches, many of whom were dressed in Hogwarts robes. The pub itself (so far as Sirius could see through the mass of people) was a large, low-ceilinged room built of stone, with rough wooden floors, a bright bar at one end, rather small and thick-paned windows, and an enchanted mirror showing what Sirius recognised as Platform 9 and ¾ (which he had visited every year since 2009, when cousin Marguerite had gone for the first time). There was also a door with a sign reading 'Luggage' over it, and another reading 'Stables'. Then Ginny pulled him back hurriedly, as Harry slid out of the fireplace in a rush of sparks, with Elaine and Brian clutching onto him. Sirius noticed his mother roll her eyes: Harry had never managed to master floo travel, and did even worse when carrying the children (the Floo Travel Doctrines five years ago had forbidden children under ten to fire-travel unaccompanied by an adult). It was generally considered fortunate by the rest of his family if he merely ended up flat on his back when exiting the fire: he had on too many occasions been chased out of shops or homes which he had inadvertently blundered into; and whilst he had never managed the old chestnut of ending up in Austria instead of Australia (or, less commonly, ending up in Australia instead of Austria), he had wrecked a family holiday to the United States when, in trying to floo from Albany New York to Portsmouth Virginia he instead ended up in Britain, resulting in a two-day ordeal for him to get back to his family; when he then tried to go to Atlanta, Georgia with Sirius and Brian, the resulting ordeal in a small post-Soviet town whose name might conceivably sound like Atlanta had convinced him to never use Floo Powder anywhere where accent might be an issue.

Brian crossly picked himself up, saying, "I could have flooed on my own," before he turned a nasty green colour and dashed to a door Sirius had not before seen labelled 'Vomitorium'. Noticing his horrified gaze, Ginny smiled and said, "You can only see it if you feel sick, or if you see someone obviously sick. It makes sure there are free toilets, so that people don't chuck up in here."

"Useful charm, that," said someone behind Sirius.

"Worked a wonder in our 'Desperately Seeking Sweets*'" said another. Sirius recognised both.

[These used a modification of the 'Selective Sight' charm. Generally taken by those who were, as the title suggested, 'Desperately Seeking' a date: the person who had used the sweet would become unnoticed by anyone that would not be interested in them (thereby eliminating ego-damaging sneers), and making them stand out to anyone else who was desperately looking for them, or someone like them. For an additional charge, the twins would add a thoroughly illegal Scintillating Solution, which would actually draw to the sweet eater all who could see him or her. The sweets were eventually banned in 2014, and after a lengthy court-battle the twins were consigned to prison again, this time for three years. They never seemed to mind: "Prisoners are useful test-subjects," Fred had said after the first jail-sentence.]

"Uncle Fred, Uncle George!" he cried as he span around to see his second-favourite uncles standing behind him.

The slightly pudgier one ruffled Sirius' hair, and the other - comparatively thinner - one yelled, "Oi, you lot! Ginny and her pack are here!"

"Hey!" shrilled Elaine indignantly. "We're not a pack!"

The pudgier uncle - whom Sirius had at first thought to be George, but who might in fact be Fred, because they tended to play with their behaviour and waist-lines to fool their family, and therefore the obvious choice was often wrong - swung her up, laughing. "Sorry, pipkin, didn't see you down there. Did your Dad mess up the Floo Powder again?"

"What do you think?" she asked cheekily.

Harry glared in a fond sort of way at her; Fred - or maybe it was George after all - well, whoever it was that was holding Elaine laughed, and the other twin patted her on her head. Ginny, stifling a laugh, headed off towards the door labelled 'Luggage' to get Sirius' trunk ("As long as Harry hasn't messed it up, eh?" said the pudgier uncle); to Sirius' disappointment, she failed to give him any hint as to which uncle was which.

"Well, then, young Sirius," said the pudgier uncle - whom Sirius was now firmly convinced was Fred - in a jovial manner, "looking forward to starting at Hogwarts?"

"Of course!" said Sirius firmly. Less-pudgy uncle laughed.

"That's the second time today! Your cousin Clemence answered in just the same way earlier. 'Cept she got in a right strop about it, and had another big row with Fleur, who was as usual bemoaning the fact that both daughters refused to show any interest in their 'eritage' - or at least, their French 'eritage', which is all she cares about - and were too busy - ahem" - he paused and cleared his throat, before putting on a high voice and a ludicrously faked French accent - "'Wallowing in zis mucky country and it's 'orrid customs.' Basically, mate, she thinks they should have gone to Beauxbatons like their brother, and keeps saying so, whilst Bill whistles and sticks his fingers in his ears."

Bill Weasley had been one of Sirius' favourite uncles for many years - he was so brave, and so kind, and he bore the scars of a werewolf's savaging on his face, which meant he had to have especially bloody steaks at meals, and he took his son and daughters and nieces and nephews to exciting tombs and museums with cursed artefacts, and he had a beautiful wife who was always nice to Sirius - until one day he and Aunt Fleur had been visiting Grimmauld Place with their children, and Fleur and Ginny had got into one of their usual rows which ended up with accusations of failed contraception from Ginny (one of the Black Family Portraits had taken great pleasure in explaining all the words Sirius didn't understand) and of gold-digging from Fleur (a term which Sirius had known for years, because it seemed to be hurled at his mother by all and sundry what seemed like a daily basis). Sirius had watched Bill sit back awkwardly and fiddle around with his treacle tart, whilst Harry tried for the umpteenth time (with, as usual, no success) to stop them and calm them down; had watched Bill defend neither his sister nor his wife, nor even comfort or remove the children from the room; and Sirius had been - disappointed. Ashamed. Appalled that this uncle that he had so revered should prove to be so unworthy of reverence. And since that time four years ago, he had watched and heard of Bill's attitude (which Ginny claimed he had only developed since he had married 'Phlegm', but in such a half-hearted manner that he suspected that she did not really believe it herself) towards his wife, his children, his family, to life; and Sirius had been confirmed in his new-found opinion of Bill: he did not stand up for anything, did not make himself heard, did not try to change the world around him. It was saddening really, and he always pitied Bill's children, because their parents were flawed, and his were perfect.

Sirius was, after all, very young still.

At this point in Sirius' musings, his mother returned, carrying his trunk (she must have bewitched it to make it feather-light, he thought), followed by a dozen or so Weasleys: his grandparents, slowly aging and greying and plumping, but still beaming at their flock and still as sprightly as ever; Aunty Angelina and Aunty Katie, who were married to Uncle Fred and Uncle George respectively; Aunty Angelina and Uncle Fred's pair, Olly and Chissy, chattering with Aunty Katie and Uncle George's pair, Gwen and Gareth; Bill and Aunt Fleur, with Marguerite and Clemence in tow; and Uncle Percy, who seemed have resorted to his favourite subject of 'dens of iniquity', which he was expounding upon at great length to the four year old Chissy, but who nonetheless had made the effort to turn up, which was always fun (Uncle Percy, for all his preaching and disapproval and attempts to baptise unsuspecting relatives - that time with a Muggle water-pistol at Brian's third birthday party was a particular gem - nonetheless had a rather good sense of humour, and was certainly kind and good-natured on the whole, and - most importantly in Sirius' eyes - was not afraid to stand up for what he believed in). The mass now bore down on Sirius, which was on the whole less fun, especially when Aunt Fleur made his mother glare when she said "Eet is good zat you look so much like your 'andsome father and not like your muzzer," and when Bill only smiled a vague apologetic smile at no-one in particular: which, Sirius thought, was proof of his uncle's weakness, given that Aunt Fleur's comments were as much a slur on her own husband as on Mum - though he knew Aunt Fleur well enough to say that that was more thoughtlessness than any example of her feelings for her husband, and thoughtlessness was better than Bill's indolence. How could anyone be so weak and pathetic as Uncle Bill? Sirius had sometimes wondered whether it was all an act, whether the kindly weakling turned into an abusive ogre in private, who beat his wife and children if they disobeyed him. The thought had troubled him, and he had eventually asked Clemence, in the privacy of his bedroom, whether it was so, whether Bill did behave badly in private; she had laughed unhappily, and oddly, and said, "If only."

Sirius, not understanding and not daring to ask for an explanation, had allowed her to turn the subject to his own father and his Quidditch. The comment, the memory of her face as she said it, he had stored away in the back of his mind, to be puzzled over - unsuccessfully - in private.

Granny now looked at him. "Well, you certainly look ready for school. What house do you want to be in?"

"Gryffindor, of course." Well, he was hardly going to say anything else, given that every adult Weasley here had been a Gryffindor, not to mention his father, who would probably throw himself off his broom in the middle of a game out of shame if his son were put into any other house; indeed, Marguerite was the only member of the family present who was not a Gryffindor (with the exception of Aunt Fleur, he corrected himself, but she didn't count, she hadn't attended Hogwarts properly, and he suspected that if she'd been Sorted, she'd have been a Gryffindor as well), having taken a great deal of pride in informing her parents that she had been Sorted into Ravenclaw, "so there," (this being a commonly used term by Marguerite, albeit mixed with other, riper, phrases).

The family exchanged Looks, mostly proud (though Sirius distinctly heard Marguerite mutter something about 'following the crowd'), mixed with a fair bit of eye-rolling, and blatant confusion from the younger children.

"And are you hoping the Quidditch Team will make an exception for you like they did for your Dad?" asked Aunty Angelina carelessly. "If you butter up your Head of House the right way, she might let you, they're always willing to make exceptions for the really good players."

There was the inaudible yet distinct sound of Having Put One's Foot in It. Uncle Fred winced and gripped her arm (the rational side of Sirius' mind noted with interest that Uncle Fred was indeed the less-pudgy twin), fully aware of having been neglectful of his wife's link to the family grapevine. Aunty Katie, whose husband was less neglectful, bit her lip; Uncle George, less interested in appearances, put his head in his hands. Aunt Fleur and Granny both became teary-eyed, whilst Granddad shook his head. Bill, as usual, Stayed Out of It, whilst Uncle Percy glared at Aunty Angelina. From behind him, Sirius got the impression that his parents and siblings had ceased to breathe; however, with the exception of Clemence (who gave him a sympathetic smile) the other children, looked puzzled.

"Er..." said Sirius, feeling that this was one of the most embarrassing moments of his life. Dad put his hand on Sirius' shoulder, which Sirius found comforting: given that he himself wanted to run away at this moment, he couldn't blame his Dad if he wanted to. Sirius continued: "I'm not really very good at Quidditch. Or," he said, in an 'In for a Pound' mood, "at flying in general."

