Everyone was shocked when Harry Potter announced that now that the main 
threat was gone, he didn't plan to become an Auror. Instead, he was 
going to take over the no-longer cursed post of Defense Against the 
Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts. Who better qualified than Potter, the 
savior of all wizardkind?

Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger followed their best friend's lead, 
both becoming professors. For Hermione, she immediately started as 
Transfiguration professor while researching and writing books on the 
side; Ron Weasley joined his fiancée and best friend at Hogwarts after 
an attempt at a professional Quidditch career – one Bludger too many, 
and he showed up at Hogwarts to teach flying.

The other members of the Hogwarts Six, unsurprising to the general 
public but highly surprising to those who knew them, did become Aurors. 
Ginny Weasley and Neville Longbottom had been partnered from the 
beginning of their training, while Luna Lovegood had been shuffled from 
partner to partner for a few years, until meeting up with Nymphadora 
“Tonks” Lupin. The Lovegood-Lupin team was now highly successful, and 
generally regarded as the weirdest in the history of the department.

There were many lives lost in the war, of course; Death Eater, Order of 
the Phoenix, Ministry, and bystander. It was considered miraculous that 
all of the Hogwarts Six (as well as media darling double-agent Draco 
Malfoy) had survived, when so many hadn't. Amongst all the deaths, a 
few disappearances weren't noticed – they were just assumed dead. When 
the Ministry found the body of Thaddeus Smith and his nephew, it was 
assumed that Thaddeus's son Zacharias, and his great-niece Anna, were 
also dead. After all, there had been hardly enough left of either of 
the two men to identify. Theodore Nott's disappearance caused a few 
more murmurs, as there was no battle of any kind that he disappeared 
in, but it was generally assumed he had followed his father into the 
Death Eaters and had been killed in one of the many raids.

Least noticed of all, however, was the disappearance of Percy Weasley. 
The man had cut off all contact with his family, and was generally 
beneath the notice of those he worked with. When he disappeared, his 
boss just assumed he had quit in a rather abrupt manner, and hadn't 
mentioned it to anyone.

All of them were listed as dead, or missing in action (although the 
Weasley twins had a few things to say about having their prat brother 
listed as in any sort of 'action'). Which was why it was rather 
shocking when most of them appeared, alive and well, at Hogwarts in 
September 2007.



CHAPTER ONE: Screws Fall Out



Me and Anna Smith are best friends. We've known each other pretty much 
all our lives lives, had grown up with each other, and for half our 
childhoods had even slept in the same room. We call each other sister, 
and share our brothers, and call each other's dad 'uncle'. We're about 
as close as two eleven year olds can be without being conjoined (and 
we'd even been that for a while when we were nine, thanks to a potion).

Martin – that's my older brother, he's fifteen now – was incredibly 
over-protective of us both, even though Anna isn't technically related 
to us. All the biological family she's got is her dad (who's actually 
her dad's cousin), and her brother, TJ. Me and Martin, we've got a 
rather large extended family, even if Da's estranged from most of them, 
so we do our best to give Anna and TJ the same feeling of family.

This doesn't mean that we all like each other. 'Cause we don't. But we 
love each other, and that's what really matters. And Anna, she'll stand 
by you even if she doesn't agree with you, because people are more 
important to her than belief – which I think's a weird way of looking 
at the world, and couldn't ever do, but I can admire someone who does.

Me, I'm much more about belief. I'm stubborn as a hippogriff, Da's 
always said, but a lot subtler (well, really, he said 'more subtle', 
since 'subtler' wasn't a proper word). Once I believe something, 
there's pretty much nothing you can do to change my mind – actually, 
the more contradictory evidence you show, the more I believe my side, 
because to be swayed by evidence means I've been defeated by someone 
else. And that's not acceptable. The only way to change my mind is to 
wait for me to change it. Either that, or take my side of the argument 
and act like a moron.

Martin's not really like me or Anna. He's like Da, very much about 
following the rules. He's devious, though, and probably gonna be a 
lawyer when he's older, because while he faithfully obeys the letter of 
the law – not the spirit of it. He's the king of loopholes, we always 
say.

As for TJ, well, he's a little young (he's only seven) to be too sure, 
but I think he's the sneakiest of us all. Because he'll agree with 
everything, nod and accept what you say as fact... and then continue to 
believe and do what he wants. You can't change his mind either, but 
he's not confrontational about it. I try and change other people's 
minds; he seems to think that the more people believe the opposite of 
what he believes (and the more that they believe he believes it too), 
the more advantage he's got.

