The Park

Harry's palms were sweaty. He hadn't been this nervous since Dudley had broken his Playstation last March and blamed it on Harry.

Shifting into a more comfortable position in the big wingback chair, Harry leaned back and balanced Sirius' old copy of Adalbert Waffling's Magical Theory on his knees. "Wand movements are an integral component of spellcasting for three reasons . . ."

Pale sky blue flames fluttered in the fireplace, bathing his legs in cool, rather than warm, air. Sirius sat across from him, trying to coax an old pocket watch he'd found back into proper working order. The early afternoon sun sparkled from its gold casing as Sirius turned it over and over intently.

Hearing the soft clunk of Lupin gently closing the front door, he raced out onto the landing. A tiny, wizened wizard with large, creepy eyes was following his godfather's friend into the kitchen.

"I thought Remus was bringing my wand," he said to Sirius, who had followed him out of the room.

"That's Mr. Ollivander," explained Sirius. "He's the wandmaker. Come on, you'll see." And Harry hurried to follow Sirius downstairs.

In fact, sitting in Grimmauld Place's now-familiar kitchen, Mr. Ollivander was even more creepy than he had originally appeared. "Ah, Harry," said the old man, as though he knew him. Then he waved his wand, and stacks and stacks of thin boxes, like shoe-boxes sliced into three lengthways, accumulated from nowhere in piles on the table.

As this was going on, Harry's heart was beginning to thud. "What . . .?" he began, looking at Sirius and then at Lupin.

"We're going to find you a wand, Mr. Potter," said Mr. Ollivander. "Extend your right arm, please."

Harry tried to ignore a floating measuring tape measuring every dimension of his body and, especially, his right arm.

Then Ollivander handed Harry a wand. "Eleven inches, holly and dragon heartstring," he said.

"Just wave it around," advised Lupin.

Swallowing, Harry took the wand. It felt . . . lighter than he had imagined. It didn't feel magical--not like Ginny's lumos had felt magical. He might as well been waving a ruler around.

Everyone was staring at him, but nothing was happening.

"Oh, well," he said, forcing a good-sported smile. "It was worth a try."

"We're not done yet!" said Mr. Ollivander. "Eleven inches, holly and unicorn tail hair." He pried the dragon heartstring wand from Harry's hand and replaced it with the unicorn one.

Taking a deep breath, Harry waved it. Nothing happened.

Mr. Ollivander, without comment, replaced it with another--and another--and another. Harry had thought he'd find out right away whether he was magic or not. That might almost have been better than the drawn-out not knowing, the tension of trying and failing over and over again. He felt sick.

After cycling through holly, beech, birch, elm, maple, yew, plane and ash, Harry finally asked, "What is supposed to happen?"

"Magic," said Mr. Ollivander unhelpfully.

"Sparks, usually," said Lupin.

"Oh," said Harry. "Well, perhaps we should . . . just give it up."

"No, no," dismissed Mr. Ollivander. "Obviously, we were starting out on the wrong tack entirely." He chuckled. "Try this. Twelve and a quarter inches, hazel, unicorn tail hair. Resilient."

Obediently, Harry took it and waved, trying yet again to recall the sensation of Ginny's lumos, trying to isolate the aspect of it that had marked it so clearly as magic. Magic, he thought, as hard as he could. Your parents were magic, you can be magic, you can be magic. .

Be magic, please, be magic, let it fill your fingers, your toes, your veins, your heart . . .

In his memory, he saw the white light, felt it streaming past his fingers, impossible, light without heat . . .

"Harry!" shouted Sirius.

"Nimue," cackled Ollivander. "I think that may have been worth the trip in itself!"

Harry opened his eyes, and then shut them again, dazzled by the aura of white light emanating from the end of his wand.

Harry sat down abruptly, still holding the wand out as if it were going to explode.

"Can you put it out, Harry?" asked Lupin at his shoulder.

The light went out, and, trembling, Harry put the wand down on the table.

"No payment, no payment," Ollivander was insisting. "We'll just go back to the shop and then--bam!" He laughed. "Mr. Lupin is going to gift me with an obliviate," he explained to Harry.

"Very well," said Lupin, revealing just a hint of annoyance, and the two left the room. The heap of boxes slowly pop--pop--popped back into nonexistence.

"Oh, my God," said Harry into his hands.

