yg

Summer's End

Meditation was never more necessary. He'd only done two laps before plopping down under the apple trees to try and calm his writhing mind. He did not regret anything he'd said the previous night. Indeed, he felt vindicated, freed, and very light. But he knew his family would not share his relief. He'd dumped a lot of difficult stuff on them that evening, and there was no guarantee that they would take any of it lying down after having a night to mull it over. He didn't want this to become an extended war between them all. As good as he felt just then, it might have been better to keep his tongue behind his teeth. Tipsy and her chocolate biscuits had been welcome, and he couldn't help but wish, as he often had before, that getting on with him mum, his dad, and Tom was as easy as getting on with Tipsy and the portraits.

The sun was a dim foggy glow some inches up the sky before he'd calmed his raging anxiety enough to feel even a little confident about facing them. Even if it didn't turn out well, even if they disagreed and wanted to keep arguing the point, he felt good about what he'd said.

So he tromped around from the orchard to the south door and pushed his way into the kitchen.

He immediately wanted to leave again.

James and Lily sat at the table, wrapped in dressing gowns and strained silence. The atmosphere was oppressive. But they both looked up from their tea when he came in, so he was prevented from backing out unnoticed.

"Harry, good morning," Lily said tentatively. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her smile weak. Harry cringed. They were being careful with him again. He might have preferred more arguing to this.

"Good morning," he replied nervously, crossing to floor to help Tipsy at the stove.

"How did you sleep... sweetheart?"

"Well," was the awkward answer. "Thanks." This was stupid. It was a playact to help them pretend everything was alright, and it was painfully familiar from years of forgotten birthdays and neglected promises. But they were trying, he supposed. And really, he didn't have to play along. He could be honest, he didn't have to hide behind false sentiment. He was gathering his nerve to bring up the previous night when Tom appeared in the doorway to the dining room and said sleepily, "Kingsly's head is in the Floo, Dad."

"Who? What? Why?" James asked in rapid succession as he rose quickly from his chair and dashed out. Lily got up and followed him, and Harry went after them as well, stirring a mug of tea.

James was kneeling in front of the fireplace when Harry came around the doorjamb. He was holding his glasses in one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. Not good news then.

"What is it?" Lily asked, and James looked up bleakly.

"Peter escaped from Azkaban."

Harry nearly dropped his tea as he and Tom simultaneously lunged forward to catch their mother, whose knees seemed to have given out. They shared a glance which established her new destination to be the sofa rather than the floor and started helping her over to it.

Kingsly's deep voice emanated from the fireplace as Harry and Tom laid Lily on the sofa. Tom patted her hand anxiously while Harry went behind James, the better to hear Kingsly.

"…some time between nine and twelve last night, no one knows how. Of course, it's Azkaban, isn't it? Inescapable fortress…" He grimaced. "Apparently not. The Minister's personally involved with this one, of course, and he thinks you'll be safer here, since your family's more than likely his prime target. Reports say his mind has been… going recently. Apparently he's been muttering about the 'bastard baby', so it's safe to say he blames Tom for his incarceration. There's no predicting what he might do. Fudge wants to see you in twenty minutes in his office to talk tactics of capture."

"Tell him I'll be there," James said firmly, and Kingsly's head disappeared.

"How did he get out?" Lily whispered from the sofa. "We made so sure… James, how could this happen?"

"Kingsly just said he didn't know, Mum," Tom said knowledgeably, and Harry rolled his eyes. Tom needed to learn to hear when something was rhetorical.

"We can talk more when we get to the Ministry. Right now, let's all get dressed."

"Wait, you're serious about going there?" Harry asked in confusion. The three others looked at him blankly. "I mean, it's only Pettigrew, right? It's not like the Lestranges broke out."

"Harry, Pettigrew is the one who betrayed us!" Tom said angrily. "He's an evil Death Eater, and he wanted You-Know-Who to kill me!"

"Yes, I know, but You-Know-Who is gone, and it's not like he can betray us again, right? He's a servant, completely ineffectual on his own."

Tom spluttered incoherent disagreement as James said, "Be that as it may, he did just escape from Azkaban, the highest security prison known to wizard-kind. And that is a problem."

"Fair point," Harry allowed, realizing with some surprise that he was involved in a perfectly civil, intelligent conversation with his family, for the first time is recent memory. A little external drama worked wonders for internal trauma, he supposed. "But I'm not going to spend all day at the Ministry, sorry. I've got tutoring starting today."

"Harry, we are all his targets. It's safe at the Ministry!" Lily sounded slightly hysterical.

"I'd bet Tom's his main target, probably. And it will be safe at the Greengrass' as well. He spent over a decade in prison: I doubt he knows who my best friends are."

"But—!"

"It's fine, Lil, he's right," James said unexpectedly. Harry looked at him in suspicion and surprise.

"I am?"

"Yes. Go to the Greengrasses for the day. We'll send an owl when we're back home, and you can join us then, okay?"

Harry blinked. "Okay."

"I want you to leave first. Are you ready? We have to be gone in fifteen minutes."

In response, Harry finished his tea in two large, hot gulps and handed the mug to his dad, then grabbed a handful of Floo Powder and threw it over the ashes. "Greengrass Manor," he said clearly, and spun away.

The Greengrass' secondary sitting room settled into place in front of him, and it struck him as funny and slightly ironic that he'd left that very place barely ten hours before. So much had changed in that time. It felt like another year.

Roderick and Delf were in the two armchairs facing the fireplace, and they both looked up expectantly as the green flames faded.

"Harry!" Delf squealed happily. She swiftly unfolded her legs and patted the chair she was on, inviting him to sit next to her, smiling hugely the whole time. Her eyes were shining gold, for happy. He'd been improvising the previous night when he'd claimed it as his favorite colour, but now he decided he'd been telling the truth after all.

"Morning," he said, grinning at her enthusiasm. "Have I ever got news." He squished in to the armchair beside Delf so that their hips and legs were pressed together, and put his arms around her shoulders.

"We only saw you nine hours ago, Harry," Delf reminded him.

"Is this going to be like the time Lockheart did your arm?" Roderick asked wearily. "And you came out of the Hospital Wing talking about Dobby and Petrifications and the Chamber of Secrets and everything?"

"Yes, exactly like that," Harry agreed. "Firstly, I got in a huge fight with my parents, but I think it ended up alright, which is really strange."

"Lucky," Roderick muttered.

Harry grimaced sympathetically. "Did yours see your murder as well?"

Roderick's eyes widened. "Merlin no! Forget sitting here with you two, I wouldn't be alive! How are you not dead?"

"It was a close thing," he replied wryly. "But that's not the biggest news: Peter Pettigrew escaped from Azkaban last night."

Roderick's mouth fell open, and Delf twisted around to stare at him incredulously. "Are you being serious?"