Anyway, me and my siblings (as I called all of them) spent all of our 
childhoods at a school, just about. Except Martin, who's older than us, 
and can therefore vaguely remember England, and when Da'd drop him off 
with Auntie Dro and Uncle Ted. Our parents had all (separately) moved 
out to America when the Voldemort War had started to hit hard, not 
wanting to risk their kids to the Dark Lord or his followers. By the 
time I was three, we'd all wound up at the Magid School of the Rockies 
– a wizarding school serving ages eleven through twenty-two. My dad got 
a job student-teaching, while Uncle Zach and Uncle Theo finished 
school. Before long, though, Da and Uncle Zach were both teachers, 
while Uncle Theo became rather obsessed with research. They'd all three 
known each other, vaguely, when they'd gone to Hogwarts, so it was 
natural to gravitate towards one another, and bring us along for the 
ride.

But then Uncle Theo had died, right in front of all of us – TJ was too 
young to remember, thankfully, but me and Anna and Martin, we remember 
it. We didn't even have anybody to blame, because it was just an 
accident, because Uncle Theo would forget the difference between red 
and green Muggle streetlights (he was brilliant, but not knowing 
anything about Muggles until he was seventeen didn't work out too well 
for him), and he stepped right in front of a car when we were out for a 
walk one day.

That was years and years ago, though. Four, I think. Anyway. Early this 
summer, Da and Uncle Zach received letters, wondering if they'd like to 
go teach at their old school, Hogwarts. They'd been sure to sit down 
with us kids and ask us about it, but none of us were about to say no. 
They were too excited, plus it would make us closer to Uncle Ted and 
Auntie Dro, and Tonks, and Granma and Uncle Bill and Charlie and Aunt 
Fleur. Plus, of course, up our chances of solving The Mystery.

It took some doing, but we (just barely) managed to convince the adults 
to let us bring TJ on the train. TJ would've been crushed (and 
moreover, bored, which meant other people would be crushed, quite 
literally) if he'd had to go to the castle with our dads. Of course, 
we'd all underestimated the power of a seven year old.

“Yay yay yay, I'm going on a traaaaaain!” TJ sang, loudly and horribly. 
“Ridin' on a train, ridin' on a train, ridin'-”

About there in his little song (which reminded me, vaguely, of some 
cartoon, but I couldn't remember which, and that annoyed me), I clapped 
a hand over his mouth in a desperate attempt to not be completely 
embarrassed in front of our new schoolmates before we'd even reached 
the school.

I moved my hand away pretty quickly, though, with a cry of disgust. 
“Anna!” I yelled, a little shrilly, “Your freak of a brother just 
licked my hand!”

“And just who,” Martin said calmly, coming up from behind and resting a 
heavy hand on my should, “Do you think he learned it from?” I glared at 
him, mostly 'cause he was right. Biting the hand that feeds, licking 
the hand that silences, that was me to a T. Not that I ever knew what 
the phrase 'to a T' meant, but it was fun to pretend.

But admitting any of this would, of course, be losing. So I settled for 
kicking Martin in the shins – I would've kicked someplace else, but the 
shins are the only place I can reach easily. We're all freakishly tall 
for our ages (and TJ's also freakishly thin, especially if you see how 
much that kid eats in a day), but Martin had definitely made the most 
of the height genes from our parents, because he was already over six 
feet tall, at fifteen! I was very jealous, but assured myself in the 
fact that mentally, I was more mature.

Martin also has bones of steel, the jerk, so he just grinned at my 
attempts at serious bodily injury and patted me on the head, like I was 
a dog. Well, fine. If he was going to do that, I was going to act like 
one! I quickly attempted to bite his hand, and settled for growling 
when he moved it out of reach.

Deciding that maybe ignoring me was the best approach (and it was, 
really), my brother turned to Anna. “I'm going to try and find some 
kids in my year, okay? You three gonna be fine on your own?”

Anna's very adept at reading between the lines. “Don't worry, I'll keep 
them out of trouble.”

TJ and I both made indignant squawking noises, even though we'd pretty 
much known this would happen. Knowledge and hope are two separate 
things, I always say. Or, well, just said for the first time. And to be 
honest, both of us sorta needed a watcher. We're terribly prone to 
getting in trouble.

