Work Text:
Augusta Longbottom’s world is crumbling around her. She feels strangely distant as she stands there in that clean white room, her son and daughter-in-law lying in clean white beds, their sunken white faces still and unresponsive. Even Neville’s wailing as she automatically rocks him in her arms seems to be coming from several rooms away. She realises that the Healer’s mouth has stopped moving and they’re waiting for an answer.
“I beg your pardon,” Augusta says. “I didn’t quite…”
The Healer gives her a sympathetic look and says it all again. They’ve never dealt with such extensive damage from the Cruciatus curse before. They think it must have been used on each of the Longbottoms for several hours. They are confident that they’ll be able to effect some improvement soon, but they don’t know to what extent Frank and Alice will recover. They pat Augusta’s arm and give her tea and, at last, tell her that she should go home for the night, concentrate on taking care of baby Neville.
She doesn’t want to leave. They were supposed to be safe now, all of them. What if Death Eaters break into St. Mungo’s? What if Frank and Alice suddenly deteriorate? What if they wake up, afraid and alone? But Neville has been crying for nearly eight hours now, ever since the Aurors found him this morning, standing up in his cot, clinging to the bars and screaming. Perhaps being in the familiar surroundings of Augusta’s large cottage, or just away from the lifeless faces of his parents, will settle him. Reluctantly, she bends down to kiss Frank’s forehead, then Alice’s, and leaves the hospital.
***
Alice wakes first, early in the morning, three days later. Augusta is already up and tending to Neville’s needs, so she and Neville floo to St. Mungo’s immediately. But although Alice is awake, she doesn’t seem to recognise Augusta or Neville, or even to know where she is. She just curls up and sobs, and Frank is in a similar state when he wakes a few hours later. The Healers say that the Cruciatus has left a lot of residual nerve damage, but the normal pain relief potions don’t seem to have much effect and they have to call in a specialist potioneer to develop something that works.
But even when, some weeks later, the pain is finally under control and the other physical symptoms they suffer are being treated, Frank and Alice seem to have lost all sense of themselves and their surroundings. As far as anyone can tell, they don’t recognise Augusta or Neville at all, nor even each other, though they always seem happiest when they’re together. They don’t speak at all and don’t seem to understand when people speak to them. The Healers are at a loss for how to help them. They are investigating in earnest, though, and still hope to find a way to let Frank and Alice communicate their needs and wants. Augusta finds herself thinking of a school friend’s daughter, who does not communicate verbally at all, and how the Healers wrote her off saying she couldn’t be helped. Everything is different for heroes of the war with Voldemort.
After several months, the Healers let Augusta take Frank and Alice back to her cottage. She’s been hoping that they’ll be more comfortable there, where the surroundings were once familiar and may still be, somewhere deep down, and that perhaps they will feel safe enough here to come back to themselves. The Healers don’t seem to agree, but she is determined to try, determined that even if they stay like this forever, she can at least give them a pleasant existence.
But it doesn’t work out that way. The Healers refer her to a freelance Healer who can come in and assist each day, but Frank and Alice need help with everything, at every hour of the day and night. If it had just been them, she could have managed, but Neville also needs near constant supervision. The final straw comes when Alice falls in the garden and fractures her wrist. The Healers tell Augusta that Frank and Alice aren’t safe in her home, and take them back to St. Mungo’s, where they establish them in the new Janus Thickey ward.
It leaves a vast, empty gap in Augusta’s home and heart. She’s never felt such a failure in all her life, and when Neville spends the next two days crying non-stop, all she wants to do is join him.
***
But Neville settles eventually, and by the time his second birthday comes around, he seems to have adjusted fully to life with his grandmother and is developing into a quiet, sober little boy. She takes him to visit his parents every week, of course, and sometimes twice. They don’t seem to recognise him, any more than they did to begin with, but the Healers assure Augusta that they always seem happier when she and Neville have visited. She hopes it’s true.
She rarely takes Neville out into the wixen world. She did at first, but people would swoop down on them, radiating pity and concern, bemoaning Frank and Alice’s fates and asking avid questions about their condition. It upsets Neville and enrages Augusta. Frank and Alice were two of the most skilled and powerful wixen of their age, but all anyone can talk about now is how sad it all is. She doesn’t want their pity. She’s as proud of her son and daughter-in-law as she ever was, and she’s determined that Neville will grow up that way too.
***
They have a quiet life, she and Neville, for several years after that. As he grows older, Augusta tells Neville stories about his parents and their most heroic and skilful feats of magic, to which he listens with big eyes and solemn face. At bedtimes, instead of reading him stories, she often goes through old photo albums with Neville instead, describing the occasions on which the photographs were taken, recounting Frank and Alice’s best moments to the little boy, who gazes down at the little moving figures, touching them gently with a fingertip from time to time as he leans against his Gran.
It’s Algie, of course, who brings up the subject of magic with Augusta. He pulls her aside one spring morning to probe privately into the subject of Neville’s magical ability.
“Boy’s nearly five, ‘Gusta,” he says, frowning across at Neville, who is lying on the lawn on his stomach, reading a book called Flowers: From the Flamboyant to the Frightening. “He should at least be summoning frog spawn out of the pond by this time.”
“I know,” she says, because of course she’s noticed it, even if she isn’t too worried yet. She herself was just a couple of weeks old when she produced a scream so loud that her first Nanny (dismissed for negligence soon after the incident) heard her from nearly half a mile away. Algie, at the age of sixty-seven, still boasts of the fact that he did his first piece of accidental magic when he was only three days old. “But give him time, Algie. The Longbottoms are often late developers. Don’t you remember Godfrey telling us about his first magic?”
It had been one of her husband’s favourite stories: how it had been his seventh birthday and he’d loved his cake, painstakingly made in the shape of a hinkypunk, so much that nobody had been able to cut it. His family had been almost ready to give up on him as a bad job, so his birthday party had turned into an impromptu celebration, lasting three days, of the fact that he had magic after all.
Algie looks reassured by her reminder, but still, he and Enid invite themselves over to the cottage rather often after that.
***
Augusta herself doesn’t start to really worry about her grandson until he turns seven and hasn’t so much as vanished a vegetable off his plate. She begins to watch him more closely, while Algie steps up his efforts to surprise some magic out of the boy. When he pushes Neville off Blackpool pier while they’re on holiday the next summer (he tries to claim it’s an accident, but they all know the truth), Augusta puts her foot down.
“I want Neville to prove himself a wizard as much as you do, Algie,” she snaps when they get back to their rooms. “But this is getting ridiculous! He might have drowned!”
“He wouldn’t have drowned if he was a wizard,” Algie mutters. Neville comes in with Enid, wrapped in a blanket and still trembling slightly, and they change the subject, but when Algie and Enid invite Neville to spend a week with them a couple of months later, Augusta refuses the invitation. Algie seems to take the hint and backs off a bit, going back to jumping out at Neville round corners and casting trip jinxes in the hope of startling some spell out of him.