"Oh, thanks. Yes, I am. Kingsly Flooed in to tell us ten minutes ago. I expect it'll be in the Prophet this morning. Mum and Dad and Tom went to the Ministry for the day, and I'm to stay here until they owl me that they're home again."

"Wow," Roderick sighed. "Azkaban. They think he'll be after Tom then?"

"It's sort of the logical conclusion, isn't it? I mean, Boy Who Lived and all that."

"Are they assigning you guards?" Delf asked, sounding worried.

"Well, it's a bit like my dad's Head of the Aurors, you know?"

"Right."

They sat in contemplative silence for a short time, each wrapped in similar thoughts.

"Well, tutoring," Roderick finally said, causing Harry and Delf to look up and smile.

"Yeah," Delf agreed eagerly. "I reckon we're ready to do our Animagi transformations soon."

"Hard to believe this is our last summer with him, though."

"Harry, you buzzkill," Delf admonished, swatting him.

"Well it's true."

"What will we do with our Augusts after this?" Roderick wondered idly.

"Become political dissenters and wander the countryside running from the law?" Harry suggested jokingly.

"No thank you!" Delf said loudly.

Roderick laughed. "I don't know, I think that could be interesting. We can get a tent and Apparate around to different places and argue the days away. Doesn't that sound just charming?"

"No," Delf said flatly.

"That would be something though, wouldn't it? Us fighting?" Harry reflected.

"We're pretty good at not doing that," Roderick agreed. "Have we ever disagreed about anything?"

"I regularly disagree when we go getting involved in your brothers' nonsense, but no one ever listens," Delf complained.

Roderick and Harry laughed. "Quick," Roderick encouraged. "Let's have a big row and tell Master Jerome about it when he gets here!"

Harry snorted. "As if we need more things to tell him about. Between Riddle and the diary, our Animagi, continuing Occlumency, and whatever else comes up, we have enough for five summers, let alone one."

"Plus, I don't want to row with you two. Kelly and Amanda and Beverley do enough bickering at school that I'm surprised they have enough energy for anything else. It's much better to just be friends."

"Really? Being friends? Is that what you'd prefer?" Roderick asked, giving her an oddly direct look. Delf went very pink in Harry's peripheral vision.

"Are you sure you two aren't—"

"Yes, well, why don't we go upstairs to wait for Master Jerome?" Delf interrupted shrilly, surging up from their seat and making a beeline for the door.

Harry stared at Roderick in confusion. "What was that all about?"

"Couldn't rightly say," his friend replied lightly, but he had an unreasonably smug smile on, and Harry didn't believe him at all. "Shall we go up to the library then?"

"Sure…You know though," Harry said as they followed Delf into the kitchen and up the stairs, greeting Mrs. Greengrass on the way, "If you keep saying things like that to Delf, Tracey might think you're not interested."

Roderick chortled. "Don't you worry about Tracey, she understands what's going on."

"Wait, is there some conspiracy that everyone's in on except me? Is this what you and Lawrence and Will wouldn't explain to me last year?"

"In a manner of speaking," Roderick agreed evasively, but by then they were in the Greengrass library, with its concentric Ls of bookcases and the familiar square table, facing two walls of windows.

"So Harry, tell us more about Egypt," Delf demanded as soon as the boys were seated.

"Oh, er, alright then…" And so they passed an hour, Harry and Delf comparing notes on interesting summer experiences, Roderick and Harry teasing Delf about Oliver (though Harry was quite serious when he said he'd break Wood's neck if he hurt her), and all of them sharing notes on interesting things they'd read.

"…I mean, three heads? Imagine how much medical magic you'd have to know to even begin to make a curse like that work! Bill Weasley says the ancient Egyptians took more magical knowledge with them when they fell than we have altogether these days."

"A slightly exaggerated statistic, but partially truthful nonetheless," said a voice from the door, and they all spun about excitedly.

"Master Jerome!"

And indeed, in sauntered their tutor, dressed just as oddly as ever: he wore tight white trousers, a blue tunic that ended just above his knees, with a red sash and a black vest. Atop his head perched a red hat something between a turban and a fez.

"Turkey?" Roderick guessed.

"India?" said Delf.

"I was going to say Turkey as well," Harry confessed, drawing laughs from the other three.

"Valid deductions both," Master Jerome chuckled, going around the table and taking a seat. "But wrong. I was in Greece."

His students made faces of revelation at each other, and skooched inwards to hear the tales he surely bore. Master Jerome smiled tolerantly at their excitement.

"Greece is a very interesting place, you know," he began casually. "From what I hear, someone spent a little time in Egypt this summer, true?" Harry nodded assent. "Fascinating place as well, Egypt. I was once there for—hm, another time. The ancient Egyptians were very advanced in two types of magic: martial and medical, as Harry suggested. When they fell, I don't doubt that it took us many a century to cobble together the things they took with them, and much of it still remains buried in history.

"The Greeks, on the other hand, were far more interested in the subtle mind arts, and it is to them that we owe our modern knowledge of Occlumency and Legilimency. Indeed, that set of skills has become their legacy, as nearly all of the magic they were so skilled at was lost with them when they fell, and little of it was ever recovered due to the non-physical nature of their skills. Very sad. A great loss to all of us. And there was no sign of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

The trio of teenagers allowed the silence to stretch for several long moments before Harry cleared his throat. "So… um… what... made you decide to… why did you go there?"

Master Jerome blinked at him in abundant surprise. "My dear boy, if you woke up one morning and realized that you were fifty seven and had never been to Greece, you would do something about it as well."

Roderick laughed loudly.

"So." Master Jerome made a basket with his fingers and leaned his back head into it. "Besides Egypt, what has happened since last we met?"

"We all got tattoos," Roderick piped up. "Delf drew them."

"Harry nearly died again," Delf complained. "I did design our tattoos though, and they're quite nice."

"I had a possibly productive argument with my parents," Harry supplied. "And you're exaggerating Delf, I was nowhere near dying. It was just a bit dangerous for a little while."

"A little dangerous," Roderick scoffed. "Do you hear that? That's what he calls You-Know-Who when he pops out of a diary."

"My my my," Jerome said mildly. "Let's take these in order of magnitude, shall we? First, I'd like to see your tattoos."

Harry and Roderick obligingly rolled their sleeves back while Delf pulled up the side of her shirt. Harry sternly forbid himself from staring at her, and met with some success.

"Nicely depicted indeed, Daphne," their Master complimented, examining the restless birds flitting about on her skin. She flushed happily. "Roderick, I notice your placement. That's very brave of you." Roderick's expression struggled between pride and apprehension. "Harry, perhaps you would explain its significance?"