Martin nodded at Anna, and quickly disappeared into the growing crowd. 
In spite of, or perhaps because of, being so freakishly tall, Martin's 
made a study of going unnoticed. He wasn't gonna have a single problem 
fitting into the fifth year.

Meanwhile, TJ and Anna and me, we just stood around for a long moment 
before realizing that hey, we should probably get a place on the train. 
(None of us had ever ridden a train before, them not being too common 
in Colorado, hence TJ's excitement over the idea. Even with no 
experience, though, I knew I was going to be nauseous. I'm pretty much 
always motion-sick – I can stand, barely, being Flooed somewhere, but 
Portkeys and flying are right out. And all Muggle transportation except 
bicycle, too.)

We'd managed to stand around, of course, long enough that there were no 
completely empty rooms, or whatever they were called. Which meant, 
horror of horrors, we had to socialize and interact with other people. 
The very idea made me shiver in terror. But them's the breaks.

“Room for two plus a midget?” I asked cheerfully, poking my head into a 
mostly empty room with a blinding smile. Not waiting for a response 
from the two deer-in-the-headlights kids, I immediately stepped in and 
set my stuff down, dragging Anna after me. TJ bounced in after us and 
shut the door.

“I'm Ellory, this is Anna, and that's her brother TJ,” I introduced us 
all, purposefully going for the most American accent I could manage. 
“Who're you guys?”

Rather than answering my suave question, they asked an obviouser 
question. “Isn't he too young to attend Hogwarts? And aren't you all 
Americans?”

“Technically,” Anna said reluctantly, since she'd lost the coin flip to 
be the official explainer, “TJ's the only one who's American. Ellory 
and I were born in the UK, we've just lived in America for a while. And 
yeah, TJ's only seven, but our da's teaching this year, so he's going 
to be staying at Hogwarts.”

There was the typical reaction to learning we were the children of 
teachers – a sort of freezing and, 'hm, best be on our best behavior or 
they might report us!'. Stupid people made me sad, so I rolled my eyes 
at the two kids who were straightening their clothes almost 
subconsciously.

“Anyway, who're you?” I asked again, this time with added impatience.

“Oh! Um, I'm Caleb, and this is Jamie,” the bigger of the two said, 
gesturing to the other boy.

“Cool,” I said, bored again and staring out the window.

TJ was bored too, but he tends to be a lot more verbal than me when 
bored. “Hey, do you ever think about Chocolate Frogs? Do they wiggle 
all the way down? Do they wiggle in your stomach? And what about on the 
way out, do they wiggle then? 'Cause that'd be pretty gross.”

Jamie looked amused; Caleb looked freaked out. “Haven't you ever had a 
Chocolate Frog?” the non-freaked-out one asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Nope, lactose-intolerant,” TJ said cheerfully, even as his tongue 
stumbled over the multi-syllabic words. “If I ate one, I'd die.” Anna 
and me rolled our eyes, because he wouldn't die, he'd just get sick for 
a while. TJ had inherited all of his father's drama queeniness, and put 
it to good (and often) use.

He squirmed in his seat for a moment, and then- “I wish I could fly! 
With wings! That'd be soooo cool! But my spirit animal's a raccoon, so 
even if I was an Ani-magic-morph, I still couldn't fly without a broom. 
Hey, do you think a raccoon could fly on a broom? That'd be cool! And 
funny!” He continued to babble until our room-mates – well, room-
sharers, anyway – were completely out of it, eyes glazed over.

Anna and I were quite used to this stream of constant babble (even if 
we were confused by it; neither of TJ's parents were exactly the 
babbling or attention deficit type, so where he'd picked it up was a 
mystery), so we pulled out a pack of cards for Exploding Snap, and 
waved the two boys over to join us. Still staring at the hyperactive 
seven-year-old – now talking about something to do with fans, rising 
water, and killer sharks that wore polka-dot leotards – the boys 
scooted over and tried to pay attention to the game, after we explained 
it about ten times for Caleb's benefit (Jamie had picked it up like a 
natural).

Forty-seven games of Exploding Snap and a few stories about sentient 
carpets and worlds without shrimp later, we arrived at Hogwarts. Which 
was still a really stupid name for a school, and I bet anything that it 
was named the same way Scientology was founded – on a bet that no one 
would take it seriously. Thankfully, Hogwarts didn't turn out as bad as 
Scientology had.