***
Unfortunately, Algie’s self restraint doesn’t last. The thing happens when Neville is nearly nine. Augusta has only taken her eye off them all for ten minutes while she takes a seed cake out of the oven and makes a fresh pot of tea, but apparently it’s enough for Algie to do his worst. She’s just put the cake down when there’s a scream from outside. She runs towards it, and the second she’s out of the back door she sees Neville’s body. He’s lying on the stone terrace, face down, crumpled and unmoving. She kneels beside him and turns him over carefully. His eyes don’t open and there’s blood coming from a wound on his head, but his chest rises and falls. He’s alive.
Drenched in hot relief, Augusta rests her wand on his temple and whispers the stasis charm. She isn’t much of a Healer but she knows that much, thank Merlin. She hoists him into her arms and and strides towards the study, where she keeps her floo powder. As she comes through the kitchen into the hallway, Algie and Enid race down the stairs.
“Out of my way,” she says, but they hover in front of her, staring at Neville in alarm.
“Is he…?” says Enid in a trembling voice.
“I say, ‘Gusta,” Algie blusters. “Awfully sorry, I didn’t mean to actually drop him.”
“Get out of my way,” she says again.
“It was my fault! I distracted him!” Enid twitters, still not moving.
“Must say I would have thought his magic would have saved him,” adds Algie, peering closely at Neville. He frowns and looks back up at Augusta. “If he had any. Look here, old girl. Maybe it’d be kinder to just let him…” He makes a wafting gesture with one hand. “You know. Won’t be much of a life for him, will it, as a Squib?”
Augusta stares at him, frozen, for a long moment. Did he really just…? She looks him right in the eye.
“Get. Out. Of. My. Way.”
“Come on, Algie,” says Enid, tugging at her husband’s arm “Let’s go. Come along.”
They’re gone. Still cold with shock, Augusta flings floo powder into the empty hearth and steps through the flames into St. Mungo’s.
***
Neville is going to be fine.
He’s soon sitting up in bed, looking quite cheerful as the Healers bustle around him. Augusta is weak with relief. For a while, it had felt just like last time. Neville’s round, still little face had been so like Alice’s against the crisp white pillow. He has a couple of broken bones and will have to stay in overnight because of the head trauma, but he’s going to be all right. The Healers congratulate her for putting him under the stasis charm and getting him to St. Mungo’s so quickly. All she can think is that she could have prevented this.
Once again, the Healers persuade her to go home and get some rest, but she pays a visit to Frank and Alice before she leaves. They don’t react to her news in any way she can perceive, but the confession eases her soul a little. At last, though, she has no choice but to go back to the empty cottage. She tries to visualise Neville at St. Mungo’s, quite all right and being spoiled rotten by the Healers, but she barely gets a wink of sleep.
In the morning, she’s just about to return to the hospital when an owl arrives with an apologetic letter tied to its leg. Fury burning through her again, Augusta writes a Howler forbidding Algie and Enid ever to set foot in the cottage or come near them again.
***
“I’m a Squib, aren’t I?” Neville says a few days later, staring up at her with serious brown eyes. Augusta hesitates, but she’s never lied to him, and this, after all, is important.
“Yes,” she says at last. “I think you might be.”
Neville’s mouth trembles.
“Are you going to send me away?”
“Send you… Neville! Of course not!” She sinks down onto the sofa, drawing him down beside her.
“I don’t mind if you do,” he persists, although his eyes are filling with tears.
“Well, I would mind,” she says fiercely. “Neither of us is going anywhere.”
They don’t hug much, Augusta has never been a physically affectionate person, but Neville flings himself on her now, his chubby arms wrapping round her, his face buried in her green robes. She hugs him back, her mind whirling. Of course she would never send him away, but there’s no denying that she’s going to have to change some things.
She begins the next day. Minerva McGonagall, as deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts, knows practically every wixen family in Britain, whether they be pureblood, half blood, or entirely new, perfectly placed to be aware of any support or opportunities that exist for Squibs. As it turns out, there are very few, but Minerva does put her in contact with one Arabella Figg.
Arabella runs a weekly Squib Support Group, she writes. I don’t know what her policy on including children is, but if her group isn’t suitable for Neville, she should be able to find someone else who can help. She is, I believe, in contact with most of the Squibs in Britain. Do please let me know if there’s any other way I can help.
***
“I don’t want to go to a support group,” Neville whines.
“I know,” she says, tossing a handful of glittering floo powder into the hearth. “But you’re going anyway.”
If he hates it after a few times, she’ll let him stop, but the fact is that Augusta has no idea what it’s like to be a Squib in either the magical world or the Muggle one. She doesn’t know how to talk to Neville about this, which world she should be encouraging him to be a part of, or even how he feels about the whole to-do. He hasn’t really talked to her about it. She knows she isn’t always the most inviting person (oh, how differently Frank and Alice would have dealt with the situation; how much better), but she does want him to have friends who understand something of what he’s experiencing. Mrs Figg explained that there aren’t currently any children Neville’s age in the group, although there is one teenager who’s been a member since she was eleven, but that Neville is welcome to come along and see if he likes it. She’s also provided Augusta with some pamphlets about how to survive in the Muggle world, if Neville decides that’s what he wants to do.
“Seven Wisteria Walk,” she commands, grasping Neville’s hand, and they step together into the fire. She’s glad anyone can travel by floo, because despite the information Mrs. Figg has given her, she still doesn’t really understand how Muggle transport works. They step out into a small parlour which is empty of people but filled with chairs, several of which have cats on them.
“Ah, you found us!” says a small, elderly woman with flyaway hair and tartan carpet slippers, bustling in. “This must be Neville.” She beams at him. “I’m Arabella Figg, Neville. Please call me Arabella.”
Neville shakes her hand and shyly mumbles, “How d’you do?”
“Thank you for letting Neville attend your group, Mrs. Figg,” Augusta says. She’s a little taken aback by the smallness of the room and the shabbiness of Mrs. Figg, but Minerva has assured her that Mrs. Figg is much more capable than she appears.
“Arabella,” says Mrs. Figg, patting Augusta’s arm comfortingly. “Of course, of course. We have members of all ages. We’ll see you at four to pick him up, yes?”
Augusta takes her departure, feeling a twinge of guilt as Neville bids her a sad farewell. She tells herself firmly that she’s doing the right thing. In any case, she already has plans for these two hours: she’s about to make her first foray into the Muggle world.
***
She arrives back at Arabella’s at four o’clock precisely, where she finds a bright-faced Neville who starts telling her about the people he’s met and the things he’s learned about Muggle society almost before they’ve stepped into the emerald green flames of Arabella’s fireplace.
“And Becky says there’s a thing called science that’s like magic, but for Muggles!” he’s saying, tugging excitedly on her hand as they walk out into the study. “And she’s got a thing called a telly and you can watch plays on it! And she says I can come to tea one day if you’ll let me. Can I, Gran? Can I?”
“Is Becky the teenager?” she hazards.
“Yes! She’s fifteen and she’s really nice, Gran, and she’s going to be a scientist and she says I can too if I want, and Arabella says there’s lots of things Muggles can do, lots more than wixen and if I go to Muggle school I can learn about them. Can I go to Muggle school, Gran?”
Offhand, Augusta can’t think of a time she saw Neville so enthusiastic. He’s normally a quiet little boy who finds quiet pursuits and doesn’t make trouble… not that he’s making trouble now. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“You’ll certainly be going to Muggle school,” she tells him. That’s a decision she’s made already. “And I’ll need to meet Becky’s parents before you go round for tea, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t.”
