A/N: Okay I know that I haven't been here since last year but I have a really good excuse: I fell out of love with the fandom. I forgot how magical and wonderful Ms Rowling's world is and how much I'd enjoyed writing about it. Of course, I've also been busy with school and trying to create my own original work. That's stalled for the moment and I may be getting a job soon so I'm not going to promise being regular on this, but I have every intention of seeing this through to the last word in the third book of this little trilogy. All errors are mine, so without further ado....
Disclaimer: Not mine, all JK Rowling's and the good folks at the WB. If you happen to be JK Rowling or the WB though, would you mind selling?
*****
Chapter Four
As promised the OGB arrived the next morning to deliver Milo's next dose of Wolfsbane, but having overslept after staying up late with Mum watching a horror movie and talking about my school year and Connor, I was spared having to see him in. Instead the honour was Dad's and, as usual with anything involving his former Potions professor, he did not like it one bit. It was the sound of their raised voices in the foyer that woke me, jerking me from a strange but wonderful dream of dragons over an area I knew to be Uncle Charlie's reserve in Romania. That I'd never been to the reserve or Romania had no bearing on the sequence of events.
It turned out to be a bit of good timing for shortly after I awoke, blinking at the brilliant sunshine filtering into my bedroom and grumbling about unnecessary arguments, a large, elegant eagle owl delivered my invitation to Malfoy Manor the next weekend. And it chose to do so by landing on the brass bed-head right above my head with an ear-piercing shriek.
I was so alarmed I nearly tumbled to the floor in a wild attempt to escape it, my heart seizing painfully, limbs flailing, but it merely screeched again and dropped a small white card onto my pillow. When I finally managed to stabilise myself on the very edge of the bed, gasping for breath, I glared up at the bird and repeated some of Uncle Ron's more colourful phrases at it. Not offended in the slightest, it just gave me what I interpreted as an impatient stare. It was Lucius, Narcissa Malfoy's owl that Rigel had secretly renamed.
I let my feet drop to the floor, stood and took up the card.
Written in silver in elegant and therefore barely legible calligraphy, it read:
Miss Magnolia Ingrid Potter
Is hereby invited to the Residence
Malfoy Manor
Home of Mistress Narcissa Malfoy
At the behest of the young Master Rigel Malfoy (Weasley)
From the Eleventh to the Fourteenth of July
In the year Two Thousand and Fourteen
(Guests are expected to arrive at four in the afternoon on the Eleventh and will depart promptly at ten on the morning of the Fourteenth.)
R.S.V.P.
I spent the next five minutes waiting for it to explode, burn my hands by some unseen layer of poison powder or turn into a large white box that would trap me in it until I suffocated, for surely anything that came from that Manor to the Potters would, before going down to show it to my parents. (Snape had been on his way out when the raised voices woke me which meant I wouldn't have to worry about prying eyes.) As expected my mother greeted it with surprise, but not in the manner I'd been expecting.
After reading the note twice and tapping it with her wand three or four times to make sure that it wasn't a joke or jinxed, she asked, "You've been invited to Malfoy Manor?"
"Dad didn't tell you that Rigel invited me yesterday?" I asked.
We looked over to my father sitting with Mackenzie, both still in their pyjamas working on their jigsaw puzzle. It was becoming clearer daily that my parents had really had no plans for us this vacation and were just winging it until Mum's parents' visit in a few weeks time. Apart from when we were invited out as a family or someone visited they had nothing for us to do when they were home from work. This time last summer we were already on the beach in Nice building a sand castle, not wondering why we couldn't find that one crucial piece that would bring the puzzle together. Of course, when I thought about it, last summer Milo hadn't been a werewolf with the ever-impending full moon to put a damper on our plans. I had a feeling too, that if we attempted to take him out of the country now, Man-Who-Triumphed or no there was going to be trouble.
Dad said without looking up, "Our godsons came over yesterday and the obnoxious one invited Lillie to Malfoy Manor while the nice one who happens to be dating her asked whether you will allow her to accompany us to Lupin's old house on the full moon."
Mum looked back at me. "Do you want to go?"
After the way she'd gone over the invitation I had to goggle at her, but one look told that she was serious and I replied honestly, "Not really, but I will if I have to. Rigel can be very annoying when he wants to be, and Connor... well, he's right, it would be good if Mackenzie and I know how to deal with Milo. He's going to need all of us, right? Someday we're going to have to watch over him."