It was also a really big freakin' castle. Jesus. Weirdo British people 
and their castles and their history that extends longer than a handful 
of centuries. I stared up at my new school, aware that my mouth was 
gaping open and I was possibly drooling, but not really caring, because 
everybody else was looking the same way. Even TJ just managed a 
“Wow...”

The guy leading our boats, who'd introduced himself as Mr. Flint, 
groundskeeper and teacher of Care of Magical Creatures (which we 
couldn't take for another two years, which was stupid, 'cause I love 
animals), seemed torn between amusement and pride at our reactions. He 
was kind of cool, definitely had a sarcastic streak that I'd feared 
would be missing from proper British schoolteachers. Maybe, Hogwarts 
wasn't going to be the death knell I had been thinkin' it was.

Getting out of a boat was harder than I had anticipated, especially 
since I was still feeling sick over the train ride (boats, it seemed, 
weren't as bad as vehicles, but they still weren't good). Hey, I had 
lived in Colorado most of my life, how was I supposed to know anything 
about boats? I could swim, yeah, but they didn't let us take rowboats 
into the pool (they had let us take a raft out into the middle of the 
deep end for my survival techniques class when I was six, but me and my 
partner had just wound up flipping the raft and playing around instead 
of throwing over the things we didn't need to survive).

“Ack!” I cried as I tried, a final time, to jump out of the boat. I 
couldn't completely blame my land-locked upbringing, either, since Anna 
and TJ were both already out and looking rather amused by me. I managed 
to get out of the boat, but making it onto the dock seemed to be out of 
the reach of my limited abilities, and I started falling into the murky 
depths that was the lake. Thankfully, Mr. Flint was a lot quicker than 
he seemed, and stronger, 'cause he caught me and hauled me onto the 
dock. “Thank you!” I immediately cried, remembering the many manners my 
father had tried to teach me (and some that I had actually picked up).

Now he was definitely looking amused, so I followed up my heart-felt 
thanks with sticking out my tongue. Never let it be said that I was 
mature! He patted me on the head, like a dog, and freakishly 
reminiscent of my brother earlier in the day. What was with everybody 
thinking I was a dog?

Sadly, Mr. Flint dropped us off right inside the Entrance Hall and told 
us to wait, because 'Professor Granger would be out soon'. I, of 
course, recognized the name, and shot a look at Anna and Martin (who'd 
joined us after the boating incident, having ridden up to the castle in 
carriages pulled by scary skeleton-horse things with his new buddies). 
I wondered, vaguely, if our dads knew who was a teacher here.

Professor Granger was young, with the same bushy hair that made her 
famous back during the second Voldemort War. She was, however, 
stricter-looking, as she told us an opening speech that, if our parents 
were to be believed, had been passed down for century upon century. 
Mention of the sorting freaked out nearly everybody, and even I was a 
little worried – I knew that all you had to do was put on a hat, as 
anybody who'd read Hogwarts, A History would know, but I was worried 
about what the hat would think of me.

Finally, though, she decided it was time to stop freaking us out with 
words and start freaking us out by being the center of attention. We 
got into a vague approximation of a line (vague being the key word), 
and were ushered through the doors to the Great Hall.

Remembering my dad's stories, I immediately looked up. Reading and 
hearing about it's one thing, actually seeing the enchanted ceiling was 
definitely something else. I hadn't realized that I'd stopped until 
someone ran into me from behind and shoved me forward with a curse.

It was... amazing. Absolutely amazing. I could even pick out the Big 
Dipper! (Or at least, that's what I thought it was, I've never been 
good with stars.)

As the hat sang its song, which followed the vague plot of 'stuff 
happened, school was made, Founders were at odds, they made me, I sort 
people, Ravenclaw's smart, Slytherin's sneaky, Gryffindor's brave, and 
Hufflepuff's everything else, now come up and be freaked out by 
everybody staring at you!' I've never been a big fan of poetry or a 
capella singing, so I tuned most of it out (the parts I didn't tune out 
I re-imagined as sung by one of the great punk bands of the 70s).

TJ used the opportunity created by the song to sneak up to the head 
table to sit between his dad and my dad. There'd evidentially been some 
argument between the Headmistress and TJ's dad about where he was going 
to sit, but backed up by research done by my dad, he managed to 
convince the Headmistress to allow TJ to sit next to him at the head 
table.

