Chapter 20:

The Last Paw Print

Madam Pomfrey kept Teddy in the hospital wing for three days, mainly to keep an eye on his lungs, which she worried might still be injured. Though they remained sore, there was no more blood, and his breathing became easier by the day. Frankie and Tinny, who'd been lower to the ground and taken less smoke, were released on the first day, though Tinny's knee was still splinted, and she had to walk with a cane for a week. Ruthless brought Checkmate down the first morning, saying she was crying so loudly for Teddy that no Gryffindor could sleep or study. Teddy wasn't entirely sure this was true, but when Checkmate climbed into his hospital bed and crawled up onto his pillow, she was purring madly, and fell asleep with her wet nose pushed up behind his earlobe.

Uncle Harry went home at night, but took time from work to come to Hogwarts during the days and sit with Teddy, as he'd promised. A few curious students craned their necks in, and he nodded to them politely, but didn't let them engage him in conversation. Granny was also there, and for a little while, it seemed like the ancient, half-forgotten days when Uncle Harry had lived with them, and he and Granny would banter comfortably while Teddy leaned over the edge of his high chair and tried to feed his vegetables to the cats. Teddy sometimes wished that Granny would move in with Uncle Harry, but he didn't fancy giving up her house-and his own nursery, with the decorations Dad had made with such care-and he supposed it wouldn't make much sense to have the house if no one was living in it.

On the day Madam Pomfrey released him, they fussed over him for a few more minutes, then Granny took a deep breath and said, "Uncle Harry and I have to get back to work, and so do you. You have end-of-year exams coming up."

Uncle Harry drew a little leather-bound book from under his robes. "This is from Hermione. She thought you might have got behind and would need it." He smiled ruefully.

Teddy took the book. It was a planner, and when he opened it, Hermione's voice reminded him that things sooner begun were sooner done. She'd blocked out his best subjects and put in a first year study guide. On the inside of the front cover, she'd written, It will be easier to keep to this schedule if you stay out of the hospital wing... not to mention easier on Uncle Harry.

"Ron and I never followed ours," Uncle Harry said. "And we managed to pass most of our classes, Divination aside."

Teddy laughed.

Madam Pomfrey gave his lungs one more check, then gave him a potion that he was meant to pour onto his pillow and breathe in while he slept for the next few days and a strict instruction to come back if he saw so much as a speck of blood when he coughed. Teddy thought this an eminently reasonable notion, though he didn't think it would happen.

At dinner, he discovered that Headmistress Sprout had given Gryffindor twenty points on Teddy's behalf for trying to rescue Frankie (Frankie thought this was stingy, for trying to save someone's life), and Honoria had earned ten for Slytherin by going to get the professors. This seemed to have got her back in the good graces of her House, and during dinner, when Teddy wandered over to sit with Maurice and Corky for a bit, she sat down opposite them, and told the story of her great escape from the burning Forest.

"That Red Cap followed me," she said. "I cursed it, but it kept coming, so I had to run quite fast to get to Hagrid's. At first, they wouldn't listen to me, but when I said you sent me, Harry Potter was out the door before I finished talking."

"Right," Corky said, "because if she'd just said that Tinny and Frankie were trapped out there in the middle of the fire, they'd have had tea instead."

Teddy was glad that Honoria wasn't on the Charmer anymore, as he could just imagine the article she might write on that theme. "Well," he said, "thank you for going."

She bristled. "Of course I went. Slytherins can be useful." She turned up her nose and left.

"What was that about?" Teddy asked.

"Well, clearly your 'thank you' was sarcastic and an insult to the House," Maurice said. "We shall have to avenge ourselves on you for it." He gave a bewildered shrug. "Girls."

Donzo sidled over with his plate and sat on Teddy's other side, and Tinny and Roger spotted them and joined them. Tinny waved toward the Hufflepuff table with her cane (which she'd decorated with bright yellow paper, striped with black), and a moment later, Frankie and Zachary came over as well, causing several older Slytherins to roll their eyes in disgust.

"Bilingual?" Maurice said to Corky.