Dad looked up then and said, "Don't think I'm not going to put a Tracing Spell on all your clothes or give you permission to use magic while you're at the Manor. I may have agreed to let you go but I'm not stupid. Merlin knows what kind of traps they have in that place."
I turned to him. "So why are you letting me go? Even if I get a chance to spy for you it would be kind of useless if I get caught up in a trap."
"Like I said yesterday, I know she won't try anything to risk losing Rigel, but one can't be too cautious. I've had a night to sleep on it and think about how to proceed," he replied.
Mum deadpanned, "You thought about it overnight? That can't be good." Then she turned back to me while he scowled at her back, and said, "Okay, you can go. Owl your response and come back for breakfast, your father's made omelettes."
I took a quick glance to the stove and said, "I'll wake Milo, he'll never forgive me if he doesn't get any."
Dad said, "Don't, let him sleep. He's really tired."
At this Mum began, "You know, Remus said that Milo's sleeping all the time is just an escape mechanism. That we should wake him up and keep him up with us as much as possible to show him that he's still part of the family and needed and loved. Plus, there's the bonus that he'll be so tired he'll sleep through the full moon and it'll be less traumatic until he gets used to it."
Dad looked up again. "Really?"
"Yes," said Mum. "And I was reading a book last week that recommended including children who've been through traumatic experiences like Milo's in family activities as much as possible so that they know they're not loved less because of it."
Dad looked back at me. "You heard your mother, go wake the boy."
I turned at once and went back up to my room, quickly scrawled what I thought was an appropriate reply, and sent it off with the eagle owl. In my absence it had not moved from its perch on my bed-head but it had apparently decided to sharpen its claws on it and left an interesting set of marks where it had rested. Rigel was going to pay for that, literally.
Then I made another quick note and sent it to Connor with Ophelia, who, despite the time of day, greeted her task with enthusiasm and even gently nipped at my fingers before hopping out the window and flying off. I really needed to treat that owl better; her hyperactivity-which I'd previously associated with too much of some caffeine-like substance in her treats-was beginning to look like desperate pleas for attention.
That done, I headed out to wake Milo. The first sign that something was wrong: the door was open and Hugo was in the hall, looking up at me like Professor Patil sometimes did if I was late for class. When I stopped and stared back, he turned and padded into Milo's bedroom. I followed and was surprised to find it empty and the bed unmade. Given the general state of Milo's room usually, finding the bed unmade would not surprise others, but if nothing else Milo made sure to make his bed when he left it in the morning, even before going to the bathroom with a bladder that was near bursting.
Alarmed, I at once looked around the room to make sure that he was really gone and not just stuck in a corner, lost amidst the clutter, crying to himself. There was no denying the vacancy of the room though, I just knew that he wasn't in there and the fact that his bathrobe and cane were missing, which I noticed moments later, just confirmed it. My priority changed straightaway, and with a sense of rising panic, I began to look around for clues as to where he might have gone.
If he were wearing his bathrobe, and bedroom slippers, for these were gone, the ones that Sophie had given him for his birthday last year, then he couldn't have gone far. Of course, if he was carried out that would not be a problem....
I dismissed that idea almost as soon as I thought it though, for if anyone had taken him out of the house there was no way they'd get out without Dad noticing. Then I looked up from the floor and noticed the sheet of paper pinned to the wall above his bed that the OGB had been staring at yesterday. I went to have a closer look and read:
Names of the Full Moon:
January- Old Moon July- Hay Moon
February- Wolf Moon August- Grain Moon
March- Lenten Moon September- Fruit Moon
April- Egg Moon October- Harvest Moon
May- Milk Moon November- Hunter's Moon
June- Flower Moon December- Oak Moon
The Fabled and Famed "Blue Moon" is the title used on the second full moon within a month.
For a time I just stood looking at the list confused. What was Milo doing with a list of the old names of the full moon? Almost no one used them anymore; save for that one romance novelist whose books I could only read at the Burrow for Mum would never let me given some questionable content. And in Úlfhéðnar when I thought of it, for just that last winter when it had been arranged into a single volume of the first year's issues Connor had had them include mini-dividers on which they'd written the names of each moon. But they were not necessary for werewolves; with or without Wolfsbane no moon was particularly worse or easier than the other.
