Anam Cara

The cold rain and sleet pelting against the bedroom windows made lying in the only logical thing to do. It was late when we came down at last and we had the breakfast table to ourselves.

Severus settled behind the newspaper. I looked over his shoulder out the large windows. The bleak weather looked set in for the day. I considered retreating back to bed again.

He heard my thoughts, or perhaps thought the same thing and looked over the newspaper at me in mock annoyance.

"You need another hobby," he said archly.

I laughed, "What makes you so sure I was going to invite you?"

He'd opened his mouth to answer but a commotion from the front of the house stopped him. A shriek and the sound of a small scuffle were followed by a series of scolding croaks.

"Post's here," he said with a sneer. "Is that ridiculous bird ever going to get used to owls?"

"She is used to them. It's just that she hates them."

The owl got past Lenore, swooped in and dumped a pile of mail on the table.

"Why does she sit and wait for them every cursed morning? Inside? If she's going to wage guerrilla warfare she'd be better off outdoors!"

"It's cold out. And raining."

He gave up and went back to the paper.

There wasn't much of interest, except a picture postcard from Julia, now in her last year at Hogwarts and spending he school holidays in Switzerland. I watched the scene for a few moments looking longingly at the snow covered but sunny mountains and tried not to compare it to the miserable, grey wet outside my windows.

I turned my attention to the few real letters I'd separated from the pile.

One of them stood out from the rest. I caught my breath when I saw it.

"Severus,"

I got no reply.

"Severus!"

He looked up, startled at the tone of my voice and followed my gaze to the letter on the table.

He chewed his bottom lip for a moment then looked back at me. "We knew it was coming." It seemed to me he was having a difficult time keeping his voice on an even keel.

"It's too soon."

"It's not too soon." He looked back at the envelope.

"I'm not ready for this."

"I doubt anyone is, the first time. I suppose we ought to inform the young mistress."

The young mistress. I remembered the first time he'd used that name.

She'd been three. There's been some argument over some minor issue that must have seemed monumental to her. I'd stopped what I had been doing to watch them. Her black eyes bored into his.

"No!" she declared, striking a defiant stance that had since been blamed on me.

"You listen to me, young mistress," he'd told her. "I will not negotiate with a child!"

Stalemate.

She'd narrowed her eyes, holding him in her stare, then suddenly and without shifting her gaze, lifted her tiny foot and stamped down as hard as she could on her father's toes.

I'd been threatened with a sobering solution later that evening when I was unable to control a fit of laughter while being subjected to a diatribe about the house being "overrun with females again". Darius had been born nine months almost to the day later. I still don't know how he managed that.

A flurry of activity brought me back to the present.

"Mummy, what is it? We're in the middle-- you know he'll cheat!"

"You have a letter," Severus told her.

"Really! Who from? Is it from Julia? When's she coming back? She said she'd bring--" she reached out for the envelope in my hands.

"It's not from Julia," I watched her take the letter, watched her eyes grow wide when she saw it.

She tore the seal open and unfolded the parchment.

I knew what it said, word for word, but she read it aloud to us:

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted

at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please

find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1...

Her eyes sparkled with delight, and she bounced with barely contained excitement. Flicking a strand of long black hair out of her eyes, she moved on to the next page, a list of books and supplies she'd surely want to purchase at that very moment.

"Look! They've got everything here. We must go shopping, Mum, when can we go? And look, look! Dad, your book is here! We'll be using your book in some class."

"Potions, I expect," he said, an amused grin tugging at his lips. "You won't go wasting your money on that. I'm sure I have a copy lying about somewhere."

"I wonder what house I'll go in?" she looked thoughtful for a moment, "Slytherin I suppose," she rattled on. "Maybe Ravenclaw. Not Hufflepuff, Daddy can you tell them not Hufflepuff? Bronwyn's sister is in Hufflepuff and she's an absolute--"

"Thalia!" I snapped out of my hazy. "No one can control what house they go in. You will not think of your fellow students in those terms."

I felt Severus smirking at me, and knew full well that's just exactly how everyone thought of everyone else at Hogwarts.

He leaned towards her and asked in a conspiratorial stage whisper, "An absolute what?"

I feigned a new interest in the postcard and before she had a chance to answer mentioned in an offhand tone, "It could be Gryffindor."

It would never be Gryffindor. If anyone was less suited for Gryffindor House I had yet to meet her.

Severus' hand froze over the cup he'd been reaching for. A moment of horrified silence passed while I examined the Alps.

"I owe the Headmaster a letter," he said simply. "Fellow students? You're coming around to this, then?"

"Not really," I confessed.

He sat back and looked back and forth between me and his daughter who was still jabbering excitedly about her shopping list. "There's plenty of time to consider," he said. "They don't need to know if she's coming for several months yet."

"What do you mean, if?" Thalia's head snapped up from her letter. "Of course I'm going! Where else would I go?"

"Give your mother some time. She doesn't like the thought of sending you away. I however, am counting the days. There hasn't been a moment of silence in this house for nearly twelve years."

She picked up her monologue as if he'd never spoken. "A wand, it says I need a wand--my own! When can we go? I'll have to practice you know."

"You will not! I won't have the ministry flying in here because you're flaunting underage sorcery restrictions."

"Oh, Dad!"

I expected a foot stomp at any moment.

"We'll go next week, Thalia, I told her. "That should be soon enough. We'll stay in London a few days, would you like that?" I was sure she would, but it mattered little. I had to get to London, I needed desperately to talk to Olivia. How had she done it? Sent all her children to strangers so far away for so long?

Severus stood behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, stroking my neck with one thumb. He leaned forward and spoke softly into my ear. "That's a very good idea. She'll straighten you out." The whisper became a kiss punctuated by an indignant "tsk" from Thalia.

He straightened, turned to her and took the supply list out of her hands. "Come along, young mistress, we'll see if we can get started on this list. The book is in my study I'm sure, and you'll take a proper cauldron."

"But I want new!"

He turned her around and gave her a nudge out of the room while admonishing her.

"Don't be ridiculous, child. Ever since the ministry got involved with its silly rules about thickness and construction, one simply can not buy a decent cauldron anywhere."

"Dad--"

"When you're the only one in your class who can manage a forgetfulness potion because no one else can keep the temperature even, you'll understand."

I couldn't help but laugh to myself as I watched their backs. Once the potions master, always the potions master. Now he had a daughter destined for Slytherin house. A daughter who would have a new, ministry regulated cauldron of her own by the end of the next week.