"Just so," Corky said.

They each flashed both versions of a rude gesture down the table, and lost two points each, as Slughorn happened to be passing by.

The next day, Frankie was summoned to Professor Sprout's office to take a Floo call from his mother, and was waiting for Teddy after Defense Against the Dark Arts to tell him that Sanjiv MacPherson had slipped away quietly. The adults were having only a tiny service on Saturday, and Frankie wanted to have one in the Hufflepuff Common Room as well. Teddy went to it, and was surprised to find that the entire House turned out for it, even though Sanjiv hadn't been there for nearly twenty years, and none of them knew him. Frankie did a eulogy, and wrote it up for the Charmer under the title, "The Last Casualty." It turned out that he wrote well-calmly and reasonably-and the last lingering jokes about him died away, at least for a little while. (The Gryffindor third year boys tried to make weeping sounds at him, but someone hexed them so that they started actually crying, in high baby voices, and couldn't stop until Madam Pomfrey reversed it. No one seemed to be able to identify who'd cast the hex, even though at least ten people, including Teddy, saw Ruthless draw her wand.)

Teddy studied, actually following Hermione's instructions, which made good sense, caught up on the homework he'd missed, and started looking through the second year textbooks in the library. Each night when he finished, he took out the Marauder's Map. He didn't do this with the desperate craving for company that he'd had earlier. It was more a sense of something that had been left undone. He remembered the dream of being inside it, of being close to James and Sirius and his mum, and he thought he had a job to do.

He began by finding the things James Potter had lost around the school-other than the Quidditch betting book that had been upstairs, he found a spare pair of specs that had fallen behind a book shelf (one lens was cracked in a spider web pattern that left it milky; the other was just covered with thirty years of dust), a homework assignment under another marked Marauder stone that someone had hidden from him (Teddy suspected Dad, from the drawing of a laughing boy that had been left pinned to it), and a dusty collection of Chocolate Frog cards that had been left under Hagrid's front step and forgotten for some reason. There was also a paw print from Padfoot there, and Teddy found a rotting lead for a dog. Dad's ring showed him a memory of a puppy they'd found in their third year, which Sirius had named Fizzing Whizbee, and Hagrid had kept for them. Sirius had also left a book in the Transfiguration classroom, along with the spare book collection, with many scribbled notes. Teddy had looked at these eagerly, hoping they would reveal tricks like the Potions book Uncle Harry had found in his sixth year, but mostly, Sirius seemed to have amused himself by amending the spells so they would Transfigure objects into embarrassing sorts of things. He had to use the Keys to the Castle to find Peter Pettigrew's spell-which turned out to be fake Latin, anyway, so he wouldn't have guessed it: Revelo Pettigresis. Teddy found many food stashes inside the walls, all of them long-turned to greasy dust-Peter's Animagus form would have allowed him access, and he seemed to have used it. Teddy thought quite a few of them may have been hidden not while Peter was a student, but while he was masquerading as first Percy's, then Ron's pet rat. One or two of these sites also had magazines, probably nicked from older boys' dormitories, that were dated in those years. The girls in them all wore odd make-up, big hair, and not much else.

There was nothing left in their old room, other than what he'd already found. Five generations of students must have found anything that wasn't as carefully hidden as the baseboard cubbyhole. He looked into the ring, and thought he might be getting some control over where it took him-though he didn't know how-as he saw them leaving the room the last day of their seventh year. They'd overslept because they'd spent the night up drinking Firewhiskey, and had gathered things up in a rush before they missed breakfast and the carriages down to the trains. Dad had bent down to the cubbyhole and opened it, reaching around frantically and drawing out handfuls that he could reach.

"I can't find the Keys to the map!" he said, distraught.

"Well, Moony," James said, "as we haven't had the Map for quite a long time and are leaving the place it covers, it's possible we can live without the Keys."

Dad hadn't been happy about this and had glanced down in the direction where the Keys had actually lain, but his view was obstructed by the box of pictures. "D'you want these?" he asked Sirius.