Then Hugo hopped onto Milo's bookshelf and knocked off a book onto the bed. I took one look at the title, and raced back out into the hall, down the stairs and out into the street heading anxiously to our grandparents' old house. Absently I thought I heard my father call out, "Lillie, Lillie where are you going?"
I ignored him. I had to find Milo, and fast.
Before I was out of our street I was sweating, and yet regretting that I'd chosen to rush out of the house without grabbing a cloak. My pyjama bottoms were really boy shorts, and not my usual attire outside of the house. As I ran I noticed more than a few curtains being pushed aside, and knew that by the end of the day half of the village was going to know that I'd been out "jogging without any clothes on". Worse still, the lack of slippers meant that I felt every loose pebble, crack and uneven rest of the bitumen, scratching at the soft undersides of my feet already being slowly scorched by the heated ground. And then it was all for nothing, for when I got to the head of the street that led to my grandparents' house I could clearly see that Milo had not gone there.
The front gate and overgrown path was as undisturbed as it had been since the last time my father had been there. Thankfully I knew that Milo much preferred to go to their graves rather than the house, which was Dad's favourite when he needed to be alone. When I asked him about it once, he'd said, "They're not here, which is why I like to come here. Their graves are too tangible... too real... I don't get any comfort from that place. But you all should, meet them, talk to them, tell them how I'm going and you too. It might help when you can't talk to us...."
I strongly suspected that it was more of a warning to keep us from hurting ourselves or furthering the ruin's decline, but wouldn't have voiced that thought for Veritaserum. I turned at once then, and dashed off to the cemetery, imagining the thrashing I was going to give Milo with his own cane to keep me going.
Milo, as predicted, was standing before our grandparents graves, and as I cleared the kissing gate and crept along, still fuming for the fact that I had just run through the village practically half-naked, I heard him saying, "... that? Dad's the most famous wizard in the world, Mum's the brightest witch of her generation, Magnolia saved an entire family last winter with a broken arm and someone else's wand, and me? Do you know what I've done? I got bit by a werewolf and turned into one. I wasn't even protecting Mum and Kenzie; I was just standing there and was the easiest target. Me, not Mackenzie who's smaller than me, but me!"
I at once slowed my advance, feeling immensely awkward about stumbling across his private conversation. It almost made me forget that I was mad at him for slipping out of the house without telling anyone where he was going. But only almost so I prepared to alert him to my presence and then he said, "But that's not the worst part. I'm a Squib."
I was so shocked I stopped completely. He didn't just say what I thought he did, did he? I wasn't hearing this coming from Milo instead of the OGB, was I? But I had to be for as he said it all the sound seemed to have been sucked from the day and replaced with his small, rasping voice.
"I know I'm a Squib, I just know it. I'm going to be eleven on Hallowe'en and about the only thing magical that's happened with me is that no one else has noticed yet.
"Guillaume Weasley's going to Hogwarts this September, but even though he hasn't got his letter yet, he blew off the door to the closet when we locked him in at Easter. He's made his toys move and used his father's wand and he can hypnotise people, I'm sure of it. But me, when they locked me in the closet, Mackenzie had to get me out. The most I've done with Dad's wand is make sparks come out of the end when I hit it against the table top, and I can't make anyone do anything I want, because if I did that werewolf couldn't have bit me."
It was horrifying; listening to Milo speaking that way, speaking at all. I wanted to run away, I wanted to go get Mum or Dad to talk him out of it, but most of all I wanted him to stop. I did not move though, and he continued, "I'm never going to get a Hogwarts letter. I know that. I was never going to get it anyway, unlike Uncle Lupin everybody knows what I am and they wouldn't want me around their children. They barely like Connor, and though Rigel is mean he's not the only one who calls Connor those names. And the other people mean them."
Arguably, so did Rigel.
"But being a Squib's no better. I've heard the way Dad talks about that Filch person, and Mrs Figg. People hate werewolves, but nobody cares about Squibs. In every wizard book that I've read they're always responsible for the bad things, or they're servants to the famous hero wizard, or other wizards are making fun of them. They always make fun of them, that's how they treat people like me. But imagine being a Squib and a werewolf. I'll be the villain, always, and there's nothing Dad's name is going to do for me. I don't deserve his name, yours, I should just go away with Grandpa and Granny when they come...."
