A/N: More random related Shifting Tide Universe stuff. I'm still doing requests and polishing up a nice B/H epilogue. I don't have a hard take down date just yet, so it's getting to stay up longer than expected!

An abbreviated booklist from Quibbler Publishing, * indicate muggle publication as well

Pomegranate Seeds* (G. Weasley)

Dear Diary. Two words, a simple greeting, was all it took to turn her life and those of everyone around her into a nightmare where friends weren't what they seemed and good intentions paved a road never meant to be walked.

Persephone* (G. Robinson, R. Robinson, T. Riddle)

The gates of Hell have reopened, the diary is back and the stakes are so much higher. Sunlit love, dark obsession and the sickening realization that this twisted triangle might be the only thing keeping two sides of a war in balance. What do you do when you might be the only bridge between two sides, the only chance to stop him from destroying the world?

Date like a Dragon (C. Weasley, D. McLaggen, R. Robinson) When it gets down to it, women are women and there's definite balance to finding your mate. How to catch her eye, impress her, fend off your competition and dodge the fire she's going to throw at you.

Excerpt:

In dragon mating, the males often begin the wooing process by bringing their potential queen food, as this will be a vital duty when she is nesting. We work the same way, initial wooing often occurs over shared meals, progressively larger and more intimate ones. The experts debate methodologies:

Weasley: Coffee, definitely start small, make sure she likes sugar and will share her pastry with you. This is key to future relationship happiness, if you like to share and she doesn't, conflict ahead.

McLaggen: After you've had a drink together, skip the coffee and take her to dinner, somewhere normal because girls have lots of weird eating rules. Be wary of these rules, they will make you abide by them sooner or later.

Robinson: When I lived on the Reserve it was straight for dinner, get away from canteen food. I'd known my little queen for a long time so we skipped all the awkward nervous laughter part over Italian, but she loved when I cooked for her. Plus, you see how they'll do in your territory, if they'll want to help, want to boss how you're doing it, snoop about, offer to help clean up. Those can be encouraging signs or red flags.

Weasley: Oh yeah, the cooking thing! At least be able to properly boil pasta and lay a cheese plate, pop champagne and if you're at a starting point reference our dragon approved to impress recipes at the back. If you can't cook, just you know, buy dessert and put flowers on your table.

McLaggen: Robinson and my recipes, Charlie, who is a disaster in the kitchen, was our tester and got deemed successful. The process was replicated on other culinarily challenged dragon tamers until perfected.

(Editor's note: Weasley claims slander against his cooking ability, the editors begrudgingly agreed he can make toasted cheeses and his queen claims to enjoy his cherry tart.)"

Court like a Dragon (R. Hagrid, R. Robinson, dedicated to Oliver Wood and Roger Davies)

You were crazy enough to do it. Now how do you survive it? From rule making to rule breaking, handling countersuits, group sessions and single combat. Getting her to say yes was the easy part.

Excerpt:

It's vital to remember you're not just courting her, but her family as well, they're trusting you with their daughter and that's something that needs to be acknowledged and celebrated during her transition from their home to yours. When courtship gift shopping invite her female relatives, you will regret this and at one point sit somewhere surrounded by bags with your head in your hands becoming best mates with the security guard who is concerned that you're having a breakdown. Wildly wondering why you've done this to yourself, but they'll have a great time and a great memory. Here is when you pull that courtship group andon cord and have a mate bring you a pint and laugh, tell you you'll survive it and shove you back in the game. For example, I know nothing about pots and pans, would probably have bought whatever I saw first, yet her Mum had very strong opinions and those are the pots and pans that will be in my kitchen for years. Let the Mums pick them, let them pick all of the basic things you're supposed to get, they know better than you and it makes them very happy. Freakishly happy, happiness on a level you have never seen before, to be fair you've also probably never seen an intense discussion about wooden spoons and durability.

Here are the basics:

1) Give them cash, keeps to your budget and you can 'divide and conquer' to preserve your sanity.

2) You are solely responsible for all required gifts you deem personal, take input as you will, but you do not farm out anything you'll be asking your queen to wear as a public acknowledgment. Be a dragon and handle the jewelry, she'll love you more for it and since you'll be buying a lot for her over the course of your lives might as well start figuring out what she likes now. Dragon tip: Find the goblin artist you want and befriend them, then be loyal as hell.

Queen aside: Or in our case, beat a goblin at cards, have them make the acceptance gift and when the mate loves it so much decide to stick with a formula that works and use it as the excuse to keep playing cards.

3) Use your courtship group, go together for some of the scarier gifts. Chances are you might not have ever bought lingerie, they might not have, but you're going to want sit around with a pint and bemoan that you're not going to get to see her in it until it's wedding day. Take a trusted female friend for that one, see the appendix for the list on 'bedroom trousseaux' as a guide (dedicated to Dora Lupin, who kept three little suitors from losing their way).

Chaperone like a Dragon (B. Weasley, C. Weasley, H. Weasley, M. Weasley, E. Robinson, R. Robinson)

It's an honor to be a courtship chaperone, it's also a pain. How to handle everything from letting go, making the charts, managing dates and letting love grow without losing your mind as a chaperone.

Excerpt:

Bill: It's hard enough building a new relationship, those first tentative missteps, it's even harder under the watchful eyes of chaperones. Don't watch so much, give space, because as much as you don't want to see her get hurt they need to have that chance to explore how to talk to each other for when you're not there and they won't be British formal about it. Your job as a chaperone is to help guide them and grow their relationship into a happy marriage, not in any way to hinder or limit that. Your other job is to try not to roll your eyes at them and recall that you too, were once very besotted and unable to hide it. It was constant, it was baffling to watch them somehow never manage to break physical contact at the dinner table, despite knife usage and the inane need to attempt to anticipate each other's every food want. Our intended so obviously wanted to impress him with her cooking that our suitor ate a huge helping of something he was allergic to, said he needed a word with Charlie to get the spell done.