This was not exactly true. Sirius was by no means as good a flyer as his father had been at that age (but who at the age of eleven was?), but nonetheless years of practice had made Sirius an admirable flyer. The problem was that he was absolutely, unreservedly, pants-wettingly, terrified of heights. Even the description of the infamous 'Remembrall Incident' that had gained his father his place on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team was enough to give Sirius vertigo. In addition he had, unlike his father, inherited 'The Potter Curse' - a horrifically bad eye condition produced by years of Potter inbreeding, which left the sufferer almost blind without glasses - in full force, meaning that even with magically enhanced spectacles, he had slightly less chance of seeing the tiny Golden Snitch than he did of achieving faster-than-light travel whilst jogging. These factors, unsurprisingly, were therefore something of an obstacle to any serious hopes of playing in the school Quidditch team, since, as his sister had rather cruelly pointed out, they didn't fly two feet from the ground using a bright red balloon as the Snitch. To be honest, Sirius was more bothered by his family's disappointment, ranging from his Dad's sadness-tempered-with-unreserved-love and his Mum's disappointment-but-at-least-he's-clever to Fred and George's open pity for him, than he was personally. He preferred football, frankly.

The awkward silence that followed his words was broken when Clemence pushed forward and grabbed him. "Come on," she said fiercely, "let's go and find the Lupins." Sirius gladly went with her.

Harry and Ginny remained with the rest of the family a moment longer, before they headed through the room with their two younger children towards the door marked 'Stables'. They had just seen Ron and Hermione.

~*~

"So what is this place?" asked Harry.

"Oh, Harry," said Hermione in disappointed tones. "Twenty-two years in the wizarding world, and you still haven't managed to read Hogwarts: A History."

"What, so now you've heard one example of my ignorance, you're quoting other examples?" asked Harry jokingly.

He and Hermione were standing in the large coach-yard, which was full of milling people, and a large clock reading twenty-past ten. The stones were uneven, a mixture of cobbles and brick. On two sides were large stables, empty of horses now, but still filled with straw and drinking troughs. Ron and Ginny were in one of them with Elaine and Brian, allegedly finding an old haunt, but probably, Harry thought sadly, avoiding the other Weasleys. Hermione and Ron's four children had gone to find their grandparents, led by the capable eldest son, Lance. Hermione, however, seemed rather happy to have some time to herself.

"I'm not pulling you up for the shocking gaps in your cultural awareness, manifold though they are," said Hermione now, teasing gently. "But if you had read Hogwarts: A History - as I hope your son has," she added sternly, "then you would know the answer."

"Fine, I haven't read it, so can you tell me what this place is?"

"I'm sorry Harry," said Hermione a trifle smugly, "but we aren't at school anymore. If you want the answer, then you'll have to get it yourself. It might do you good to broaden your horizons."

"Okay, okay," replied Harry in exasperation. "I'll read the blasted Hogwarts: A History when the business with Hogwarts is over, but could you tell me now why Ginny has dragged me here?"

As he had suspected, the mention of the school dampened her humour. "Oh fine...Ginny really didn't explain?" Harry shook his head. "Oh, very well. This is the Old London Coach House."

She stopped speaking. Harry stared at her and spluttered, "Well? Is that it? I already knew that, I had to say it to get here by Floo!"

Hermione giggled, which secretly relieved Harry; she had been far too serious before. Trying to maintain a dignified expression, she replied, "Well, why did you ask -" before bursting into uproarious laughter, with which Harry soon joined in. Eventually, however, they had calmed down enough for Hermione to give in to the thrill of the lecture. "Right then, the Old London Coach House. This is where, originally, Hogwarts students used to congregate to get the coaches to Hogwarts. Most of them would meet here: all the Magical-borns would floo in here the way you did today, and any Muggle-borns who lived nearby would come here by other means. And then the coaches would arrive at eleven - they'd have set off at four in the morning from Lands End, which was where the Muggle-borns in that area would catch it, and it would drive quickly along the old Secret Road until it got to Winchester, calling for Muggle-borns in the big cities along the way, then it would leave the Road at Winchester and travel to London, to here. Then all the students would get on, and the coaches would head to Oxford, and get back on the Secret Road there and keep going north, calling in the big cities there for Muggle-borns again, and then after York they'd drive like the clappers to Carlisle, and then pick up all the Irish Muggle-borns and some wizards from their ferry at Galloway. And then they'd go north to Hogsmeade, drop the first years where the station is now, and carry on with the rest of the students to the school, and they'd all get there at about two in the morning. And then," she finished, smiling fondly, "they'd do it all again, the other way, at the end of the year. Though there were other coaches as well, general transport for wizards and witches, like the Knight Bus is now."

"Wow." Harry was astonished, and rather interested. "So what happened? Why'd they change the system?"

Hermione smiled rather sadly - she had a streak of nostalgia a mile wide, and always seemed to mourn the passing of the old, or the destruction of the antique, regardless of its actual relevance. "What do you think happened, Harry? Progress happened. The Muggles invented railways and steam engines, and the magicians stole them. The Ministry had a railway line built beside the Secret Road, where it would be undisturbed by Muggles, and they fiddled the plans at King's Cross so that they could build the extra platforms - oh, for God's Sake, Harry," she exclaimed in exasperation, seeing his look of puzzlement, "do you take an interest in anything other than what you think concerns you? Did you really think 9 and ¾ was the only magical platform?"

"Well...yes."

Hermione huffed in exasperation. "Well I'm already giving a lecture on 'Things that any educated magician should know' to you, I'm not going to give another on 'Things every eleven year-old magician knows'. Ask Ginny later if you want to know."*

[*He did, and was told by an exasperated Ginny to ask the five year old Brian, who reeled off the top of his head that there were five magical platforms in addition to 9 and ¾: Platform 9 and ¼, whose train service ran from London to Lands End; Platform 9 and ½, whose train service ran from London to Cardiff; Platform 5 and ½, whose train service ran from London to north Scotland; Platform 7 and 1/3, whose service ran to Chester, from whence the ferry service ran to Dublin; and Platform 7 and 2/3, whose train service ran through the old goblin tunnels to Paris. Brian then followed this up with that phrase so often on a child's lips: "Everyone knows that, Dad!"]

She breathed a deep breath, and picked up her thread again. "Anyway, they fiddled the plans for King's Cross, and built secret platforms where they'd be needed, and enchanted a few steam engines, and set up a proper train service." She no longer appeared particularly interested in the subject. "The coaches continued for a while longer, even after the spells to allow vehicles to mechanically Apparate were developed (they needed to use a more compact and controlled form, because of the mass transition) because the new Magical Omnibuses the Magical Transport Division had developed could only shift across the big cities, not between cities... but then the Knight Bus was developed, and it was able to shift over huge distances, and...that was that," she finished rather feebly. "Progress. That against which no lock will hold nor fasten'd portal bar."

"Ah," replied Harry, who wasn't really sure what else to say. Changing the subject, he asked: "So why is it I've never been here before? And why did Ginny have to keep where we were going today such a big secret?"

Hermione, to his relief, smiled. "Oh, I'm afraid you've offended her slightly there, Harry. You see, according to her - she told me this the Christmas after we'd taken our NEWTs - before you burst so carelessly into her family's life, they always used to come here and meet up with friends, other children from school, and then they'd walk to King's Cross from here - it's five minutes walk, by the way. But then there was that debacle with you and the Floo Powder in the holiday before our Second Year, and Mrs Weasley didn't want to risk you getting lost or in danger the morning of school" - they both shared a smile, remembering the events of that particular day - "though given how that went belly up, she probably felt at the end of it all that it would have been better to come via here; but anyway. After that, the only suitable time to have gone through here would have been our fourth year, and you remember how eager the Weasleys were to keep the Tri-wizard tournament from us - I think the Coach House had rather low numbers that year, so obviously most people had the same idea - which was why they insisting on paying a fortune for taxis. And then the year that Voldemort was defeated, and everything got back to normal, you'll remember that we were all staying in the Leakey Cauldron the night before Ginny went back - and so it was just a Ministry Car ride across London, and that was Ginny's last chance to visit the Coach House as a student gone."

"And you're saying she's still bitter about this?" asked Harry in horror. Why on earth hadn't she said anything...?

"Well, not bitter, exactly," answered Hermione, uncomfortably. "But since Marguerite started, you've always assumed that you and the kids would simply walk to King's Cross, and she's bottled up her annoyance about it, and so now she's decided to get her - mild of course - revenge by confusing you, and by showing you what it is you've been denying her." She sighed. "You're lucky, really. It isn't healthy to repress anger, and if it's kept repressed for too long, it can burst out in horrible ways -"

"Now, now, you don't know that I don't have more repressed anger in me still," came Ginny's voice from one side, "so I may horribly explode yet."

Harry and Hermione turned and saw Ginny holding a trolley, with Sirius' trunk on top of it, and with Brian and Elaine clutching it. She was, Harry was very relieved to see, grinning happily in a way he had not seen since - well, yesterday morning, before they got Hermione's owl. He wondered whether this semi-payment of an owed debt of life-experience (which was how he had heard Hermione talk express similar situations; he himself would have said 'whether getting part of what she had wanted') had given her some sort of inner peace, or restored a missing part of herself, or even catapulted her into childhood again. In any case, she looked utterly satisfied and content, which was enough for Harry.

"We should be going, shouldn't we?" commented Hermione, in tones which made it clear that it was a statement rather than a question.

"Yeah, that's why I came over here," replied Ginny. Forestalling Hermione's attempt to ask a question, she continued, "Ron and your children are talking to Mum and Dad and the family."

"Except for Percy, of course," said Hermione gloomily.

"Except for Percy," replied Ginny matter-of-factly. "Last I saw of him, he was heading for Sirius and Clemence, so I asked him to tell them to get ready to go, which hopefully will keep him from preaching about the wonders of being Born Again - I mean, really," she continued crossly, more to amuse Hermione than out of any personal irritation, "you'd think in a society which only recently had to deal with the resurgence of one of the most Evil Dark Lords of All Time, you'd be a bit more careful about throwing words like 'born again' and 'Doomsday', especially given that 'I am the Resurrection and the Life' or whatever it is was practically on the front page of 'The Manifesto which Must Not Be Named: Maintaining Evil in a Changing World'."

"Ginny," enquired Hermione dryly, as they began to walk back indoors. "You are aware that you just sounded uncannily like Grumius LeAnfontasy just then."

"Who?" asked Harry.

"I really don't know what you mean," replied Ginny primly, ignoring Harry.

"Oh? Grumius Studius LeAnfontasy? Same year as you? The 'Slytherin Sex-God'? 'That Sarky Bastard'? 'The Wicked Wit of the West'? 'Ridiculously Unlikely Name, Even More Ridiculously Unlikely Endowment?' Sharpest tongue in Hogwarts? Famous for mocking Voldemort openly? The boy that had girls from every year lusting over him? Who was, as I recall, very interested in you?"

"What's this?" asked Harry with interest.

Ginny blushed. "What on earth do you mean, very interested in me?"

"Oh, come on, Ginny!" exclaimed Hermione. "The boy was mad for you! Don't you remember him sneaking all those valentines into the common room in your fourth year? And there was that fairy that followed you around all Valentine's Day in your fifth year singing 'My Jennifer'."

"Yes, well, nothing ever happened!"