I'd heard enough. It was this last statement that finally jerked me out of my daze and I started angrily, "What did I tell you about Mum and Dad and Mackenzie and me? We don't care what you are, we love you still! No one's going to chase you away because you're a werewolf, what do you think is going to happen to Mum if you went away?"
He snapped without turning, "She'd still have you and Kenzie!"
"Without you she wouldn't be happy with me and Kenzie! We're a family, the five of us!" I snapped back.
Still refusing to look at me, he yelled now, "She can have another; Grandma Molly says so all the time!"
My blood ran cold. "What?"
He started pacing before the graves like a little madman. "Grandma Molly tells Mum all the time that I should have a little brother, so if I go away she can have another!"
I could barely believe what I was hearing. I demanded then, "And what will he have? Mackenzie has me, but he'll have no one!"
He yelled, near hysterical, "HE'LL HAVE DAD!"
I wouldn't believe what I was hearing, I wouldn't. "Dad? Dad's Dad! He can't be a big brother, he's a father, he's our father, and worse than Mum if anything happens to you, to any one of us he won't stand it!"
He finally turned to me, tears streaming down his face and still more brimming in his eyes. "But something already has happened to me, Lillie, and it's only going to get worse. I'm a werewolf, and that's bad enough, but I'm also a Squib and that's dangerous. I'll be the easiest one to get to, you and Kenzie can protect yourselves, but me... do you know anything about Squibs? Do you know that we can't see Dementors? Do you know that we can't see half of the things that can hurt us in the magical world and we won't be able to defend ourselves against those we can?"
"YOU'RE NOT A SQUIB, MILO!" I yelled.
"I AM! I know I am!" he yelled back. "I'm a Squib and there's nothing you can say to change that! There's nothing anyone can do! I'm a werewolf, and I'm a Squib and if anybody who wants to hurt Dad catches me I'm dead!"
I stared at him, and was surprised to feel my face wet when the wind changed and blew against us. I didn't even know when I started crying, but now that I did I could feel the salt burning my eyes. I also noticed that we were being watched from inside the little church next to the graveyard and I hoped that they couldn't hear us. The statute preventing the revealing of the magical world to Muggles was still up.
Milo must have noticed this too, because he continued in a low voice after a moment, "So it's better that I leave. If I go away with Grandpa and Granny they can't use me to hurt anybody, and they can't hurt me if they can't find me. Mum could tell them what to do when it's the full moon, or I could find Aunt Fleur's family so I'll have my potion."
Somehow this was beginning to sound familiar, not at all like something Milo would say more than anything else I'd heard for the morning. In fact it made me think of Snape, and then all the way back to winter when Connor had explained their relationship to me. Who else would have given him that book?
I insisted. "No, it won't be better at all. Do you want to know something? All last winter while I was being attacked the one good thing I knew was that you and Kenzie were together and fine. That no one could hurt you. And Dad says about the same thing when he has to go out to work. If you're not here we won't know that, Milo. You can't leave."
"I'll have to grow up someday," he said.
"We've got seven more years for that," I told him.
He said nothing for a long while, hopefully thinking carefully about what I'd said. I studied his face carefully, hairy like a grown man's as it had become, hoping that he'd listened carefully. Milo wasn't Connor who'd managed to mask what I was sure was a deep hatred of the OGB under the veneer of docility and obedience; he'd never had reason to. I wondered then if I could get Connor to talk to him, and then thought of having a sit-down with the OGB and going over the finer points of why he couldn't say those things to my little brother. And then Milo sighed and said, "Okay."
I looked into his eyes, wanting to be sure of his answer. "Okay?"
"I'll stay," he said.
As if he had any choice in the matter. I said, "Good, now let's go home before Dad thinks otherwise."
We turned to leave and saw Dad coming up the path towards us, looking livid. I whispered to Milo, "Not a word. Wipe your face."
By the time I looked up again, Dad was with us and demanding, "What are you two doing out here? You can't just leave the house without telling anyone where you're going! And you definitely can't in your pyjamas! Those better be pyjamas, young lady."
I frowned at him. "They are. Mum bought them."
He didn't look convinced of this, but said, "Why are you two out here?"