The little boy running up to the table (that he was barely big enough 
to see over) didn't go unnoticed by the crowd, but their comments were 
drowned out by the drunk-sounding singing. Which brought up the age-old 
question, can semi-sentient hats get drunk? I resolved to ask, the 
first time I was sent to the Headmistress's office, which I was most 
definitely going to be within the first month – if not the first day, 
if anybody up there discovered the covert listening spell I'd casted on 
my 'little brother' before we left the train. (Sure, it wasn't exactly 
an easy casting, but I'd been raised in a school. That had to give me 
some advantage.)

Thanks to the spell, I heard TJ cheerily introduce himself as 'Teej' to 
the group of bemused adults, waving madly. He would've continued, but 
his dad chose that slight break in TJ's babbles to remind him that hey, 
weirdo hat done singing, now time for Sorting!

We were a pretty small batch, and probably mostly Muggleborn, since we 
were all born during the brief period of time after Voldemort was back 
and active, and before he was defeated. Most wizards and witches had 
felt that maybe bringing some kids into the world during the Dark 
Lord's reign of terror was a bad idea, and had held off. Just wait a 
couple years, though, and there'll be a huge boom in the number of 
first years.

Sorting is really, really boring, even when you and your brother and 
sister are making bets on what house each kid's gonna be put in. I was 
already dreading next year's sorting, although maybe I could take a nap 
then... I didn't know why they couldn't work things like they had at 
the Magid School of the Rockies, where kids were sent a short 
personality test after they accepted admission, so they were all 
“sorted” before they showed up for school. Probably wasn't dramatic 
enough.

Eventually, though, they got around to the end of the alphabet 
containing people I recognized. “Lloyd, Caleb!” was called, and to the 
shock of me and Anna (but not, noticeably, Jamie), he was sorted into 
Slytherin. Wow, Caleb really hadn't seemed like a Slytherin.

Right after Caleb, “Lupin, Sirius!” was called, and I'd never met the 
kid, but I knew some about him thanks to my cousin and her incessant 
gossip whenever we were together. His parents, an Auror and the current 
Head of Werewolf Affairs at the Ministry, were both members of the 
Order and had been generally glowered at by other members for daring to 
have a child in the middle of war, until Harry Potter had reminded 
everyone that his parents had him in the middle of a war, too. People 
were still generally disapproving, but they kept it to themselves.

He was shy and adorable-looking, the kind of kid that had always made 
me try and hug them and protect them from everything. I'm a little 
over-protective. But I'm pretty in-tune with my instincts, so it was no 
surprise to me when he got sorted into Hufflepuff.

A few more names went by, lulling me into a false sense of security and 
lethargy. (Except for Jamie's sorting, because I found out that his 
last name was Mudge, which is just plain hilarious. He was put into 
Hufflepuff.)Then, of course, came my name. “...Prewett, Ellory?” 
Professor Granger sounded kind of confused, and her look was repeated 
on the faces of the staff and most of the pureblood students who knew 
their history. The Prewett family was, after all, wiped out pretty well 
during the first Voldemort war. There'd been only one survivor in the 
family, and she'd been a Weasley for years and years.

And nobody in the UK knew that my dad had taken his mum's maiden name, 
except for his mum and two older brothers. And my cousins and aunt, I 
guess. What it all came down to was: nobody expected to hear the name 
Prewett again in wizarding circles.

I sauntered – yes, sauntered – up to the stool and favored the hat with 
a slightly disgusted look before whispering at Professor Granger, who 
was holding it. “There is some sort of cleaning charm on it, right? I 
don't wanna get lice.” Granger glowered at me, and I meekly (well, as 
meek as you can get while smirking) took a seat on the stool.

Ah, another Weasley! The Hat spoke to me.

I responded by imagining a rather graphic hand gesture. 'Prewett, 
thanks.'

Fiesty, aren't you, Miss Prewett The Hat responded, with as much of a 
verbal smirk as a hat's able to.

'Get on with it!' I mentally snapped.

You're obviously not afraid - I assumed he ignored my mental mutter of, 
'of inanimate objects? No', - and there's a good head on your 
shoulders. You're rather arrogant, however. Against, it ignored my 
mental, 'it's not arrogance if you're right'. Plan to be the youngest 
Minister ever, eh, just like your father? It better be...

“SLYTHERIN!”