"It's us three as crows,for our Animagi forms," he said. "See the eyes? Green for me; grey for Roderick; gold, currently, for Delf. She did blood magic in them." He wasn't sure if he was tattling or simply imparting information, but Master Jerome did not seem unduly concerned anyway.

"But dear girl, you're fourteen," he said in that gently amazed way of his.

Roderick laughed again. "That's exactly what Sirius said when he heard."

"It wasn't so hard. It was a little drop of blood, and then Invisible Ink," Delf muttered. "To make it linked to me, but give it the capacity to change, not just be the colour of when I did them."

Master Jerome looked at her keenly. "You have an excellent intuitive grasp of magic," he said slowly. "Do nurture that for me." Delf nodded hard, face burning pink from the praise. Master Jerome allowed them a moment to gather composure before turning to Harry. "Now, this possibly productive argument?"

"Yeah, last night," he agreed, suddenly uncomfortable. He didn't make a habit of telling his friends every bit of interaction he had with his family, though he knew they inferred a great deal of his relationship with them. "They saw the tattoo, that's what started it. And it just sort of… expanded. I reckon they can't ignore me anymore, at least."

"Progress indeed then," Jerome established genially. "Small but sure steps are always best, I'd say."

"Yeah, though this step was neither small nor sure," Harry replied ruefully.

"Even so. Now, what's this I hear about Voldemort coming out of a diary and nearly killing our Harry?"

Roderick and Delf looked at him expectantly. "What?" Harry asked.

"Well, you were there, mate. You know best what happened."

"Oi, Delf brought it up!"

"Because it's important! Even besides you nearly dying—"

"Which you're making up."

"—there was a lot of really interesting magic going on, so please? Come on."

Harry released an exasperated sigh. "Okay, fine. It all started in October…"

It was a collaborative effort spanning more than twenty minutes to explain their fourth year to Master Jerome. Harry spoke at length about hearing the Basilisk, and Roderick chimed in on the specifics of Petrification, as he'd spoken quite a lot with Madam Pomfrey during his visits to Tracey. Delf only came in once she could tell about herself discovering the secret entrance to the Chamber. A lot of the rest was Harry's to tell, though Roderick explained his part in trying to convince the professors to help, and Delf often cut in with variations of "See what I mean? Nearly dead. I ask you."

By the time it was over, the three of them having tag-teamed through Dumbledore using Ligillimency on Harry, the freeing of Dobby, and the midnight feast, Master Jerome wore a look of avid interest and delight.

"A younger incarnation of Voldemort, preserved within a book, you say? My my my, Hogwarts has gotten more interesting since I was a student. Children, tell me what you know about the behavior of possessed inanimate objects, please," he said, switching to lesson mode without warning.

"It's er, when they take on attributes of what's possessing them, right?" Harry guessed.

"Like that time Peeves was in the eagle knocker and made it ask Kelly about her knickers." Delf sniggered at the memory.

"You are—succinctly—correct," Master Jerome reassured him. "Now, remind me how this diary was acting, would you?"

"It wrote back to your brother, right?" Delf confirmed.

"And showed him a memory of Hagrid getting expelled, yeah," Harry agreed.

"And it was possessing Ginny, lest we forget," Roderick said sardonically.

"Well, sort of. Riddle explained it in the Chamber: as Ginny wrote more and more stuff in it—private stuff, hopes and fears and all that—Riddle was taking her, her life-force, I suppose. He was able to take over her mind, and eventually drained her of strength and power so that he could manifest physically."

"I see. A possessed object possessing another person. Interesting. Unique, in fact."

"It's never happened before?" Delf asked curiously.

"Not to my knowledge, no… I believe you were dealing with something a great deal more unusual that the run of the mill possessed item." The trio glanced at each other excitedly. "Perhaps this ought to be a peripheral project of the summer," Master Jerome said thoughtfully. "Why don't we research types of magic besides possession which allow objects to be imbued with characteristics of their owners?"

"Is this going to be us studying a lot for a month, and then you pull out the answer at the end when we've given up?" Roderick asked suspiciously.

"Would you prefer that?" Master Jerome sounded perplexed. "I thought you were Ravenclaws."

"We are!" Delf exclaimed, affronted. "Ignore Roderick, he's stupid."

"You're stupid," Roderick retorted. "I just meant—you know, never mind."

"Oh, speaking of You-Know-Who," Harry said,suddenly remembering. "Pettigrew got out from Azkaban last night."

"Ah. An event of great concern for your family especially, I would imagine."

"You might say. Mum and Dad and Tom went to the Ministry for the day for safety, and I'm to stay here until they tell me to come home."

"I'm a little surprised they went so far, honestly," Roderick admitted. "It's not as if Aunt Bellatrix escaped or anything."

"That's what I told them this morning!"

"I keep forgetting who you're related to," Delf said thoughtfully.

"That's fine."

"I'll be frank," Master Jerome said after a short pause. His tone was chuckly. "I didn't expect such dramatic events to have transpired in my absence. You three are rapidly becoming interesting."

"Thanks…?" Harry replied cautiously.

"Quite. It was meant as a compliment. Now, shall we sort out what to do when this month? We do have a great deal of material to cover, so let's not tarry…"

Over the course of the morning, the month of August took shape. They had a great deal to cover: continuing to explore Occlumency, which Harry was very excited about (the others less so); they were going into their O.W.L. year, so there was a lot of preparation to be done for that since they'd have to start specializing for their careers afterwards; and of course, their Animagi transformations.

Master Jerome made them wait three whole days before letting them do that particular magic. Three… long… agonizing… days. In that time, he quizzed them mercilessly on the theory of the thing, and interrogated Harry about his experience seeing James and Sirius do theirs at the henge in Ireland the previous summer.

But finally—finally—on the afternoon of the fourth when Delf's parents and brother and sister were at Diagon Alley, they went outside to the sloping back lawn and prepared to transform for the first time.

"Now." Master Jerome pointed at the ground. "Meditate."

His pupils immediately roused a protest.

"WHAT?"

"We've studied this—"

"Oh, come on!"

"—for two years!"

"Please?"

"Whyyy?"

"If you think I'm about to let three very excited, over-confident teenagers attempt some of the most difficult magic known to wizard-kind, then you're quite dim," Master Jerome said, unusually stern. Harry, Delf and Roderick wilted a little. "I will, however, allow three calm, intelligent students to do so. So sit. Five minutes, that's all. Open your eyes only once you feel appropriately calm."

The trio sat reluctantly. Truthfully, Harry knew it was a good idea, but he was impatient and excited, and he didn't want to meditate for the second time in a day. But Master Jerome was right: being too confident could be disastrous with this sort of magic. So he settled in to the quiet place in his mind, established over many years of focus and calm.