"Harry, you're a wizard!" reveled Sirius. He sat down next to Harry. "Do you realize you just did a proper lumos?"

"Yeah," managed Harry, looking at the wand on the table.

"What's the matter?" asked Sirius, leaning forward with concern.

"Nothing," said Harry, running his fingers through his hair. "I just . . . I really didn't think I was magic, you know? I really didn't think I was. I mean, I can . . ." His eyes widened. He could do magic.

He could do magic.

"Sirius, can we . . . can we try doing something? A . . . spell, I mean."

"Yes, we can," said Sirius, looking pleased. He swished his wand in the direction of the bottle of chutney on the other end of the table. "Wingardium Leviosa." The chutney floated up to eye level so that Harry could read its label.

When the chutney was obeying gravity as usual again, Sirius looked at Harry. "What were the words again?" Harry asked, his throat dry.

"Wingardium Leviosa," said Sirius. He demonstrated the wand movement again, slowly. "You probably won't do it the first time," he warned.

Harry nodded, and, carefully picking up his wand again and settling it in his palm, he pointed it at the chutney. He swished and flicked, trying to imitate Sirius' movements exactly. "Wingardium Leviosa."

It shot directly up from the table and smashed into the ceiling, scattering chunks of mango and glass across the table and the floor.

Two heads slowly rose up past the edge of the table, under which they'd ducked just before the chutney had spattered.

"Wow," whispered Harry, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet.

"Brilliant!" said Sirius, engulfing Harry in a sudden hug. "Fifty points to Gryffindor."

Harry found himself almost blinking away tears at Sirius' pride in him. "Thanks," he said, once Sirius had let him go. "Um . . . sorry about the mess."

"Pff," said Sirius dismissively. He looked at Harry, his cheek slowly dimpling. "Why don't you clean it up?"

Harry picked his wand--his wand!--up from the floor. "Okay," he said, half-surprising himself. "What's the . . . spell?"

"Evanesco," said Sirius, sweeping his wand in a sideways motion. The ceiling cleared of its spatter of chutney and embedded shards of glass.

"Right," said Harry, taking a slow breath. He looked at the table and its globs of mango. Sweeping his wand as Sirius had, he said, "Evanesco."

The table disappeared.

"Yes!" cheered Sirius.

"Oh, shit!" said Harry, guilt-stricken. "Can we get it back?"

Sirius waved his hand. "Good riddance to it. I may not have mentioned this, and you may not have extrapolated it since the house is an ancient pit of filth, but I actually have a lot of money. Tons of money, in fact, since I wasn't doing anything with all my investments all those years I was . . . sick."

"Oh," said Harry. The vast space in the middle of the floor was still a little bit alarming. On the other hand, Sirius didn't seem to mind. "Then . . . let's do another spell," he said, looking up at his godfather.

Sirius nodded. "You know, it's a little chilly down here, Harry," he said thoughtfully. "Want your jumper from your room?"

"You know, I do," agreed Harry.

It broke a hole in the banisters as it flew down from the first floor.

Half an hour had passed when Harry heard the sound of Lupin quietly coming through Grimmauld Place's door.

Lupin burst into the dining room, where Sirius and Harry were experimenting with fire. "You're . . . you're okay?" he said, slightly breathlessly. "But . . . did you do all this?" He waved his arm to indicate the small bursts of various damage scattered around the ground floor.

"Harry's been doing magic!" Sirius told him proudly. "Proper spells."

"That's wonderful, Harry," said Lupin, seemingly unable to continue disapproving.

"Thanks," said Harry, glowing. His mind was absolutely buzzing with thoughts, jostling and fizzing and popping, each more delicious than the last. He was a wizard, like his parents; he could do magic; he was a wizard, like Sirius; he was a wizard, like Ginny; he was not a Squib; he could go out into the wizarding world with Sirius, once Sirius was better; perhaps, someday, he could go to Hogwarts.

"I learned how to make Frost's Fire," he told Lupin, creating a little flickering patch of the cooling flames in the middle of the Persian rug. They burned, pale sky blue, the rug around them completely unharmed.

"That's excellent!" said Lupin, once again teacher-like. "That's quite an advanced spell, Harry." Then, suddenly, he, too, clasped Harry in a brief hug. "I'm so pleased."

"Me too," said Harry, unable to keep a silly grin from widening over his face.