I hopped down and took off the hat, smoothing my hair while 
surreptitiously searching for any lice as I sauntered – again, 
sauntered – down to the Slytherin table. The purebloods who knew their 
history, the same ones that had been shocked when my name was called, 
were similarly shocked by my placement. Prewetts weren't as Gryffindor 
as, say, Weasleys, but they were still fairly Gryffindor-aligned 
throughout the years. This added more evidence to 'The Mystery' – I was 
now pretty sure that mine and Martin's other parent was a Slytherin. It 
made sense.

I tuned into the part of my brain that was connected to the 
eavesdropping spell (originally a baby-monitoring spell, modified by a 
number of people at the Magid School for a variety of nefarious 
purposes), wanting to know what the people at the head table (okay, 
really, what my dad and uncle) thought.

“That's my girl,” I heard my dad say, in an odd tone. Irony, I figured 
out a second later, because he hadn't been a Slytherin. But he didn't 
seem to be upset. I shot a glance at him as I covered the last few 
feet, and he actually seemed... proud, or something. Huh. Cool.

I sat down, nodded regally at my new housemates, and kept one eye on 
the sorting, one eye on the head table, one ear on my housemates, and 
one ear at the head table. I also paused to thank whatever higher power 
and/or science made girls better at multitasking than guys, 'cause I 
think if I were a guy I'd have gone into meltdown, trying to pay 
attention to three things at once.

Thankfully, my housemates were pretty quiet, so I could focus on the 
other stuff. Especially thankfully 'cause my brother was up next. 
“Prewett, Martin.” Granger's voice was a little stronger on this, not 
so shocked. He was sorted into Ravenclaw faster than anybody could snap 
their fingers, a foregone conclusion to anybody who knew him and had 
paid attention to the cracked-out song, and I quickly tuned back into 
the head table.

“Also your girl,” my uncle snickered to my dad, resulting with a 
murderous look.

My dad seemed pretty ready to kill (and/or lecture to death), so TJ 
popped into the conversation. “We figured this would happen,” he said 
solemnly. “It's now inevitable that I shall become a Gryffindor.” Here, 
he gave the saddest look in the seven-year-old-who-looks-like-a-puppy 
arsenal, and folded his hands as if in mourning. Damn, but I loved that 
boy!

Confused conversation went on at the head table while a few more kids 
were sorted. It seemed that, despite the time they'd spent at the 
castle that morning, none of their fellow professors knew who my dad 
and uncle were (besides having figured out that Da's last name is 
Prewett, I mean). I was looking forward to their reactions once they 
figured it out. (From all I'd read and heard, Granger would figure it 
out pretty fast, but she was busy running the sorting and couldn't 
fully concentrate on the problem till later.)

“Smith, Anna!” God, such a boring name. Ellory Prewett, now that's got 
some class. Anna Smith could be the name of anybody. Which, of course, 
is just how Anna likes it. Her sorting was also foregone, because she 
was as Hufflepuff as any Huffle has ever Puffed. Plus some. She was 
happy to live in the land of the badgers (which made sense, since her 
spirit animal was a badger, like her brother's was a raccoon – Martin's 
a crow, and I'm an alligator, which amuses me.

“That's my girl,” my uncle said proudly, and even from the Slytherin 
table I could tell that he was preening. My uncle's obsessively 
Hufflepuff in a way that no one's ever really been, and as long as one 
of his kids was a Hufflepuff, he was gonna be happy.

My cousin finally went up, with only two others behind her, to the call 
of, “Weasley, Lisette!” She was, of course, a Gryffindor – although it 
took longer than I expected. Lisette was a complete gossip-monger and 
always trying to get me to play Quidditch with her, what else was she 
supposed to be?

And finally, sorting for the class of 2014 was done. I flung my arms 
into the air in a classic 'touchdown!' pose, but managed to refrain 
from hollering anything (I got enough stares for for the arm 
movements). This meant, of course, that it was time for speeches. I 
wondered if anybody'd notice if I started to bang my head on the table. 
Probably. Damn.

Thankfully, even if the food wasn't out, there was more than enough 
things on the table to amuse me until the Headmistress reached 
something interesting in her speech. I had just managed to balance my 
fork and knife against each other in the middle of my plate (the spoon 
was on my nose after Caleb showed me the trick to getting it to stay) 
when it seemed like she was winding down – which, of course, meant 
introducing the new professors! I didn't bother

“...and finally, I would like to introduce two new professors. First is 
Zacharias Smith, who will be taking over Potions for us – the seven 
year old you may see around the school is his son. And secondly, taking 
over History of Magic from Professor Binns, who has passed on,” Here 
she paused, I guess for the wild cheering that accompanied that 
statement, “Is Percy Prewett. His son Martin will be joining the fifth 
years. Now, enjoy the feast!” I noticed there wasn't any mention of me 
– or Anna – and I felt quite indignant on the behalf of both of us, 
since I knew that Anna wouldn't even think about being indignant.