The past three days had been very hectic for a few reasons: mainly, Pettigrew had not been captured yet, so Potter Manor was edgy. James and Lily had good reason to be wary of Wormtail. Having that kind of trust broken tended to leave marks. Tom, on the other hand, had somehow built Peter up into a kind of megalomaniacal evil mastermind, and having him free was causing him a great deal of anxiety. The press was having a field day, and had already requested personal interviews from the whole family (Harry was ignored, which he actually didn't mind).

Additionally, they'd all gotten their Hogwarts letters, along with the news that Remus was going to be that year's Defense teacher, which was brilliant. Not to mention, Harry was a Prefect. Apparently Percy had followed through on his promise to recommend him for the position. Delf wasn't his opposite, which caused him some surprise, though she said she wouldn't have been good at it because she just didn't care enough about other people. They weren't to do their shopping together that year, since Astoria wanted to go with friends, so the Greengrass family was making it a real outing again. Harry was doing his with Tracey during the Muggle Meet-and-Greet, which left Roderick sort of at odds. He said he'd probably join the Meet-and-Greet. Harry had hidden a smirk when he heard that, as he saw right through to his friend's ulterior motivations.

And of course, they were all dying to turn into crows already, which brought him back to the matter at hand. His whole body felt like it was fizzing with excitement, but he sternly reminded himself what had happened the last time he and Delf and Roderick had been too eager to fly, and brought himself back in hand quite easily.

He opened his eyes and saw Delf had done the same before him, and he smiled at her with subdued good cheer. For some reason she blushed and looked away from him. He frowned, wondering if she felt quite well.

But then Roderick opened his eyes, and they were ready. Their Master had them stand in a line in front of him, so that he could monitor them all properly. They were doing it with wands first, since that was easier. Wands weren't necessary for Animagi, of course. They'd read all about it. Wands were conduits to bring magic from within the wizard out to create a spell. Since no magic was going anywhere external for Animagi transformations, wands were a bit superfluous, but it was easier to have a focal point at first.

Harry closed his eyes again, listening to his heartbeat and his friends' latent excitement. There was sunlight on his face and wind tugging his trousers and tee-shirt, but he peered inward, seeking that illusive, mysterious quality that was called magic. When he found it, resting quietly very deep within, he drew it up and out and around himself, giving it intention with his will. All at once, his body began to itch all over, and his legs were way too big, had they always been like that? and he thought he could go for a grasshopper or two, as breakfast had been a bit skimpy—grasshoppers?

Harry looked down at himself: scruffy black feathers decorated a sloping breast, a gleaming dark beak extended out of his face (that would take some getting used to), and dark claws gripped the earth. He'd done it! He was a crow! He looked up at Delf and Roderick and saw that they had succeeded as well. Delf was examining herself just as Harry had been, running her beak through her lustrous feathers in apparent amazement. Roderick, on the other hand, was having a little trouble. He'd somehow twisted his wing about and it was now sticking straight up in the air. "My wing is stuck!" he exclaimed, and it came out as a croaking caw. "My wing is stuck! I have wings! Merlin!"

He looked so funny, hopping about trying to bring his wing down that Harry couldn't help but laugh. It came out in a crow's raw cackle, and that made him laugh even more. That set Roderick off, and then Delf joined in, and then they were all staggering around on their claws, cawing and laughing. Harry had spent so long worrying about the magical side of becoming a crow that he hadn't even thought about what to do once he became one. Walking was hard! His center of balance was so far forward that he kept falling onto his face when he tried to walk, and then he'd flap to try to regain his balance and that would make it worse.

Ironically, Delf was having the best time of it. Elegant as a human, she adapted to the new form with envy-inducing ease, and was strutting about looking at the boys with evident amused disparagement. Her eyes had retained their changeable nature, he noted, as they were a shimmering mixture of green and gold. That was her defining feature then. All Animagi were supposed to have them: McGonagall's cat form had square marks like her spectacles, for example. Roderick was easy too. The feathers along the tops of his wings—the alula and marginal coverts, they were called—were pure white, and they extended up behind his neck, so it looked like he was wearing a scarf when his wings were folded. And it looked like his long primaries and secondaries had some blue tints. Harry, examining himself as best he could, found nothing particularly unique about his crow body. Perhaps he had spectacle marks like McGonagall? He didn't wear glasses anymore though…

All of a sudden, he heard a loud flapping, and, spinning about as well as he could in his ungainly body, he saw that Delf had taken the initiative and had actually gotten airborne! Delf had! Roderick had noticed as well, and the two of them ran clumsily after her, squawking indignantly.

"Hey, come back! No fair!"

"You didn't even want to be a bird!"

"You were supposed to wait!"

They could hear her laughing from the air.

"I'll be next!" Roderick cawed, and started flapping.

Harry tackled him. "No, me!"

The following kerfuffle must have been hilarious if Master Jerome's laughter was anything to go by, and when they finally let go of each other and decided to actually follow Delf's example, her croaking mirth echoed out of the sky as well.

A few clumsy flaps and hops forward, and Harry left the ground, Roderick just behind him.

Flapping was counter-intuitive. He was used to flying on his Nimbus, which had very little to do with him actually moving and everything to do with balance. Flying as a crow required about as much balance as walking did for a human, but a great deal more movement. But once he got the hang of the movement, he was able to relax a bit and pay attention to the experience. Harry already knew flying was the best thing in the world. He'd learned that on his eleventh birthday, despite the disastrous consequences. The air, the space, the freedom… But being a crow was something else again. They were born for flight, lived for it. And so now flying was not only fun and freeing, but a deep instinctual imperative that he was fulfilling.

He let himself glide for a time, wheeling about on warm thermals. His crow body knew the air much better than the earth, and the winds flowing around his body were like an invisible map of the world around him. The ground didn't matter as long as it stayed a safe distance away. All that mattered was the sky, the beautiful sky—

Delf divebombed him.

"Got you!" she shrieked, sailing off over the house.

"OI!"After the confusion of figuring out which way was up, he zoomed after her. She was smaller and nimbler than him, so she stayed pretty well ahead, taunting and flipping her feathers at him. Harry could hear Roderick screeching with laughter as he and Delf tore through the air, and before long he managed to wallop into her and sent them both plummeting to the grass. He tumbled beak under tail feathers once, twice, thrice, and quickly decided that it was time to be human once more.

Soon all three of them were two-legged mammals again, seated in a rough line in front of Master Jerome, their clothes noticeably more rumbled than they had been before their trip to the skies. They were all smiling too hugely to do anything else.

"Well done," their Master congratulated warmly. "Well done indeed."