“Thanks Gran!” he shouts, and gives her a giant hug. She smiles. It seemed like such a tragedy when she realised he was a Squib, but she’s beginning to realise that the only reason he ever cared was because she did. He just wants to have fun, to have friends he fits in with, to live his life and find his own way.
“Do you want to look at what I bought today?” she says, and immediately he’s diving into the strange, smooth bags she brought home with her. She’s bought a whole stack of Muggle books. Some are fiction that looks suitable for Neville’s age, and some are history books for her to read. She even ventured the most respectable looking Muggle clothes shop she could find, where a wide-eyed young woman had helped her choose an everyday Muggle outfit for each of them. Neville scampers off to change into his “jeans”, and Augusta goes into the kitchen. She’s desperately in need of a good cup of tea.
***
Neville fits in well at his Muggle primary school, a very small one in the nearest village, and makes friends almost immediately. He has a bit of catching up to do, since he’s learned to write with a quill rather than a biro and has no idea about science, or Muggle books, or, well, rather a lot of things. Still, by the end of his first term, he knows infinitely more than Augusta about Muggle society, laughing uproariously when she gets telephones and televisions mixed up, and teaching her about the intricate ins and outs of Muggle fashion. Not that Augusta has any intention of taking advice on what to wear from a nine year old. Instead she just chooses whichever clothes seem most comfortable, and has discovered that trousers are rather a wonderful thing. She’s invested in several pairs of jeans and enjoys the scandalised looks she draws when she wears them in Diagon Alley (Ermentrude Nott nearly fainted).
It isn’t until the next spring that their careful routine is once more upended. It begins one Saturday afternoon when Augusta is nearly half an hour late to collect Neville. She arrives through the fireplace full of soot and apologies.
“I’m so sorry, Arabella. I was in the garden and completely lost track of time.”
“Not to worry, dear,” says Arabella, as cheerful as ever. “Neville’s never a bother. He’s playing outside with Mr. Tibbles, quite happy, you see?”
She points through the front window and, sure enough, Neville is engaged in some sort of chasing game with a tortoiseshell cat and a skinny, dark-haired boy who looks a year or two younger than him.
“Mr. Tibbles is half kneazle,” Arabella explains. “He’s been keeping an eye on them.”
She taps on the open window, causing both boys and the cat to look round.
“Your Gran’s here, Neville!” she calls. “Harry, would you like to come in for a slice of cake?”
The other boy shakes his head.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Figg,” he calls, and scurries away. Augusta watches, frowning, as he trots along the pavement. Something about his thin brown face and messy dark hair makes her feel, for a moment, as though she’s looking at someone she knows. Then Neville bounds into the room and, in a flurry of further apologies and farewells, the two of them leave.
But she can’t shake the feeling of familiarity, and once she and Neville are seated at the big oak kitchen table to eat their dinner, she broaches the subject.
“Who was that boy you were playing with at Arabella’s, Neville?”
Neville swallows his mouthful of shepherd’s pie.
“Harry,” he says. Augusta’s heart seems to jolt in her chest.
“Harry… who?”
“Don’t know. He was nice though. He said he goes round to Arabella’s sometimes, but he thinks she’s boring because all she ever talks about is her cats. Why do you think she only talks about her cats to him, Gran? She talks about ever so many things with group.”
He takes another mouthful of shepherd’s pie, not seeming to notice that she isn’t answering his questions. Augusta sits there in astonished silence. She knows, now, where she recognises Neville’s little friend from. He’s the spitting image of James Potter. Oh, she never knew the boy, he was a fair few years younger than Frank and Alice. But after he and Lily Evans were murdered by You Know Who himself their pictures were all over the Daily Prophet for weeks. Harry Potter is living in Little Whinging.
“Gran?” Neville has finally noticed her stupor. She shakes herself. Harry Potter’s whereabouts are no business of hers. She wonders whether Arabella knows who he is, but of course she must. Everyone even vaguely connected with the magical world knows who Harry Potter is. Neville is still trying to get her attention. “Gran, can I stay late and play with Harry sometimes? He says his family don’t like him being home too much and he can come and play with me any time.”
“Yes, of course you may, dear,” she says absently. As though she could say no to her grandson playing with Harry Potter.
***
Neville and Harry playing together becomes a regular appointment, but Harry usually runs off as soon as Augusta appears to collect Neville. She doesn’t mind, although she can’t deny that she’d be intrigued to get to know the Boy Who Lived. She suggests to Neville, when the boys have been meeting to play for a couple of months, that he invite Harry to tea at the cottage after group one Saturday.
“I asked him,” Neville informs her after she collects him the next day. “But he says his aunt and uncle won’t let him come. They don’t like him having fun, he says. He doesn’t tell them about me and him playing.”
“Never mind,” she says, frowning. “You can still play with him after group.”
“Thanks, Gran!” he says. He’s so much livelier these days, since going to group and meeting Harry, and she wonders guiltily if he hasn’t been lonely for company all this time. “Are we gardening this afternoon? Can I feed the flitterblooms?”
They do go out to the greenhouse, but Augusta keeps finding herself distracted as they tend the flitterblooms, orchids, and various other plants that need their attention. It’s a good thing Neville is so good with plants, or she might have made several costly mistakes. But she can’t seem to stop thinking about his words. Harry’s family don’t like him having fun. There’s what he said that other time, too, the first day he met Harry. His family don’t like him being home too much. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but taken together with they don’t like him having fun, it takes on a more worrying complexion.
Once they’ve finished in the garden and she’s tucked Neville up in bed (with a chapter from a Muggle book about a boy spy), Augusta goes into her study, sits down, and writes a letter to Arabella. Then she reads it back to herself. Is she being ridiculous? Worse, is she only concerned about Harry because he’s the Boy Who Lived? Could she be exaggerating the meaning behind Neville’s words as an excuse to pry into Harry’s life? At last she sighs, rolls the letter up, and attaches it to Ptolemy’s leg.
Oddly, it takes Arabella until Monday morning to reply. Augusta has just seen Neville off on the school bus when a tawny owl swoops down towards her with a neat scroll attached to its leg. She gives it some treats and a drink, then opens the letter.
Dear Augusta,
I’m sorry to have taken so long to answer your letter about Harry, but I was having a crisis of conscience! When I saw the boys playing together the day you were late, I hoped that you’d see them and put two and two together, but I’m still breaking Dumbledore’s trust by telling you any of this. But I’ve decided I don’t care any more. Someone needs to know what’s happening to that poor boy.
I expect you’ve guessed that Harry’s the reason I live in Little Whinging. Dumbledore helped me buy my house here so I could keep an eye on him, and I made sure I got to know Petunia as soon as I could. Augusta, she and Vernon treat Harry horribly! I’ve been his babysitter since a few weeks after Dumbledore left him there, but I have to make sure he has a miserable time whenever he’s here and it breaks my heart. I’d give him the best time I could at first, but they soon realised he enjoyed coming to my house and started talking about how he was getting round me. They said he’d inherited criminal tendencies from his parents. From Lily and James!!! He was three when they told me that, how could a three year old have criminal tendencies???!!! Well, when Petunia told me I was too soft on him and she was thinking she’d have to get another babysitter because he was too much for me, I had to change things. At least when he’s with me he’s eating properly (even if I do have to make the dryest, nastiest cake I can for him) and not being screamed at or hit by them.