"Only because you refused to let it," said Hermione in amused tones. "If you had just snapped your fingers, you could have had him like *that*," clicking her fingers as she said it. "You should have heard the girls in my dormitory: they weren't sure whether to hate you or imitate you. Mind you, that might have been why Lavender chose to date Ron: hoping that he would simply see the red hair and grab her because of the association." She laughed, slightly bitterly.

"Why is it I've never heard about all of this? Or ever heard of this boy... LeAnfast?"

"Because, Harry," said Hermione blandly, "you are too self-absorbed to notice anything that doesn't have EVIL - PROPERTY OF LORD VOLDEMORT, HARRY POTTER MUST DIE written on it. If you never even managed to learn of the existence of several people in your own house and year, not to mention all the other people in our year whose names you never bothered to learn, then why should you be surprised that you never noticed someone with a crush on Ginny?"

"I am not self-absorbed!"

"Then why," asked Ginny quietly, "have you not noticed that you are in the ladies' lavs?"

~*~

"Why are you here, Aunt Hermione?"

Hermione looked at Sirius, startled. Beside him, Clemence groaned slightly.

"What do you mean by that, Sirius?" Hermione asked, puzzled.

"You and Uncle Ron live in Hogsmeade, not London. Lance doesn't need to get the Hogwarts Express. So why does he get it?"

Clemence kicked him sharply on the ankle; he looked at her in surprise, to see her mouthing 'shut up' at him. He didn't know why. Indeed, he was rather puzzled that no one - even himself - else had even mentioned this before. He and his parents, he knew, had met her every year at King's Cross since Lance had begun at Hogwarts; he remembered seeing the mutinous Lance being waved off by Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron, who was also looking rather mutinous. But he had never actually considered why they did this.

They had all left The Old London Coach House, once Dad had dashed out of the ladies toilets with his face blazing, in one large mass: Dad and Mum with the two younger children at the front, with Bill, Aunt Fleur, Marguerite and Uncle Percy chattering or preaching to them; Uncle Fred and Aunty Angelina and their children forming a buffer between them and Granny and Granddad, Ron and his four children; and Aunty Katie and Uncle George with their children forming another buffer between them and Hermione, who was walking with Sirius and Clemence.

Hermione smiled. "It's a good bonding exercise, you know. It's good for students to make friends on the train, meet new people for the first time before school begins, share their hopes, their fears...it makes a child stand out if they only turn up at the gates, and if they have a parent who is a teacher, it heightens the already great risk of their being pegged as teacher's pets by the other students, which is never good. The Hogwarts Express," she began in an official tone, "is a great boon for equality, a leveller of barriers, allowing students of all classes, creeds, heritages and views to come together in a thoroughly neutral, secure and comforting environment...". She smiled. "At least, that's how the Headmistress justified keeping it going after the bombings eight years ago."

"You don't like her, do you?" asked Sirius curiously.

"What on earth makes you say that?" asked Hermione in shock, as Clemence delivered a kick to Sirius' shin whilst somehow managing to keep walking gracefully.

"Ow! I don't know. You just don't seem to like her."

"Clemence, don't kick your cousin. And of course I like Professor McGonagall. She's a bit stern, I'll grant, but there's nothing wrong with her."

"There's nothing wrong with you or Uncle Percy, and that doesn't make you like him."

"That's different, Sirius," said Hermione firmly, her colour heightening. "Now have I told you everything you want?"

Sirius thought about it. "So all the students who would find it easier to go directly to Hogwarts go here and get the train instead?"

"Effectively so, yes. There are always a few who get dropped off before the train arrives by their parents, but most bring them here - Remus and Tonks, for example."

"And there's you, idiot," added Clemence to Sirius. "Your parents will be going to Hogwarts later, and they're not rushing to take you with them."

"Oh yeah," said Sirius in astonishment.

"Honestly," huffed Hermione (again) in exasperation. "You're just as bad as your father sometimes."

"I am not!" answered Sirius indignantly. "But until yesterday, Mum and Dad weren't going anywhere near Hogwarts, so I was getting the train anyway, and it would hardly make sense to change things at the last minute."

Clemence looked at him with one elegant eyebrow raised, before turning to Hermione and calmly asking, "Would you give me a detention if I pushed him in front of one of those cars?"

"I'm afraid that I can't give detentions before the start of term," replied Hermione blandly. Clemence made to push Sirius. Hermione continued: "However, I would hand you over to your Aunt Ginny with a clear conscience."

Sirius smirked. Clemence glared. "You're no fun."

~*~

"Charlie!"

Ginny dashed down Platform Nine of King's Cross Station and threw herself into her older brother's arms. He laughed. "Ginny, you do realise that you just behaved like a four-year old in front of your husband, your children, and the rest of our family."

"Shut up," she said, grinning. "It's been ages since I've seen my favourite brother, over a year, and I'm going to be dragged off to Hogwarts later today, and I want to spend as much time with you as possible before you're forced to spend quality time with my children."

"Ginny, I told you when I called, I want to spend my holidays with my family. It's bloody ages since I've spent any time with your two younger sprogs, and I'd love to change that. It's just a pity I couldn't get my holiday earlier so that I could spend it with Sirius as well - and, of course, you and Harry, now."

"You can keep Dobby and Jinkey company - you can even have a chat to Kreacher these days, he's gone senile, just sits there mumbling about the old days."

"Sounds like my boss: whenever the Muggle Continental Union plans some new road or building project inadvertently in a dragon area, he just complains that it wasn't like that in the old days, 'when a dragon could fly from the Dniester to the Bulgarian border without anyone complaining': 'course, from what I heard when I first went out there, the reason no-one complained was because the Communist Party's Magical Wing kept the Muggles and wizards from doing anything about it, but then Barbescu doesn't seem to have realised that Ceaucescu has been dead the past twenty or so years..."

"Charlie!" cried Mum, rushing over to them and thus ending a rather confusing conversation (Ginny's grasp of politics was sub-par, her knowledge of geography abysmal, and her knowledge of Muggle history and contemporary affairs was slightly worse than that of a long-dead badger). "Love! It's so good" - seizing him in a bear hug - "to see you again! It's so long since we've all seen you! You've got thinner! You promised me that you were eating properly whilst you were in Siberia!"

"Mum," said Charlie calmly, "I've been back in Rumania for six months now. I ate pretty well in Siberia, and I've been eating more than the dragons since I got back."

"Maybe you're just getting more exercise now," said Dad, smiling at his son. "Been more intensive with the dragons, have you?"

"Yeah, something like that," laughed Charlie. "Hermione!"

"Hello Charlie!" she replied, smiling as he swept her into a hug, much to Mum's disapproval (honestly, when were they going to give that hostility a rest?). He followed this up by giving the twins friendly punches on the arms, and pulling Ron into a backslapping hug, and warmly shaking Harry's hand.

"This'll take ages," Ginny heard Clemence mutter.

Ginny smiled. 'She'll understand one day,' she thought.

At that moment, Fleur bustled over, Bill, Percy and Marguerite trailing behind her. "Charles! It is good to see you again," she exclaimed throatily, smiling sweetly at him, and darting a smug look at Ginny, before kissing Charlie on both cheeks.

"Charlie, mate, nice to see you," said Bill quietly, looking less than enthused. Behind him, Percy was tutting. Charlie, releasing Fleur, greeted both of them rather stiffly.

'Honestly,' thought Ginny, 'Men and their jealousy. Or their prudishness, as the case may be.' It was like this every time there was a general meeting of the family involving Charlie: Fleur flirted with her handsome brother-in-law outrageously and harmlessly; Charlie took part in it good-naturedly and equally harmlessly; Bill looked on and did nothing, whilst Percy fulminated against the wiles of beautiful sinful ladies; and the three brothers would spend the next half-hour glaring at each other, before going down to the pub, getting absolutely plastered, and wandering home at two in the morning singing drinking songs (including Percy, who would make up for his sin the next morning by denouncing everyone at the breakfast table as hell-bound sinners). Men were such silly creatures. 'Thank God we aren't like that,' thought Ginny.

There was a laugh. Charlie had by now wandered off with Sirius and Clemence, to whom he was chatting earnestly, making hand motions which she suspected were to illustrate one of his dragon tales. Fleur, peeved, was now draping herself over Harry, who was merrily telling her what seemed to be an extremely amusing anecdote, whilst Ron was - as usual - staring at her and drooling slightly. "Bitch," Ginny muttered under her breath.

~*~

"All Hogwarts students aboard now, please!"

Sirius, with Mum and Dad hurried aboard the train, manhandling the trunk with them; Bill, Fleur, Marguerite and Clemence followed them, lugging their two trunks behind them. They hurried into a conveniently empty compartment.

"Well, then," said Fleur, panting as she and Marguerite dropped Marguerite's trunk onto the floor with a crash, "You three will be verry comfortable 'ere; and you will probably get more company soon. I 'eard Remus and Nymphadora say that their son would probably sit 'ere. Marguerite, you are to look after your sister and your cousin, do you 'ear me?"

"Why can't Lance do it?" asked Marguerite rebelliously.

"Lance is not my son, or your bruzzer, and if your aunt and uncle will not make 'im sit with Clemence and Sirius, then zat is their business. But you are my daughter, and I am telling you to look after your sister and your cousin."

"I want to sit with my friends!"

"You can ask them to come in 'ere and sit with you all!"

« Avec les bebes stupides! Tres probablement ! » snapped Marguerite.

"How dare you call us babies!" shrieked Clemence in English, just as Fleur shouted, « Ne pas etre si grossier au sujet de ta soeur et de ton cousin! Tu es l'enfant le plus age, tu as des responsabilites ! Tu ne pensas pas meme a me desobeir sur ceci ! »

« Tu regardas et vois! » shouted Marguerite.

« Comment defi vous !» cried Fleur, before letting loose a torrent of incomprehensible French, replied to in kind by Marguerite, leaving Sirius only able to hear a few words such as 'cochon!', 'wretch ingrat!' and 'vieux harpy mauvais!'.

"Oh dear," said Dad behind Sirius, as he and Bill both cancelled the levitation charms on the other trunks, letting them drop with loud thuds. "Should we try to stop them?"

"Yes!" exclaimed Sirius. "You can't let them act like that!"

"Just leave them to it," advised Bill wearily. "They'll sort it out and clear the air properly, and then they'll hug and make up, and the kids can go off to school with everyone having said what they felt they need to say, and they'll all be happy."

"A little optimistic, don't you think, Bill?" asked Mum amusedly.

"Believe me when I say it's happened before."

The four of them left Fleur and her daughters yelling in the carriage - a knot of curious people was gathering around the doors, but they all fell back in awe as Dad passed them. Then they were off the train, and onto the platform, where Aunt Hermione joined them.

"God, were those trains as packed when we went on them?" she exclaimed. "It was almost impossible to get out once we'd stowed Lance's trunk."

She looked around. "So where're Fleur and the girls?"