"You've still got to clean all this up, though," Lupin added strictly, more to Sirius than to Harry.

"All right," said Sirius agreeably, and the three of them spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing around the ground floor, using reparo, scourgify and other spells to restore the house to its usual level of disrepair.

Harry took a short bath just before dinner, in order to remove the spatters of chutney in his hair, soot on his face, and other various side-effects of the spells he'd been learning from Sirius. When he came down the stairs, he found not only Sirius and Lupin standing around a new kitchen table, but Dumbledore, twinkling quietly in the corner of the kitchen; Mrs. Weasley; the red-haired man he'd once seen before; Ginny; three red-haired boys; and a serious-looking girl with a bushy brown ponytail.

"Hello, Harry!" said Mrs. Weasley, rushing forward to give him yet another hug. "We're so happy to hear you've been doing so well with your magic."

We? Harry glanced over at the group of unfamiliar red-heads. In its midst, Ginny gave him a tiny, conspiratorial smile.

"Oh, of course!" said Mrs. Weasley. "Well, this is Arthur, my husband." The tall red-haired man waved to Harry. "The twins are Fred and George, the tall one is Ron, next to him is Ginny--you probably don't remember, you met the night you first got here--and on the end is Hermione Granger, their friend from school."

"Hi," said Harry, stunned by the sudden crowd. "Nice to meet you all."

Something went clunk in the hallway, followed by a person saying, very quietly, "Ow!"

"And that must be Tonks and Hestia just coming in," said Mrs. Weasley, hurrying out to help them.

"Everyone's here to celebrate you getting your wand and doing magic, Harry," Lupin explained.

"Congratulations!" the twins shouted, each lobbing what looked like a tiny bomb toward the centre of the cavernous ceiling. The bombs exploded into a glittering imprint of words, reading

CONGRATULATIONS

HARRY.

At this, everyone cheered and clapped, and Harry felt himself flushing. "Thanks," he said to them all, feeling that this was insufficient.

"Good on you, Harry!" said Tonks, stumbling into the kitchen with Mrs. Weasley. "I brought the cake. I didn't even drop it at all on the way." And the pink-cheeked witch, Hestia, walked in very slowly, carrying an enormous red box with a golden bow. Having placed it on the table, she tapped it with her wand. The box vanished, leaving a three-tiered red-iced cake with a bouquet of wands planted in its centre, each sparkling with red or gold glitter.

"Dinner first," said Mrs. Weasley pre-emptively, catching everyone's covetous glances toward the cake. With a flick of her wand, plates, cutlery and glasses were skidding through the air toward everyone's plates, and Harry was stepping back toward the wall to avoid being stuck in the scrum for dinner.

"Is this normal?" Harry whispered to Sirius. "Throwing a party when someone gets their wand?"

"Not all wizard families do it," Sirius told him. "Usually the sort of parents who spoil their kids rotten. My parents did it for my brother and me," he admitted dryly.

"Oh," said Harry. Tonks edged past him, treading very carefully among the shuffling chair-legs.

"We all need a party," Sirius said, squeezing Harry's shoulder. "Come on, let's get some of Molly's lasagne."

After Mrs. Weasley had served Harry a very large helping of lasagne and salad, he found an empty seat between one of the twins and the tall boy, Ron.

"Come on, sit down," said the twin next to Harry. "I'm Fred."

"I'm George," said the other twin, on the other side of Fred. "That's Ron, but he doesn't talk."

Harry turned to Ron questioningly. The taller boy, who had, indeed, been staring oddly at him, scowled at his brothers. "Don't believe anything they say, Harry," he advised.

"We were just talking about Quidditch," Fred said primly, ignoring Ron.

"You know about Quidditch, right, Harry?" asked George.

"Sort of," said Harry, digging into the corner of his lasagne. Suddenly, he realized he was starving, and it was completely delicious. "I've read about it--the different balls and player positions and stuff. But it's a bit difficult to picture."

"Well, we play on the Gryffindor team," said George.

"Do you?" said Harry, swallowing quickly so as to be able to talk. "What position?"

"Beaters," they answered simultaneously, miming fending off a Bludger with a beater's bat (actually, their forks) with an identical action.

"Wow," said Harry. "What's it like, flying?"

"Mum says you can come and stay at our house for a few days next week, if you want," Ron interposed. "You can come flying with us in our garden."