They were useless for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, the next day was the Muggle Meet-and-Greet, so Harry met Tracey, Hermione and Roderick at the Leaky Cauldron for a late breakfast and then met Professors McGonagall and Flitwick with the new Muggle-born students at ten. There weren't many that year, so the tour of the Alley didn't take much time. Harry and the other three got the things they needed for school. He wondered why Hermione seemed to need materials for every single supplemental class it was possible to take, since there was literally not a way to attend all of them because of scheduling conflicts, but figured that was her problem. He thanked Professor Flitwick for his Prefect appointment as they left, and in that way discovered that Tracey was a Prefect as well. She was not surprised to hear Delf wasn't one. The three of them spent the rest of the day wandering the Alley. Harry tried to stay mostly out of the conversation, as getting in the middle of such silly, inept, determined flirting would only end badly for all concerned parties. They bid each other farewell when the sun was sinking towards the rooftops, reminding each other they'd all be at Delf's birthday on the 20th.

But it was only the 6th the next day, and Master Jerome had something very different than a birthday party planned for them: career discussions.

"In your ideal future, what would your job be?" he asked them, starting absently up at the ceiling.

"A curse-breaker," Harry said immediately. Memories of Egypt were still fresh in his mind, along with all of Bill's fantastic stories. "Definitely."

"Not and Auror?" Delf asked. "Seems you'd be good at it."

"And work under my dad? No thanks."

"An adventure-seeker," Master Jerome murmured. "Appropriate. Roderick?"

"I want to work under Mr. Weasley in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office," Roderick replied, grinning somewhat darkly. "To piss off my dad."

"An admirable goal in any case, but not a good basis for deciding a career," their Master admonished gently. "Daphne?"

"I'd be an Unspeakable," Delf said gravely. "Because you never know what they're doing until you're one of them."

"I literally heard the twins calling you a Ravenclaw in my head just now," Roderick told her, and she scowled.

Master Jerome chuckled. "I could think of nothing more appropriate. Now, assuming for whatever reason, those positions aren't made available to you. Second choices?"

"International Magical Co-Operation, I guess. It used to be my first choice."

"Before more exciting things took over, I suppose." Master Jerome sounded amused. "Roderick?"

"Um… Not to copy, but Muggle-Magical Relations sounds interesting."

"I didn't know we had relations with Muggles," said Delf.

"That's why it's interesting."

"Following a vein there, I see. Daphne?"

"One of those people who identifies things for Gringotts. Like, if a vault's owner dies with no heir, and they find a pile of Dark things, I'd go in and see what they did."

"Trend breaker," Roderick accused.

"What? Oh, you two? Look, I don't care if people get along or not, okay? That's why I would have been a bad Prefect."

"Master Jerome, is there a particular reason we're talking about this? I thought we were supposed to do more silent spell casting today."

"Merely my own personal curiosity," he replied blithely. Roderick laughed.

The following two weeks passed remarkably quickly. They worked more on Occlumency and magical theory, as well as preparing for their O.W.L.s, which Master Jerome assured them would simply be a nuisance given their level of academic skill.

But then it was Delf's birthday. It dawned humid and drizzly, and stayed overcast throughout the day. Harry Flooed over early, as was his habit, to find that Roderick had beaten him yet again. 'He must really want to get out of Malfoy Manor,' he reflected unhappily. Even at the height of his and his parents' arguments, he had only ever felt uncomfortable at home, never unwelcome. Roderick clearly did.

"Happy birthday," he said warmly, handing Delf her presents. There was the usual three-part silver frame, which Harry had had custody of, a book called Notable Animagi Through History, and a little charm for her bracelet in the shape of a flying bird. He greeted her parents and brother and sister, and then the trio went up to the library to wait for the other party guests, who weren't due for nearly an hour.

"Delf, why are you wearing your hair up?" Harry asked once he'd finally figured out what was different about her. Her hair was done up in some kind of twisty braidy thing at the back of her head. It looked nice, he supposed. Complicated, at any rate. But it didn't really suit her.

She touched her hair self-consciously, eyes an anxious hazel. "Oliver said he thought I would look better with it up. I just thought I'd try it, just to see if it works. …Does it?"

Harry frowned thoughtfully. "I dunno. I guess I think it looks better down… Yeah, I'm sure it does. Oliver's wrong."

"Okay." She reached up (Harry noticed she was wearing the charm bracelet he'd given her, the one he was still adding to) and tugged some pins, and the twisty braidy thing tumbled down across her shoulders. Roderick laughed a little. Delf blushed pink and hit him on the arm, and he said 'ow' but kept on anyway. Harry was confused, but knew better than to ask for an explanation. They never explained anything when they got like that.

"…just in here, I think." came Mrs. Greengrass' voice from the hallway, causing the three friends to quiet down and look at each other in confusion. The party wasn't starting for nearly forty-five minutes. Who would have gotten here so early? Roderick sat up straight and Harry knew he was hoping for it to be Tracey.

It wasn't Tracey, actually. It also wasn't Cedric or the twins or anyone else Harry was expecting. It was Oliver. He supposed he oughtn't have been as surprised as he was. Oliver and Delf were dating. It was quite natural for him to be at her birthday party. And she had even put her hair up for him. But for some reason the pieces had simply not gone together in his head. So all he did for several seconds as the Gryffindor came in, escorted by Delf's mum, was stare rudely.

For his part, Oliver looked rather put out.

"Perfect, there's a chair for you. Will you all be happy together until the party begins?" Mrs. Greengrass asked pleasantly.

"Sure," Roderick said cheerfully when the other two hadn't spoken after a few moments. "Come in," he told Oliver, shifting around the table so he could have the chair next to Delf. Harry snapped himself out of it as Oliver took the seat across from him.

Delf seemed to have done the same, as she now asked, "What are you doing here so early?" Harry glanced at her eyes and saw with some confusion that they were brown, just neutral brown. That couldn't be right. Oliver had to make her feel something, right?

"I was going to be early and surprise you," Oliver said, eyeing off Harry and Roderick. "I see they've beaten me to it."

"Well, you're actually both: early and surprising," Harry pointed out reasonably.

Oliver glared at him, and he suddenly understood: Delf had been meant to be alone when he arrived. Harry added a note to his mental "Oliver" folder: Gryffindor, rabid Quidditch Captain, untrustworthy.

"And happy birthday," he muttered to Delf, thrusting a roughly wrapped package to her.

The following half hour topped the list of awkward events in Harry's life. Oliver was visibly stand-offish towards him and Roderick. Delf seemed edgy, while Roderick was especially jovial to fill the gaps in conversation, which were frequent and long.

But at a quarter to the hour, Astoria shouted up the stairs that the twins and Lee Jordan had arrived, so they all trooped down to the large sitting-dining room, with the French windows that opened out onto the back lawn. They were closed at the moment due to the weather, but Harry had always liked them. Cedric and Tracey arrived soon after, one after the other, and there was a hullabaloo of greetings and birthday wishes and general noisiness.