Charlie: Oh man, I forgot about that. The hardest part I think was guiding the differences in privacy about affection, both with chaperones and the public. We had a suitor, who unless it was some extreme circumstance, was very private with an intended who was very affectionate and used PDA to manage her jealousy. We dig into that more in 'Chaperoning in Public', part of the larger issue of managing your couple in a way that makes everyone comfortable. Really important when you're couple is courting at school and you're not a parent who's chaperoning, so it's a different dynamic.

Elena: That's one of the important ones, especially when they're not in an audience that knows they're courting. We had a bit of a fumble the first few times, before we settled on how to explain courting to muggles, family members and strangers alike when one of them let the word courtship or suitor slip. Had to decide that quite a bit of the rules were flexible in these cases, especially in regards to fashion, large formal events and setting boundaries with coworkers. If you're from a non-magical family you'll want to read the chapters by the Robinsons, we focus on understanding courtship from the muggle view, how to explain it to muggles, how to talk with the other family on touchy topics like if you count as a chaperone and the fact their child will be living with you for part of duration of courting to build family ties. Cherish that time, use it to really get to know who your child has chosen and if they aren't familiar with the muggle world, see the appendix on 'muggling it up' to ensure everyone stays sane and appliances stay unbroken.

Roger: Lessons learned from our failure at that, it was a huge adjustment in realizing the witch had never had a telly, could not work the remote, which she still calls the 'telly wand', phone, microwave or anything at all in our house. I wasn't real patient on this part, hid the remotes from her in some pointless attempt to not come home every day and have to fix whatever she'd done to the telly. There is a lot of explaining that needs to be done to survive in the muggle world. Here's what we learned:

1) Make your suitor or witch give them a detailed tour and do the explaining for everything they don't recognize. They'll be more patient than you, have the right comparisons and find it endearing when their intended gets really fascinated by the light switches or tv.

2) They will miss something, take a deep breath when you get asked a question that a toddler would ask and remember they just don't know. Example: Our sprinklers went on at night and as we were under protective detail at the time, Ginny immediately assumed we were being attacked and came barreling in to wake us up and evacuate us.

3) When they tell you they know about something, take it with a grain of salt and proceed cautiously. There will be things they're mispronouncing and it's on you to figure out what exactly they're even talking about, this goes for the wizarding world at large.

4) Make them a muggle identity (Appendix: 'muggle identification'). This will save you a headache down the line, whether it's somewhere they need to show identification to get in, paperwork, or various other situations. It's a process that has existed for a long time between the two worlds and has been recently streamlined.

'How to Explain Courting to a Muggle'

It wasn't unexpected that we'd eventually end up giving an explanation to strangers about their relationship. The first time was at a formal muggle event for their Prime Minister, a very large gala, where our intended very much caught her dinner companion's eye and her suitor was seated elsewhere. He very much wanted to take her out, see her again, she demurred and let the word drop, she was under courtship. This man had no idea what that meant and gave her a blank stare, she gave me a panicked glance as the barrage of questions began at our table. Depending on the muggle culture courting isn't even a word on the radar, they just date, they might have heard of arranged marriages, but voluntary courting seems outlandish in these modern times. It was a mind shift for us too, listening to the initial baffling explanation that our grown son was entering some sort of heavily structured dating that needed chaperones because presumably, young people cannot control themselves if left alone. As the mother that raised that young man to be a respectful dragon, it felt rather like a personal insult to be told he couldn't be trusted by wizard law and because we were muggles, he wasn't sure if we would even count as chaperones.

We didn't tell this man any of that. He doesn't need to know any of their business, any of the details, though he kept asking. I handled the situation by explaining that she came from a very traditional family (old-fashioned or non-mainstream work too) and it's just a more formal process of dating. You'll get asked if they're very religious or in a cult, but we didn't like those connotations for the wizarding world. People tend to get very curious at this point and it's best to sort the conversation quickly. Here are the basics to stick to when talking to muggles:

It's a formal dating process, no different than how it was years ago.

Yes, there are chaperones and guides in the process.

They chose each other because of their mutual affection, it wasn't forced.

No, it isn't binding, just like dating they're free to breakup if they want to.

Don't go into more than that, just excuse yourself and take your courter with you because it descends into extremely invasive questions of 'Can you kiss?' and things along those lines or questions about the wizard upbringing, 'Wait, so you didn't have a telly growing up?'

Long term compilation project, publication date to be determined when all children mentioned are adults and can decide if the world should have insight into their lives. (On good authority we have it that they are alright with publication, as long it is released concurrently with their own compilation book on how dorky their dads are):

Daddy like a Dragon (Ra. Robinson, C. Weasley featuring: Ro. Robinson, B. Weasley, F. Weasley, G. Weasley, R. Weasley, H. Potter, D. Malfoy)

A series of fathering vignettes, the wins and the misses and the lessons learned. At one point you had your best mate's back in a fight, now you still have it, but now it's to point out he's got an empty spot in his wagon and you think he's probably missing a kid. Questioning just why your brother has got an airhorn or just what you're to do when your kids are trying to carry on an old rivalry.

Highlights include:

"Of the birds, the bees and Weasleys.' (C. Weasley)

Now, I've had some practice on this conversation as an older brother and professor, but somehow I'm still taken off guard. This really isn't quite where I thought we'd be having this talk, or that we'd be gathering honey from our bees, one and all nicely tucked into our beekeeper suits. There's charms, but the various Weasley clutches find the little suits are much more fun. I also didn't expect to have quite the mass of curious little faces looking up at me, some mine, most not and most assuredly knew I was going to mess this up.