I don’t think they hit him often, but I’m quite sure they do. I’ve seen him flinch away from them. When I’ve asked him, he just shrugs and says it’s fine, and I haven’t seen injuries on him very often – and when I do, it’s usually because his cousin’s beaten him up again. Petunia and Vernon encourage Dudley’s (that’s the cousin) bullying. They act like Harry deserves it. It’s not just me they talk about his “criminal tendencies” to, it’s everyone! They’ve turned most of his teachers against him and Harry’s told me that he does badly on purpose most of the time so that Petunia and Vernon don’t punish him for making Dudley look bad. I’d feel sorry for Dudley if he wasn’t such an unpleasant child. He’s constantly screaming and demanding things, I don’t think he even knows how to be happy.
Anyway, I’m sure they don’t feed Harry properly. His cousin’s a big, healthy boy, and Harry’s a skinny little thing. Well, you’ve seen him. He looks at least a year younger than your Neville, but he must be almost the same age. And you should see the way he wolfs down my nastiest cake whenever he’s here. I’m certain he’s usually hungry. And his clothes are hideous. Vernon and Petunia point them out to make people think he’s some sort of delinquent, but they’re the ones who give him what he wears! Most of them are his cousin’s old things, and Dudley’s much bigger round as well as taller, so they look ridiculous on Harry. I don’t think he’s any books or toys of his own. When I asked him what he got for Christmas last year he just shrugged and changed the subject.
And, oh, Augusta, he let slip once, when he was much younger, that he sleeps in a cupboard! It was when he was four or five, I think, and he was staying at my house overnight while the Dursleys were somewhere or other. Well, of course I made up the bed in the spare room for him, and you’d have thought I’d offered him a palace to live in. He sprawled out and said he’d never slept in a bed before, so of course I asked him why not. And he said, “my cupboard won’t fit a bed in it.” I’ve never forgotten that. When I tried to ask him about it afterwards, he wouldn’t say anything and I think Petunia and Vernon must have told him not to talk about it – he only let it slip because he was so excited.
I’ve told Dumbledore all this, of course. I report to him every month. After I found out about the cupboard, I told Dumbledore he had to take Harry away from there, but he just thanked me for telling him and said Harry had to stay there for his safety! His safety! Can you believe that? I don’t know if he still sleeps in a cupboard, of course, that was a few years ago and he’s bigger now. But people who’d make a child sleep in a cupboard – and they’ve got one of those big four bedroom houses on Privet Drive, so they must have two spare rooms upstairs that he could have been in all the time! People who’d do that wouldn’t stop at much.
I’m sorry this is such a long letter, but really, I’ve been bottling all this up for years, and although I keep telling Dumbledore, he never does anything, just says thank you for telling him, and that’s it. I hope you’re intending to do more! You’re a powerful pureblood, even if your grandson is a Squib, and you must have enough influence to help Harry somehow. I do hope so, I just don’t know what else to do for him. I’ll give you whatever help I can, and I don’t care what Dumbledore says about it.
Yours, Arabella Figg
Augusta reads this missive three times, her fury growing the more she reads. Not feeding him! Telling people he’s some kind of criminal! Making him sleep in a cupboard? When she wrote to Arabella she expected… well, she isn’t sure what she expected, but it wasn’t this. This is deliberate, outright cruelty. How can Dumbledore just sit by and let it happen?
And, more importantly, what should she do about it?
***
In the end, she goes to Minerva. She makes her promise, first, that she won’t tell Albus a word, and then lets her read the letter. By the time she’s got the end, Minerva’s hand is shaking.
“This is… monstrous,” she says at last. She looks back down at the letter. “And Albus knows about this? I told him. I knew those people couldn’t be trusted with Harry, but he went ahead and left him there anyway. I should have checked in on him. Albus told me Arabella would be keeping an eye on him, and I trusted him!”
“We must do something about this, Minerva.”
“We certainly must!” Minerva’s eyes skim the letter once more. She looks up at Augusta, her lips thin. “And we cannot tell Albus about it.”
“There’s one other thing,” says Augusta. She isn’t showing it, but she’s rather worried that Minerva will think this is going too far. There’s no help for it, though. “We need to make sure that both boys are removed from the Dursleys’ custody.”
Minerva’s eyebrows shoot up.
“But why? The cousin sounds like a revolting child.”
“Well, yes,” she admits. “But that isn’t really the point, is it? He’s still a child, and if the Dursleys can treat one child this way, then they can do it to another. How long before he does something they can’t forgive, and what happens to him then?”
Minerva looks suddenly chilled.
“You’re right,” she says. “That will be more complicated. I doubt they’d hesitate to sign Harry over to anyone who turns up saying they want him, but Dudley…”
“I don’t care,” says Augusta. “If I have to use magic, I will, but however it happens, I am making sure that both those children are safe.”
***
They do it by magic. Minerva discovers that there are blood wards, of all things, on the Dursleys’ house, which means that if they go the Muggle route it will take so long and be so obvious that Dumbledore could hardly fail to notice what is happening before they succeed. Instead, Arabella notifies them the next time the Dursleys ask her to babysit and, once they’ve persuaded him that they can be trusted (a few whimsical demonstrations of magic help a lot), Harry tells the three women everything they need to know to confirm that removing the boys from that house is the right thing to do. They… persuade… the Dursleys to sign adoption papers for Harry and Dudley and take them away that same day. By the time Dumbledore realises what has happened (which takes only a few days, since the blood wards fail the moment Harry ceases to consider four Privet Drive his home), they are able to present him with a fait accompli.
Almost on an impulse, Augusta asks Arabella Figg to stay with them for their first fortnight together. Arabella knows Harry quite well and Dudley a little, and she hopes it will help them all to settle in. The cottage only has four bedroom officially, but there’s a large attic room which she hurriedly turns into a fifth. She’s surprised when Harry rather shyly asks if that room can be his, though of course she agrees immediately. That boy has had no said to him far too many times in his short life, plus it leaves a small but nicely furnished room for Arabella, which is much more suitable than the ramshackle attic room would have been.
“We’ll paint it and get you new furniture once we’ve all settled down,” she promises.
“You don’t have to!” Harry says as he gazes around, his bright green eyes huge in his thin little face. “It’s the best room I’ve ever been in!”
She casts a glance around at the mismatched, shabby furniture that she’d hastily gathered from around the rest of the house. The paint on the walls is chipped and greyish, the curtains are conjured and for some reason ended up a lurid pink instead of the pretty floral print she’d been aiming for (she hadn’t been concentrating properly; she’d only had about an hour to set up the entire room when it had suddenly occurred to her to invite Arabella), and the floor is just bare boards. But Harry’s looking at her as though she’s gifted him a mansion. She thinks about the cupboard he showed her when she and Minerva went to collect him and Dudley, and smiles at him.
“Well, we’ll make it even better,” she tells him.