Dad nodded his head towards the train. "Having an argument."

Hermione shook her head, looking disapproving. "Oh dear. Not again."

She sighed, and then looked at Sirius. "Now, Lance is in compartment C3 with his friends - that's the one along from your carriage as you go towards the back - and he's promised to look in on you every half an hour, and to help you if you need any. I would have told him to sit with them," she added to Mum, Dad and Bill, "but that would just have caused a pointless row, and it was simpler to give him the freedom of choice over where to sit - that way he was obliged to obey me when I asked him to make the check-ups on the kids. And, of course, it's important for you to be able to make new friends, without the awkwardness of an older student playing watchdog - I remember when your mother went to Hogwarts for the first time, she had to sit with the twins and Percy, and ended up getting really upset in the common room that night because no-one in her year had been talking to her that day - well, except for Colin Creevey, but I think that just made things worse."

"Really, Hermione," said Mum lightly; Sirius could see the blood vessels in her neck pulse, and her smile tauten. "Let's not bring up old history."

Mercifully, this moment of tension was broken when the shrill whistle of the Express sounded. Fleur dashed off the train, calling, « Au revoir, mes anges! Je t'esme tous les deux !»

"Well, then." Dad smiled at Sirius. "It's time to go, I think."

"Have a good trip," said Mum, who was looking suspiciously teary; and then both she and Dad pulled Sirius into a crushing hug.

"We'll see you tonight," said Dad.

"And you can come to us any time you like whilst we're there," said Mum.

"And you can always come to me," said Aunt Hermione firmly.

"But you'd better get on that train now," said Bill, a big grin plastered over his face, "because your granddad doesn't have another flying car available to be wrecked."

Sirius laughed, and dashed onto the train, where Clemence joined him at the window.

"Are Granny and Aunt Hermione talking to each other?" she asked, as the rest of the Weasley hoard gathered together in front of the window, relentlessly waving. Hermione, Sirius noted, was stalking away from Granny and standing between Dad and Charlie.

"Not any more, they aren't," he redundantly pointed out.

And then with a sudden jerk that made both of them topple over and hastily pick themselves up, the train began to move. They heard various family members yelling 'Goodbye,' or 'Good luck,' or 'I'll pray for you,' or 'Send us a toilet seat!' Sirius saw Brian trotting, attempting desperately to keep up with the train, being left behind - and then the train picked up speed, and they were being hurtled out of London towards Hogwarts.

"Right, then," said Clemence, sounding profoundly relieved. "Let's get back to our compartment before Marguerite gives it away to her friends and leaves us on the door-sill."

They returned to their compartment.

~*~

"Goodbye!" shrilled Ginny from beside Harry as the train pulled away; Brian squirmed out of Harry's grip and darted down the platform after it. Harry let him: he couldn't come to any harm, and besides, he felt...strange, at the moment. Odd. His son, his eldest son, Sirius, whom he had loved from the moment he had been given into his arms at Saint Mungo's, red and sticky and bawling his first cry; Young Sirius, whom he had named after Old Sirius, his godfather, the closest thing that he had had to a father after the death of his own parents; he had loved his son, treasured the moments of childhood, and now they were gone forever. Sirius was on the road to adulthood now, and the little boy who had been terrified of his own broomstick was gone, replaced by the confident, sensitive, caring, young man that he had just packed off to boarding school...

"Are you all right, Harry?" asked Hermione curiously. He nodded wordlessly. Molly, who had collected Brian from the end of the platform, glared at Hermione, and smiled sympathetically at him.

"It'll get easier with time," she said to him. "You'll see. He's still your son, and he'll still look up to you, and whilst it will never be the same again, that doesn't mean you both will be any less his parents."

Harry grasped at Ginny's hand and squeezed it tightly. She squeezed back, and gave him a weak smile. She spoke for both of them. "Let's go home."

~*~

"I'm off to see my mates," announced Marguerite casually.

Clemence glared at her. "Maman told you to stay with us."

Marguerite shrugged. "Make me."

"You know, of course, that I will be informing Mother of this," said Clemence icily, "and seulement Dieu peut vous sauver when she finds out."

« Si elle decouvre, alors j'informerai non seulement Sirius mais toute le college au sujet de la famille des poupees que tu as fait pour nous representer tous, » said Marguerite sweetly.

Sirius wished, as always, that he spoke French. He hated being left out of conversations, especially when his own name was mentioned.

Clemence had gone white with fury. « Vous n'oseriez pas ! »

« L'essayer et decouvrir, » answered Marguerite calmly.

Clemence stood up, her eyes blazing. « Amende alors. Allez-vous -en, maintenant ! »

Marguerite smiled, and strolled out through the door. « A bientot, cherie . »

Clemence slammed it shut behind her. « Putain » she swore. Her face was taut, and she was grinding her jaw ; a sure sign that she was on the verge of tears and refusing to let herself go further.

Sirius waiting a few heartbeats and then asked: "So what was all that about?"

Clemence glared at him. "None of your business. Just Marguerite being her usual self."

"Oh." He paused for a minute. "I definitely heard my name in there somewhere..."

Clemence looked ready to eviscerate him. "I don't care if you heard the names of the Lost Wizards and of the Queen's magic cats! Will you just be quiet and LEAVE IT!" The last words ended on a shriek. In the awkward silence that followed, the door slid open, and Tarquin Lupin walked in, followed by a nervous girl and two small boys, of whom one seemed terrified, whilst the other looked as amused as Lupin.

"Thought I heard you, Clemence," he said, grinning good-naturedly. Clemence gave a blazing glare that left him entirely unfazed. He turned to Sirius. "Hello Sirius, nice to see you again."

"Nice to see you too," replied Sirius, grinning. He jerked his head at Tarquin's followers. "Who're they?"

"New kids, same as us," replied Tarquin. "This," he said, pointing at the amused boy, "is my esteemed Uncle, Dorian Tonks."

"Er, hello," said Dorian. "So you're Harry Potter's son, are you?"

"Er, yes," said Sirius. "So, you're...a slow ager? A remedial student who's trying to fit in? You've been petrified and only just revived?"

As he had expected, Dorian, rather than taking offence, laughed heartily. "Well, I was expecting that. Though I've never heard the comment about being petrified before, I'll have to write home to Mum and Dad about that, and tell Nymph, of course."

"As I was about to say before you interrupted me, Uncle," said Tarquin, grinning slightly, "This is indeed the great Harry Potter's son, Sirius Potter. Make sure you pronounce it 'Sirrius', he hates it when people pronounce it 'Serious'."

"Well, everyone who counts calls me 'Sirrius'," answered Sirius defensively, "so why shouldn't everyone else?"

"That's a very serious attitude to take to such seriously trivial matter," replied Dorian. Sirius scowled, and Dorian smirked. "Alright, I've had my fun."

Tarquin turned towards Clemence to introduce her, but she had already stood up, and was looming threateningly over both of them.

"How, exactly, did you come to be the uncle of him?" she demanded, gesturing at Tarquin.

Dorian smiled. "Last swing of the ovaries."

Clemence's expression of hostility replaced itself with one of blank incomprehension. Sirius, as baffled as her, noticed that the nervous girl was looking more comfortable, as though pleased that she was no longer alone in the sea of incomprehension; the scared boy, on the other hand, had raised his eyebrows, and seemed to be looking politely incredulous.

"Excuse me?" asked Clemence.

"It's a vernacular expression used to refer to a woman's fertility at the end of her reproductive life. As a woman approaches menopause, she gets less fertile. But just before hitting it, some women become slightly more fertile again, allowing them the chance to conceive a child, even if for some time previous to that, or indeed ever, they couldn't. It's the reason for some women occasionally producing children when getting on in years, leading to several examples of 'God-given Children' throughout Muggle history."

Everyone turned to look at the scared boy. "Of course," he continued, rather bitterly, "it's probably not the same for wizards. Nothing else seems to be."

There was a moment of silence, and then Dorian added lightly, "Anyway, what he said. My parents had Nymph when they got married young, couldn't have any more kids for ages, then Mum had me just before she hit the menopause. But she and Nymph got pregnant at the same time, and Tark was born fifteen days before me. Simple."

"So who are you two, then?" asked Clemence, who having cheered up, no longer cared about the uncle and nephew.

Tarquin resumed his introductions. "This is Samuel Goss. He's a Muggle-born. And this is Hester Finnigan."

"My father was in your father's dormitory at school," Hester said to Sirius. "Seamus Finnigan."

"Oh yeah," said Sirius. "I remember him. Dad's mentioned him a few times." This was true: Harry had, in his tales of his life, mentioned quite a few times, 'That Irish toe-rag who didn't believe me about Voldemort and then sold awful stories about me to the Prophet after I left school'. He had married Lavender Brown, Sirius recalled, in the Easter of 1998. "So your mother is Lavender Brown?"

Hester coloured violently. "Er, no. He divorced her after a year, once they stopped being affectionate. My mother was Tracey Davis; he married her after she got pregnant with me." She added, with a hint of a whine, "Everyone always assumes that Lavender Brown is my mother."

"How tragic," remarked Clemence sarcastically. "One's life can't get much worse, can it?"

"Anyway," interjected Tarquin hurriedly, looking at Dorian, Hester and Samuel, "this is Sirius Potter, son of the famous Harry Potter. And this is his cousin, Clemence Weasley."

"Clemence?" said Hester doubtfully.

Clemence's nostrils flared. "Clementia," she said, glaring at Hester, saying the name disdainfully. "I was christened Clementia. But my mother is French, and so she called me and my brother and sister by the French forms of our names."

She looked at the four intruders disdainfully. "You may call me Clementia once, and only once, without fear. And thereafter you will call me Clemence. If any of you dare to call me Clementia more than once, I swear by Merlin and Morgan that I will make your deaths as slow and agonising as is more than humanly possible, and will thereafter serve up your remains to your loved ones."

"Well, just as long as we're clear on that, Clemence," answered Dorian Tonks jovially, and everyone sat down, Dorian sitting next to Sirius and whispering, "I'm going to save up my chance; never know when the best time to use it may be."

Clemence gave him a look, and then burst out laughing, and the other five joined in, Samuel nonetheless muttering something about 'a pack of lunatics'; and they all settled down, watching as the Hogwarts Express rushed them out of London and onto the Via Arcana.

