(A/N) Hello. I'm sorry I haven't written in so long (that is if anyone is actually reading this. Though if they're not, I'm sorry I'm not writing anything the great reading public wants to read). I never write entertaining author notes or disclaimers, so we'll skip them (you know it's not mine, right?) and get straight to the grovelling for reviews. Please, please, pretty please?

Dear Grandmamma,

Thank you very much for the pens. How do you exactly the things I need always? And thank you for sending Dante. He loves Gryffindor tower nearly as well as I do, though he doesn't like the other fellows at all. They've learnt not to bother him already. I'm not allowed to have Beatrice too, unfortunately; I did ask.

History is still taught by Professor Binns, and classes are the dullest things imaginable, but I love doing the work. Speaking of which, I think I left Fitzgerald's Goblins to the Right of Them at the Manor when I was there this summer. Could you send it to school? I want it for comfort reading. The Potions Master is Professor Austin. She's a very good teacher, I think. She explains things very well, but only once, so you have to pay attention. I tried to get the Maximus, but the librarian said it was in the Restricted section, and I couldn't read it unless my teacher signed that I needed it. So I went to see Professor Grenville, and he said he didn't think it would be worth the time I'd spend struggling over the translation, and I had much better spend my time learning the assigned books. I do not like Professor Grenville.

We start flying lessons this afternoon, so I must close now. Much love,

Tiberio Constantine Malfoy

Harry Potter usually found the first flying lesson of the year rather a dull business. Most of the children flew very badly, or not at all, and the few who did know a thing or two about the business put on so many airs that one would think they flew professionally. The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw group had been this exact mix. The Gryffindor/Slytherin one looked more interesting. For one thing, there was Jamie, who knew perfectly well how to fly, but had promised faithfully not to show off on the first day. Then there was the Malfoy brat, who owned a house, if he'd been telling Jamie the truth.

Jamie and the Malfoy brat (it could be no other, not that bleached blond hair) were walking out together, clearly involved in some all-important scheme.

Seeing his father's eyes on him, James waved frantically. Malfoy looked up and Harry found himself confronted with the image of a juvenile Draco Malfoy: sharp, slightly ferrety features; short, pale hair; pale, blue eyes; fine, expensive, new robes. The only thing missing was the looming presence of this generation's Crabbe and Goyle.

Looking quickly away, Harry gave his usual lecture about flying, intended to reassure the muggleborns, but also depress the arrogance of wizarding children who thought they knew what they were doing.

"Why do you have to this particular book?" James muttered under cover of the reaction to The Harry Potter as flying instructor.

"'Cause Grandmamma's theory lessons always helped me before, and I don't want to fail Transfiguration," Tiberio murmured back, eyes on Harry. "But apparently it doesn't circulate."

"Right, now for practicalities. Everyone stand by a broom. Hold your hand over it and say 'Up!'"

"Up!" James's broom leapt into his hand at once, as did Eli's. Tiberio's twitched, and Calliope's didn't move at all. After several tries, everyone finally got theirs up and mounted it. Tiberio rubbed his hands on his robe, then gripped his broom carefully. He'd only been on his father's old broom a few times and hated it rather. Heights were bad enough, but heights on a wobbly bit of wood were worse.

"Right. Take it easy now. When you're ready, push off gently, then come down again. I don't care if you can outrun airplanes at home, you're not to go much of anywhere right here and you're not to go higher than four feet in the air. Is the clear?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter," came the ragged chorus. There was a pause, then James pushed off, hovered exactly four feet above the ground, then dropped again. He'd promised faithfully not to show off. Too much. Heartened by his example, everyone else began to try, too. Calliope wobbled a little too high before scowling at her broom and steadying to a lower height. Gulping, Tiberio pushed off a little, floated perhaps a foot off the ground before returning quickly to solid earth.

"James, did you mean it when you said you wanted to sneak out some night?"

"Yes! Dad practically said I could, and he and Mum seem to have snuck out all the time. I bet it's not hard. Besides, Uncle Ron told me how to find the kitchens."

"Can we go somewhere else first?"

"Where? What do you want to-"

"Shh. Austin's looking at us."

"If you are quite finished, Potter, Malfoy…?"

"Sorry, Professor."

"Now, as I was saying, today we'll be considering Veritaserum. Can anyone tell me what Veritaserum is?"

Several hands went up. "Douglass?"

"It makes you tell the truth."

"Very good. A point to Gryffindor. Does anyone know anything else? Kim?"

"Most common restorative potions are related to it, but Veritaserum is one of most complicated to make, requiring rare ingredients such as ashwinder skin and six months brewing time." Gryffindor eyed Hyung Kim with slight dislike. Calliope had once said (after he had earned Slytherin twenty points for a perfect astronomy paper) that one skinny Chinese boy who knew so much clearly couldn't be bearable and was glad he wasn't in her house. "And there's no antidote and you can't resist it."

"Very good. Five points to Slytherin. Yes, Malfoy?"

Tiberio usually didn't say much during Potions, having no urge to be considered in the same category as Kim. But Malfoy Manor had an excellent library, and he'd always liked to read. "That's not true. Small doses can be resisted by the strong-minded, or a skilled Occlemens. And Julia Desmoulins developed an antidote in 1980, though the side effects were so unpleasant that I don't think anyone could ever have used it."