***
She’s soon very glad she asked Arabella to stay with them. Minerva suggests that they could set the blood protection wards up on the cottage, since Dudley, as well as Petunia, carries Lily’s blood. It takes some research, but before the boys move in, Augusta has worked out how to do it. The hard part turns out to be convincing Dudley to consent. Augusta finally retires from the battle, ragged and exhausted, leaving a crimson faced but triumphant Dudley emerging from his third temper tantrum in quick succession. As she gulps a cup of tea as though it were gin, Arabella touches her arm.
“Maybe I could have a word with him?” she suggests. Augusta nods wearily.
Arabella sweet talks Dudley into putting his shoes on, then takes him out for a long walk on the Downs. When they finally return, ten minutes before dinner is ready, both are windswept and pink in the face and, astonishingly, appear to be the best of friends. Dudley stands in the back doorway, staring at his feet, and mutters,
“You can set the wards up,” then immediately vanishes to the downstairs loo to wash his hands.
Augusta stares at Arabella.
“How in the world did you manage that?” she says faintly.
“He needs someone to understand him,” says Arabella. “A firm hand, yes, but a kind one too. He’s not a bad child, just badly brought up.”
Augusta falls silent, shame bubbling up in her mind. Dudley has been a dreadful nuisance in the four days he’s been with them, with his temper tantrums, his constant demands for her attention, and his propensity for attacking Harry and Neville with kicks and punches whenever they annoy him, which is often. She remembers Arabella’s letter. I don’t think he even knows how to be happy. She’s spent this entire time being disgusted by him and furious with him in turns, and has somehow forgotten that he’s a nine year old boy who has been taken from his parents and found himself living in a strange place with strange people and strange expectations.
“Thank you, Arabella,” she says at last.
Dudley comes back into the room then, with Neville and Harry on his heels, and she makes a point of thanking him for his consent and complimenting him on how grown up and mature his decision is. Dudley, to her surprise, blushes ferociously and ducks his head. Arabella gives her a tiny wink.
Much later, when the boys have gone to bed and she and Arabella are sitting out on the terrace in the dying light, each with one of Arabella’s cats on their lap and a glass of sherry in their hand, Augusta turns to her.
“Arabella,” she says. “How would you feel about staying more than just a fortnight?”
Arabella looks at her, startled.
“How much longer?” she asks. “I’ve cancelled my Squib support group for the time being, but I must pick it up again soon.”
“You could hold it here. The sitting room would easily be big enough, or you could sit in the garden when the weather’s warm enough. There aren’t any Muggles living within half a mile to overhear your talk. And you’re so much better with the boys than I am, Arabella, especially Dudley. I… I love Neville, of course, but I’ve never been terribly good at showing it. Godfrey was always so much better at that part of parenthood than I was, with Frank, and Harry and Dudley need to know how much I… we… care about them. Neville, too, although I think he does understand. I can give them everything they need, but… I’m sorry, you asked how long. Six months? By then, I hope we’ll all have settled into our new lives. You don’t have to, of course. I know you have your own home and your own life.”
“I’d love to, Augusta, dear,” said Arabella, patting her hand. “I think I’ll sell the house. Dumbledore was helping me pay the bills, my pension isn’t much. I doubt he’ll want to keep doing that now, though, so this will give me time to find somewhere cheap to rent. And I’ll be here to back you up when Dumbledore works out where Harry is,” she adds.
Augusta makes a face.
***
Dumbledore arrives the next day and is, as Augusta and Arabella had anticipated, furious. Fortunately, Augusta is rather good at dealing with furious people. Arabella keeps the boys upstairs while Augusta takes Dumbledore through to the sitting room, pours tea, cuts cake, and listens with an interested air while he enumerates the many reasons she has been a fool and Harry should return to his aunt and uncle at once. He’s very polite about it, but his bright blue eyes are hard. At last, he seems to come to the end of his speech. Augusta smiles at him.
“Most interesting,” she says blandly. “But, you see, the Dursleys were abusing Harry rather badly. He will be much safer growing up here, as will his cousin.”
She goes on to detail the arrangements, explains the wards, points out that Dudley will be free to visit his parents once a week if he chooses to, shows Albus the adoption papers, assures him that since Neville is a Squib she is quite accustomed to raising children amongst Muggles. She allows him to rant and then ignores everything he says, simply repeating that she is now Harry’s legal parent (because, of course, he isn’t actually interested in Dudley) and that she is perfectly capable of doing everything that is required.
Eventually, they fall into silence. Dumbledore’s eyes are still bright with anger, but when Augusta gently points out how interested the Daily Prophet would be in an account of the way the Boy Who Lived has been treated in the home Dumbledore sent him to, he finally seems to realise that there’s nothing he can do. He gets to his feet and coldly takes his leave. Augusta, still smiling politely, accompanies him to the door and closes it behind him. When she turns, Arabella is already halfway down the stairs and Neville, Harry and Dudley, for once all in accord, are hanging over the bannisters.
“He’s gone,” she tells them. “And you’re all staying here.”
Dudley’s bedroom door bangs behind him. Neville and Harry, beaming, clatter down the stairs. Harry flings his skinny arms around Augusta and Neville, to her surprise, follows suit. When she asks him about it at bedtime, Neville tells her that he likes having Harry around all the time. He’s fun to play with, and he listens when Neville tells him about plants, and anyway, Harry likes living here much better than he did with his aunt and uncle and Neville’s glad about that.
“And Dudley?” she asks, with some trepidation, for she’s been feeling guilty about bringing such a disruptive child into Neville’s quiet existence. But Neville just shrugs.
“I don’t really like him, but Arabella says he just needs some time.” Then he heaves a sigh. “I wish he’d stop breaking my things, though.”
Augusta fixes them for him, of course, when it happens (which, he’s quite right, is far too often), but there are only so many times you can reparo something, and Neville is always careful with his things. Of course it’s upsetting him.
“Would you like a lock for your bedroom door?” she suggests, after thinking about it. Dudley certainly does need time and care before he’ll settle down, but that doesn’t mean Neville should suffer more than he has to before that happens.
“Yes please, Gran,” he says, his round, anxious face brightening. “Thank you!” He hugs her. Augusta resolves to offer Harry a lock for his door, too, He doesn’t have many possessions of his own for Dudley to break, but he might appreciate the privacy. Even Dudley might, if it comes to that.
She reads Neville another chapter of his spy story, kisses him goodnight, switches the light off, and closes the door softly behind her.
***
It’s a hard road, and a long one, but even Dudley settles in the end. The summer holidays, which Augusta has been dreading, actually help. The five of them spend nearly all their time together. Augusta and Arabella take the children on picnics and walks over the downs, to zoos and theme parks. They have barbeques in the garden and set up a trampoline. The purchase of a football has an astounding effect, and a few times Augusta finds herself persuaded to tear up and down the garden in her jeans, attempting to kick the infuriating object, a sight which even Dudley finds delightfully hilarious. She finds herself regretting leaving Neville to his own devices so much previously. He’s always seemed quite happy with their quiet life, but playing rambunctiously with other children, as well as with her, has brought him to life in a way she hadn’t realised was possible.