I started out well, asked them how they thought babies showed up. Don't do that. Don't make that initial mistake when faced with so many little ones. You'll spend the next forty five minutes of your life holding a honeycomb trying to parse out how storks, swans and spiders all deliver babies and preventing fights amongst children calling each other liars. If you're anything like me, you'll also get drawn into a very curious discussion on all of the different theories, mainly to avoid talking about the taboo of what goes on between Mummy and Daddy in their room or nest…..

"Don't jump until I'm there to catch you!" (Ra. Robinson and C. Weasley) The bellowing order is of course ignored as the little excited dragon, who is just learning to swim, but has magciked himself up to the very top of a diving competition board. The little dragon is taking the board at a sprint, Robinson looks like he's in a hurdle competition just jumping over barriers, like coolers, a women bent over, ropes in his way. I am calm and just hit the little sucker with a bubble head charm, a glance shows his queen is smacking her little airborne dragon with a floatation charm, with a light bemusement at her king's panicked antics. Daddy and son hit the water at the same time and wild cheering from the mass of children around us erupts. I realize we're likely going to be kicked of this muggle pool as sister has already decreed I must repeat the charms, because all of her tremendously excited clutch are now rushing at the ladder, another already sprinting down. A chant has started, "Go dragon go!"

Little hopeful eyes are looking up at me then to their Mum, huge and pleading, they too want to run, splash and be cheered for, but my queen is one for the rules. Most of the time. "Oh, just take them. I'll do the charms."

Bazinga! Off we go, Daddy waiting in the deep end. It's a powerful thing to see your kids overcome their fears, it is the scared ones who run the fastest and splash the loudest, whose little proud smiles make you glance over at your wife to share in their triumph.…..

"Ready to Fly." (R. Robinson)

I hand a paper to Charlie, inquiring what it is, a glance, it's a quidditch play the kids are working on. He pauses, listens and suddenly looks very paranoid, a call, no response a glance to where the adult brooms are normally leaning. There are two brooms missing and he's out the door in seconds, I grab his and rush after him, throwing it at him just as he's turning back for it, hollering at me. "Start throwing cushioning charms."

He's airborne, trying to talk sense at them. "Wait, wait! Let Daddy try it first!"

They're grinning and he starts trying to slam their brooms with freeze charms, which they are dodging and laughing at. I settle in, I've been Charlie's second in enough duels to see that I'll probably have to bail him out, because all he is doing is escalating the situation. They are going to do the completely insane move and continue to mock him, they're at the age where their trash talk game is the height of amusement. Charlie has momentary victory after being told he flies like a slug and demanding how he knows how slugs fly, temporarily baffling his little opponent. Yet he is saved by his brother with a quite clever broom bash against Dad. They want to prove they can outfly him, that it is very much time to give them these adult brooms they've nicked, which they are far too small for. Problem is, we've left the shed open and my lot are going airborne to compound Charlie's torture. As one of his kids has already stolen my broom, I'm reduced to bellowing at them and running around like a raptor throwing cushioning charms, trying to throw the little dodging dragons into stasis as I too am now being mocked. This is when accidental magic is a troublesome thing, when it used to block your fathers trying to keep you alive and unbroken. It's also when having a mixed dragon family is a good thing, because dragons are excellent at swooping and cushioning excited children having broom mishaps. An even better thing is having queens who are excellent fliers and come to save the day….

"What did he do now?" (Ro. Robinson)

An oft-repeated refrain when the school called, sent notes home, gave us large sighs at parent teacher interactions. It wasn't that he was doing anything specifically wrong, he wasn't disrespectful, he did his work, he just always managed to be in the thick of things. We were so relieved when it turned out he just had magic. I had no idea that meant he was just getting started with finding new ways to show he wasn't going to grasp the concept of toe-in-the-water and that I would dread when the fireplace turned green. This was always followed by a conversation with a promise he wouldn't do it again, he kept that, thing is it never stopped the adventurous kid from doing something else.

Let's start with the school stampede incident as it led to a rather ridiculous police inquiry into myself and media circus right in the middle of rugby season…..

"If you're late, you might not get cake." (Ra. Robinson)

This is a mantra in our house in regards to Tuesday tea parties at 2 pm sharp in the treehouse, but we are not there yet. It's only 9 in the morning and I am where I am every Tuesday morning, taking the little princess to the bakery to select her hostess offerings. Watching her eyes light up at the pretty baked goods in the cases that unless stopped she will press her nose against in sheer excitement. This is Daddy and Dora time, when you've got seven kids carving out a bit of time each week for one on one becomes a priority. Sometimes she invites a brother who has been nice enough to earn cohosting duties, or a cousin, but for the most part it's just us and some carbs. Tomorrow one of the boys and I will continue our trek through every muggle haunted house in the UK, to determine if there are real ghosts or poltergeists there. You want to know what's going on for each of them, the nuances of their little personalities, especially in our multiples, our twins and triplets may be inseparable from their clutch mates, but it does not mean they are alike or have the same interests. Dora doesn't have one though, she's a few years younger than the rest and often there's whining or an eye roll if Dora has to be included or they have to play with her, the exception being attending her tea parties.