After that things went a bit off track because Dwight had got at the cake, and eaten a third of it before anyone caught him. Delf retaliated by levitating him over the guests, so he could watch but not participate, but then he started drooling on everyone, so Mrs. Greengrass took him upstairs. The twins claimed they'd found their protégé.

So they postponed the cake while Mrs Greengrass saw if it was salvageable, and just had Delf open gifts instead. They sat around the table that usually lived in the kitchen, which had obligingly walked itself out to the large sitting room for them. Delf was at the head, of course, with Harry and Oliver on either side. Astoria was on Harry's other side, then Cedric, then Tracey, Roderick, and Lee Jordan, and the twins completing the circle next to Oliver.

The twins and Lee Jordan opened the ceremonies by presenting Delf with a grubby sheet of parchment covered in scribbles. Delf took it gingerly, and looked at them uncertainly.

"Well, what does it look like?" Fred said, pretending offense.

"It looks like a list of dates and places."

"To avoid," George stressed.

"Why?" she asked, looking back at the page.

"Look," said Lee. "All we're saying is that unless you REALLY like cockroaches, you should stay away from the west wing of the second floor during the first weekend in March. For example."

Delf gravely folded the parchment up and tucked it into her sleeve. "Thank you. Duly noted," she said amidst a round of applause. Anything that got the Weasley twins to plan that far ahead was extremely admirable.

Roderick and Harry had jointly given her the silver frame, of course, and Roderick also gave her a second-hand copy of Four Founders: The Early Years of Hogwarts, which looked quite interesting. He'd have to borrow it. Her parents had taken over giving her the raw scrapbooking materials, as they were a bit pricey, and she used a lot of them.

Then she reached for Oliver's one, and picked off the loose paper to reveal a book called Rare and Difficult Quidditch Maneuvers and their Origins. The whole table erupted into laughter, except for Delf and the gifter in question.

"Whose birthday is it, Olly, yours or hers?" George hooted.

"Ooh, look at Harry, he wants it!" Tracey giggled.

"Can I actually look at that?" he asked hopefully.

"Sure." She handed it to him without a shred of reluctance. The day Delf needed to know how to do unusual Quidditch maneuvers would be the day Harry stopped flying.

Oliver looked sullen as Delf reached for the last gift on the table, Tracey's. It was a fairly small bag made of stiff green paper with white and pink and orange tissue paper puffing out of the top. In fact, there was a lot of tissue paper, which they discovered with growing amusement as Delf had to keep and keep and keep pulling it out. There was a veritable cloud of it around her by the time she was done, and Harry wondered what kind of present the bag still had space for. He leaned in to look over her shoulder as she peered within (Oliver was doing the same on the other side, he saw in his peripheral vision). He saw a flash of colourful material and black lace at the bottom of the bag before Delf screeched and crushed it closed on the tabletop. The brief glimpse had set off a chain reaction of memories in his head: eleven years old and confused—lithe mannequins strutting—ruffles and lace—sunlight, adventure, fun—"If you want Roderick to make a move, that would be a good place to start."—indignant spluttering… promises of revenge…

Tracey had given her lingerie.

"You let me open that in front of everyone without warning me?!" Delf shrieked across the table at Tracey, who was screaming with laughter and hanging on Roderick, who just looked puzzled, along with everyone else at the table except Harry and Oliver.

"What was it?" Cedric asked confusedly.

"Nothing!" Delf shouted, sweeping the offending gift off the table in a swirl of tissue paper. "I'm taking this… this thing upstairs!"

A stunned silence followed her out, interrupted only by Tracey's intermittent gasping laughs.

"What did you do to her?" Roderick wanted to know.

Tracey only shook her head. "Secret," she giggled.

The group dispersed then: Fred, George, Lee Jordan and Roderick adjourned to a corner, speaking in furtive voices and gesticulating; Oliver muttered something about finding a toilet; Tracey, Cedric and Harry opened Rare and Difficult Quidditch Maneuvers and their Origins and examined some of the diagrams, while Astoria looked on with ill-concealed disinterest. After a while, the twins and Lee sidled off to the kitchen to see if any cake was to be had, and Roderick took over Tracey's attention while Astoria started talking to Cedric, her face a slightly above-average shade of pink.

Smiling slightly, Harry quietly excused himself and wandered away. The twins and Lee had vacated the kitchen at some point (presumably with the mortal remains of the cake). He followed a muffled thump he heard that came from the cloak room next to the secondary sitting room, assuming it to be of a twin-ish origin.

He opened the door.

It wasn't the twins.

It was Delf.

And Oliver.

And they were kissing.

A lot.

Delf was leaning on the left wall, Oliver pressed against her, and his hands were wandering somewhat south of her waist in an absolutely inappropriate area.

Harry felt his common sense switch off.

"Hey!"

They broke apart, which was good, because Harry had been about to do it for them. Instead, he grabbed Oliver by the collar and slammed him up against the facing wall. "She is a lady!" he shouted into Oliver's stunned face."You can't go groping her like a side of meat! Show some respect for Merlin's sake!"

"Harry! Damn you, get off!" He felt hands pulling on his shoulders and he reluctantly let go of the Gryffindor's throat. It was Roderick who had hauled him away, and Roderick who restrained him still as their friends pressed into the small space to see what was happening.

"Give it to him, Harry!"

"Don't encourage them, Tracey," Cedric admonished.

"Fight, fight, fight, fight!" the twins and Lee Jordan chanted.

"Clear out, clear out," said an authoritative adult voice, and the teenagers did indeed clear out as Mr. Greengrass entered the scene. Roderick let Harry go, and he stood, uncomfortable but unapologetic under the eyes of his best friend's father. Mr. Greengrass surveyed the scene sternly. "I don't care what happened or who started it. Go outside if you're going to hit each other," he finally said.

"Yes, Mr. Greengrass," Harry muttered as Oliver ground out "Yes, sir."

The man nodded and left, and in the following silence, Harry stared furiously at the floor lest he accidentally look at Oliver again and hit him for real.

Luckily, Oliver solved that problem for him. "I'm leaving," the elder boy declared, and brushed past the quiet partygoers. Harry heard him say something to the Floo Network, and a whoosh that meant he was gone.

"Well, the show's over," Roderick announced after a moment, and began shepherding everyone besides Delf and Harry back into the hallway. In short order, they were left alone.

"You needn't have done that, Harry," Delf told him baldly. "I can take care of myself, you know." He looked up.

There were times when Delf's eyes might have been either furious orange or joyful gold, but this was not one of those times. She was clearly, unmistakably happy. Harry was confused. Did being with Oliver make her so happy that it overruled Harry's interruption?

"Shouldn't you be mad, like Oliver?"

"I am."

"But… your eyes…"

"What about them?"

"…Never mind."