~*~

By the time six o'clock struck on the chimneypiece clock in the parlour, Hermione and Ron had disappeared back to Hogsmeade; their three children, who normally spent the night of Sorting Feast with Harry and Ginny, were now racing through the house with Brian and Elaine, elated that they were getting a chance to stay with 'Fun Uncle Charlie' (Ginny was quietly furious with Hermione over this, certain that the children would between them destroy the house, but she had promised, and in any case, whilst Dad was still conducting his 'experiments', it was best to keep children away). Bill had gone home, whilst Fleur had gone shopping, both attempting, in their own ways, to deal with the departure of their youngest child: Ginny privately suspected that Fleur would be pregnant by Easter. Mum and Dad had returned home, towing the twins and their families behind them (no doubt the twins would enjoy helping Dad out, Angelina and Katie would frantically keep the children away from the bunker at the bottom of the garden, and Mum would sit calmly in the kitchen with her medical kit, calm in the belief that bandages and a well-used wand could fix anything). Percy had headed off to his church meeting to Praise the Lord, his early departure no doubt due to Fleur's in-depth account of giving birth to Clemence (Harry and Ginny had no idea how that conversation had begun, since they had only walked in on it when Fleur had reached hour twenty-five of the labour process: Harry had remarked that they would have to go with Percy, since only God would know how the conversation had begun). Which left, apart from the children, just Harry, Ginny, and Charlie.

"Harry," called Ginny, "is your bag packed yet?"

"Nearly, dear," he replied, and Ginny sighed and sat back down.

"Nearly, he says. When I know, and he knows I know, that he'll have just been spending the past hours playing with the kids, and that he was probably just reading Quidditch In Profile with Agravaine and Bedivere when I shouted him." There was a thud from upstairs. "That'll be him dashing into the drawing room to collect that pile of ironing I told him to pack." She rolled her eyes at Charlie, who was sitting comfortably in the chair next to her. "It's ridiculous. He's the one that wanted to go, and now he's the one who hasn't even-"

"All ready, Ginny," said Harry, walking into the parlour, levitating his trunk behind him.

Charlie smirked at Ginny.

"Oh," she said. "I'd better run up and get my own trunk."

And with that, she dashed up the stairs. Harry and Charlie both laughed.

"So, Charlie," asked Harry companionably, "When will you be going back to Rumania?"

"Not for a while," answered Charlie. "Siberia went well, so they've given me a few months' holiday. And normally I'd be insulted by that, but they've suggested that I go to Mexico and check out the Quetzals - which, in dragon terms, is like tripping over a stone and finding out it's a Philosophers Stone. And I thought I'd spend some time in the British Isles, checking out the native stock: they're finding pygmy dragon fossils on Man, and I fully intend to take the children there."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"Yeah, it is," replied Charlie, wistfully: Harry suspected he was wishing that he could see the dragons there and then.

"Right, then," trilled Ginny, as she bustled into the Parlour again, levitating her trunk, followed by Jinkey and her family. "Jinkey's going to take our trunks to Hogwarts, and we can Apparate from the square."

"Jinkey and Dobby are going to go to the Elf-feast after they have delivered Master and Mistress's trunks!" squeaked Dobby in excitement. Harry smiled.

"But we is going to be back by morning," put in Jinkey hastily. "So Mistress's brother is not needing to worry about breakfast or chores tomorrow."

"I wants to go," sniffled Kokey. "Why does Morby get to go and not I?"

"Morby is going because my friends is wanting to see him," reproved Jinkey sternly, "and because he is not having a cold like you is."

"That is unfair, it is," whined Kokey.

"It is not, young elf," reproved Jinkey. "Next year, you can go, if you is well and is well-behaved. But you is now having to go to bed!"

Kokey obediently (though grudgingly) went; Jinkey bowed to the three humans, laid a hand on each trunk, and disappeared with a loud crack; Dobby also bowed to the humans, and went down the back stairs into the kitchen, carrying Morbey.

"I always love watching them play out their little dramas," remarked Charlie.

"Don't, Charlie," scolded Ginny with a smile. "Dobby'll hear you."

"Well, then," said Harry, "shall we go?"

Ten minutes later, having said goodbye to their family in the front hall (including Mrs Black, who warned them not to soak their feet, and to give Sirius her love), Harry and Ginny walked out of the old front door, and stood on the pavement outside, watching the house shrink and fold itself away between the numbers eleven and thirteen.

"Odd that we never feel that, isn't it?" remarked Harry curiously.

"Not really, Harry," answered Ginny with a smile. "You just don't understand how the spells work."

"Humph."

They shrank their broomsticks ("We may want to fly from Hogsmeade," Ginny had pointed out, "but we don't have to trip over them if we don't"), and then they walked to the small blind alley that they used as an apparition point. "Anyone about?" asked Ginny.

"Nah," replied Harry. And with that, they strolled into the alleyway, and whisked themselves away.

~*~

By seven o'clock, Clemence was bored. They had, between them, shared out their lunches (although Sirius's fruit cake had proved inedible, and was being saved by Clemence in case she needed a weapon), as well as buying a stack of confectionary from Freya Frigsham's trolley, but that had been four hours ago, and they had been advised to avoid eating too much, in preparation for the Sorting Feast, by Lance Granger-Weasley, who had indeed periodically checked up on them. They had talked about everything until there was nothing left to talk about. The most notable visit to their compartment so far had been from the Head Boy and Girl, Jamie Cartwright and Bacci Ballum, in which they had introduced themselves, stated that they hoped the youngsters would enjoy their time at Hogwarts, and then stood around awkwardly waiting for questions before giving up and moving on to the next compartment. Clemence had been unimpressed by both. Cartwright had been reasonably good-looking, but had a weedy voice, and a terminal lack of confidence. Ballum had been nice enough (according to Lance, she was 'A Peach of a Girl'), but Clemence could hardly say that she inspired any mad desire to learn, or to achieve authority. Indeed, given the jeers she heard from the next carriage down after Bacci and Jamie entered, it didn't really look as though the pair were at all respected. Which hardly gave Clemence a good impression of Professor McGonagall.

It was ridiculous, though. The way every adult had been talking about it (except, of course, for maman, who had been predicting that the Express would give them such a horrendous journey that they would want to take a Muggle train next year), the Hogwarts Express had been portrayed as such a wonderful, friendship forming, enemy defining, exciting, eventful experience that it would set out the course of her life. If that were the case, she thought sourly, her life would mainly involve boredom, and be spent almost solely in the company of not only Sirius (whom she liked when he wasn't being weird), but also Tarquin Lupin (thought he had a sense of humour, didn't), Dorian Tonks (had a sense of humour, but liable to drive her mad within a week, especially if he kept the Clementia threat hanging over her), Hester Finnigan (revealed every problem, issue, complaint in her life within an hour of meeting her, moaning constantly), and Samuel Goss (know-it-all, and didn't really want to be a wizard - why was he even here?). Then again, she might just beat herself to death with that fruit-cake: at least creating a new form of death would be more of an achievement than the eternal label of 'The Pretty One' in this Hellish Sextet.

The door slid open. 'Ah hah!' she thought. 'Finally. No doubt this is the Heir to a rich Pureblood family, who will sneer at us, before we drive him away with our enlightened views and superior verb power'.

She raised her eyebrows at him. "What do you want?" she demanded belligerently.

The dark boy in the doorway raised his eyebrows right back at her. "Charming manner of greeting strangers you have there."

He stepped in. "I heard that Harry Potter's son was in this compartment. And then I noticed the signs posted on the walls pointing me hear, which effectively confirmed the rumour."

"What signs?" asked Sirius.

Clemence, however, had already noticed the shifty expressions on the faces of Dorian and Tarquin. "What have you done, and why?" she snapped.

Dorian spoke for both of them. "Well, two red-headed men came up to me on the platform, gave me the signs and twenty galleons, and asked me to put the signs on the carriage walls. Then I asked Tark to help me stick them up. There was nothing wrong with it," he added defensively, "they just said 'Sirius Potter, son of Harry Potter, this way'."

"Except to everyone else," put in the dark boy, "they read 'Sirius Potter, son of Harry Potter, this way: leave him alone or you will perish at the hands of his entire family.' The Head Boy and Girl have been trying to get them down for the past hour."

"What?" said Sirius in confusion.

"WHAT!?" roared Clemence in fury. "How dare they! I'll destroy them, those wretched uncles! I'll tell maman of them, I'll have them torn limb from limb by their own gadgets!"

"Calm down," said Tarquin in alarm. This only made things worse.

"And YOU! You two! This is your fault! How dare you stick up such stupid signs about us? What right had you? I'll make you pay, do you hear me, no man ever wrongs a veela, or a part-veela, and escapes from judgement -"

"Clementia!" yelled Dorian, clearly hoping - said the rational part of her mind - to calm her down. It did not work. She saw red, gave an incoherent shriek of rage, and dived on him, noticing as she did so that the dark boy was moving quickly towards them, a frown on his face and-

"So this is what Halfbloods and Mudbloods do for fun," sneered a voice from the doorway.

Just like Draco Malfoy in Uncle Harry and Uncle Ron's stories, thought Clemence in excitement, quickly picking herself up off the winded Dorian and raising her fists. Sirius jumped up beside her. The dark boy turned around and said wearily, "Don't you have some underlings to thrash, Smith?"

Smith smirked. "Honestly, Boot, I'd have expected better from you. Consorting with riff-raff like this? A tomboy who has no concern about her femininity, a pair of Halfblood clots who only care about making people laugh, the daughter of a shotgun marriage, some miserable little Mudblood, and," - his eyes narrowed - "the son of the famous Harry Potter."

"And what's so bad about being the son of Harry Potter?" demanded Clemence. 'Damn Sirius,' she thought. 'Why doesn't he stand up for himself?'

Smith sneered. "Oh, nothing at all, if you are him. Everything if you aren't. According to my father, when 'The Boy Who Lived' was at school, he spent all his time expecting to be automatically trusted, believed adored, and all the time never even bothered to pay any attention to anyone beyond his little Mudblood know-it-all and the Weasleys - who as we can see, Boot, really aren't worthy of our attention. Or at least, no more than a casual glance to see where we do not want to go."

Boot paled: it made him look rather like Uncle Harry, Clemence thought. "Shut your trap, Smith," he snapped. "If you can't be civil, go somewhere else. Find the Slytherin carriage: we all know your family would be there if it weren't for you being 'The Heir of Hufflepuff'." He practically sneered the term.

Smith raised his eyebrows. "Fine words for the Heir of Ravenclaw." He made his words serious, confidential. "We both descend in unbroken bloodlines from Two of the Founders, heirs to a legacy passed down from parent to child without exception. We represent some of the Oldest, Purest bloodlines in Britain. We bestride the wizarding world, the sole traceable descendants of The Ancient Lineage. It is our duty to comport ourselves as befits our station, our duty. So why do you waste your time on these pathetic specimens, Halfbloods and Mudbloods?"

Boot raised an eyebrow. "I'd be more impressed if I hadn't heard enough of your father's lectures to know that you're just quoting him."

"For God's sake Boot!" exclaimed Smith. He pointed at Samuel Goss. "Look at him. Do you want to be friends with him? This pathetic little Mudblood, who probably can't trace his family tree past his own parents?"

Boot made as if to speak, but was prevented when Goss stood up angrily. "How dare you?" he scolded. "Who do you think you're calling a Mudblood? My family has kept very precise records over the centuries, thank you very much! And I'll have you know, we've all been Pureblooded Jews for more than fifteen generations! My father came from a respectable Jewish family, and my mother was a Cohen, a more ancient lineage than you can claim to boast, Smith. So you can go away and pester someone else, because I can assure you," he added with a touch of obscene pride, "that there are no Shixters in my family."