They keep their little routines, too. On Saturdays, Augusta takes Dudley to Little Whinging to visit Petunia and Vernon, and he’s soon quite blasé about flooing (from what he lets drop after his visits, the Dursleys aren’t too happy about that). In the afternoons, Arabella and Neville host the Squib support meeting. Sometimes Augusta and Harry spend Saturday afternoons doing their own thing separately, and sometimes she takes him, a subtle glamour altering his features, to the wixen quarter of Winchester, their closest city. He follows with interest when she leads him to the enormous bronze statue of Alfred the Great and asks it for admission, and when Alfred plunges his sword down and the two great grey stones of the statue’s plinth part to create a doorway, his face lights up in wonder. He clings to her hand, gazing around in awe and delight as they pass people wearing robes, listen to chatter about owls and galleons and potion ingredients, and see wixen waving their wands to perform the smallest of tasks. After spending so much time among Muggles, it seems strangely blatant to Augusta, but Harry loves every minute.
Sundays, she and Neville always spend together, sometimes with the others, if Neville wants to, and sometimes just the two of them. It has suddenly become important to her to let him know that he’s still her grandson even if she does have two other children to look after now. They spend a lot of time in the greenhouse when it’s just the two of them, and pride spikes in her heart as she watches him working, completely engrossed in his tasks, in the plants. Perhaps he’ll never be a Frank, charging into danger with Alice by his side, but he is gentle and caring and patient. Different, yes, but just as wonderful.
The only one of the children she doesn’t have a special time set aside for is Dudley. By the time the summer holidays are nearly done, and Arabella’s six months are nearly at an end, Augusta has become more fond of him than she would have thought possible, but it’s Arabella he’s really bonded with, and Arabella does make time for him on Saturday evenings, once he’s returned from visiting his parents. Augusta isn’t sure what they do or what they talk about, but it always seems to do Dudley good.
***
That’s why it’s such a surprise when Dudley comes to her rather than Arabella one day at the end of August. She’s in her study catching up on some correspondence when he knocks at the door, sidles in, and closes it behind him.
“Aunt Augusta?” he says, hovering by the door as she turns her chair.
“Yes? Sit down.”
He perches on the edge of the ugly gingham armchair she keeps meaning to replace. His fingers are twisting together and he looks as though he’s working himself up to something. Augusta frowns. It’s not like Dudley not to demand whatever he wants whenever he wants it. At least, she corrects herself, it was. Four months on, he has improved immensely.
“What’s wrong, Dudley?” she says more gently.
“Aunt Augusta,” he says again. She waits. Dudley looks up at her at last. “What if I was a girl?”
She blinks.
“A girl?”
“Yeah. What if I was?”
“Well, then,” says Augusta, actually quite relieved, because, after Alice, this is something she knows a little about. She still checks the Healers’ charts every month to make sure Alice is getting her extra potions. “You’d be a girl, wouldn’t you?”
“Can I, though? Can I just… just be a girl?”
“Certainly,” says Augusta briskly, and is rewarded by the sight of the child’s shoulders straightening, as though some burden has been lifted. “There will be some things for us to discuss, but if you say you’re a girl, then a girl you are. We can tell the others whenever you’re ready.”
“Can we tell them today?”
Augusta smiles.
“Of course we can. Do you still want us to call you Dudley, or would you like to change your name?”
“I want to be called Deborah,” says Deborah immediately, making Augusta wonder how long she’s been thinking about this.
“Deborah is a beautiful name,” she says.
Deborah glows.
***
The next two weeks are rather a rush, what with replacing Deborah’s new school uniform and ensuring that all her Muggle paperwork is magically altered (they could go about it the Muggle way, but that would take so long, and Augusta isn’t at all sure what the Muggle procedure is for altering a child’s name and legal gender), but they complete it all in good time, and Deborah, Neville, and Harry are finally bustled off to the village primary school.
Telling Deborah’s parents doesn’t go so well. She insists on doing it herself, on one of her Saturday visits, but Augusta makes her take along a charmed handkerchief. If she’s scared or wants to leave for any other reason, all she has to do is put her hand in her pocket and squeeze the hanky. Just over an hour after dropping her off, Augusta gets the alert. She instantly apparates to the Dursleys’ front door, not caring if anyone sees her, and rings the doorbell, then, for good measure, knocks loudly on the door too. Seconds pass. She’s about to blast the door down when it swings open and Deborah throws herself, weeping, into Augusta’s arms.
It takes Augusta and Arabella a long time to soothe Deborah, who continues to sob as though her heart has broken. Perhaps, Augusta thinks, it has. The two people who were supposed to love her no matter what have broken that contract, and even though Augusta knew it wouldn’t be safe to leave Deborah with those people, she feels no satisfaction in being proved right. Before she’d taken Deborah away, Petunia had accused her of brainwashing her “son” into becoming a “freak”, and Vernon had demanded that she return “him” immediately so that they could whip “him” back into shape. The idea of it had chilled Augusta, but she had not deigned to respond to their accusations and demands. Instead, as she stood in the doorway with her arm around Deborah, she had turned back and looked Petunia, then Vernon, in the eyes.
“I advise you to revise your opinions,” she had said frostily. “Otherwise you will lose your daughter entirely. If, or when, you feel able to treat her with the respect and love she deserves, you may write to me. You have my address.”
And she had closed the door in their faces.
At least at school, where nobody has known her by any other name, Deborah is treated like an ordinary little girl. Augusta and Arabella accompany her to St. Mungo’s and all three are relieved to be informed that the potions and spells used for magical transitioning are just as effective for Squibs and Muggles as they are for magical folk. She would have done it if she’d had to, but Augusta is glad not to have to negotiate the complicated system of medical care that exists in the Muggle world. By Christmas, Deborah’s course of potions has begun, and by Easter, so have her transfigurations.
***
When the children go back to school, the cottage feels strangely empty. She and Arabella drink a lot of tea and spend a lot of time in the garden while the weather still permits.
“I’ve found a little flat on the outskirts of Winchester that looks nice,” says Arabella on one of those days, turning away from the rose that climbs up the cottage wall, which she has been pruning. A jolt of shock goes through Augusta.
“It can’t have been six months already,” she says.
“Well, five,” says Arabella, smiling. “But it’s only a month away, and I didn’t know how long it would take me to find a place.”
She turns back to the rose, snip snip snipping with her secateurs. Augusta feels strangely blank. She’s got so used to Arabella being here. The cottage won’t feel right without her. Augusta won’t feel right without her. She goes inside and makes a large pot of tea, puts two thick slices of seed cake onto plates, and carries the tray back outside. There’s a strange burning feeling in her chest, as though she might cry. She can’t remember the last time she cried. The time Algie dropped Neville out of the window, probably. She can still see his unmoving little body lying on the terrace, just a couple of feet from where she stands now.
She shakes herself and puts the tray down, calls Arabella over, hands her cake, pours the tea.
“Are you all right, dear?” says Arabella, her head cocked to one side as she studies Augusta. Augusta hands her cup.
“Stay,” she says. “Please.”
Arabella’s soft, wrinkled cheeks turn pink, but she looks uncertain.
“But why?” she says. “The children have settled in so well.”
“They adore you though,” says Augusta quickly. “Especially Deborah. And… so do I. I’d miss you if you left. You really are wonderful company. I don’t think I’d realised how much I missed having another adult around the place, after Godfrey died. Please stay, Arabella. You’re such a wonderful… friend. The cottage would feel all wrong without you in it.”