"I don't have a broom," Harry said apologetically. Everyone seemed to keep forgetting that he'd grown up--in fact, spent his entire life before the last week--with Muggles. Not that he minded not being thought of as different and weird, which, now he thought about it, he always had been--until now. "And . . . I've never flown before."

"Sirius will get you a broom," said George.

"And, trust us," said Fred with a wink, "flying won't be a problem."

"All right," said Harry, with some trepidation. He wasn't as confident as Fred about how easy flying would be.

The twins spent the rest of dinner regaling Harry with stories about oddities of Hogwarts (moving staircases, Peeves the poltergeist, the Fat Lady) and humiliating childhood exploits of Ron (during which Harry tried to change the subject). Ron had promised to educate Harry completely on the topic of professional Quidditch teams. Tonks had shocked Harry by transforming her face into an exact replica of his; then, after he'd got over the shock, he asked her to do Sirius and then Dumbledore. At that point, Dumbledore had wandered past for a second slice of lasagne and waved to himself.

Hermione had found Harry's Magical Theory book, which he had Summoned to the kitchen earlier, and had helpfully but not condescendingly answered several questions Harry had had about the chapter he was currently reading. Ginny, who had gotten the job of distributing Harry's red-iced cake, had handed him a dessert plate containing a very generous slice with a sparkling imitation wand still stuck in the top. Last of all, just before he had gone to bed early complaining of indigestion, Lupin had given Harry permission to leave for the Weasleys' tomorrow.

Harry nestled under the covers in his brass bed. A few remaining fake wands from his cake lay in the trunk at the bottom of his bed, bound together with some twine.

"Well, don't we look pleased as punch with ourself?" asked the mirror.

"Mmm," murmured Harry. Even without his glasses, he could still make out the very blurred brown line that was his wand on his bedstand. Every once in a while, he liked to open his eyes, just to make sure it was still there, illuminated by the orange light of London's streetlamps outside and the white glow of the nearly-full moon.

***

"Just take a pinch of the powder, throw it in the fire, say 'The Burrow,' and step in," Sirius instructed Harry.

Harry picked up his old school backpack, now stuffed with clothes and the few books he had been reading, and heaved it over his shoulder. "Bye, Sirius," he said.

"Don't forget your broom," Sirius reminded him, passing Harry the nearly-new Firebolt he said he'd bought on a whim a few years ago. It was strange: even standing there on the cold flagstones of the kitchen in his dressing-gown, at that moment Sirius looked just like the parents at Harry's primary school had years ago, sending off their small children with a last dab of the Kleenex. "Bye, Harry. See you tomorrow."

"Bye, Remus," said Harry, turning to Lupin. "I hope you feel better."

"Thanks, Harry," said Lupin, pulling his cardigan tighter around him, as though it were chilly.

Harry took a last glance at the cavernous and creepy kitchen of Grimmauld Place, which had lately--and so quickly--become a comfortable haven for him. He'd miss his room--his room, really his, not grudgingly taken from Dudley when Aunt Petunia finally accepted that Harry no longer physically fit in his cupboard. He'd miss Sirius and Remus.

"Bye," he said again, patting his pocket one last time to make sure his wand was there. Then he threw the powder into the kitchen fire, shouted "The Burrow!" and, with almost no hesitation, walked into the fire.

He tumbled out of a different fireplace, dizzy, disoriented, and with crooked glasses. He tried to stand up, and smacked his head on the mantlepiece.

"Ow!" said a sympathetic voice. Trying to focus, Harry saw a blur of brown hair and concluded that it must be the friend of the family, Hermione.

"Are you all right?" asked Ron. "Who's the Minister for Magic? What's your house?"

"I'm really not concussed," Harry promised, picking up his broom and standing up properly. "I don't know who the Minister for Magic is, but my house is Grimmauld Place."

"Hi, Harry," said Ginny, elbowing her way to the front of the mass of Weasleys. "Welcome to the Burrow." She smiled.

From what Harry could see past all the red hair, the Burrow wasn't at all like Sirius' house. It definitely lacked the creepy aspect, for one. There was a whole collection of magical DIY books above the slightly crumbling fireplace. Harry rather liked it.

"Hi," said Harry. "Thanks for letting me stay here."

"Our house is your house, Harry," said Fred jovially.

"In any case, you're sharing a room with Ron," said George.