Milo went deathly pale, so I had to speak for the both of us. "I didn't see Milo in his room when I went to owl my reply to Mrs Malfoy, so I went looking for him. It turns out he was just here, talking to Grandpa and Granny."
Dad looked to Milo suspiciously, but did not question it. Instead he replied, "Let's go back before the neighbours come out and see you."
I took hold of Milo's shoulder and dragged him alongside me as I made to follow Dad, teasing, "What, afraid that people are going to notice my great legs?"
Dad coughed and sputtered, "W-what? Magnolia... Hermione... make haste, young lady!"
Milo and I laughed loudly behind him all the way out of the cemetery.
*****
An hour before lunch, Grandma Weasley, along with Uncle Bill and Aunt Fleur, Uncles Fred and George, Uncle Ron and Aunt Luna, and Aunt Ginny, and their respective children-Hortense, Guillaume, Francois, Aisling, Carl and Rigel-arrived with lunch. Mum was thrilled; it meant that she didn't have to cook. Dad was thrilled; it meant that he didn't have to partake in the setting up. But that was not the only thing they brought.
As Mrs Weasley bustled into the kitchen with the others, each carrying a tray of some sort, calling us all to help set things up in the backyard where we were to eat, Rigel broke from the pack and said loudly to be heard over the bustling, "Hey Uncle Harry, have you seen Rita Skeeter's newest column for the Daily Prophet?"
His mother glared at him from behind a large tray of sweet potatoes, but he pretended not to see her and continued, "She's doing a series expose on Romulus Kveld-Ulf, and her first bit's on Dean Thomas."
That stopped everyone stock still. Dad froze half-way out the backdoor with the dining table he and Uncle Ron were taking out the Muggle way to avoid attention and asked, "What?"
Rigel, happy at finally drawing attention, deposited a large heavy tray with the roast on a nearby counter and dug into his pockets for the paper. His mother exhaled heavily and went ahead to the living room to go out into the back from there, muttering under her breath about "bad children" and "correctional schooling." Rigel pretended not to hear her as he unfolded the paper and held it up for us all to read the headline: "Úlfhéðnar Exposed! Who is Romulus Kveld-Ulf? What makes his work so popular? Is there a Dark secret behind his writing? In this five-part exposé on the man behind the world's most famous wolf, find out! Part One: Dean Thomas, War Hero or War Deserter?"
For a moment time seemed to have stopped in the kitchen, and then three ornate vases that had been wedding gifts from Mum's parents exploded. Aunt Ginny came running back into the kitchen at the noise while we tried to duck and scatter from the flying shards, Mum screamed. "Harry! The children!"
Clearly furious, Dad shook himself as if it would calm him and asked Rigel, "What paper is that?"
"The Daily Prophet," Rigel replied, straightening up and shaking splinters from his shirt.
Dad came away from the table, which Uncle Ron nearly dropped, took the paper from Rigel and read:
Dean Thomas, thirty-four, is known throughout the Wizarding world as a war hero, a Muggle-born wizard, former dorm-mate of Harry Potter, who went on the run during the Second War to escape the dreaded Muggle-born Registration Act, then fought against You-Know-Who's Army in the Battle of Hogwarts. In the time since Mr Thomas has become an artist of some renown, a cartoonist for The Quibbler, and more famously, the agent of Romulus Kveld-Ulf.
But, like his client, much is not known about Mr Thomas. Well, I, Rita Skeeter, have some answers.
For one, Mr Thomas is not in fact Muggle-born, but a Half-Blood wizard, born of a Muggle mother and a wizard father who was killed during the first war after he refused to join the Death Eaters.
However, one should not take this revelation at face value. Mr Thomas' claim of ignorance as regarding his blood status worked to his advantage in the war, placing him in a position to receive not only sympathy, but aid from the Man-Who-Triumphed. He spent many months in the company of Mr Potter and friends, particularly Luna Lovegood, now Luna Weasley, wife of Harry Potter's best friend Ronald Weasley, at the secluded and heavily warded residence of Bill and Fleur Weasley, Shell Cottage. Accounts of the battle more often than not single out for praise Neville Longbottom, now Hogwarts' Herbology professor, rather than the considerably more talented Mr Thomas. And, of course, his association with Mr Potter and family has gone a long way in securing him access to the benefits of surviving the Second War. It appears that someone has certainly not suffered from his situation.