Arabella reaches over and takes Augusta’s hand, squeezing her fingers affectionately.
“If those are the reasons, how could I possibly say no?”
***
The next July, Harry, now round cheeked and strong, gets his Hogwarts letter. Neville and Deborah listen avidly as he reads it aloud. When he gets to the end, Harry puts the letter down and heaves a sigh.
“I don’t want to go,” he says. “I like it here.”
Augusta and Arabella exchange looks.
“You don’t have to go, of course,” says Arabella. “But I’m told the Hogwarts experience is very special.”
“You’ve got to go!” cries Neville, outraged. “You’re the only one of us who can! You’ve got to go, and come back, and tell me and Deb all about it!”
Deborah just nods. The relationship between her and Harry is still somewhat strained, although Harry is gradually becoming more comfortable in her company. Augusta hopes that him being away at Hogwarts won’t set them back too much. She knows he’ll choose to go in the end. He’s been chattering away about it ever since he came to live with her and learned about magic. He’s just shaken, right now, at the thought of leaving home.
“I do want to go,” he says, as she’d known he would. “I just…”
He looks around at them all.
“We’ll still be here, while you’re gone,” says Arabella gently. “You’ll come home in the holidays. You’ll still be our boy.”
As always, she has said the right thing. Harry gives her a tremulous smile and they all stay at the breakfast table for a long time, talking about what Hogwarts is like, what Harry will experience there, what a good time he’ll have, and what wonders he’ll be able to describe to them when he comes home for Christmas.
***
It’s a surprise to everyone, even Arabella, when, on Platform 9¾, after they’ve put Harry’s trunk on the Hogwarts Express and taken turns bidding him a fond farewell, Deborah suddenly bursts into tears.
“I’m sorry I was so horrible to you, Harry!” she cries. She’s apologised before, grudgingly for a while, more sincerely as time went on, but only for individual transgressions that occurred since the two came to the cottage. Augusta and Arabella had hoped that her bullying would gradually become a thing of the past and then forgotten. It has become a thing of the past, but not, clearly, forgotten. Harry is blushing and looking anywhere but at Deborah.
“It’s okay,” he mutters.
“It’s not!” Deborah scrubs at her eyes. “I was horrid!”
Harry looks at her, and then Augusta, Arabella, and Neville. None of them speak. Neville’s mouth is slightly open, Arabella is watching with her head on one side, and Augusta… Augusta simply doesn’t know what to say. Deborah’s behaviour and attitudes have improved beyond measure, but she never expected this. Harry looks back at his cousin and gives an awkward little nod.
“It’s all right,” he says.
Deborah looks at him anxiously.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Er… thanks, Deb.”
Deborah lurches forward and presses something into Harry’s hand. Augusta doesn’t quite glimpse what it is before Harry’s pushing it into his pocket, but he gives Deborah a proper grin and says, “Thanks,” again. A whistle blows somewhere down the platform, making them all jump.
“Onto the train, Harry!” Augusta says. “Be good!”
“Have a wonderful term, dear!” calls Arabella as Harry scrambles into his carriage.
“Bye, Harry! Bye!” Neville and Deborah shout. They race down the platform as the Hogwarts Express pulls away, waving their hands wildly and shouting farewells. When the train is finally out of sight, they turn back to their elders, their faces drooping. Augusta claps her hands.
“I think it’s time to introduce the two of you to Florean Fortescue,” she says.
***
While Harry is at Hogwarts, sending owls twice a week with letters filled with enthusiastic rambling about all the magic he’s learning, and his new friend Ron, who he met on the train, and a girl called Hermione who Ron hates but Harry thinks is all right really, Neville and Deborah are settling in well to Dock Hill, their own new secondary school. Although it’s been a year and a half, Augusta is still sometimes caught by surprise at the way Neville has blossomed since Harry, Deborah and Arabella moved in. She’d been worried about him at first, hoping he wouldn’t feel ousted or overlooked. Instead, she’s discovered a whole new side to him.
Sometimes she wonders how he would have developed if their lives hadn’t been so dramatically altered. If he’d been a wizard after all, what would have happened? She hopes she would still have encouraged him to develop his interest in gardening, both magical and Muggle, and seen him blossom into a happy, confident, though still quiet, boy, but she does wonder. Without Harry and Deborah to drag him into their games, and Arabella gently nudging her to show her love more openly, and all the extra people to make her realise she needed to pay him particular attention or let him drift away from her, where would they be now?
She shakes herself. There’s no point in wondering such things. She continues to make special time for him, and Arabella makes special time for Deborah, and both children are thriving. So, it seems, is Harry. A letter comes at the beginning of November describing an encounter with a mountain troll in a school loo, of all places. Harry appears to regard this as a thrilling adventure and is particularly delighted that it seems to have reconciled Ron and Hermione to one another, so that the three are now firmly a trio. Augusta and Arabella, however, are alarmed by the lapse in security, although Dumbledore manages to assuage their fears for the time being.
***
Dumbledore is less successful in placating them at the end of the year, when they find themselves at Harry’s bedside in the hospital wing.
“How did this happen?” Augusta shrieks, beside herself with terror and fury at the sight of another of her children unconscious in a hospital bed. If this happens a third time, she swears she’ll kill the person responsible.
Dumbledore tells a slightly vague story about Professor Quirrell, whom Harry has mentioned once or twice in his letters, and shakes his head sadly, but she can tell he’s hiding something. No matter how much she badgers him, he won’t divulge any more details and at last she lets Arabella push her down into a seat beside Harry’s bed. Dumbledore takes the opportunity to make a quick exit. Augusta’s shoulders slump tiredly. Once they’re alone, Arabella’s arms go round her and Augusta leans against her gratefully.
Later, a pale, gangly redhead and an eager faced Black girl burst into the hospital wing. They pull up short when they see the two old ladies at Harry’s bedside, but Arabella waves them over.
“You must be Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger,” she says.
Unlike Dumbledore, Hermione and Ron are keen to tell them everything. It takes quite a long time, and by the end of the story, Augusta is even more furious with Dumbledore than she was before. Keeping a philosopher’s stone at Hogwarts, of all places! And a Cerberus! What was he thinking? She looks at the two twelve year olds with new respect.
“Thank you,” she says. “For helping and protecting our Harry.”
Ron turns bright red and grins happily, but Hermione’s lips tremble.
“We didn’t do a very good job,” she says, staring forlornly at Harry’s motionless body.
“You tried,” says Augusta. “You couldn’t have done more. We’re so grateful.”
The tears spill down Hermione’s cheeks, and Arabella pulls her into a comforting hug. Hermione clings to her.
“I thought he was dead!” she wails.
“But he’s going to be all right,” says Arabella soothingly. “It’s all over now.”
***
Hogwarts breaks up for summer a week before Dock Hill, but since the Hogwarts Express doesn’t get into King’s Cross until evening, Augusta and Arabella give in to Neville and Deborah’s begging and the whole lot of them floo there to collect him. The moment the train pulls in, Harry is leaping down and sprinting along the platform towards them. A tight little knot in Augusta’s chest loosens. He looks so well, much better than he did when he woke up in the hospital wing yesterday, his usually warm brown face distressed and sickly. He hugs them all, even Deborah, and immediately starts pouring out chatter about the end of term feast.