Sirius-who must have run away by then, Teddy realized-said, "I wouldn't have shoved them in the wall if I wanted them."

Dad didn't believe him, but also didn't fish out the box, as he knew Sirius would just tell him to put it back. So there it had stayed for thirty years, waiting for Teddy to bring it back into the world.

All of the things he found (except for Peter's rotted food), he put into a cardboard box. Over the summer, he thought he'd buy something sturdier, like the basket where Granny kept his parents' things. He didn't know what he intended to do with them.

At last, there was only one paw print left, one of Dad's, in the private quarters off the Defense Against the Dark Arts office. He didn't want to break into Robards's private place, not after Robards had been so nice to him all year, and he couldn't think why it seemed so important to find every last piece of the Marauders-however silly or rubbishy-and gather it together to take away with him, but the problem of the last paw print occupied him increasingly during the two weeks of exams. He haunted the corridor outside the office, walking back and forth between it and Professor Longbottom's office (Professor Longbottom looked at him quizzically, but didn't ask any questions), trying to think of some way to ask if he might go inside and have a look around.

The day after Teddy took his last exam, he finally just knocked on Robards's door, hoping that something would come to him. Robards was sitting at his desk, going through a stack of papers. There was a letter on his desk, addressed to him in Uncle Harry's handwriting, but he swept it into his drawer when he saw Teddy looking, and Teddy guessed it was Auror business.

"I'm glad you came to see me, Teddy," he said. "I've been thinking-I have something you might like. A picture of your mum and dad that we took that last Christmas. You're in it as well, of course, in your own sort of way. I have it in the back, if you'd like to see it."

He stood and opened the door to the private quarters, which consisted of one tiny room with a large bed, a dresser, a night table, and a little set of drawers that was actually set into the wall to save space. Teddy hung back at the door while Robards went to the drawers and opened the top one. He frowned. "Oh, dear," he said. "I'm afraid it's fallen behind here. This silly thing; I don't know why I use it. I'd wager things have been dropping out of this drawer and into the wall since Godric Gryffindor had this room, and it's a right pain to get anything out. It's probably a Defense Against the Dark Arts professor museum back there." He smiled faintly, Teddy thought about the letter from Uncle Harry that he'd hidden so quickly, wondering if it might have had nothing to do with Auror business after all. "I don't suppose you'd like to give me a hand?"

Teddy took a few tentative steps into the room, thinking that he ought to mark entering a new place that his dad had been in some creative way, but he couldn't think of anything. It was a rather anonymous room, owned by too many people over the years to really carry the mark of any of them. It definitely seemed more like Robards's room.

Robards smiled encouragingly, and crouched down beside the little chest of drawers. It was about the height of a night table, and had three narrow drawers above a little swinging door. The door popped open, and Teddy saw a pipe holder-three old and beaten pipes hung from it-and a bag of tobacco that filled the room with a soft, sweet smell. Robards closed it and pulled out the top drawer. It was filled with letters, all the way to the edge. Most of them had return addresses on them with various initials before the name "Robards." Teddy thought they might be his children, though there were no pictures in the room suggesting that he had any.

"I put it in with this mess," he said. "I don't know what I was thinking." He tried to stick his arm behind it but it didn't fit. He pulled out the second drawer, then drew his wand. "Lumos." He peered over the edge. "I can't really see it, but there's quite a pile of junk back there. Shall we have a look?"

Teddy nodded, craning his neck to see into the shadowy recess in the wall. The chest was integrated into the wall; there would be no way to pull it out. "Could you Summon it?" he asked.

"An excellent idea," Robards said, and pointed his wand at the space behind the chest, and apparently cast the spell non-verbally. There was a rushing sound, and a prodigious stream of rubbish flew out of the space where the top drawers had been, landing at Teddy's feet with a soft patter. There were a lot of bits of paper, many envelopes, a brightly colored tie-dyed scarf (which settled over everything), a sprinkling of little black hair bows that scattered like flies, a silver-handled hairbrush, a rotting pinkish-red brochure that said "Clothing Book, 1942-1943" on it, a tube of some kind of hair potion, a brooch that must have been there for a hundred years at least.