Smith gaped. So did everyone else, although Boot also rolled his eyes. Eventually, Sirius said firmly, "Good-bye Smith," and he bundled him out of the door with the help of Boot.

"Well," exclaimed Dorian Tonks, "who in the world was that?"

"That," answered Boot bitterly, "would be Mattathiah Smith. His father - and my father, come to that - were at Hogwarts in the same year group as your father" (he pointed at Sirius). "The Smiths are very proud, obsessed with their lineage, and like to see themselves as guardians of Britain's Pureblood heritage. They also tend to be absolute toe-rags - though Mattathiah and his father are particularly bad. Oddly enough," and he added this with enough acid to burn through titanium, "he and my father are best friends. Meaning I've had to endure countless visits from or to or with the Smith family."

He smiled. "Mattathiah, at least, isn't the brightest ray of sunshine. He gets easily flummoxed by people who think of their lineage as better than his."

He turned to Samuel Goss, who was wearing a look of self-satisfaction. "But if I were you, I'd keep quiet about that ancestry of yours. People won't like it."

"Oh, anti-Semitism again?" said Samuel calmly. "Relax. I dealt with that at First School, I'll deal with it here. If anyone shows prejudice because of my religion and heritage, I'll insist that the Headmistress make an example of them. Really," he assured Boot, who was looking sceptical, "I can deal with Anti-Semitism."

"What's Anti-Semitism?" asked Boot in confusion. 'At least he seemed to understand most of it,' thought Clemence, who had been left consistently confused by the boy's talk for the past few hours.

Goss glared. "Anti-Judaism, of course." He muttered what sounded to Clemence like 'Ignorant magicians'. She treated him to a glare.

Boot shook his head. "Nah, that's not a problem. It's Muggle-borns who're most racist in our society - they bring it in with them. Most of the Purebloods don't care about skin or race or religion, as long as the person has a good wizarding genealogy: they might care if there were more Purebloods, or more wizards, but as long as anyone can remember Purebloods have always just seen them as other Purebloods with a different skin colour or ethnicity. Some even like the chance to get their hands on some genes and ancestors that their rivals won't have." He shook his head again. "No, you need to be careful because you're a Muggle-born. Not only that, you're a Muggle-born who takes pride in his Muggle ancestry, which is even worse - to them, of course," he added hastily. "If you give another performance like that, the blood-fanatics'll skin you alive."

The carriage door slid open again, and Lance Granger-Weasley strode in, followed by Tarquin's older sister, Lavinia, who informed them that the train would soon be arriving at Hogsmeade, and what on earth had all that shouting been about? To which Clemence hastily replied that it had merely been a disagreement between herself and Sirius over when they were likely to arrive. Lavinia tutted and withdrew; Lance gave his cousins a suspicious look, before he too withdrew.

"Right, then," breathed Clemence in relief: she knew her cousin well enough to know that he was very much like his mother - strict, bossy, and determined to tell people off if caught out. She turned to Boot. "What's your name?"

"Maximilian Boot. Max for short. Though Smith always calls me Boot."

"I'm Cle - Clementia Weasley. Everyone calls me Clemence, though."

"She threatens to destroy anyone who calls her by the full name," put in Sirius helpfully. Clemence, not for the first time, decided that the Potters' psychopathic House-elf must have stuffed Sirius' foot into his mouth as a baby, leaving permanent side-effects.

"Why don't you like it?" asked Boot, looking confused. "Clementia's a nice enough name."

"That's easy for you to say," answered Clemence. "You don't have to live with it."

He smiled at her. "Fine, then. Clemence it is."

And before there was time to say more, she and Hester Finnigan were being shooed out of the compartment by Bacci Ballum into the next one, so that they could get changed into their school-robes without the boys seeing; and then they had arrived at Hogwarts.

~*~

"Firs' years this way! Firs' years this way!"

"That's Hagrid," Sirius informed the others, as they all stepped off the train onto a small ill-lit platform. He had met the half-giant and his family quite a few times; but he was, yet again, struck by how Hagrid towered over those around him. "He's a half-giant, and he's married to another half-giant, who's the Headmistress of Beauxbatons -"

"My brother's school," put in Clemence.

"Goodness," remarked Max drily. "Bet that rubs our Head up the wrong way, having a spy in her camp."

"Follow me, please!" boomed Hagrid as he began leading the First Years out of the station, and down a steep little path.

"Hush," said Hester nervously. "Don't say things like that, not after what's been happening this summer."

Sirius flushed, as Clemence glared at him. He had, he thought ruefully, been responsible for this miniature outbreak of fear in their compartment: having been informed by his parents of the summer's events at Hogwarts, he had promptly forgotten about the conversation until precisely 1:40 in the afternoon, when he had suddenly remembered and informed everyone on the train about the dead House-elf (which had, in fact, been common knowledge to most of them), the vandalism, the threatening letters, and the fact, divulged to Harry and Ginny by Hermione, that everyone at the school was moving from vague annoyance and suspicion to outright fear and hostility.

"Hester," repeated Clemence wearily, "we do not have to worry. It's a set of silly pranks which everyone is over-reacting to, not anything to worry about. What's actually happened? A elf died, and everyone agreed at the time that it was just suicide. And then a lab gets wrecked, a few idiotic letters get sent around, and everyone goes mad and thinks they're about to die. It's not rational, and it's not sensible. So calm down. We are all safe." She cursed as she tripped over a tree root in the darkness; whilst it was too dark for him to see her face, Sirius suspected that she was glaring again.

"Exactly," said Tarquin heartily. "McGonagall's a good Head, everyone says it, so she'll sort it all out, and get rid of whoever's doing it."

Hester, still looking doubtful, gave a weak smile, and tried to change the subject. "Gosh, it's dark, isn't it?"

"That would be because it's half-past seven in the evening and cloudy, Hester," answered Clemence coldly. "Didn't you see the clouds in the sky?"

Hester said nothing; Sirius suspected she felt embarrassed.

"Do you suppose we'll have a storm? I do hope it isn't whilst we're on the lake," commented Tarquin Lupin.

"Why did you ask the question, then turn it into a statement?" shot back Samuel Goss.

The little group down the path in silence, punctuated occasionally by muffled curses as people tripped or trod badly, and one loud moment of complaints when a girl behind Sirius fell head over heels into him, knocking him and half a dozen others over (fortunately for the girl, Clemence managed to keep her footing).

"An' we'll jus' round this bend here...now! Now then, what de yeh make o' that?"

Most of the children gasped, or made appropriate 'oooh,' or 'aaah' noises (except for a few at the back who complained that they couldn't see, Tarquin Lupin who pointedly yawned, and Clemence, who mumbled, "Let's not go nuts") as they rounded the bend, and saw the Long Lake, the Lonely Mountain overlooking it, and the vast castle atop that, its many windows blazing as it stood proudly against the backdrop of a darkening sky and swiftly scurrying clouds.

"Come on, then!" roared Hagrid, breaking Sirius from his reverie. "Down to the boats with yeh!"

"Is he drunk?" asked Dorian.

"Or just mad?" asked Tarquin. Both of them laughed, as the mass of children made their way to the shore of the lake, where Hagrid was now standing by the biggest boat, which had only one large seat.

"Alrigh', then, you lot? Don' be scared of the water, we haven' had a drownin' since th' eighteenth century, and tha' time it were deliberate. Sirius! Clemence! Good ter see yer, both of ye! And ye too, Higgs, I remember ye father, he were trying to soak all the girls on his boat! Tonks, Lupin, how are ye: I still remember li'le Nymphadora overturnin' her boat when she star'ed."

Sirius laughed and said hello back; by his ear, he heard Clemence trill, "Hello Hagrid," before muttering, "I really wish he'd learn how to pronounce my name, it is definitely not 'Clemmense'."

"Four ter a boat, please!" called Hagrid. "Jes' get yerselves in any old way, don' fuss yerselves about who ye with, this won' take long."

"Right then," said Tarquin Lupin briskly. "What about me, Dorian, Hester and Samuel?"

Clemence looked as though she might say something about that; however, Sirius, who wanted to get to the feast, hurriedly answered, "Yeah, that'll be fine."

"Great," replied Lupin, and he jumped into a boat, followed by the other three, leaving Sirius, an amused Max Boot, and a disgruntled Clemence to hop into another, where they were soon joined by another girl with long blonde hair, who introduced herself as, "Rachel Chepstow, and before you ask, my family aren't wizards."

"You know, amongst wizarding circles, it's considered rude to introduce yourself in such a way," pointed out Max seriously. Rachel blushed, and kept quiet.

"Alrigh', then," roared Hagrid, "off we go!" He thwacked the side of his own boat with a pink umbrella, and the fleet of boats began to move.

"So, Max," asked Sirius in a friendly manner, "I suppose you're going to be in Ravenclaw, since you're her Heir?"

Max looked horrified. "I am hoping to be in Ravenclaw, yes, but that's because it's the best House, not because I'm her Heir. You should choose the House you're best suited for, not the House your father, or your mother, or an ancestor, was in."

"You sound like my sister," said Clemence sourly. "She's in Ravenclaw, too. And is always boasting that it's the best house. It enrages my mother: she had wanted us girls to go to Beauxbatons and be in Merovingian House like her, but was willing to take Gryffindor if we went to Hogwarts, because Dad was in that. So Marguerite made a point of getting herself into Ravenclaw."

"Good for her," said Max approvingly. "She shouldn't be forced into things. And Ravenclaw is the best house."

"How?" asked Sirius curiously.

"Easily," said Max smoothly. "Gryffindor is outdated, a mediaeval relic. Who measures someone up according to reckless idiocy these days? The world has moved past judging someone great if they're good at slaughtering people."

"Really," said Clemence, sounding as though she might put that to the test.

"Then there are the Slytherins," continued Boot, ignoring her. "Selfish, willing to do anything to achieve their ambition, an unfocused string of back-stabbers."

"And the Hufflepuffs?" asked Sirius.

"Clique-ish. Mobbish. They move around in packs, according to Dad, and prevent students from standing out."

"So what," enquired Clemence frostily, "is so great about the Ravenclaws?"

"They are dedicated to finding out the right answer. To discovering the truth, at whatever cost!"

Clemence raised her eyebrows. "Sounds like idiot stubbornness to me."

Max glared, and began: "It's total devotion to the search for truth -", when suddenly, a crack of thunder and a scream shattered the night.

~*~

When Harry and Ginny arrived in Hogsmeade, they found the evening so pleasant that they decided to walk up to Hogwarts. Which was why, forty-five minutes later, they were wandering around the grounds in the suddenly dark evening, trying to make their way back around the lake towards the castle from a particular quiet spot further down where they had once met for a tryst.