Dad stopped reading, rolled the paper up and began twisting it in his hands until it crumpled and began to fray and tear. Uncle Ron, though, was the first to speak.
"I didn't just hear her imply something between my wife and Dean, did I? That was just my overactive imagination, right?"
Everyone looked round to him, and Mum shook her head. "No, of course not."
Uncle Ron's ears were already quite red, but he spoke calmly. "Good. I thought not."
Aunt Ginny was considerably calmer, presumably because she'd heard this before, and said, "You know that cow's just trying to stir up trouble. She doesn't give a-she doesn't care for some comic book author, she just wants to take stabs at us and get herself some publicity. No one's buying into her latest tell-all book so she had to do something. What better than to attack war heroes? Dean earned and deserves every award he got for the war, and everything he's received since. Just ignore her."
Uncle Fred tried to joke. "You're just saying that because he took you down to the pub last weekend."
Rigel snapped around to his mother. "What?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm not allowed to date?"
He back-pedalled, quickly. "N-no, it-it's not that... it's just... Dean Thomas...? Didn't Uncle Ron say that you had to dump him?"
She glared at the offending party and Dad when he went slightly red-faced, and replied, "So? I can change my mind... I was fifteen and being silly. I'm thirty-three now and have a career and an almost grown son. Is there something wrong with me hoping to find a companion while I still can, and having more children?"
Rigel and Uncle Ron at once put their hands over their ears and began to sing loudly, "La-la-la, I can't hear you, la-la-la-la, I can't hear you!"
She grabbed Rigel's hands, for he was closer, and pulled them away. "Rigel, I'm going out with him again next week."
At once Rigel wrenched himself away from her. "I'm moving in with the Potters."
"Oh no, you don't," said Dad. "I already have three children of my own, if we wanted more we would have had them by now."
"I'll save you the trouble, I'm almost of age so I'll be out of your house in no time anyway," Rigel replied.
I laughed. "I don't want you here; you're rude, arrogant and annoying."
Rigel lifted an eyebrow at me. "You just don't want me here because you know I would easily woo you from the cu-Connor."
His correction did not come fast enough. Almost everyone could guess what he was going to say, and if not, had approximations that made them goggle at him, stunned. His mother beside him asked at once, her voice dangerously low, "Rigel, what were you going to call him?"
Milo sold him out. "The cub, he calls him the cub."
Rigel ducked out of her reach, then side-stepped me to go to him. "Hey you, no one likes a snitch... as a matter of fact, they have remarkably short life spans."
Aunt Ginny was hot on his heels though, and seizing his collar, jerked him away. Then she almost yelled, "Rigel Weasley, how dare you call your cousin that?"
"It's not like he's my brother," he tried. Unfortunately, that was the wrong thing to say.
"That doesn't matter, that's your blood and you do not treat your blood like that. What if some day down the road you need help and he is the only one who can help you? We are not the Blacks or the Malfoys, we don't hunt down our relatives and try to kill them. And I know how close you are to Lupin, how would he feel if he heard what you call his son? And Milo, don't you care how Milo feels now?" Aunt Ginny demanded.
"I'll have you know that Cousin Tonks calls Connor and Zoe the `werepups'," said Rigel, indignantly.
"That's her prerogative, not yours. His name is Connor, call him that!" she snapped.
Rigel merely mumbled his agreement, and silence reigned in the kitchen until Dad said, "You know... the food is getting cold."
And then there was suddenly a flurry of activity as we prepared for lunch again. Hortense, Aisling Mackenzie and I were in charge of setting the table while our mothers attended to the food. Dad, Uncles Bill, Fred, George and Ron did the heavy lifting, bringing out the chairs and two large umbrellas to cover us while we ate. As for Milo, Carl, Guilluame, not trusted with anything, Rigel was left to watch them, which he did by announcing a game of Hide-and-Seek and once they were sufficiently far enough away, coming out to chat with us while we worked. But when his mother noticed he had to make a hasty retreat to find them.
Eventually all was ready and we gathered around the table for Dad to say "Thanks", which he did hilariously. "Thank goodness you came here today Molly, I was about to announce a trip into town to avoid Hermione's cooking."
"Hey!" exclaimed Mum, clearly offended.