"That's the Black family crest!" Teddy said, looking at it.

Robards picked it up casually. "Hmm. So it is. Hmm. Phineas Nigellus's mother had this post until she got married. I wonder if it was hers." He tossed it to Teddy and said, "Your grandmother might like to have a look at that."

Teddy pocketed it, then, his hand shaking, moved aside the scarf. It revealed generations of jotted notes that read like coded messages as they lay side by side, interrupting each other, unmindful of their separation in time: See Malfoy abou/receipt of one grindyl/Evans has/ssed assignment/nect to Muggle war?/e punished/nothing to be do/Weasl... Teddy moved them aimlessly, revealing some words, hiding others, hoping that the paw print wasn't just the grindylow receipt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Robards slip a photograph off to one side and go on digging.

Teddy looked for Dad's handwriting, pawing through the papers. There was a great spill of them near Robards's knee, which seemed to be the history of the Moody family, with pictures and names.

Barty Crouch, Jr., had tried to masquerade as Mad-Eye the year after Dad had been there. Teddy picked up that stack of papers. From the bottom of it, an envelope fell out with a thud.

It wasn't in Dad's handwriting, and it wasn't the dull yellowish-beige of the other items. It was fading pink, and the address-Remus Lupin-was written in bright purple ink. The handwriting was unexpectedly even and straight, but still somehow exuberant.

"What do you have?" Robards asked quietly.

"A letter from Mum to Dad," Teddy said. "He must have put it in the drawer and forgotten about it."

"Or just not realized where it had got to," Robards offered.

Teddy nodded, liking that idea better, the idea that of course Dad would have wanted to keep a letter from Mum, even though it was two years before they started going together, but simply couldn't find it. The envelope had been torn neatly at the top edge, and Teddy opened it. There was a stack of photographs inside, showing Granny's house, decorated for Christmas. On the top was a picture of Mum, Dad, and Granddad, all raising glasses of eggnog. Mum looked impossibly young, her hair the brightest pink. Her arms were flung around the necks of both men. She was laughing. Dad looked very tired and bruised, but he was smiling and had his arm easily around Mum's waist. Granddad was waving a piece of mistletoe toward the camera, where Teddy supposed Granny was. They all waved happily to him-the men who'd given him his name, the woman who'd given him his shapeshifting power. He put the pictures back into the envelope, and drew out the letter, careful not to pull too hard, to avoid ripping it. It was dated in May of 1994.

Dear Remus, I found this stationery and ink in my old school trunk when I went home this weekend, and Dad reckoned it might amuse you, though I'm guessing it will also amuse a few of your students, if the owl gets there during a meal. Whoever is writing to respectable Professor Lupin on pink paper? It will give the girls days of speculation, so I feel I've done my duty in entertaining the Hogwarts student body.

I finally found an hour to develop the Christmas pictures. I'm so glad you came, even though it was so close to the full moon. Hope we didn't tire you out too badly! It was good to see you.

Unfortunately, it still doesn't look like I'll be able to come up to Hogwarts to see you and talk to your classes, like we talked about. Mad-Eye's got me practicing Stealth moves day and night, and Scrimgeour has us running about like Puffskeins on Pick-Me-Up Potion. I asked for a few days off, and he practically exploded all over me, which would have been quite a mess. I was reminded very sternly where my duty is.

Duty! I'm not sure what to make of this Auror business sometimes. I really wanted to see you teach. I know you're happy to be there, and I do like being around you when you're not moping. I miss being able to see you-in any sort of mood-at a moment's notice, just because I happen to feel like it. I was up in Hogsmeade visiting Sanjiv at his new flat last week, and I thought I'd just try to call by Floo or ring at the gates, but it turned out a bit like trying to infiltrate the Palace, it's so locked down. I'd have tried one of the secret passages, but it would look horrible for me to have been caught. All this business of Hogwarts being closed off to everyone-except, apparently, Sirius-and having to make appointments and present reasons for being there... honestly, I think it's easier to get out of Azkaban than back into Hogwarts these days. I'm really looking forward to the walls being a little more porous. That's a good reason to do my job. It's one thing for Hogwarts to be safe; it's something else entirely when they turn it into a bloody fortress-with Dementors no less. And just when I want to be there most.