With one ear (and my stomach), I paid attention to my table. The other 
ear was tuned into the vague spluttering noises coming from the head 
table.

“Percy? Someone actually had children with you?” I couldn't be a 
hundred-percent certain, but I was pretty sure I knew who said that. 
The other redhead at the table other than Da, probably one of my blood-
uncles that me and Martin refuse to acknowledge as such. Thankfully, 
there was no need for my to act un-Slytherin and storm up there to... 
do something to the guy, 'cause TJ was there.

“You leave Uncle Percy alone, or I'll-I'll- or I'll drop you in a den 
of tarantulas!” He'd obviously remembered some story or another from 
one of our parents, neither of whom was fond of the youngest Weasley 
boy. However, being the extremely attention deficient little boy that 
he was, TJ immediately began on another topic. “I knew a boy whose 
spirit animal was a spider. He figured out a way to grow the spider 
legs out of his back, and he could climb walls like that. He looked 
like a cartoon! My spirit animal's a raccoon, the Raccoons always found 
that funny. I was their mascot! It was fun! Criminals aren't so bad, 
really, although that one ars'nist was creepy.” I could only imagine 
the confusion of the adults who had no idea how Magid Schools were run. 
But eventually, TJ got back on track. “Anyway, Uncle Percy is great! So 
shut up!”

“Don't sound so shocked, Ronald,” my dad said mildly. “I mean, someone 
married you. Obviously there are a number of people lacking in 
judgment.” A pause. “No offense, Hermione.”

There was the automatic-sounding response of, “None taken,” before an 
interesting silence fell over the table.

I was kinda looking forward to my 'uncle' actually exploding up in 
front of all the students. That would definitely live on in Hogwarts 
legend. Sadly, though, Harry Potter – savior of wizardkind and 
detested, for apparently no reason, by my Uncle Zach – jumped into the 
family spat. “Percy, you just disappeared, in the middle of a war! 
Didn't you think about what that would do to your family?”

That, I knew, was the exact wrong thing to say to my dad. “Oh yes, my 
family,” he said scathingly. “This would be the same family whose first 
reaction to finding out that I'm alive is 'ew, you procreated'? The 
same family that decided the only way I could possibly be promoted was 
because they wanted to spy on everyone else? The same family that 
thought I was too stupid to realize that and play them against 
themselves? The same family-” He could've continued a lot longer, as I 
knew from numerous overheard discussions between him and Granma, but 
Uncle Zacharias rested a hand on Da's shoulder, knocking him out of his 
tirade. He took a deep, even breath before continuing. “Be serious, 
Harry. I bet that my dad and younger siblings cared, or even noticed 
until it was pointed out to them. And Mum, Bill, and Charlie knew I was 
alive. I've owled them nearly every week since I left for America.”

Even from down here, I could tell that Ron was gaping. Truthfully, 
Harry Potter wasn't much better. Granger, however, just spoke up with a 
calculating tone. “Is Martin adopted?”

“No, he isn't.” My dad sounded rather proud of her. He'd always spoken 
of Granger in tones that were a mix of admiring and despairing, a bit 
like how he reacts to me.

“So... he was born in '92?”

“Why else do you think I was so distracted I didn't notice Ginny's 
problems that year? I know you think I'm self-centered, but I always 
looked after Ginny.” The past tense was noticeable, but only to those 
of us who noticed stuff about him.

“Wait, but-” That would be Harry Potter again.

“Yes, Martin was born when I was sixteen. Ellory was born right before 
I left for America. No, I'm not going to tell you anymore, because I 
don't particularly like any of you.” I just barely managed to not 
applaud my dad. There was something to be said for Gryffindor 
forthrighteousness, after all!

Obviously deciding that Da was a dead end, they turned the 
interrogation to my uncle. Heh, interrogation. “Art thou a witch, viva 
espana?” I muttered to myself with an inane grin. Caleb, to one side of 
me, and some girl, to the other side of me, both shot me weird looks 
and did their level best to scoot away from me on the bench. Slytherins 
appeared to be a generally quiet lot while stuffing their mouths. That 
could potentially be boring on days when I wasn't eavesdropping 
shamelessly, but for now, it was good.