Today, I get to see a croissant finally become a curious object and watch her fall in love at first bite as we, understandably, must test out what she should serve at a tiny bakery table. I also understand her questions on why Mum and I have been not been making them for breakfast, we don't know how, her thoughtful little conclusion that it is not our fault, the baker said they were French, and we are not from France. Dora can rumble with her brothers, but there's an inherent sweetness she gets from her Mum the boys simply don't have. They did not get obsessed with thank you notes and insist on carrying them for every occasion, they write them begrudgingly, Dora has a tiny purse and I sip coffee while she carefully writes it out, debating, requesting help on spelling. ("Thank you. I liked it. I cannot touch the oven. Yet.") The yet is ominous, I don't want her to grow up like her brothers have, but it's going to happen anyway. You see, yet is our youngest's favorite word, she loves to tack it onto anything she sees other more grown people doing, especially things her brothers can do, but she is still denied, usually followed by some sort of version of 'just you wait!' The baker is very moved at her little shaky lettered note as we make our selections, tells me she's going to be a heartbreaker someday. Dora queries if this is a good thing, for she has taken this as a fact, upon being told by the baker it is compliment, she settles. "Excellent. Well done, Dora."

I'm going to have my hands full, as if I don't already. I'm kindly reminded two blocks away that we have forgotten Mummy's special treat, I am not carrying the pretty box. By kindly reminded, I mean a small child shrilly screaming it directly in my ear. Dragons have the ability to develop immunity to such things, to not blink at the sheer volume level a rowdy clutch can reach, both a blessing and a curse. It's an excellent reminder, even as you Daddy one of the most important things you've got to remember is your queen and not letting that relationship fall to the wayside, she is far more than just a mother to your clutch. If you take anything away from this about tea parties, take that away.

So we turn back to continue our adventure and Dora is quite adamant that she is expecting lots of guests so we need more tiny cakes. No chocolate, she is insistent, she and one of her brothers have fought and he loves chocolate. The debate begins on whether punishing everyone for his grievance is fair and dragon management skills come into play…..

…..

Queen aside (10 years later): She outgrew tea parties, but the bakery trips remained, when she went to Hogwarts and he woke up the next morning, got ready and called up for her like usual, I had an out of sorts dragon king faced with an empty nest. I tried filling our empty, echoing house with a big, sizzling breakfast and he pouted at his pancakes. As any good mate would do I took pity on him, so he still gets his Tuesday treats year round, queen when she's at school and daughter dragon when she is on break. It's still a time for real conversation, for laughing and fretting over what they're up to at Hogwarts, discussing if we should move back into our little cottage. I shouldn't say, but the boys took the loss of the tea parties the hardest, got very concerned something was wrong with Dora on their first Hogwarts break back after tea parties had been outgrown. Dora and Dad had gone to the bakery in the morning and at 2 pm they'd gone to the empty treehouse, there was no cake and they had not been late.

"The battle for the park." (B. Weasley)

I'm sitting on the park bench, glancing at the kids, writing notes for work with our travel bag ready to go before the portkey. Remus is with me, sipping his coffee and doing peer editing. Then a muggle police officer comes up, they've had a complaint about suspicious men at the playground. We're both scarred, maybe not dressed as muggle as we should be and I really don't want them to ask me to open my duffle bag, because it has a goblin axe in it. So now, it's team daddy vs muggle police and snooty park mums. They want my muggle identification, all I have is a stolen library card, Remus has none. Charlie seems to be in a confusing conversation with the muggle mums, who want to know what exactly the condition all of them have, because the kids are over there speaking dragon and gobbledygook to keep respective team secrets in their game. It's made Remus and my children nervous and they've decided to arm themselves with rocks, because they want to talk to me separately. Remus asked them to put the rocks down and go get Uncle Ralph, who has muggle identification, but is trying to get what looks like a krup out of his dragon wagon before his kids notice and want to keep it. The cop follows who they're running for and immediately radios for backup, stating there is someone armed at the park. Ralph is not armed, but he is wearing a rambo style sash and belt that to the cop looks like ammunition belts, it's filled with juice boxes and snacks. It's homemade, he read some book on productivity and deemed constantly walking back and forth to get snacks for six indecisive kids was time wasted, so he might as well just carry them. The authorities don't know this, Charlie's starting to get even more irate and George has just shown up, kid on his shoulders pulling his hair back to show the missing ear. We're not winning at the moment and it's rather quickly becoming a situation of not when, but who is going to end up arrested..….

"Just listen to the mirror." (G. Weasley) Daddy, I'm a flower girl, my hair has to be fancy. In hindsight, I should have listened to the mirror telling me to stop, but we were on a creative journey. Maybe gone for help or taken her to the salon to undo my hair clipped, flower infested, glitter creation way sooner over ask my sage five year old repeatedly if it was fancy enough yet. Enter Fred, who makes it worse, before his wife comes to find him and shoves her hand to her chest and starts barking that it is completely unacceptable. Fathers, even sheepish glitter covered ones, get the job done to avoid being killed by the bride, because she will eventually find out about this, and take it with good nature when the salon person can't help their startled, horrified face. They're also not above begging strangers to fix it….

"Watching her leave." (B. Weasley)

I sent my wife and child into hiding like many men before me, but I've never discussed the toll that takes on a man. Those many moments of gut wrenching loneliness and second guessing your decision, those nights laying awake wondering if she can roll over yet. The ripping out of your heart as you realize the tea cup your wife had left in the sink and you'd kept there as a pretend shrine to her presence in your empty house, someone has washed and put up. I had a long internal debate writing this, which was harder? The loss of the teacup that signaled the last true traces of them in our house or the shaking realization the car tracks that took them to safety had been washed off by a torrential rain. There would be no more morning meditation as I jogged them, no physical reassurance they were safe as I started my day. It was neither. It was the moment I hid behind a curtain and watched a muggle woman, who thought she was a widow, tuck our baby into transport for their new, safe future that I was no part of…

"I'm not talking to you anymore." (R. Weasley)