Ron rolled his eyes.

"Let's get started, then," said Ginny, brandishing her broom. "Nice sunny weather, for a change."

"C'mon, I'll show you where you can drop your stuff," said Ron, and lead him up many floors of winding stairs until they reached Ron's room.

"The Chudley Cannons," Harry noticed, looking over Ron's postered walls.

"You've got to see them in a game one day, mate," said Ron as Harry left his backpack in a corner of his room.

"Yeah, I want to," said Harry, still rather transfixed by all the moving pictures of wizards in violently orange robes.

Once they were back in the kitchen, Ginny led them all out through the garden ("Watch out for the gnomes," she warned. "Fred and George were supposed to de-gnome the garden last week as a punishment, but they still haven't done it") and through to the orchard on the other side, where the trees would disguise their flight.

Dry and hot as the summer had been in Surrey, these trees were vivid green, their healthy leaves turning in the breeze. In their shadows, dew was still damp on the grass, which was dotted with buttercups.

"Twins versus younger Weasleys and Harry?" George suggested.

"You're on," agreed Ginny. Right away, the twins straddled their brooms and kicked off into the sky in two parallel paths.

Harry was still staring up at them as Ron was saying, "I reckon we do it like they do it at Hogwarts. That worked well--you know."

"Good idea," said Ginny, looking at Harry.

"Basically," Ron said to Harry, "just put your broom at your feet and say, 'Up!'"

By now, Harry knew just to accept the weird instructions people gave him. He did as Ginny said, and, to his surprise, his broom rose directly up and smacked into his hand.

"Now," Ron went on, "you just get on, and, er, fly."

Harry let go of his broom; it remained hovering in place in the air. Feeling utterly ridiculous, Harry swung a leg over it. "How do I . . . steer?" The thought hadn't even occurred to him before, but the broom had absolutely nothing in the way of steering mechanisms.

"You need something to chase after," Ron said slowly. He threw the red Quaffle at Ginny and pulled up on his broom to hover just above Harry's head. "Throw it back to me from up there, Ginny!"

"All right, Harry," Ginny said to him, grinning as she tucked the Quaffle under one arm. "Intercept the Quaffle!" And, swerving abruptly up, up and to Harry's far left, she pulled her arm back to send the ball hurtling in Ron's direction.

His eyes fixed on the red dot, Harry found himself almost instinctively shooting up toward it. The balls of his feet pushed against the grass, and then felt nothing--he saw the lower branches of the trees drop out of his sight--he reached for the arcing Quaffle with both hands, and, with an extra burst of speed, caught it double-handed and breathless.

"Brilliant!" said Ron.

Speechless, Harry clutched the Quaffle as though it were a treasure.

"What was it we bet on this match? Five Sickles?" Ginny shouted to the twins casually. Her ponytail had already lost several long strands of fiery hair; they whipped her cheeks as she turned.

Still gripping the Quaffle, Harry allowed himself to look down. The wind was flapping against the bottoms of his jeans, which, having been Dudley's, were huge. He was floating so far above the ground, he couldn't even distinguish the spot among the trees where he, Ginny, and Ron had been standing. In between him and the earth was nothing but . . . air. A Cabbage White fluttered in its papery way through the air just below him.

What he was doing was simply impossible, and it sent thrills through the bottom of his stomach. It was pure magic.

"This way, Harry!" Ron called, waving him over to his spot for the start of the match. As Harry zoomed over to take his place next to the others, the airstream drew invisible fingers through his hair. He wondered how far up he could fly before the magic would stop. Perhaps he could keep going forever.

"Three, two, one," Ron counted down. Harry gripped his broom hard, his hands only now beginning to tremble a little. The roofs of a nearby village shimmered dark grey in the distance. Ron blew his whistle, and the match began.

The broomsticks soared across the nearly-cloudless sky, dancing past the sun still making its ascent near the edge of the sky. Harry had thought he'd be a handicap to Ron and Ginny, but wasn't that way at all. He was a real part of their team. "Harry!" Ginny called, asking him to dart hard right to catch her throw, and Harry leaned half-over to spin the broom in the right direction and meet the Quaffle as it came toward him. "Ron!" he shouted, dodging a twin attack and shunting the ball sideways so that Ron could catch it and score the goal.