He just grinned and blew her a kiss and we settled in to eat. Rita Skeeter's article on Uncle Dean was completely forgotten.
But half an hour later, we were reminded when Connor arrived with his parents and baby sister. As soon as he was through the screen door into the sun-washed backyard, Milo was before him with the remnants of the paper asking, "Did you see the paper, this reporter woman is writing a story about Romulus Kveld-Ulf. She did the first part on Uncle Dean-Dad read it-I think she's trying to slander him."
"Libel," corrected Mum.
"Yeah, that," said Milo.
Aunt Tonks, carrying Zoe after what must have surely been an epic battle with Connor, asked confusedly, "Which reporter woman?"
"Rita Skeeter," said Dad.
Uncle Lupin gave a wearied sigh, and asked, "What did she say?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. In this case it's that Dean's not really Muggle-born, took advantage of his connection to me to hide during the war and then to get benefits after, and a list of other things I was too disgusted by her first few paragraphs to read more of. She may even have implied some impropriety between him and Luna," explained Mum.
Aunt Tonks turned to Aunt Luna. Aunt Luna smiled serenely back, and said, "Dean Thomas is a very nice person, but he's not Ronald."
Uncle Ron went red again, but this time for an entirely different reason.
Rigel spoke up then, "So Connor, your favourite author's in trouble... what is it that you fans do at these times? Flood the editorials section of the paper with your outraged complaints while extolling the virtues of the god that is the author? Start a petition to have the person penalised? Threaten violence?"
I glared at Rigel. "Milo's a fan of the comic book too, so it's just as upsetting to him."
He turned to me. "Is this some kind of veiled attempt at getting me to mind what I say? I'll have you know it won't work."
I turned to Aunt Ginny and wailed, "Auntie, Rigel's being bad!"
His mother did not look up. "Rigel, behave yourself. What did we talk about earlier?"
Rigel glared at me. "You called my mother on me? How could you...? That's-that's so low!"
I rolled my eyes.
By this time the Lupins were seated and were being doled out large helpings by Mrs Weasley and Mum. As Connor had managed a seat beside me-after pushing aside Mackenzie's chair while my father glowered at him and every other female at the table cooed delightedly-I leaned closer to him and whispered, "What are you guys going to do?"
He whispered back, "Not here." Then straightened up in his seat and asked louder. "Is Maggie coming with us tomorrow then?"
"This is not the t-" began Dad.
Mum cut across him. "Yes, and Milo doesn't mind, does he?"
Everyone turned to Milo, and he nodded, albeit with a mildly confused expression on his face.
"Good," said Connor, and he smiled brightly. I could not see what he had to smile about; going up there was anything but a reason to smile. Then again, he hadn't seen and heard what I had this morning. In fact that was something I was going to have to talk to him about.
Then Rigel spoke again. "And is she coming to the Manor this weekend?"
While everyone else stopped eating again in astonishment, Mum replied, "Yes. I'm quite surprised and a little wary of this invitation, but you're there so I don't expect trouble. I never thought I'd see the day she'd invite a Potter to her home, to say a half-blood."
Rigel turned to Connor, beaming. "She's reassured because I'll be there."
I put my hand on Connor's arm to stop his retort and said, "She's reassured because she knows I'm more than capable of taking care of myself. I can safely say that after those lessons with Camilla and Professor Snape."
At this Grandma Weasley interrupted. "I'm sorry... did you say that Magnolia was going to that-that house? It's bad enough that Rigel has to, but why are you sending Magnolia? Is that wise, Harry?"
She turned to Dad, who already looked uncomfortable with discussing the idea and even more so that he was going to have to face Grandma Weasley's displeasure. Mum's mouth formed a thin line and it was clear that she wasn't going to help him. Sometimes I thought that Mum didn't like Grandma Weasley very much.
Dad said eventually, "I'm going to allow her to use magic while she's there and as Hermione said, Rigel is going to be there too."
"But he's a just a boy," said Mrs Weasley.
Connor covered a snort with a cough and I kicked him under the table.
Rigel made to reply but Dad beat him to it, "She won't try anything, Molly. She knows that if anything happens to Magnolia she's never going to see Rigel again and she might just end up in prison. Frankly I'm surprised she extended the invitation but seeing as everyone's looking to us for examples on how to deal with former foes, it's a good move. We're setting an example."