People say Harry, Hermione and I have always had an unbreakable friendship, if you went to Hogwarts with us, you probably just snicker when you hear it. This is something I don't want for them, so the first time I heard those words said to their little mate, I decided to break the cycle. The thing is, cycles are nasty hard to break and sometimes when you interfere you probably just perpetuate it…

"Tell me about them." (H. Potter) This is a favorite question at bedtime, we're dedicated to not forgetting who we've lost. It's also one that's sometimes hard for Dad to answer, they were named after complicated people, many of whom had tragically short lives. Yet, I looked forward to it each night, to our little ritual of talking and growing the story of what happens next as they mature. Then they grow up and reality sets in of the names they now think you've burdened them with…

"It's complicated." (D. Malfoy)

I say this probably once a day, Harry's all over the news, we're in it and the questions are never ending. The thing is, giving them non answers doesn't tell them anything, but it also doesn't teach them anything. So I say 'It's complicated' and lead in to try and explain what was a very trying time in a complex situation. Today, I was so caught off guard I burned myself on my tea….

"When Daddy is the one afraid of clowns." (F. Weasley)

We're going to the circus today and I've got a calming draught in my pocket, because we must see the clowns. One wants to go to clown school, so we're a bit at odds on career counseling at the moment. You can be funny without paint on your face, I try and tell them, we'll just watch the elephants. I get a returning look that tells me they think I'm mental. Somebody is going to have to hold my hand today…

Mummy Like A Dragon (G. Robinson, E. Robinson, M. Weasley)

"Nighttime soothing." (G. Robinson)

When I became a mother I expected my nights would often be interrupted, someone needs a glass of water or a cuddle, I did not expect my husband to be a part of this bunch. That he too would lie awake and need soft hands and open ears, not because he is scared of the dark, but worried for our clutch. You see, we've always called them our little dragons, but they aren't, not really in the way he is or I am tied into the species, yet they aren't truly separate either. They are just little ones who've learned crooning and roaring because even now, it still sometimes slips out if my king is too tired or excited. When we had six under the age of four those crooned dragon lullabies that without fail always put them back to sleep were the only thing that kept us sane. If you ask them, they will tell you they speak dragon, they do, our form of it, they will tell you they will grow up and work on the reserves. This is what keeps my dragon king awake, not that they'll hop about dodging fire, but the stark reality that some of them can't. You've got to have certain brain waves and not all of them have it, he frets because they will be upset and thinks it's all his fault for crooning at them as babies.

So I soothe, it's years away, they will find another passion by then, the dragons will still talk to them as best they can, they've learned their croons. He's latched onto the passion thing and since he's a doer, you've probably seen us schlepping our clutch about to every type of class known to muggle and wizards alike. There's a muggle thing called Mommy and Me, but I was pregnant and not feeling well, so into the car they went with Daddy to let me rest. We're not welcome there anymore, the boys say it is because there was no smock big enough to fit Daddy. He's dubious on what exactly he and Charlie said to get us banned, ('I was very polite, just wanted to know why you get to make ugly pottery with them and I can't.') On the flip side, it did start the now popular Dragon and Me classes. They're no cost and anyone of any age is welcome, sometimes we do well, sometimes we're probably just entertainment value, but we have fun and we try. I still soothe, sometimes scold him over those, or just laugh at our attempts and resulting chaos. He's intense to the point he's trying to teach our clutch things he himself is terrible at, like Herbology. There are currently tripping shrubs, which he misidentified as snuggle shrubs, sneaking around our garden causing a lot of bruised knees. Mainly his and our little clutch members unfortunate enough to inherit whatever trait that makes all magical plants hate them. There's a lot of 'well, maybe let me do that with them' happening in our house at the moment in regards to planting season, for the benefit of my sanity and our apprehensive garden's sake. Yet, our doomed potential Herbologists are sitting over there talking about Teary Tulips and he's enthusiastically encouraging them the apple tree had not purposefully hurled a slightly rotten fruit their way. Cheering the bruised little guy it had been aimed at Daddy for pruning it, the tree just had terrible aim. Dragon King will likely shortly figure out how accurate the tree is.

Mummy has put her foot down, I know what is best for our clutch and right now, what's best is for him to just settle down, to let things be. That's a lot easier said than done, but I am the giver of snacks and snuggles, of open ears that hear the little confessions of who hates what. There's a reason in the game of Hearts the queen reigns supreme as I like to remind my card loving king from time to time. So for the sake of my babies, their well intentioned Daddy is being put in class taking time out. Not forever, just until I can rewrite his brain into being less anxious about where they'll be in ten years and fully focused on where they are now.

(King aside: Only sort of worked, they missed them, but as they got older their interests differed and we tailored it for each kid. The queen has little hands that are excellent at whittling.)

"Kidnapping." (M. Weasley)

I am a seventh born of a seventh born, as is my daughter. While it isn't widely known, we are registered on a global level, it's an attempt to sort out if we are indeed magically different and try and banish all of the old wives tales about it. There's a lot of those, supposedly if there are less than seven of us in the world at once magic will cease to exist, because we are the Pillars through which magic settles. Supposedly we cannot have squibs, we create ley lines at birth, our births and coming of age foretell major events. Most of it is poppycock and coincidence, we're about as storied up as banshees, but I promise you we're just normal and if we're not, we can't exactly help it. When they came to register my seventh born of a seventh born, first girl in seven generations and check to see if she'd changed the magical signature of the Burrow is when we first heard the prophecy. Charlie is oracular to a degree and was sitting next to her bassinet, bopping her nose with a flower to get her to give little giggles when he started screaming at the poor Ministry representative.