"Harry," said Ginny suddenly. He tensed, and reached for his wand instinctively. "No," she rebuked him, "nothing like that."

"What, then?" he asked irritably.

"There," and she pointed at it. He followed her finger with his gaze.

"Oh."

It was Dumbledore's tomb, gleaming slightly in what little light there was left. Ginny shivered. It was - unnerving, being near it at night. "Shall we go inside?" she asked anxiously. "We can easily make our way up to the castle from here without treading in anything nasty Hagrid's planted."

"I want to see it."

"Oh," said Ginny sadly. She'd been hoping he'd avoid it, forget it. 'Damn McGonagall!' she thought vehemently. "Okay, then," she replied out loud. "But shall we do it tomorrow?"

"No," said Harry harshly. "I want to see it now."

There was a crash of thunder above, and Ginny after remembered that she had had just enough time to think, 'Is that an omen?' before they both heard the scream ring out across the waves. And then a yell, and another, and then another scream, and more screaming, crying. The children. The First Years. Sirius.

"Harry," she yelled, "the brooms" - but he was already expanding both of them, and in a moment swung himself onto his, throwing hers to her, yelling, "Quickly."

She leapt onto hers, and they sped across the lake, through the rain that was beginning to fall, into the night and the unknown.

~*~

Rachel Chepstow screeched in terror, responding to the scream and the fear of what she dreaded might have happened. Clemence leaned across the boat and slapped her open-handed across one cheek, which only made things worse: Rachel yelled and scratched at Clemence, who backed away and yelled at Sirius and Max, "What in God's name is going on?"

Before Sirius could reply that he did not know, Max gasped and pointed at something Sirius could not see. "There! That boat! It's sinking!"

"Whose is it?" asked Sirius, already knowing.

Max grasped the side of the boat tightly. "It's Lupin's boat."

There was another crash of thunder, and the heavens opened up, pouring a soaking cloud of rain down upon them. Hagrid, from his boat at the front, struck the side fiercely with his pink umbrella, yelling something incomprehensible. And then the boats all jerked sideways and turned, racing towards the sinking boat, in a desperate attempt to save the children in the sinking boat.

~*~

This was ridiculous, thought Samuel Goss. All for the purposes of dramatic tension. They could have all gone in the carriages, but no, they had to go in these silly leaky boats. He hated water. He couldn't even swim; though he doubted swimming would do much good in this lake, he'd be dead of toxins or hypothermia before he got the chance to swim.

"This is appalling," he said out loud. "My feet are soaked, thanks to this stupid thing."

"No need to complain," reproved Dorian Tonks. "We'll be at the castle soon."

Tarquin Lupin frowned at the watery floor of the boat. "Actually," he said, "this thing does seem to be making too much water."

There was a gurgle and the water at the bottom of the boat rippled. "What was that?" asked Hester Finnigan.

And then there was a crash of thunder, and the bottom fell out of the boat.

~*~

Hester screamed. She went crashing through the floor, along with Samuel. He shouted in terror, yelling, "I can't swim!"

She tried to swim, but couldn't, her arms were caught by the seat. She struggled, kicked away from the boat, made it. She saw Samuel, trapped in the seat wreckage still, pulled down by the weight, yelling, and then gurgling. She broke to the surface, gasping for breath, feeling the rain on her face and the cold, seeing Dorian and Tarquin desperately kicking at the water, thrashing, hearing someone call her name - and then something struck her on the back of the head, and she knew no more.

~*~

"Hester!" yelled Clemence. God help her, she'd been there a moment before and now she wasn't. Where was she, Oh God where was she? Beside her, she felt rather than saw Sirius trembling, desperately trying to cheat his faulty eyesight and see what he could not possibly see, because even she could not see, not through the rain and the darkness (and when had it got so dark?). She heard Hagrid yell something in the darkness.

Beside her, she heard Max sigh. "Lupin and Tonks have just been picked up by two boats. They seem to be fine." He swallowed. "There doesn't seem to be any sign of the other two."

"They're fine," said Clemence tightly. "They'll be fine."

"They're all dead," wailed Rachel hysterically.

"SHUT UP!" roared Clemence. "You are NOT helping."

"There's nothing else to do!" the girl shrieked.

"Max," said Clemence, grabbing him by his shirtfront. She had no idea when 'Boot' had become 'Max', and she did not care. "Shut her up, please shut her up NOW, or I will shut her up, seriously, I mean it, so shut her up, please."

"It's alright Clemence," he shouted (and why was he shouting, it was all going quiet, so quiet), "It'll be alright."

She looked at him accusingly. "Even you don't believe that."

"There!" shouted Sirius. "Just there, by the boat!" He pointed to a patch of muddy water indistinguishable from the rest. Everyone looked, and then Clemence suddenly, miraculously, saw Hester bob to the surface. They grabbed her, and dragged her into the boat, just as Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny arrived.

"Mum! Dad!" shouted Sirius. They shouted meaningless platitudes back to him.

"Clemence," said Max urgently, "she's unconscious, and I'm not sure if she's breathing-"

And then the water exploded.

~*~

Sirius looked in horror. She was lying so still. He hadn't the faintest idea how to wake her up, and her head was bleeding, and he was terrified that she might be dead. Mum and Dad couldn't land here, and their words were being whirled away by the wind and the rain, and he didn't have a clue what to do.

"Wake up," he muttered, "please wake up, don't die, please don't die. I don't know what to do, but I know that I don't want you to die."

He heard Max Boot say, in what he thought was a quiet tone that "she's unconscious, and I'm not sure if she's breathing-"

Sirius' heart seemed to stop. She was going to die, and he couldn't do anything. He shouted, "Don't die!"

And the world seemed to come to pieces and rebuild itself.

There was a roar of noise, and a flume of water roared upwards, soaking everyone even more thoroughly than the rain. Sirius threw himself forward instinctively onto Hester's chest, shouting to anyone who might hear, "Save us, keep us safe, don't let us die!"

And then there was a cheer, and he looked up to see a gigantic tentacle clutching Samuel Goss (shivering and bedraggled but very much alive) amidst a piece of boat wreckage. And then he felt it. A shudder, a cough, underneath him. He looked down, hardly daring to believe it, to see Hester Finnigan blinking up at him, smiling. "Oh good," said Sirius.

She rolled over, coughing, and spat out a mouthful of filthy lake-water onto the boards of the boat. Behind him, he heard Rachel shriek again, this time in astonishment, and heard Max Boot whistle in admiration; above him, he heard his parents shouting at him; he heard Hagrid whoop from four boats across; he felt Clemence clap him on the back, and whisper, "Whatever it was you did, well done."

"Oh good," said Sirius again, and he fainted.

~*~

It was, Ginny thought, extraordinarily fortunate. Four children had ended up in the water in the middle of a storm, and two had nearly drowned. And yet, all had survived, with the worst injuries being a coughing fit for the boy the Squid had saved and for Seamus' daughter, a nasty but non-threatening bump on the head for the same girl, and a large amount of terror for all the children, which was now fading into relieved laughter and chatter. Even Sirius was fine: Clemence had swiftly revived him, and Ginny doubted it was due to any more than relief and nerves. It had been a nasty accident, Ginny told herself as she and Harry flew towards the castle through the bucketing rain, trailing the piece of boat the Squid had gathered up with the boy it had saved (Hagrid had told them that the Headmistress would want to check the boat remains), but accident was all it was.

She kept telling herself this, in the hope that she would believe it.

~*~

They landed close to the kitchen doors, taking care to lower the boat remains to the ground without smashing, so that no evidence of foul play or innocent accident could be lost.

"Well. All's Well that Ends Well," said Ginny brightly.

"Yeah, great," murmured Harry distractedly. He leapt off his broomstick, and swore as he stepped in what seemed to be Kneazle droppings. Ginny, stepping delicately to avoid another, also got off.

"It could have been worse," Ginny continued to prattle. "Imagine if it had been Sirius' boat. Imagine if someone had died. Imagine if Sirius -". She shuddered. "I don't want to think about that."

"Hmm," said Harry, who wasn't listening. He could smell something, a smell both horrible and familiar.

"I suppose the children will be given a chance to dry off before they go into the Feast. I can't imagine that Professor McGonagall will allow them to go in as they are, they'll all be sodden - as will we, Harry," she continued warningly, "if we stay out here. What are you doing, anyway?"

"Ginny," said Harry firmly, "Stop channelling your mother, and look at this."

Looking as though she would like to strongly debate the comparison between herself and her mother, Ginny bent down. A lock of her hair had come loose from its fastening, and spilled out from under her hood, gleaming red in the lamplight. She looked closely at the remains of the boat. "Oh -" she exclaimed, before adding a word that she had made quite clear must never be used by her children in her hearing, on pain of a scouring charm.

"I take it it's bad, then."

"Bad," answered Ginny, slightly shrilly. "It's absolutely monstrously" - here followed more words which had earned Elaine an afternoon of darning the last time she had used them - "appalling."

"So what is it?" enquired Harry. "When you're quite finished shaming anyone who knows you and can hear," he added sardonically.

Ginny calmed down. "It's bundimun slime," she answered, carefully avoiding touching it. "It's corrosive, dangerous. It must have been spread on the underside of the boat, and the water would have made it act slowly, so that it would take its time in eating away the bottom of the boat. And then the weight of the children would have made it collapse..."

"You know what this means, don't you?" asked Harry grimly. She looked at him, understanding completely.

"It was done on purpose," she whispered. "Someone tried to murder a boatload of children."

"Exactly. Which means that we aren't just dealing with some spiteful vandal," said Harry firmly. "We've got a danger to the school. A would-be murderer. Everyone's n danger..."

Ginny looked at him, wide-eyed. He looked back firmly. Then she closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and punched him as hard as she could in the jaw.

To be continued...

Next Chapter: The Sorting Feast, in which we meet old faces and some new ones, in which Sirius is Sorted, and Harry and Ginny discover some unpleasant truths about their friends...

Author's Notes:

Arcturus...Melania: parents of Orion Black, Sirius Black's father (from the Black Family Tree by JK Rowling).

Fidelius: According to JK Rowling, when a Secret Keeper dies, he or she takes the Secret with him to the grave, meaning that it can never be broken (which must make it rather useful to the unscrupulous). In the case of Grimmauld Place, this means that with Dumbledore's death, no one else can learn the Secret. Which, in canon, means that if Harry does decide to live there, he cannot bring any uninformed visitors there. However, given that there are such things as Magically Binding Contracts and Unbreakable Vows in the Wizarding World, and given that it is possible to Transfer magical ownership of House and Elves, I expect that the Transference of a Secret from one Keeper to another via a magical Will would be entirely possible: and who better to be the new Secret Keeper than Harry (once Sirius Black, who as owner of Grimmauld Place had first refusal, was dead)? (I must stress that there is absolutely no indication that Dumbledore has actually passed on the Guardianship of the Secret in canon; given that to do so would probably require some sort of blood from Harry, or some sort of acceptance of the responsibility from him, then if it has happened it probably hinges upon one of the many significant moments between Harry and Dumbledore in the fifth and sixth books).

