DISCLAIMER: Neither the TV show 'NCIS' nor the 'Harry Potter' book series belong to me.

"So," Tony cleared his throat in an ungrateful attempt to help the mood. "How'd the talk with Ziva go?" Well, that was probably the wrong topic for mood-lightening. It was also, unfortunately, the (almost) only and utmost thought on his mind at the moment, so he figured he kinda had an excuse. Maybe.

The elevator (of course it was the elevator) had been stopped the moment the button to do so had been within Gibbs' reach. Blue lights were now making him strain to see around him properly, and his boss wasn't helping.

But first things first. The head-slap he'd been expecting made its debut appearance, but Tony was doubtful that that would be the last time he'd get hit in that crowded box that day. Then, of course, Gibbs ignored his question in favor of asking his own.

"I'm gonna give you the chance to give me whatever poor explanation you have, because Ziva made me feel generous."

Well, that sounded encouraging.

Tony opened his mouth, but Gibbs was unsurprised not to hear a thing. DiNozzo talked a lot, but, apparently, Ziva was a quiet subject.

"I think you've been working with me long enough to know my rules, haven't you?" He asked casually, leaning against the wall opposite from where DiNozzo was standing, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, tense and mildly terrified.

"I have." Was the non-compromising answer.

"And I know you're particularly familiar with rule twelve, right?" He drawled, raising his eyebrows. "You seem to have it constantly on your mind."

That statement was hardly untrue, but Tony wasn't about to ask how Gibbs was aware of that. That was pointless in too many ways to be considered.

"Can't say I'm not."

Gibbs rolled his eyes at the politically neutral tone of his voice. Tony was so distracted that he didn't even notice the amount of personal thoughts that were running more openly than usual on Gibbs' face. "Unless you'd like to keep that a poorly kept secret too, when you were gonna bother with telling me about it?" He asked, half-glaring.

Tony's Gibbs-trained mind came to the conclusion that the older man was not speaking (only) about Ziva. Somehow, he knew about the thing with Mary too, and Tony should have known that, because Gibbs always knew stuff he wasn't supposed to know, and the senior agent should never have been unprepared for it. It was irresponsible.

He fidgeted under the older man's scrutinizing stare. "When I had things sorted?" He tried for a weak justification. Wrong answer. The glare intensified.

"For your sake, I know I would've figured it out before that. Otherwise, the outcome wouldn't have been as pleasant."

Tony winced, nervously stepping back as much as he could. "Right." The senior agent muttered.

Something about Gibbs' face changed, then. He looked more tired than anything, and just more than a little frustrated with his best agent. He sighed, and Tony started at that. "DiNozzo…" He said warily. "this isn't a joke, what you're trying to do."

Tony knew that. Actually, he thought he'd never known something so acutely.

But he was tired of pretending. He was getting older each day that passed. Life wasn't going to wait around forever, and Tony had no intention of making it do so. He remembered Ziva's words – 'You wanted to have what you wanted.' That was… insightful, at the very least, and right in the bull's eye at the most. It was a simple sentence, and it was the sum-up to everything he was feeling right then.

He was tired of waiting around, of doing nothing and expecting things to just happen by themselves. Before, he hadn't done a thing to make something happen between him and his partner, and that hadn't paid off the least bit. Now, he had, and look at what he'd achieved – it didn't take a genius to figure out which had been the best option.

And Mary… She was just so… funny. Adorable. An amazing little girl, whom he was adoring spending time with. Anyone who didn't see that didn't deserve her, and Tony was determined to keep her happy at all costs. For all that… Tony knew very well this wasn't a joke.

"I'm gonna tell you the same thing I told Ziva;" Gibbs continued, crossing his arms and oblivious to his senior agent's whirling mind. "I hope you know what you're doing. It's a kid – not a fish. It's not something you get to bail on. And it's gonna be hard, and you're committing to it for the rest of your life. So you better be all there in it."

"But if you do know," He half-smiled, throwing him a small object he produced from his pocket. Tony caught it and scrutinized it - and his eyes widened when he realized what it was. "then you better hurry with my formal notice - my desk by morning. No excuses, DiNozzo."

The elevator winked back to life with a whistle and a change of lights. Gibbs pressed the button down to Abby's lab, but Tony was hardly paying attention. He had his eyes trained on what his boss had passed him.

His fingers tightened around the little doll that he knew, from the name on the back of the pink little dress, had once belonged to Kelly. "Boss…" He murmured, for once, completely lost for words.

He looked up at Gibbs with wide eyes. He couldn't accept this. Gibbs, who was staring at the door and not him, barely glanced at his senior agent, and, when he did, it was to raise his eyebrows. "It's meant to be played with, DiNozzo. Not to stay alone in an empty house." He thought he saw his eyes with a glint a little too pronounced as the doors opened and Gibbs strolled forward.