“Smith,” Potter called down the table. “What about you? Everyone 
thought you were dead.”

“That's what I meant it to look like. Voldemort got a bug up his ass 
about eliminating all the other Founders lines – completely missing the 
fact that Slytherin was the only line that didn't branch out a hundred 
times over the years – so the only way to stay safe was for everyone to 
think we were dead.” Uncle Zacharias said it in the same rote way he 
always had, whenever anybody asked why he and Anna had left the UK.

“So where did you go?”

“America. We eventually wound up at MSR.”

“...where?”

“Magid School of the Rockies. Approximate student population of 500 
five-day boarders and 600 full-time boarders, with about 70 day 
students from in and around the Denver-Metro area. The Magid School of 
the Rockies offers a full traditional magical education for 
nontraditional students, including, but not limited to, Muggleborns, 
Squibs, werewolves, vampires, and cross-breeds.”

If anybody thought that it sounded like a brochure, it's 'cause it was. 
Somewhere along the line, the Dean of Admissions had decided that Uncle 
Zach was charming, and had him give tours to prospective students and 
their parents.

Potter's reaction was rather hilarious. “...oh.” It took a second, but 
he eventually regained his equilibrium enough to ask the question I had 
been dreading since the start of the inquisition.“What about TJ? I know 
that Anna's your cousin's daughter.”

Again, I didn't actually have to be able to see the head table to know 
what was going on up there. My uncle's face would have completely shut-
down, and Da would be doing his best to distract TJ with anything, up 
to and including talking about X-Men.

Thankfully, it seemed that Potter took the hint, and he hurriedly 
struck up a conversation about Quidditch, allowing the stressful and 
painful topics to be buried for a while. This, of course, meant that it 
was going to be real boring, so I turned my attention off the 
eavesdropping link and put it all on my housemates. Who were still 
being real quiet. I allowed my eyes to wander over them for a moment, 
taking in the noise of other tables and even the light noise going on 
at our table, further up, and came to a decision. “Y'all are boring.”

The girl across from me seemed very much affronted by my behavior. “We 
cannot all be American peasantry. Some of us were raised with manners, 
which include not ruining dinner with idle chatter.” This great speech 
finished, she flipped some hair over her shoulder and gave me another 
disapproving look.

My initial reaction was to start a food fight, but if I was gonna be a 
Slytherin, I'd hafta start being more subtle. This could be hard. At 
least, that's what I thought, until I saw her making the peculiar hand 
gesture that seemed to be the same in England as in America, the one 
that the purity-obsessed purebloods would do to ward off those of dirty 
blood. I smirked at her. “Hate ta break it ta ya, sweetheart, but I'm 
as pureblooded as you are – maybe even moreso. So you can keep your 
'filth, begone' to yourself.” I then stuck my middle finger out at her, 
a line from some TV show or another running through my head ('Oooh, 
remind me, middle finger straight up means number one in customer 
satisfaction?').

I heard a gasp, and a “I never!”, but I'd decided to ignore Little Miss 
Snooty over there (not the least because I wasn't terribly sure about 
my own blood purity; Da was a pureblood, of course, and from the 
timing, he'd have to have been with another Hogwarts student, but they 
could've been Muggleborn, which would make me half. Which I normally 
wasn't upset in the least about, but would definitely be a disadvantage 
in an argument strictly about blood purity). This was gonna be pretty 
hard, though since it looked like besides me and her, there was one 
other girl in our year and house. Damn it, why couldn't I have been 
born a gay guy?

The boy sitting to the left of her smiled charmingly at me. “Why, we 
were so boring simply because we were waiting for your charming self to 
join the conversation, my dear!” He flashed what he probably thought 
was a winning smile at me, but I was highly unimpressed. Current list: 
one decent, two that I'll try to avoid. What about the others? On the 
other side of Caleb was a dark and creepy looking boy whose eyes seemed 
to just absorb everything; he was real freaky. The girl next to me, on 
the other hand, seemed to have a newspaper tucked under her plate and 
was scribbling away on a notepad, all while eating and paying attention 
to the conversation.

Which left – one person. Just one. Who had his plate on top of his head 
and appeared to be reenacting a battle scene with two pieces of bread. 
Great. I got stuck with the crazies. And Caleb. I wasn't sure which was 
worse.