A rather dusty house on Islay: Islay (pronounced 'I-luh' by the English; the Scots spell it Ìle and pronounce it 'Ee-luh') is the most southern island in the Inner Hebrides, and is called 'The Queen of the Hebrides'. It is west of Jura, 25 miles north of Ireland. Its capital is Bowmore. The house is supposed to be Dumbledore's holiday home (his family home went to Aberforth in his Will), used when he wanted some peace and quiet; he left it to Harry because he expected that he would one day be in want of both. I chose the island only because I hear it is rather nice (the Gulf Stream keeps it warm, and it is considered one of Scotland's most beautiful islands, being known as 'God's Country'); otherwise it seems rather unsuitable for Albus Dumbledore, its main features being a famous distillery of Scottish Malt Whisky, and a large range of wild birds. Hagrid probably visited frequently.

Head off to France for a wedding: as has been conclusively thrashed out in fandom, the Bride's family generally hosts (and foots the cost of) a wedding. And what French girl is getting married in book 7?

Walburga: Mrs Black, Sirius Black's mother. Name comes from the Black Family Tree.

Make sure he wears flannel: flannel as a clothing substance, rather than as a washcloth. For some reason unbeknown to me, flannel was once the concerned parent/busybody's must-wear article of clothing, meaning that in various novels of a certain age, one can come across advice to 'wear flannel'. I do not know why. Nonetheless, Walburga Black is old enough and fussy enough to insist on it being worn. Particular inspiration for this is owed to Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, in which Charles Bovary's anxious mother and harridan of a first wife comment of him when scolding, "Sheer pigheadedness, refusing to wear flannel!"

Bill Weasley...very young still: perhaps slightly unfair to Bill Weasley. Even so, he hardly did anything to smooth relations between his fiancée and his mother in HBP, instead simply dumping her at the Burrow in the vague hope the two would get along over chickens. Moreover, Ginny and co. seem to have given no thought to Bill in their frequent abuse of Fleur, and the fact that Ginny could even consider that her Mother might be intending to replace Fleur with Tonks speaks volumes about their respect for Bill and his assertiveness. It is also significant to note that Fleur and Mrs Weasley bonded whilst Bill took no part in the proceedings: admittedly because he was comatose, but possibly an authorial hint.

Percy: he was kind to Ginny when she was in her First Year with nobody else to turn to (which she seems to have completely forgotten about now). And he was rather nice to Harry at the first Sorting Feast. And he is certainly willing to stand up for his beliefs: even at the cost of being chucked out of the family. As for good-natured and having a sense of humour: the former might conceivably be possible when he isn't under stress; the latter, one can only assume, has been so far hidden under a very big bushel.

The Potter Curse: Actually, one would expect this to apply to Harry himself (he can't see anything without glasses, but can see a tiny gold orb when he is wearing them? Very likely). Indeed, I found the point on Wikipedia. For the sake of internal continuity, we shall assume that Harry, somehow, is not realistically affected by his myopia; but that Sirius is (i.e. his eyesight started out reasonable, but has been degenerating, and will continue to do so until about twenty, resulting in regular optician appointments and upgrade of spectacles).

Right then, the Old London Coach House...Knight Bus: pointless piece of entirely uncanonical theorising. Which, incidentally, is probably identical to every other explanation of travel to Hogwarts prior to the advent of the Steam Train.

"Progress. That against which no lock will hold nor fasten'd portal bar.": "Cower now, Brief Mortals, For I am Death, 'Gainst whom no lock will hold nor fasten'd portal bar." From 'Wyrd Sisters', by Terry Pratchett.

At least, that's how the Headmistress justified keeping it going after the bombings eight years ago: the Seventh of July Bombings, 2005: although these took place on Tube Trains (or, in one case, a bus), they did cause a great deal of fear about London public transport for some time afterwards. Given that, in the bounds of fiction, the Hogwarts term would have ended around that time (probably on the 9^th, which was a Saturday), there would understandably have been great concern on the part of the Hogwarts parents about their children using the train: or rather, about their disembarking at King's Cross, and the duty of the parents to wait there for them. Professor McGonagall would have been taking a great risk in allowing the Hogwarts Express to run as normal. On the other hand, one can hardly imagine her allowing herself to be intimidated.

Muggle Continental Union: The EU. As yet, Rumania is not part of the EU; it and Bulgaria will join, all being well, in January 2007.

The Dniester...Ceaucescu: The Dniester river runs through the north of Moldova (an area historically part of Rumania's northern province of Moldavia); it is several hundred miles from there to Rumania's southern border with Bulgaria. Ceaucescu was the last communist leader of Rumania; he and his wife Elena were gunned down by democratic revolutionaries at the beginning of the 1990s.

"You can ask them to come in 'ere and sit with you all!"

« Avec les Bebes stupides! Tres probablement ! » snapped Marguerite.

"How dare you call us babies!" shrieked Clemence in English, just as Fleur shouted, « Ne pas etre si grossier au sujet de ta soeur et de ton cousin! Tu es l'enfant le plus age, tu as des responsabilites ! Tu ne pensas pas meme a me desobeir sur ceci ! »

« Tu regardas et vois! » shouted Marguerite.

« Comment defi vous !» cried Fleur, before letting loose a torrent of incomprehensible French, replied to in kind by Marguerite, leaving Sirius only able to hear a few words such as 'cochon!', 'wretch ingrat!' and 'vieux harpy mauvais!'.

Translation :

"You can ask them to come in 'ere and sit with you all!"

"[With the stupid babies! Very likely!]" snapped Marguerite.

"How dare you call us babies!" shrieked Clemence in English, just as Fleur shouted, "[Do not be so rude about your sister and your cousin! You are the oldest child, you have responsibilities! You will not even think of disobeying me on this!]"

"[You look and see!]" shouted Marguerite.

"[How dare you!]" cried Fleur, before letting loose a torrent of incomprehensible French, replied to in kind by Marguerite, leaving Sirius only able to hear a few words such as '[pig]', '[ungrateful wretch]' and '[evil old harpy]'.

Mercifully, this moment of tension was broken when the shrill whistle of the Express sounded. Fleur dashed off the train, calling, « Au revoir, mes anges! Je t'esme tous les deux !»

Translation :

"[Goodbye, my angels. I love you both!]"

"You know, of course, that I will be informing Mother of this," said Clemence icily, "and seulement Dieu peut vous sauver when she finds out."

Translation:

"You know, of course, that I will be informing Mother of this," said Clemence icily, "and [only God can save you] when she finds out."

« Si elle decouvre, alors j'informerai non seulement Sirius mais toute le college au sujet de la famille des poupees que tu as fait pour nous representer tous, » said Marguerite sweetly.

Sirius wished, as always, that he spoke French. He hated being left out of conversations, especially when his own name was mentioned.

Clemence had gone white with fury. « Vous n'oseriez pas ! »

« L'essayer et decouvrir, » answered Marguerite calmly.

Clemence stood up, her eyes blazing. « Amende alors. Allez-vous -en, maintenant ! »

Marguerite smiled, and strolled out through the door. « A bientot, cherie . »

Clemence slammed it shut behind her. « Putain » she swore. Her face was taut, and she was grinding her jaw ; a sure sign that she was on the verge of tears and refusing to let herself go further.

Translation:

"[If she finds out, then I shall inform not only Sirius but the whole school about the family of dolls you made to represent us all.]" said Marguerite sweetly.

Sirius wished, as always, that he spoke French. He hated being left out of conversations, especially when his own name was mentioned.

Clemence had gone white with fury. "[You would not dare!]"

"[Try it and find out,]" answered Marguerite calmly.

Clemence stood up, her eyes blazing. "[Fine then. Go away, now!]"

Marguerite smiled, and strolled out through the door. "[See you, dear.]"

Clemence slammed it shut behind her. "[Whore]" she swore. Her face was taut, and she was grinding her jaw ; a sure sign that she was on the verge of tears and refusing to let herself go further.

The names of the Lost Wizards and of the Queen's magic cats: Internally, probably some sort of feature in Wizarding folk tales or legends. Externally, it is a reference to Lord of the Rings. The 'Lost Wizards', or the Ithryn Luin ('Blue Wizards') were two wizards who accompanied Radagast the Brown, Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White to Middle-Earth, only to wander off out of knowledge as soon as they arrived. Their names, in point of fact, were Alatar and Pallando ('Bright One' and 'Far Wanderer'), although their 'official' names amongst the elves and wizards in Middle Earth were Morinehtar and Rómestámo ('Darkness Slayer' and 'East Helper'). The Queen's magic cats refers to Queen Berúthiel, whose cats were mentioned by Aragorn in the Fellowship of the Ring ('He is surer of finding his way home than the cats of Queen Berúthiel'): she seems to have been a witch of sorts, hating colours and adornments, wearing only black and silver, and filling her garden with tormented sculptures under cypress and yew trees. She had ten cats, nine black and one white, whom she set to spy on her subjects; she would talk with them, or read their minds, in order to learn all those things 'that men wish most to keep hidden', and would make the white spy on the blacks. All in Gondor feared the cats, cursing when they passed and never daring to touch them. In the end, her husband, the King, had her sealed in a ship with her cats (certainly more effective than divorce, though one wonders how they ever came to marry), and cast it off under a north wind; she was last seen speeding past Umbar under a sickle moon, a cat at the masthead and another on the prow. All of this gives Arabella Figg and Argus Filch a lot to live up to.

Via Arcana: 'The Secret Road'.

Heir of Hufflepuff...Heir of Ravenclaw: in HBP, Hepzibah Smith points out her descent from Helga Hufflepuff. Zacharias Smith is probably (although not confirmedly) also descended from Hufflepuff. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Terry Boot is descended from Ravenclaw.

My mother was a Cohen: One of the most notable Jewish families: Cohens claim descent from Levi, one of the sons of Jacob (making such a descent more notable than a descent from a Hogwarts Founder).

It's Muggle-borns who're most racist...their rivals won't have: probably inaccurate, or plain wrong; nonetheless, we have never heard a racist comment flung around by any wizard (although the Dursley's may well have done so). And it's likely that the Obsessive Purebloods would treat inter-racial marriage as a chance to 'collect' some fresh pureblood genes and connections.

French Translations Courtesy of Google Translator; apologies for any inaccuracies (especially with the verb endings, which I tried to change where appropriate from formal to informal, and may have failed in), and for artificial phrases (I am particularly ashamed of 'You look and see'). I have removed all accentuation, since they can not be supported by Fiction Alley.

In addition to the standard disclaimer, I must also add that I do not own any rights to the works of JRR Tolkien, but that I am not making any money out of this work, or mean any offence to the author in using ideas or quotes of his (this being the reference to the Wizards and Cats, which derive from Unfinished Tales and The Peoples of Middle Earth by Tolkien).