Darkness takes her before her first blood. He comes unexpectedly-

That was all we had, worked ourselves up into the idea we were faced with an imminent kidnapping, because baby was too little to have gotten mobile and given herself a bruise yet. It was only the beginning of the protective oversight our little girl had, something I look back and wonder on. Was it my fault she wrote in the diary? Did we shelter her too much? So curious about the outside world, because she'd never gotten to experience it the way her brothers had. Both of Ginny's hands were always held in public when we finally thought it was safe enough to take her out. For years, if errands needed running I'd take some of the boys, but Ginny would always be sent to my Aunt Muriel's with a few others. She saw her cousins and played, but only ever with family. My husband put his foot down after our eldest son snuck her and Ron out for a treat and Ginny freaked out at age four, never having seen another little girl before and didn't think she was real. Bill said she chased her about trying to figure out if she was real, he'd chased Ginny, trying to stop her quest and everyone had ended up covered in ice cream. She had been kidnapped, not that time….

….

"The Sneak Rope." (M. Weasley)

My eldest two were very social, very curious and at a certain age decided bedtime rules did not apply to them. They snuck out and traitorously passed their secret ways down to their younger siblings. We tried warding the house, charming the doors and downstairs windows to not let them out between certain hours, the thing is, we never bothered with the bathroom. It was on the third story and in the always slightly loose window frame was hidden a rope with a brick on it for them to escape to do whatever it was they were off doing. This rope and I have had an interesting relationship over the years…

…..

'The Accident." (E. Robinson)

It should have been a happy day, we were waiting to get them for Christmas break from boarding school. Excited to hear about their term over dinner at their grandparents house, joking lightly about how big they'll have gotten and how they'll whine if they have to go clothes shopping. Except the bus didn't come and didn't come. My husband frowned at his watch repeatedly and used a payphone to call his Mum to tell her we'd be late. She was frantic, there had been accident involving a school bus, were the boys ok?

Most of the next few hours are a blur, Roger was trying to see if she could find out what hospital the kids would have been taken to, bellowing at some other waiting parent to go find another phone and call the school. It was their bus, a truck had run a light and smashed into it. We all needed to go to the hospital, rushing, piling into cars for those to shaky to drive. I recall standing there in the hospital room, having a massive stress induced breakdown and arguing with my husband over whether we should let Ralph see his brother like this, just begging my husband to make it better.

My eldest was comatose, covered in plaster, bruises darkening, with all sorts of tubes going in and out of him. He'd been leaning over the seat to tell Ralph to keep his mouth shut about the trouble he'd gotten into when it happened and been flung about the bus extra as a result. I'm arguing no, we can't, he's too little and they're so close, he shouldn't see his brother like this. My husband is much calmer, thinks that's exactly the reason he has to be let in, because is this any worse than seeing him in the immediate aftermath of the accident? I'm worried sick something weird will happen, we didn't know it was magic yet, just that sometimes when things were intense stuff happened we could in no way explain.

There was little gasp. Ralph was standing in the doorway, little black eye, stitches on his face arm in a sling. He's clearly escaped the group and teacher he was supposed to stay with until his grandparents got there. Time had stopped, the only thing moving in the world were the tears running down my face and the ones welling in his eyes as he stared wide eyed at the hospital bed with his favorite person in the world in it.

That's when Mum turns into a dragon, drawing on the mix of strength and softness to get her clutch through it all. It's also when Mummy realizes they are going to get her through it too. I stopped crying immediately, my little dragon hasn't said a word or moved from the doorway and the first thing he does is dig out his little handkerchief and give it to me. I don't know if he remembers that moment, it's not really a time we dwell on as a family. I've never given it back to him, that grubby little initialed thing my baby passed me was clutched often in the many hours over far too many days spent in that hospital room. Dug out and clutched again sitting in the hospital wing at Hogwarts, sitting next to him, again wondering if my child would ever wake up. …..

Seven Hours: Across the Sky (G. Robinson, R. Robinson, M. McGonagall) Desperate times call for desperate measures and help comes from unexpected places. The true story behind the Battle of the Channel.

Excerpt: If you'd told me I'd willingly let someone put horrible muggle things on my eyeballs, I'd have laughed in your face. Yet, that is where it all starts, 5 am, bathroom of the Lupin's flat with me sitting on the counter trying not to flinch crazily away from Tonks. I flinched anyway and she ended up putting me in a body bind, turns out it took all of 30 seconds, but I'd been so evasive we'd wasted quite a bit of time and I was going to miss my flight. I could not miss my flight or all of the muggle makeover, lying to Mum, was going to be in vain. We needed the pensive, my best friend desperately needed that pensive and Tonks needed a cinnamon bagel, her very favorite and the first to sell out at the little shop down the street.

….

I'm trying to get into contact with them, dragon queen Helena is trying, but Angus is for all intents and purposes, out of ambit. We know he's still flying, but he can't be synced with, either he's too synced into another conversation or someone has hijacked and confounded the dragon we are in pursuit of. The queen and I believe it has to be the second, she's entering heat, there is no possible reason an unmated male dragon who has been one of her suitors would be ignoring her. He'd fought another dragon earlier in the day and won, to prove he would be the best egg maker, yet he was ignoring her calls. Ginny is on that dragon, likely being held against her will for some ransom against Harry or the Order. We know we have a spy for the other side on the Reserve and the guy who took her for a ride isn't low on the list of suspects. Going wild with speculation when you're riding a queen dragon who's pretty ticked at being ignored is not advisable, she'll speculate worse. We were going to catch them, so she could kill him, his riders, go find the female dragon he had decided to mate with instead of her, kill her too, and then I would find her a mate worthy of her. I started summoning loose objects for her to flame, to calm us both down, something later we'd find quite helpful.