I'm visiting in spirit right now, even though I'm sitting at my desk trying to catch my breath between tests. You could give your O.W.L. students a free period and tell them that they're being lectured in spirit by an invisible Auror trainee, who is undoubtedly imparting great wisdom to them. And you could use the time to write back to me. It's quite easy, really, and I'm sure someone will be willing to lend you a quill if you've lost yours.

Well, I knew this couldn't last. Mad-Eye and Scrimgeour are back, and already bellowing for me, so I'd best sign off and go do all the things that I'm meant to be doing rather than wishing I could be there, but I do wish I were there. Or that you were here, though I imagine you're a good deal happier where you are.

Goodbye for now! The next time I see you, I shall probably be an Auror, and will have to be dreadfully serious, I'm sure. My spirit-lecturing will become even wiser next year.

Oh, I actually have to go; Mad-Eye's calling from somewhere. I'll see you as soon as I can.

Your very own, Dora

Teddy read it again, then took out the pictures and went through them, one at a time. There was Mum standing under mistletoe, glancing mischievously out of frame. There was Dad, surrounded by discarded wrapping paper. In the picture, he'd balled up a wad of it and was playing with Granny the cat while Teddy's actual Granny sat a few feet away, laughing easily. Granddad playing a guitar while Mum sang, Granny and Dad pulling a cracker that exploded into a quacking duck, Dad asleep on an easy chair with four cats draped over him.

"You can keep that, you know," Robards said. "I think that's yours."

"Thanks."

"I really did have a picture here." Robards reached behind himself. "My friend Rachel-she's the one they're talking to-sent it to me to give to you, if you wanted it." He handed the picture to Teddy.

Teddy took it. It was another Christmas party, this one considerably larger, in a place he'd never seen before. Mum and Dad were sitting at a table in what seemed to be the woods-though the woods had been decorated extensively-across from a pretty woman with curly black hair. There were several children around, having a chaotic sort of party that kept flitting across the frame, and in the background, Teddy could see other adults dancing in circle. Mum was leaning back against Dad, who was holding her lightly and easily, and his face seemed very calm and happy. Mum's stomach pressed out against her robes, and she kept rubbing it. Dad kissed her head.

Teddy slipped it into the pink envelope with the others. "Thank you," he said. "Should I write to your friend to say thank you? I don't know her last name."

"I'll pass it along," Robards said. "Do you have what you need?"

Teddy nodded. He said goodbye to Robards and went back to Gryffindor Tower to slide the envelope into the box with the other lost things, then took out the Marauder's Map.

He used Dad's wand to open it, then switched to his own, pointed to the Wolf, and said, "Revelo Lupinus." Nothing appeared. He pointed to the stag. "Revelo Figularis." Nothing. The dog-Revelo Nigellus-and the rat-Revelo Pettigresis-had no circuits left to make between their compass points and their lost items. They remained in their places, fidgeting a bit, but not rushing about. Padfoot wagged his tail and lay down; Moony stretched luxuriously.

Teddy looked at the Map, empty of its paw prints and hoof marks. He touched each of the totems, not with his wand, but with his finger, tracing the inky lines, then picked up his wand again and said, "Mischief Managed."

The Great Hall was draped with green and silver hangings for the Leaving Feast, as Slytherin had managed to get into the fewest scrapes during the year. Teddy decided that next year, he'd do what he could to get a Gryffindor win; he didn't think the colors really suited the Hall. That aside, it was a fine and warm feast, and the castle elves again appeared to take their bows at Headmistress Sprout's bidding. Andrew Stephens, after cleaning his plate for a third time, lamented the fact that he couldn't marry Winky, as he thought her treacle tart well worth any stigma they'd have to face.