"And what if she tries to make an example of Magnolia?" asked Grandma Weasley, though it sounded more like a demand.
"She won't," Dad insisted, firmly. "The last person she'd want to harm is my daughter. Hermione and I are looking at it as a fun weekend for school-friends and that's all."
This statement had an air of finality about it that suggested that he would accept no more discussion of the matter with anyone. It surprised me, and I was sure, everyone else around the table, I'd never heard any one of them contradict Grandma Weasley's advice openly... or semi-openly as it was.
Then Connor spoke up, as if hoping to dispel the sudden tension, asking, "Speaking of Camilla, will she be joining you?"
"I don't know," said Rigel, still looking anxiously between Dad and Mrs Weasley as if waiting for an angry outburst or explosion. "Are you coming too?"
Aunt Tonks suddenly looked away with a scowl, but Uncle Lupin replied, "Of course. An entire weekend to ourselves."
Connor remained silent, but Rigel asked, in a tone that concealed none of his disappointment, "Really?" Then sensing a rebuke from his mother, he amended, "You two plan a romantic weekend? What about the baby?"
"I'll be taking her, and Milo and Mackenzie," said Grandma Weasley.
Rigel looked at my parents and Aunt Tonks and Uncle Lupin and shook his head, and then he said, "Well at least Mum's not going anywhere."
"If everything goes well with Dean, we might be having the weekend to ourselves too," said Aunt Ginny.
This was too much. Rigel sprang to his feet to protest this, loudly, and Grandma Weasley scolded, "Ginny, there are children present!"
Aunt Ginny, looking very much as if she were restraining herself from rolling her eyes, said, "They're not babies, and they're not stupid. Magnolia and Connor surely know what I'm talking about."
My jaw dropped and Connor went an interesting shade of magenta, but Dad was best, a lovely puce shortly before he exploded, "WHAT? CONNOR LUPIN YOU MIGHT BE MY-"
Mum silenced him with a flick of her wrist just as Zoe started wailing in the living room and Aunt Tonks hurriedly left the table to calm her. Uncle Ron, simultaneously trying to force Dad back into his seat while restraining him, turned to me and demanded, "Is that true?"
"No!" I said. "We've done nothing like that."
"Haven't done it yet?" asked Uncle Ron, seconds before Mum swatted his arm.
I was surely entirely red in the face, but shook my head and said firmly, "No, we haven't... done anything, oh my... you guys are awful and embarrassing. I'm fourteen!"
"That hasn't stopped others," said Uncle Ron.
Now everyone else at the table began to protest, until Aunt Tonks returned and said, "Unless anyone here would like to volunteer to quiet her, I don't think you really want to wake Zoe, do you?"
We sat quietly after that for a time, eating and listening to the birdsong in the air. It really was a lovely afternoon to be outdoors. It was warm but not too hot, helped along by the shade of the giant umbrellas. Every now and then a gentle breeze blew through the backyard and stirred the leaves on the trees, spreading the scent of bark and our food. I wondered then if anyone had risked a Cooling Charm, the weatherman had insisted last night that there was a heat wave, but I doubted it. For some reason our backyard always felt cool.
And then Uncle Lupin said, "Oh, well as everyone's making their requests of Magnolia, I wonder if we could have her for the weekend too, the next, before her grandparents come? It's just that Connor's pen pal will be paying us a visit and I thought that it would be nice for them to get together. Camilla will be there as well, if you're wondering about supervision when we can't be around...."
Curiously, a flash of what could only be irritation flashed across Connor's face before his father turned to him and his expression became blank. I wondered what that was about. I'd met Stanislav and Svetlana before and though they were a bit standoffish, they didn't give any indication that they'd hated me. Even he hadn't suggested it. And then I guessed why.
Mum and Dad immediately replied, "Of course she can visit with you. You didn't have to ask; you could have just come and collected her."
Dad said the latter, which earned him a laugh from Mum, but a scowl from Rigel. Mum continued too, "Would you look at that, we had no plans for the summer but Lillie's is going to be rather busy. Going up with us tomorrow, visiting Malfoy Manor on the weekend, then the Lupins next weekend and after that your grandparents are coming.... You're going to need a vacation just to recover from this one."
It was an old joke, but we all smiled, oblivious as we were to how right she was going to be.
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