When the greetings are over, Hermione and Ron drag their own families over to meet them. Ron’s parents are purebloods, of course, and Augusta has a passing acquaintance with them, while Hermione’s are Muggles. Augusta is rather proud of how easily she’s able to interact with them and can’t help noticing that they look slightly relieved to talk to a witch who isn’t treating them like some sort of exotic curiosity. Arthur Weasley means well, but to Augusta, who has been mixing with Muggles on a daily basis for several years now, his attitude seems rather absurd.
They make arrangements for Ron and Hermione to come and stay for a week in the middle of the holidays, chat until they’re kicked off Platform 9¾, and, finally, tumble back to the cottage through the floo, the five of them back together again. Over dinner, Harry tells them the whole story of the philosopher’s stone and Professor Quirrell. Neville and Deborah listen, riveted, while Augusta and Arabella try to hide their horror, which is no less acute for having heard the story before. When the children have finally gone to bed, (rather late, but it’s not a school night, after all), they sit in silence on the terrace for some time. They recently visited a Muggle garden centre and bought a long swinging seat, and they’re sitting in it now. Arabella’s feet are tucked up and her head is on Augusta’s shoulder. At last, Augusta heaves a sigh.
“You Know Who!” she says. “In the back of someone’s head!”
“He was supposed to be dead,” says Arabella, and Augusta feels a shiver run through her. She hesitates for a moment, then slips her arm around Arabella, who shifts slightly to let her. They’ve been doing this more lately, the closeness, the holding of one another, and Augusta isn’t sure what Arabella thinks of it. She’s been afraid to bring it up, afraid that if they talk about it, Arabella won’t feel the same way. She pushes the thoughts away.
“Do you think we should take him out of Hogwarts? If You Know Who’s out there and trying to kill him,” says Arabella.
Augusta bites her lips.
“I don’t know,” she admits. “Dumbledore did some foolish things this year, but even I can’t blame him for not realising that Voldemort was sharing Quirrell’s body. That’s… that’s a once in a century sort of occurrence. I still have no idea how it happened, though you can be sure I intend to do some research.”
“So you think Harry will be safe at Hogwarts still?”
“I… think so,” she says slowly. “It has the oldest and most powerful protection around it of any magical building in Britain. And, much as I dislike Dumbledore, he remains the only person You Know Who was ever afraid of.”
“He doesn’t have Harry’s best interests at heart,” Arabella says softly.
“No. No, he doesn’t.”
They fall silent for several minutes. At last, Arabella speaks again.
“Perhaps you’re right. Dumbledore obviously has his own agenda, but I think he does still want to protect Harry, in his own way. God knows why he thought Harry living with the Dursleys would do it, but he did.”
Augusta nods.
“I think so too,” she says. “So, we let Harry go back to Hogwarts.”
“At least for now,” says Arabella.
“At least for now,” repeats Augusta.
***
Augusta is lying flat on her back on the lawn, staring up at the stars. She and Arabella finally managed to herd Neville, Deborah, Harry, Hermione and Ron up the stairs and into bed twenty minutes ago. There’s little chance that any of them are actually asleep, or even, come to that, still in bed, but as long as they don’t make too much noise Augusta has every intention of ignoring this fact.
“You were right,” she says weakly. “Taking them to the beach was a terrible idea. Why are you always right?”
Arabella chuckles from a little to her left.
“It’s a knack,” she says.
Augusta feels around until she finds Arabella’s hand, then clasps and squeezes it.
“I can’t think what I used to do without you,” she says, trying to show by the tone of her voice how much she means it. A shout of laughter drifts down from an upstairs window, hastily hushed.
“So,” Arabella’s voice is soft. “You don’t regret asking me to stay, then?”
“Not from the moment you stepped foot in this cottage,” says Augusta. “Completely the opposite, in fact. I never could have imagined…”
Without warning, Arabella’s fingers slip from hers. Augusta turns her head and, for a brief moment, is alarmed by a dark shape that’s moving where Arabella just was. Then it resolves itself and she realises it is Arabella, getting rather creakily to her hands and knees, and… suddenly she’s right above Augusta, still on her knees, leaning on her hands, one beside each of Augusta’s shoulders, her face right above Augusta’s. Augusta’s heart is thundering.
Arabella leans down and kisses her.
***
When they tell the children, waiting until after Hermione and Ron have gone home again, they all whoop gleefully, but Neville is the most gleeful of all.
“I guessed you’d get together this summer!” he shouts, high-fiving Harry and Deborah. “Deb thought Christmas…”
“Christmas is romantic!” Deborah puts in.
“And Harry didn’t think it’d be till next summer! They have to buy me ten chocolate frogs each next time we’re in Diagon Alley!”
Augusta and Arabella catch each other’s eyes and collapse into laughter.
***
They marry two summers later. It’s been a good year for all five of them. Neville has won Young Gardener of the Year for the vegetable garden he created at Dock Hill, and did well in his end of year exams. Deborah, who is not academically gifted, received a special award from the headmaster for her endeavours with the school’s new Anti-Bullying Club. Plus, this is the first time she’s gone an entire school year without beating any of the bullies up. Augusta privately thinks that beating them up is probably good for them, but feels obliged to dissuade Deb from it all the same. Harry, in the meantime, has caught his parents’ real betrayer, Peter Pettigrew, and proved his godfather, Sirius Black, innocent of that and of the murder of thirteen Muggles. Sirius was officially cleared of all charges a month before the wedding, and he and Remus are excited to take care of Neville, Harry and Deborah while Augusta and Arabella honeymoon in Italy.
Now, the two of them are bidding goodbye to their three teenagers, with many hugs and well wishes. Harry is thrilled at the idea of spending a whole fortnight with his godfather, and Deborah, who was delighted to learn that Remus Lupin is not just a werewolf, but also a trans man, is excited to get to know him better. Only Neville looks worried and a little tearful as he hugs his Gran goodbye. She draws him aside gently while Arabella laughs with the other two.
“It’s only for a fortnight,” she says, hugging him. They hug so easily, now, these two. Sometimes Augusta thinks back six years, to when Neville was a shy, nervous, lonely little boy and she, she realises now, a distant and rather harsh grandmother, and wonders once more how things might have been different if Harry, Deborah and Arabella hadn’t come into their lives. Neville brushes a few tears away.
“I know,” he says. “It’s just… you’ve never gone away before and… I’m going to miss you.”
“Oh, Neville, darling, I’ll miss you too.” She and Neville haven’t been parted since he was placed into her arms by an Auror at the tender age of seventeen months, except for the single night he spent at St. Mungo’s. “But you’ll have a wonderful time with Sirius and Remus and we’ll be back before you know it.”
“You won’t.” He wraps his arms tightly around her, burying his face in her shoulder. His next words are slightly muffled. “But I hope you have a really good time with Arabella in Italy, Gran. Send us a postcard, won’t you?”
“Of course we will,” she says, kissing the top of his head. “I’ll think about you every day.”
He draws back, still holding onto her hands, and looks up into her face.
“I love you, Gran,” he says softly. Augusta smiles.
“I love you too, Neville.”