After the feast, Teddy went back to his dormitory to pack. Above and below him, he could hear the boys in the other dormitories making a great fuss over the task, yelling about what belonged to whom and how it had ended up wherever it had, but as Checkmate wasn't really prone to stealing Teddy's things, his own packing didn't really take long. The last things he put into his trunk were the pictures James had drawn for him, and he intended to put them up first next year.

He took one last look into Dad's ring-he wouldn't be able to use its Charm until September-and got a fun, happy memory of a tromp Dad had taken in the mountains with his own father, both of them with packs on their backs, the sun shining cheerfully above. It was the summer before Dad had gone to Hogwarts, and Teddy, inside his head, felt loved and cherished, and a bit awed at how much had been done for him.

There was no time in the morning to get maudlin about leaving, as everyone was rushing about, getting their trunks lined up to make it easier for the elves to get everything to the train. Teddy had to pull Checkmate out from under his bed to cast a Sleep Charm on her, and she fought for every inch of territory. He came out of it with his hands badly scratched. He thought that if humans invaded the world of cats, Checkmate would be a pretty good soldier in the defense.

Breakfast was also hurried, and no one worried too much about Houses, just bustling around, saying goodbye to school-year friends and gathering addresses. Frankie gathered up the Guard, and they walked down to the thestral-drawn carriages together, commandeering three of them to get to Hogsmeade Station. (Corky again-and to his even greater disappointment-had to take a Portkey home from the Three Broomsticks.) They found a compartment near the front of the train-"First at the sweets cart!" Roger enthused-and promptly set up a Muggles and Minions game, apparently now a tradition. Frankie and Tinny had worked out the story together, and it involved pretending that they were on a Muggle train that was taken over by warring organized crime families. Teddy decided that his strategy was to try and get to his plane, which was lashed to the top of the moving train, and fly it for help, or possibly ammunition (Frankie wouldn't tell him what he'd be able to find). Frankie seemed much happier than he'd been lately, but Teddy thought he was different than he'd been at the start of the year.

Donzo-whose character spent the game karate-chopping his way through squads of goons-had pulled out his guitar and started practicing for a tour he was meant to go on with the Weird Sisters this summer. He was trying to write a song about the game, and kept asking for rhymes. By the time the train slowed on its way into King's Cross, he'd done four verses, which they were all singing between rounds and food-runs. Teddy thought it a fine song, though he doubted anyone would let him sing it in public, especially with the sign language they'd invented to go along with it.

Teddy looked out the window just as the train pulled in, before the steam obscured everything. Families were lined up behind a barrier, waiting with their necks craned, trying to see their children through the windows. He caught a glimpse of Uncle Harry's family and Granny and waved, but they didn't see him.

"All right," Frankie said when the train came to a stop, "let's stay together."

They all cleaned up their game and Donzo put his guitar over his back by its strap (emblazoned with his name in blue and bronze, with a little eagle that flew up and down it). They hauled their trunks down the corridor, joining the caravan of students and possessions as it thudded along to its own beat, finally reaching a door and climbing down, one at a time, into the steam.

"Frankie!" someone yelled, and Carny came barreling through the steam, smiling around missing teeth. She was jumping around eagerly. "Guess something!"

"What?"

"Guess!"

"I've no idea, Carn."

"I'm not going to be the baby anymore!"

Frankie's eyes went wide, and he looked a bit green at this.

Maddie came through next, smiling. "She couldn't wait, could she?" She smiled and looked at the Guard. "Well, most of us are over by the barrier. We thought it would be easier to find us if we were all together."

She waved her wand to Summon trolleys for their carts, and they rolled over obediently. By the time Teddy had organized his things, Granny and Uncle Harry had arrived to help. James was with them, gawking at the big boys. He offered to carry Checkmate's basket. He felt that, as the owner of Checkmate's brother, he ought to be her godowner, and would take awfully good care of her.

"Well," Teddy said, "you've had good lessons in godownership. Go ahead."

James took the basket and walked back toward Aunt Ginny with exaggerated care.

"We all got talking to the Gudgeons while we were waiting," Granny said. "Susannah's opened a restaurant in Diagon Alley. We thought perhaps we'd all go there for a bit tonight and celebrate having the lot of you home."