The day grew warmer, and Harry began to feel a column of sweat collecting along his spine. His hands were blistered, and he didn't even care. He dove to catch the falling Quaffle, nabbing it with one hand and zipping up again to pop up between Fred and George and chuck the ball through their goal, a purple circle inscribed in the air.

"Oh!" they howled. "You just cost us five Sickles, Harry!"

"We won!" Ron shouted gloatingly over to them, throwing his arms around his teammates' shoulders as they returned to him.

"You'll be sorry you ever took our Sickles!" warned the twins, sweeping in to join the group as it descended to land.

Harry felt light, almost weightless, dropping off his Firebolt to walk slowly with the others back to the Burrow. He couldn't wait to fly again. That alone would be wonderful, but to play real Quidditch . . . to catch the Golden Snitch, winning the game and feeling its wings tickling your palm . . . it must be incredible.

Perhaps when Sirius was better, he could take both Harry and Ron to a real Quidditch match.

Lunch at the Burrow was an astonishingly quiet affair, mostly due to the fact that everyone, including the twins, was exhausted from the morning's exercise. However, once Mrs. Weasley produced left-over slices of Harry's cake, topped with vanilla ice cream, Harry--and the Weasleys--felt much restored.

"So, you don't play Quidditch?" Harry asked Hermione politely.

Stifling a yawn, she shook her head. "Not really. At least, not when they can get someone else to make up the numbers." She smiled. "Besides, I had some reading to catch up on."

Noticing that the book next to her was titled Advanced Charms Theory, Harry asked, "Hermione?"

"Yes?" she said, putting down her spoon.

"Can you help me work on learning spells? I mean, I know I've been doing some but . . . I'm still pretty far behind everyone else. If you've got the time," he added awkwardly.

Hermione's face lit up. "Harry, I'd love to!"

"Oh. Great!" said Harry, relaxing.

"Do you know how long I've wished that Ron would ask me for help at school? We're in the same year, you know," Hermione told him. "But he never does. He just wants me to do it for him. Anyway, we can start after lunch. The only problem is that we'll have to restrict ourselves to theory."

"Why?"

"The Decree for the Restriction of Underage Wizardry," she said. "Of course, it must not apply to you at Grimmauld Place . . . but we Hogwarts students aren't allowed to do spells outside of school."

"Hermione, we wanted to take Harry to the pond down the hill," Ron complained over the table.

"Just because you have no interest in learning doesn't mean it's not a valid use of time," she shot back, not completely seriously.

So it was that, as the early afternoon began, the Weasleys all marched out of the back door again, some dragging what seemed to be bottles and jars for collecting wildlife, some with various magazines and books, and all in bare feet.

"If you must go in that water, don't until it's been an hour since you finished eating!" Mrs. Weasley called after them.

The day had grown warmer, and the windows of the sitting room were open to let in a breeze. Harry and Hermione settled on the sofa under them, Magical Theory open between them.

"So . . . why do you live with the Weasleys?" Harry ventured.

Hermione laughed. "I don't, really," she said. "My parents are both Muggles, and . . . well, I just like to stay with Ron and Ginny for a while during the summer."

"Oh, I see," said Harry, although he didn't, entirely. Perhaps all magical people had a different attitude towards their houses than Muggles had.

"Okay," said Hermione in a businesslike way. "Now, you just finished the chapter on wand movements, correct?"

Harry nodded.

"Then I think we should start on emotion," said Hermione. "Lots of spells, no matter how focused your intent, how correct your pronunciation and how exact your wand movement is, are dependent on your emotion as you cast them. For example, the Patronus Charm hinges on the caster's ability to focus on a happy memory."

Harry nodded again, trying to catalogue this new information against the wealth of facts he'd learned in the past few days. "What does the spell do?"

"It creates sort of a . . . protector," explained Hermione. "Usually in the shape of an animal. It's like using your own happy memories of the past to guard against present danger."

"What sort of danger?" asked Harry, a little alarmed.

"Oh, anything you want," said Hermione easily. "Advanced casters also frequently use it to carry messages."

"Cool," commented Harry with interest.

"Anyway, that's just one way in which emotion can affect a spell," Hermione continued.

The afternoon passed by as gently as its breeze, interrupted only by the occasional squawking of the chickens outside or the distant roar of a plane overhead, and the boy and girl pored over the book, the light illuminating the edges of his messy black hair and her frizzy brown.