That night, he had a dream. He, Delf, Roderick, Will, Lawrence, Helen, and some others from their year were in the Library, working on a Potions essay. Delf said she had forgotten her brother in the greenhouse, and Harry volunteered to go with her and get him. They went out into the passage way, only it was Harry's room instead, and Delf was pulling her top off. In a cerebral way, he knew he should be surprised when she pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top of him, but all he could think about was how perfect her breasts were and then she was kissing him and oh, Merlin…!

Another week and a half sped by, in which Harry tried very hard to bury that particular dream. Unfortunately his well-organized mind had no prepared category of 'inappropriate dreams about friends', and it stuck out like a sore thumb in his psyche. They went back to tutoring after the interruption of Delf's birthday, and he threw himself into it with gusto. They finessed their rough Occlumency skills and perfected basic silent spell-casting. More complex things still required a verbal command, but Master Jerome was quite pleased with their progress and promised that if they kept working they'd attain control of the power in no time.

But as much as Harry wanted the summer to roll on forever, it did eventually end, and the 31st dawned balmy and warm despite his low spirits. They had planned a small goodbye party for Master Jerome, and gotten presents and things. They didn't know his favorite food (after traveling to all those places, there was no way he could have just one, as Roderick pointed out), so they all provided something they particularly liked instead. Harry and Roderick went to Delf's especially early to prepare, and an activity which ought to have been cheerful and boisterous—three friends cooking together on a summer morning—was restrained and gloomy.

"Damn!"

Harry nearly dropped a bowl of cream at Roderick's sudden shout. "What?"

"We should have been terrible! If we had been really bad students instead of good ones, he'd have had to stay to teach us more."

After a long second of incomprehension, Harry laughed. "It would be nice if that was how it worked, wouldn't it?"

They each went back to their own activities. For some reason conversation was difficult to start that morning.

"What do you think he'll do?" Delf asked, not looking up from whatever she was stirring at the counter. "Now that we've, well, graduated?"

"Get new students, I suppose," Harry replied glumly.

"Stupid blighters," Roderick muttered.

"You can't call eight-year-olds stupid blighters, Roderick," Delf chided, though Harry could tell she agreed with his sentiment. Even he couldn't help being a mite jealous of these hypothetical children. The seven Augusts he had spent under Master Jerome's tutelage had given him an escape from Potter Manor, endless reasons to be excited, and a thirst for knowledge far beyond anything Hogwarts had ever inspired in him. He would have liked nothing more than to spend a couple more summers in the Greengrass' library, learning and laughing and loving every minute.

They eventually went upstairs to wait, and sat around the table in a very glum silence. Harry folded his arms and slouched more and more deeply into his chair as the minutes ticked on; Roderick crossed his arms on the table and leaned his chin down on them, despondent; Delf stared at her hands, folded on her lap. It was unusual for her eyes to match Roderick's, as she wasn't usually disposed to be sad. But now they were a wretched, wet grey, and there was nothing cheerful to be said to make them flicker gold.

"Good morning, students," said a gentle voice. They turned in their seats, but without the usual verve. Harry wouldn't admit it, but there was a hot itchy feeling behind his eyes that would probably turn into tears if he let it.

"Good morning, Master Jerome," they mumbled in rough unison.

"Why the sad faces?" he inquired, taking his usual spot across from Harry. It was the end of the summer, so he had stopped dressing quite so foreign and wore a simple brown tweed suit and a tie with red koi fish on it.

"It's our last day of tutoring." Roderick sounded incredulous. "We'll never see you again." Harry nodded, fighting the itchy eye feeling. Delf bit her lip.

"Why in the world would the end of our tutoring mean we'd never see each other again?" Master Jerome inquired curiously.

Harry looked between Delf and Roderick, and they looked between each other, and then they all looked at Master Jerome.

"Well… because… doesn't it?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Of course not! You're no longer my students after today, certainly. But that only means you're real people now. I expect I'll take you out for drinks in a few years once you've all turned seventeen."

Harry sat up straighter and started to smile. He hadn't thought of what sort of relationship they could have with Master Jerome outside of that of tutor-pupils. He hadn't even thought that was a possibility. Which was pretty stupid, he realized now. Master Jerome wasn't going to disappear just because he'd stopped teaching them.

Delf and Roderick had also perked up noticeably. "So do you keep contact with other students you've taught?" Roderick asked.

"Of course. I frequently have quite a pile of letters waiting for me when I return every summer. It's quite worth the time investment to hear how my former pupils turned out."

"So, now that we're not students, will you tell us where you're going this year?" Delf said hopefully.

Master Jerome smiled. "Certainly. I believe I'm to stay here in Britain, as a matter of fact."

"Are you living as a Muggle again?" Harry asked.

"No, as a wizard."

"Are you giving up on the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?" Delf sounded distressed. None of them really believed in the creature's existence, but it was a defining feature of their Master, and losing that would be sad.

"Not at all. In fact, I've been in contact with Mr Xenophilius Lovegood about doing a large project on that very subject. However, my main motivation for staying in the area is that my mother fell ill recently."

"Mother?" Harry repeated dumbly.

"You have a mother?" from Delf.

Master Jerome laughed his chuckly laugh. "Everyone has a mother, or had one once. Mine is named Estelle, and she is eighty-eight. As my father passed away some years ago, it falls to me to care for her now that she is sick."

"How can you be staying here to look after her? I thought you were from France," Roderick pointed out, faintly accusatory.

"I am. I was born just outside of Lyon. Both of my parents began serving as ambassadors to Ministère français de la Magie when I was eight, and we moved to China for three years. Then when I was eleven, they were transferred to the United States of America where I attended Merlin Gates School for Young Wizards for two years."

"Then where?" Harry asked eagerly. Master Jerome had trailed off into a thoughtful silence, but his three almost not-pupils wanted to hear more. So far, Master Jerome had been just that: their Master. But as he said, sloughing that title off meant he was a real person now, and they were eager to hear about the sort of past he had, given that he knew almost everything about theirs.

"Hm?Durmstrang, in Scandinavia, for two years. Not a pleasant place. I don't recommend it, even if that is where I first learned of the Snorkack."

"Dad wanted to send me and Draco there," Roderick said unexpectedly. "Because the headmaster there has 'proper views on…' I'm saying 'Muggle-borns', but that's not what he said. But Mum didn't want us going that far away."

"Indeed," their Master agreed solemnly. "I don't think that would have gone well for you."

"Mm," Roderick grunted. He looked like he regretted bringing it up. "Well, it didn't happen."

"Wait, didn't you once say you were in Ravenclaw at Hogwarts?" Delf interrupted."You'd be too old if you went to those other places before."

"That was a bit of an administrative headache," Jerome agreed, smiling. They Sorted me during summer, before the year began. The Hat took nearly twenty minutes. He only wanted to talk, really. Even Albus Dumbledore gets boring after long enough."