They all nearly bumped into Honoria and her parents, who were with a blond woman in green robes. Maurice gave Honoria a warning glare, and Honoria nodded. Mr. Higgs nodded to Uncle Harry. "Ah, Potter," he said. "Didn't you once have to swallow a Snitch to beat me to it?"

Uncle Harry gave him a strange little smile, then said, "Well, it won the game in the end, didn't it?" He nodded politely, and moved on.

They joined the parents of the Muggle-borns, who were doing their best to disguise the barrier, just outside. If the seven Muggle taxi drivers who picked them up thought it odd that they were all going to the same unremarkable spot on Charing Cross Road, they didn't mention it. The pub was crowded and Tom the bartender was hopping around too much to take hellos from nearly thirty people. A few patrons did a double take at a group that included Harry and Ginny Potter, Andromeda (Black) Tonks, and Kirley McCormack Duke, but they didn't stop for gawking as Susannah and Dave Gudgeon led them all through the archway, past the apothecary and Quality Quidditch Supplies, past the building that had been a theater in December and a yarn shop in August, which was currently called "A World Of Charms" and selling what looked like foreign magic supplies. Teddy thought he'd like to have a look around that one before it closed. The restaurant was just past a store that sold magical instruments, on the edge of Fortescue Park, and had a large patio that extended into the park itself.

"We've put in a Floo point on the outside," Susannah Gudgeon said, pointing to a free-standing fireplace. "For people who want to come to the park. I talked the Ministry into safety-bounding it, so that you can let the children come without worrying about them slipping away." She looked sternly in Tinny's direction.

The restaurant was officially closed, and the Gudgeons meant to feed everyone for free as guests, but Granny argued them down to at least letting everyone pay the cost of the food, as they'd need to replace it for paying customers the next day. They all ate outside-simple, good food for the summer, a picnic. George and Sophie Weasley, with little Fred bundled up, came over when the joke shop closed, bearing their own food. Victoire had apparently decided that today would be a good day to visit her uncle, and was tagging along behind them. Ruthless, forgetting that she loathed Quidditch, accosted George to see if she could get tips on being a good Beater from him, as one of the Gryffindor Beaters had decided he was resigning to work on his N.E.W.T.s. "No!" Teddy whispered loudly. "Don't give her a bat!"

She punched him in the arm.

After they'd finished eating, the adults remained on the patio, sipping drinks and getting to know one another, and the children went to the base of the statue of Florean Fortescue, stretching out on the cool grass as the evening settled quietly around them. They picked up the game from the train, letting Victoire join as a film star Teddy had rescued in his plane, though they didn't bother making up a whole character for her. James and Al didn't understand the rules at all, but happily went around to roll dice for everyone who would let them. They were quite taken with the idea of karate when Donzo explained it to them, and were happily kicking at passing mosquitoes (punctuated with cries of "Ya! Ya!") as the last rays of sun left the sky.

"So," Tinny said, "as long as we've got a Floo point, we can keep playing over the summer." She smiled at Victoire. "You can come, too, and we'll make you a proper character. Can you all use the Floo?"

"I can't," Roger said. "Muggle-born."

"Yes, but you live in London," Teddy said. "You can just take a bus to the Leaky Cauldron and find someone to let you in."

Roger smiled. "I could, couldn't I? And you all should come to a planetarium with me. It's much more fun than Astronomy classes."

"Someone has to come to my rehearsals," Donzo said. "Maurice can tell you how boring they are."

Maurice shrugged. "I thought it was interesting."

Ruthless lay back and looked up at the sky. "I think we should all learn real karate this summer."

"So you can hit people harder?" Frankie said. "I don't think so."

Bernice proposed learning to get around on the Tube, Zachary wanted to go to the library, and Teddy suggested going for a hike in the mountains. The night grew soft around them, stars appearing in the city's summer haze, so different from the sharp points they were in the north. Teddy watched James and Al jumping at invisible bugs, and happily contemplated what, out of a million possibilities, they would all be doing tomorrow.

THE END