Weave Me Sunshine

The familiar flop of mail on the mat sounded. Harry, who was mostly finished with his breakfast, automatically got up and headed to the front door, waving for his housemates to sit back down and finish eating. Ginny and Hermione needed no second urging; Ron sat a little more slowly, watching the hall warily.

There was quite a stack. Hermione's weekly letter from her parents, Ron and Ginny's daily letter from their parents, a letter for Harry from Remus, another letter for Harry from McGonagall, a letter from Hermione's pen-pal, a somewhat thin letter for Ginny from Charlie, a thick letter for all four of them from Hagrid, a postcard for Hermione from her closest cousin, and a slip of paper informing Harry that he had a package on the front porch that wouldn't fit into the mail slot.

Harry took the letters into the kitchen and distributed them, then went back to get the package. It was a brown paper parcel, tied with string, with an envelope on top with his initials--H.J.P.--and the address, just the right amount of postage, and a return address with another set of initials--S.R.E.G.B.O.

Frowning--and just slightly nervous--Harry set the parcel on an end table in the living room, then went back into the kitchen to read his other letters.

But that evening, when the stress of the day was pretty much over and the shadows were falling, the four began settling down for the night. The small shack the four shared had exactly one bedroom with a large bed; Ginny and Hermione shared that. Ron and Harry bunked down in the living room. There was a ratty recliner and a tattered sofa, but the shack had come fully furnished, so no one complained. The recliner was somewhat more comfortable than the sofa, so Harry had insisted Ron take it.

Ron settled in and closed his eyes. Harry sat down on the sofa, pulled up the blanket Mrs. Weasley had knitted him--she had made one for each of them--and reached for his book when he stopped. On the coffee table, next to Prince Caspian, was the brown paper parcel. It had sat on the table, innocent and ignored, all day. Even Hermione hadn't commented on it.

Hesitantly, Harry glanced at Ron, then at the wall separating the bedroom from the rest of the house. Finally, he decided to go ahead and try it. If anything dangerous happened, he would just have to do something about it before it killed them all.

Cautiously, he tugged the envelope free and slit it, pulling out a sheet of notebook paper. Adjusting his glasses, he frowned slightly as he read.

Dear Harry Potter,

I have never written to you before, but perhaps I have a good excuse. You see, for your entire life, and more, I have been in Africa, in a place called Burkina Faso. This does not, perhaps, mean anything to you, but I assure you, I would have met you long ago had my job not constrained me to be elsewhere.

Perhaps I should explain who I am. My name is Shannon O'Ciardha. Actually, my full name is Shannon River Erin Go Bragh O'Ciardha--that's pronounced "O'Carey", by the way--but that's just because my parents had a cruel sense of humour. My claim to fame (slim as it may be) is that I knew your parents. Not just your father--your mother too.

Actually, I knew your mother better than I knew your father. You see, I only really knew your father because we were at school in the same general time frame--I was two years older--and I went out with Remus Lupin until I was nineteen, when my job sent me to B.F. However, your mother and my little sister, Morrie--Morrigan Rhiannon Shenandoah Valley O'Ciardha, on the off-chance that either Remus or Sirius Black ever mentioned her to you--were best friends. I was best friends with your aunt Petunia. We were neighbours for almost fifteen years.

Now to the package. Your father and his family were all lawyers, but they had all died and the law offices of Potter, Potter, and Haphram had gone out of business by the time he was twenty-one, a year before he died. My father, Patrick O'Ciardha, was also a lawyer, one whom Adonijah--your grandfather--knew and respected. James filed his estate with my father. The only two things to survive the explosion at your parents' house that night that did not go to my father were the key to James and Lily's Gringotts' account--and you!

I'm sure you know that your parents were not exactly the best of friends during their school days. James had been in love with Lily since about the fourth year--everyone knew that--but she couldn't really tolerate him until December of their sixth year. Adonijah died of a heart attack, and James was distraught...Lily told me that that was when she first realised he was human. After their graduation, Lily and Morrie took a year off to go knocking about Europe. While they were away, Lily wrote a letter to James, and that began a correspondence that lasted until their deaths, whenever they had to be away from each other--which wasn't all that often.

That's what this parcel is. All of those letters survived--James took the precaution of having every paper in the house put into fireproof boxes. I thought you would like to see them. As far as I know, they're still in the original envelopes.

Yours truly,

Shannon O'Ciardha.

Harry looked at the letter for a long time. Finally he opened the parcel. Sure enough, there were a few stacks of letters, neatly bundled and tied together with ribbon. Each bundle had a number slipped under the ribbon.

Untying the ribbon on bundle number one, Harry carefully opened the first letter and began to read.