"Dumbledore is boring, never mind how long you spend with him," Delf scoffed. "And he thinks he's just so clever. Eugh."

"I'm glad you agree," their tutor replied, smiling happily. "Though he is actually quite clever, he's also a closed-minded traditionalist."

The three students smirked around at each other. While Harry's opinion, at least, had been cemented very early on, it was nice to have it vindicated by Master Jerome. "And what about after Hogwarts?" he asked. "Did you start teaching right away?"

"No, I returned to Sweden for several years to research the Snorkack, and also became interested in magical theory, which I had a very vague background in from living in China. Then when I returned to the UK to think about working, I realized that I'd been collecting pedagogies almost all of my life, and that I could combine some of them in very effective ways. So… thirty-some-odd years later, here we are."

The day passed too quickly after that. They ate the food they're prepared that morning, and some of it was even good. They didn't talk about important things: that would have been too depressing. Their Master (Harry wondered if they would ever be able to call him anything else) told them stories from his travels, and they shared some of the sillier things they got up to at Hogwarts. The mood was genuinely cheerful, but there was a certain undercurrent of sorrow that none of them touched. Even though they knew they would see their tutor again, they still didn't want their lessons to end.

Harry returned home even later than usual that evening. Their goodbyes to Master Jerome had been painfully formal, and Harry had been fighting that hot, itchy pressure again when he stepped into the Floo.

Potter Manor was quiet: Tipsy was washing up in the kitchen, the scratching of a pen could be heard from James' study, the wind flapped the curtain over a half-open window. He went straight up to his room. He didn't want to have to deal with his family just then, even if they were being kind now. Kindness was not the same as trust, and he would not trust any of them with what he felt about the end of his lessons.

He went upstairs and lay on his bed, fingers knit over his stomach. He tried to think that tomorrow he'd be back at Hogwarts, starting fifth year as a Prefect, but the thought didn't excite him as it usually would have.

There was a knock at his door, and he propped himself up on his elbows. "Come in," he called, expecting Tipsy, hopefully with biscuits.

But it was Lily who came in, nervous and hesitant.

"Oh, Mum… hi," he said awkwardly, sitting up all the way.

"I didn't wake you, did I?"

"No, I was just… just thinking. What do you, um… Did you need something?"

"Well, I wanted to talk to you, sweetheart. Your father and I have discussed, and we know we've… not been very good to you all the time, and no words can tell you how sorry we are, and we want to move towards resolution together."

His instincts, hard-won over years of hardening his heart, warred with the sincerity he heard in her voice, and the deep and painful desire to trust her.

In the end, "Okay," was all he could manage.

Lily seemed to take his terse agreement as an attempt to put her off, and she went on urgently, "Our family needs to heal from the centre, Harry. Please, just listen: your father and I want you to write at least every month. And we'll write back."

Harry couldn't deny his heart its little bitter twist at that, but he didn't say anything about his unanswered letters of first year. Instead, he muttered, "Sure, I'll try, but I've got O.W.L.s this year, so I'll be studying like mad—"

"A short note just once a month. Please, sweetheart. We can't leave things as they are."

He sighed quietly. "Yeah, I know."

"And… we'd like it if you came home for Christmas, Harry."

Mini chapter: Master Jerome

I will miss them.

He let the words stand alone on the page for a time.

Choosing favorites is wrong for a teacher, but they are mine.

Mist hung in thin shrouds over the fields outside the window. A mug of tea steeped at his elbow, steam wafting across the pages of his open journal.

I always miss my children, but I don't know if the feeling was ever reciprocated so strongly.

He pulled the tea bag out and set it aside on a saucer.

I wonder if they know how smart they are. No, 'smart' is not the correct term in this case. They know how intelligent they are. They know very well. But they all have gaps, gaps both saddening and endearing. Though of course, it is rare to find a person who sees themselves utterly honestly.

He took a sip of tea, then bent back over the page.

Roderick I met last. His father escorted him to the first lesson, to meet me. Mr. Malfoy kept his hand tight on the back of his son's neck until he left. I remember thinking that the boy's eyes were flat and dead. How relieved I was when I brought him upstairs and he sprang to life in the presence of his friends. He was only nine at the time. Far too young to guard his true self so carefully. He badly needs to get out of his father's house. He is the sort for whom concealment is the same as smothering, and he will suffocate if he stays where he is.

He paused to sip and think about words.

If I had to put a finger on it, I would say that he is the humor and common sense of the trio. He has a merry, wicked way about him that is rare to come by, but the sensitivity to know when it is appropriate. However, he swallows grief because his family has taught him that such feelings are not to be shown. I hope he can find a kind of life which is true to him rather than simply reacting in opposition to his father, commendable though that motive is.

He recut his quill tip and stirred his tea with it before going back to writing.

Dear Daphne, so prickly. 'Delf' the boys call her. A charming nickname which she has learned to like, I believe. I am forever appreciative of her parents for soliciting my services. Hearing them speak about some of their classmates, my past several summers might have been a great deal less enjoyable. However, I have had other batches of unpalatable students (well, only the one, really), and I survived that and learned the true value of patience.

He smiled down at the page, thinking gladly of days never to be lived again.

That is something Daphne certainly lacks. She has no patience for the inadequacies of others, or of herself. This will be her major hurdle, I think. She knows what she wants, certainly, but she's afraid of what it might take to attain, and that makes her angry and impatient all over again. And she doesn't know how to deal with embarrassment yet.

His tea had gone lukewarm, but he didn't mind. Other wizards, who liked things Just So, might have used a mild Heating Charm to set it steaming again, but Jerome Leroy was not one of them.

And young Harry: their leader and the heart of their unit, if only he knew it. Unfortunately, he has the self-awareness of a gnat right now, poor thing. The moment when he wakes up to Daphne's feelings will be one I want to see. I very much look forward to the day when he steps into his full potential. He shall achieve wonders. It is often the case that those who feel themselves least qualified to lead do the best job. Pride is an ugly, meddlesome thing which Harry is thankfully lacking.

He sat up and stretched his fingers. A biscuit sounded pleasant, now that he thought of it.

A moment later he sat back down, biscuit in hand.

He's doubly lucky, come to think of it, given how it seems to run in the family. Perhaps the circumstances his family found itself in with the brother did most of the work to prevent that, but the facts remain. I strongly disapprove of neglect or abuse of children in any form. I have made that clear here in the past. It's deplorable that both of the boys have fallen victim to one sort or another. I'm going to think more about the line between appreciating them for who they are and regretting the circumstances which brought those admirable traits out.

They have been excellent students, and I shall dearly miss spending summers with them. I look forward to new students in a few years perhaps, but they will have a nigh-impossible act to follow.

The thirty-first of August, 1993

JL