Professor Austin blinked at Tiberio. The rest of the class just stared. Tiberio flushed a painful pink, looked down, and muttered, "Well, she did."

"You're quite right about the ability of Occlemens to resist the potion. Two points to Gryffindor. Where did you hear of the antidote?"

"It was in a book at home. Notes, I think it was," Tiberio told his shoes.

"Ah," said Professor Austin. "Well, I don't know if I'd call something with 'unpleasant side effects' an antidote. Regardless, Kim was quite correct in his description of the potion. Today we're interested in it's relation to other sleeping potions…"

"Remind me why we're going here again?"

"I want that book. You didn't have to come."

"'Course I did. It just that I-"

"Shh." Tiberio cut him off with a sharp gesture, and James was so surprised at the air of command in his unassuming friend he shut up. They'd just reached the library, and James heard, as Tiberio must have done, the sound of footsteps coming down the corridor. They dodged into the library, shut the door and stood listening. The footsteps moved, without pausing, past the library and down the hall. James, taking his cue from Tiberio, waited a few minutes in the dead silence before beginning to breath and move again.

"So where's this book you need?"

"The Restricted Section. Lumos." The tip of Tiberio's wand began to glow faintly, and he made his way across the library. James hurried after him.

"How did you know that? We haven't done it yet, I know."

"Grandmamma used to lend me her wand when I want to explore the Manor, and she taught some basic spells so I came back alive. Besides, I've been learning Latin for ages. For basic spells, you can usually just translate." Tiberio glanced at James's flabbergasted face. "What, didn't your father ever teach you stuff?"

"Yeah, how to stay on a broom. And Mum told me the Bat-Bogey Hex, for just in case, she said. But never…hey, did you say Restricted Section?"

Tiberio nodded, and holding his wand up to the bookshelf, reached for a leather-bound volume. James knocked his hand down. "We can't take a book from here! They scream. Dad said."

"Not this one." Tiberio said grimly. "At least it had better not scream at me." And before James could stop him again, he pulled the fat, gilt-edged book from its place and tucked it into his dressing gown pocket after a quick glance at the title page. "Come on, we'd best get back."

James found himself left gaping for the second time that night. Catching up with Tiberio at the door, he began, "How did that happen? Dad said-"

"I'll tell you when we get back. Let's go."

"So, explain, or I tell Madame Pince you pinched a book from the Restricted Section." James and Tiberio sat in the stairway outside their dorm, back safe, though there had been a close call with Arthur-not-Nigel Weasely as they'd almost reached the Fat Lady. Fortunately, James had heard him coming, and there had been an unused classroom handy.

"It's pretty simple, really. Malfoy Manor puts a spell of all the books there like the ones they put on the Restricted Section, and I figured no one would have thought to get rid for most of it. No book that's been in a Malfoy library would ever scream at a Malfoy for opening it. Happy? I want to go to bed."

Dear Tiberio Constantine,

I am arranging my annual New Year's Party, and I was wondering if there were any friends you particularly wanted to invite. I shall be inviting Celia Chamberlin and Calliope Lennox, of course, but if you wished to have a particular friend over to stay for a few nights before and after, I will dispatch an invitation to the parents. Do reply soon, dear, as I must issue the invitations in a timely manner. Love,

Narcissa Black Malfoy

"Tiberio! Hurry up, or we'll be late."

"Coming!" Tiberio grabbed his scarf, and ran to join the other first years flooding to the Quidditch pitch for the first game of the season. He caught up with James just as they reached the risers, and they claimed the highest seats they could find. James had wanted to be on the team, but his father obstinately refused to bend the rules, so they had to be content to cheer for Chas.

The Gryffindor team was a strong one, and James was secretly glad of his father's refusal to favor him; he wasn't sure he could have made it on, and Quidditch was one thing he felt it due to the family honor to live up to.

They won, and there was a party in the common room, but Tiberio and James and Eli all had to leave early because they hadn't finished the four-foot Transfiguration essay Professor Grenville had set them. They settled down to work: Tiberio with his feet on his pillow, James on the floor, and Eli at his desk. Then Eli moved to his bed. Then he threw his quill across the room and declared that it was pointless and he was joining the party again, because he couldn't do Transfiguration at all. Which, Tiberio pointed out after he left, was a lie. Eli was definitely best at Transfiguration in their year, but he seemed to it all by instinct, and could never explain in essay form what it was he did. Professor Grenville loved him.

Twenty minutes later, James finished his third foot, and glanced up at Tiberio, who had their textbook open on one side, and was consulting the Restricted Book on the other. In front of him lay maybe two and a half feet of neat, precise, tiny writing. James stretched and peered at the book they'd gone to such bother to liberate from the library. "Is that even English?" he asked, blinking at the calligraphic type.

"Hmm?" Tiberio finished a sentence with an emphatic jab of his quill. "No, it's Latin. Grandmamma was right, you know, this does make the theory much clearer. I don't know why he doesn't just teach us this. How are we supposed to remember the sanguinolentus words when we don't know where they came from?"

"Pardon?" James asked as Tiberio aggressively began another paragraph. Tiberio, murmuring, "…experiments done by Artos in the early Augustinian period prove…" to himself, appeared not to have heard. James shrugged, firmly convinced Tiberio was a touch nutty (stealing a book was pointless enough; stealing a book in Latin didn't bear thinking about), and tried to think of what else there was to say in his last foot.