It changed instantly, a scream breaking our quiet ride across the sky, "Mudblood should have stayed home."

There is no feasible reason I survived the intermittent attacks, constantly outnumbered even with a dragon, but there was a very important girl ahead of me and I sure as hell wasn't going to let them catch up to her. I was going to catch up to her, rescue her from her captor, see her pretty smile, get her to her family and go back to the reserve and think about her constantly, same as I'd done at Easter. Get her safe and run for the hills, because she was breaking the no interference policy I had for my heart knowing I'd very likely be dead within four months. That's not how it went at all.

It's unclear if the craziness that erupted was already inherent in me or due to the fact I'd always thought I would go out young, probably by a pissed off dragon, but never had been faced with the freedom that understanding gave me. When you've got nothing to lose and are hell bent on protecting someone who does, you're willing to go big on the insane scale. Whatever it was, I don't think an air battle has been seen like that before or since. Everyone asks how many it was over the course the long flight and truthfully, I don't know. Helena can remember seventeen different faces, but we both lack a count when it comes to the masked riders, having been a bit busy at the time staying alive. The unmasked had the blank look of a bad Imperious curse, I was trying to just get them away in the chaos, repeatedly telling my very excited dragon to just smack 'em away with her tail or roar very intensely at them, which for the most part is enough to scare the bravest of heart. Later, I'd learn Ginny is up there giving a kill list to Angus, while I'm back here riding a scorned queen who very badly wants to take out her fury on the little broom people. She does not, because we must save all of our fury for when we catch the green dragon, we increase our speed and it's up in the air whether she's going to kill him or mate with him. What is not up in the air is that we are in serious trouble and the dragon ahead of us likely is too.

….

The person least mentioned in relation to the Battle of the Channel is the one who sent me there and it became a turning point in my view of Headmaster Snape. It was not a trap for me to be taken into Death Eater custody as my rapid check in while flying, Molly urging me to go back to the school because Ginny was just spending the day with Tonks. Yet why had he done it? Why had he truly come and told me, and was it really the first time he'd sought to protect our students? We'd later find it out it was far from the first time, but it was the first direct request for Order intervention. Miss Weasley, Mr. Robinson and I were not the only Order members in the sky that night, but as Rubeus Hagrid is a very humble man his small skirmish has rarely been mentioned. Hagrid saw one of his thestrals break off from the herd and found my broom, became concerned there was an attack coming set about patrolling on his motorbike, both by land and air.

Hogwarts, A History (B. Bagshot, H. Weasley)

Hogwarts, A History of Pranks (R. Lupin, F. Weasley, G. Weasley) Two wars, two sets of infamous pranksters and the brilliance behind some of their greatest magical explorations.

Excerpt: "I remember asking Sirius and James, 'Just why do you two have so much sherbet?' They shared a glance between themselves and with the massive amount of sherbet between their beds. Sirius threw himself onto my four poster, deciding that I too, could be a part of their little club of two plus rainbow sherbet. My life got very interesting from that point onwards."

Lycanthropic Musings (R. Lupin, B. Weasley, C. Weasley) How the other woman, the white lady in the sky, has pull over your life and that of those willing to share it with you.

Excerpt: "It was the first full moon with her when the mate theory that had been ricocheting around my head cemented. We weren't dating, I was taking wolfsbane at an Order safehouse to not bother anyone and there she was, barreling in the door as if she's late, holding movies and snacks a strange variety of things she liked and she'd decided werewolves would like, not daunted in the slightest. She had decided she was curious, I needed more company than Sirius and we might need protecting, werewolves, for the record do not need protecting. I was horrified, she was the last person I wanted to see me in such a state, and she's stubbornly out there refusing to leave. Asking Sirius if I like being petted once I transform, because she just loves her hair played with, most soothing thing in the world and dumping bags out to show her snack offerings. We didn't really know each other, but she'd read things and desperately wanted to ensure my transformation was as easy and fun as it could be.

I rarely speak of my wife, of those early strained trials where I fought my own nature, couching it in excuses of my condition, our age difference, my poverty, the very likely fact I would die for the Order as all of my friends had before me. Yet there we all were, myself transformed, Sirius in Animangus form, her snacking and occasionally popping into her own animangus form to see if we were communicating anything interesting. We weren't, just playing Padfoot's version of karaoke where he tries to sing as a dog and I'm supposed to try and figure out whatever it song it was. She very much wanted to play too. Twenty three moons, eleven married, that's all we had together and it will never be close to enough.

Turn cloak: The Severus Snape Story (R. Lupin, M. McGonagall, H. Potter) Where did his loyalties really lay? What were his motivations? What was truth and what was a lie? They've called him a traitor, Dumbledore's man, the biography of someone everyone agreed was complicated.

Lucidity (F. Weasley, G. Weasley, N. Longbottom) There is a potion that can bring even your most lost in their minds loved ones back again. Use at your own risk.

Through the Glass: from Muggle to Magical (H. Weasley, H. Potter, Ra. Robinson, D. Thomas, muggle contributors D. Dursley, Ry. Robinson)

The understanding of a most bewildering transition. The lady was prompt in her appointment and very professional, the phone calls had been ignored and the letters came barreling in, adjusting your boarding school tie as you sat across from a delusional stranger, your mother sitting there thoughtfully and glancing at you with encouraging smiles. Then there was Diagon Alley and suddenly, it wasn't just a dream you were going to wake up from and you're going to get very attached to that one stick of wood you managed not to destroy the shop with. The book is broken into three parts focused on the initial understanding, pre school transition, ongoing support and merging both the magical and muggle of your family.

Two excerpts from the chapter on the Picking of Wands

"I wonder." (H. Potter)

I've thought back on those words, on that moment so many times in the intervening years. You see, wands pick wizards off of inherent traits, traits that will affect the direction of their lives in very poignant fashions. In my view it is more than an art or a craft, it is a form of Divination. It is no secret that Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort have both had tremendous influences on my life, it is not as well known that Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix, has too, saving me in the Chamber of Secrets. My wand held a core from Fawkes' tail, Lord Voldemort's held the other, twin cores, meaning they cannot battle each other. It's a phenomenon most seen with actual twins or siblings, so the fighting issue doesn't come up very often and wands with cores from the same donor are usually tested immediately. Yes it wasn't just Fawkes that bound the three of us, it was the Elder wand, one that would drive both Tom Riddle and I on long hunts for it to the end of the Second War.

I was a curious case, famous and very new to this fact and Mr. Ollivander didn't treat me as such, I was just another child looking for their first wand. I was not the adult I'd later be on return visits, watching others ask him to help them find a more specialized wand for charm work, or a more powerful one, I was just eleven, a bit confused at the whole stick thing, wondering if broomsticks too were a muggle imagination turned reality. I read a lot as a child, shy and awkward, not having many friends it was natural. There were books that had wizards and witches as heroes, that I was most definitely banned from reading, but did at school, sometimes there were wands, often there were staffs, sometimes there was no physical conduit…

"When No Wand Wants You." (R. Robinson)

I was wand shopping with my Mum, Charlie and his Mum, he went first, being very knowledgable about all things magic and extremely excited, having waited his entire life for this exact moment. It was quick, painless, three wands in, he was set, his mother was snapping photos for his Aunt Muriel who was generously buying him his very own wand to put in the case she'd gotten him. It was not quick for me, not painless, it was massive destruction and a constant stream of apologizing from both my mother and I. If you've never met Mr. Ollivander, nothing phases him, he just makes little thoughtful noises and waves his wand to undo whatever you've set off. There was fire, there was the sudden appearance of bags of rubbish, a very aggressive hedgehog, shelves flinging about, my mother's vanity table popping up to her utter mortification.

I am one of the few who left Ollivander's shop without a wand of my own that first visit. Who had to sit and drink tea, discussing with him everything about my life, which he plopped onto a handy questionnaire, waiting for his wife to come read my tea leaves. Charlie sat with me, saying at random that' it didn't mean I didn't have magic' to cover the fact he was taking more and more candy. He used words like wand lore, which Mrs. Weasley would nod at and pat my hand, my mother answered questions about what I'd been like in the womb, if any strange things had happened around her while pregnant. It turns out they had, she had been filming on a remote location when her car broke down in the forest going home and she kept seeing this specific horse, she loves horses, so she went to it and shared her purse apple. She rode this horse out of the forest and then couldn't find it, she wanted to thank its owners or try and adopt it. Looking back we now know it either was my patronus going corpeal with those extra baby magic power bursts, or my patronus is based on a chill apple loving Clydesdale who'd been hanging out in a forest and decided to help the lady carrying a foal just bashing about.

Wands are a tricky thing, you see I was not born in the UK, nor fully raised here and as I was a very outdoorsy child needed a wand made from a wood closer to my heart. I liked that, the phrasing, the little questionnaire, the way he looked very thoughtful and offered to arrange to have several wands from Australia sent for testing or to help set up a portkey to go to his colleague's eminently excellent shop. As you transition into the wizarding world you'll find almost everyone is incredibly nice and willing to go out of their way to be helpful, they know you're a bit overwhelmed and confused.

Ultimately, it was decided that he had not seen his friend in many a year, there was much to discuss between the two on recent lore discoveries and he was going to take us himself as there was no overlap in business hours. The second experience was quite different, the wands were not tested in the same way at all as the little shop in Diagon Alley….

A History of Magical Equality (R. Lupin, B. Weasley, H. Weasley)

An in depth examination of inter-species relationships, the history of wand usage and the impact it has on us today.

Excerpt: "Introduction: Werewolves have traditionally been viewed as unable to integrate or contribute to society, a view magnified and perpetuated by Fenrir Greyback's vicious campaign to build an army by biting children. I was five when I was bitten, I'd been scouting out the best flowers to pick for my Mum's birthday trying to find the most purple ones in the garden. To this day, I truly think he meant to kill me, had not expected my father's rapid response and that thought, I conjecture changed the underlying connotations of my new reality of a werewolf for both myself, my parents and ultimately Hogwarts. I had survived when I should not have, my parents were adamant that I too should get to go to Hogwarts, because while one night a month I was a werewolf I was first and foremost a wizard. I am not sure who started the conversation, my parents or Albus, but I'm imminently grateful to whoever did, not just for me, but for the children after me."

Secret Societies (M. McGonagall, R. Lupin, S. Snape, H. Weasley)

By the time you realize what you've truly signed up for, it's too late to ever get out. The Order of the Phoenix, the Marauders, Death Eaters and Dumbledore's Army.

Excerpt: "It took a time to formalize, at first it was merely whispers and theoretical discussions on the disappearances, asking the portraits to be a bit more mobile. The Order of the Phoenix was first thought of in the Hog's Head Pub, just as later Dumbledore's Army would be. Except it was a conversation between two extremely different brothers, who'd never had an easy relationship, but shared the view the growing violence had to stop, for it was far too similar to Grindelwald's rise. I never asked and refuse to speculate on any theories, but their recruiting efforts led to quite the spy network. Let's start there, who they recruited and why. For we were not a pristine group made up of only excellent track records, we were probably not a group anyone but Albus would have ever trusted to fight those that could not be allowed to win."

A/N: Always love reviews and feedback! Or if you'd like a request.