He was left, stunned, in the elevator, with a little smiling doll in his hand, and Gibbs' double-meaning last sentence in his mind.

When Tony finally followed him out of the elevator, Gibbs had already been moved onto another drama. He'd handed Abby the Caf-POW he'd brought for her (Tony had no idea when he'd gotten that) and crossed his arms silently, waiting out Ziva and McGee's argument while they didn't know he was there.

Gibbs' eye watched as Tony carefully placed the doll in his pocket. The (messy) brown-haired young dare-devil with grinning mischief in his green eyes he'd met all those years back was still there, as present as ever, but his appearances were less inappropriate. Tony had gotten to the point where it was no longer plausible to keep being the man-child anymore, and Gibbs felt something very akin to fatherly pride stir a one-sided smile in his mouth.

Of course, Gibbs would always appreciate the carefree attitude that Tony had, though he'd never tell him how amusing he was – it reminded him of himself before certain things had ruined him. He didn't want that for Tony, but having the risk of it happening was a fair price to pay for the family he got to have for a few years. It was that which he wanted for the Italian, and if Ziva was the one who could give it, who was he to complain?

He leaned against the wall next to Abby's door, settling for watching Ziva and McGee with as much of a serious face as he could. He safely assumed that Tony was settled by now – Gibbs needn't worry (much) about him from then on.

The team leader saw Jenny, wearing a contained grin and resting her elbows on Abby's table, with her cheeks in her hands. Gibbs raised his eyebrows at her bent-over position, and she half-heartedly straightened, rolling his eyes at him in a condescending attitude that he didn't buy for a second.

Then he realized that, if Jenny was there (the why of which he didn't know yet) someone else she was supposed to be getting earlier was too.

Sure enough, he spotted Mary's lit up expression as she made her way to Tony. He grinned as the senior agent picked her up and placed her on his shoulders.

"Karma is a witch." Ziva said in a sing-song tone that made Tony smile as he leaned against Abby's wall with Mary playfully pulling his hair. He shrieked in all the right moments, which made her giggle – and he froze when she placed a kiss on his temple.

He was a little stumped for a moment, and he heard Gibbs' lost snicker, but that was still not enough for him not to correct Ziva. And he only stuttered on the first word. "I- I think you mean that karma's a-" Mary's curious, child-like eyes stared back at him, hair falling down both their faces, when she somehow put her head, upside down, in front of his, holding onto his shoulders to keep her balance – he stopped in his tracks. "- a- a witch – actually, I think you got it perfectly right this time." He finished lamely, offering a grin to Ziva's eye-roll.

She ignored him, and her discussion with McGee continued. Well, discussion was a loosely applied term, seeing as there was no argument at all – just Ziva would-be-casually sauntering back and forth in front of McGee, who was half-cowering behind Abby. The word exchange was also mostly Ziva taunting McGee with a tone that others had not learned not to take seriously, like Tony had. She threatened a lot, but she'd never do anything.

Come to think of it, others didn't seem to get attacked as much with flying pens as Tony did, when he wore that attitude. Or receive as many damaging back-massages like he did. Or get thrown to the ground more times than he could count as much.

So, in conclusion, Tony decided to spend the time she was taking to kill McGee preparing the junior agent's eulogy.

"I'm scarred for life!" Tim (bravely) protested, looking affronted at Ziva's comment.

Ziva took a step further and McGee took one back. "Then maybe next time you will think twice before scrolling through my personal messages, yes?"

"Yes! Yes! I will never, ever, act like Tony again. Ever!" He fervently promised, and Abby patted his cheek affectionately.

"Oh, Timmy, c'mon. You can't give up on a trouble-maker career just from one bad experience. Where would Tony be if he did that? I'm sure you have plenty of misbehaving plans that will go great in the future." She encouraged him, and Jenny rolled his eyes, but it was Abby, so no one (especially Gibbs) said a thing to that.

"I think I'm missing something here." Tony confessed. "Would someone like to tell me what my important self has to do with this very civil conversation? Probalicious" Tony paused momentarily with a grin, congratulating himself on having remembered the long lost nick-name. McGee didn't seem as appreciative, however, judging from his glare. "appears to be in serious danger, and I wanna know what part I play in that happy event." Ziva rolled her eyes, but stopped that rather abruptly when she set her eyes on Mary's current sitting furniture. Tony offered her a slight grin.

"Because, from what I've gathered, McGee snooped around Ziva's phone and apparently found some interesting text messages." Jenny pointedly stared at him in an apprentice-like manner of Gibbs' glare. "Any idea what those were, Agent DiNozzo?"

"No?" He questioned, glancing at Gibbs, who, in his opinion, was the only one in the room that Tony considered having possibly told Jenny already.

"Really?" She said dryly.

"Little late for that, DiNozzo." Gibbs decided to offer. Of course it was.

Tony glanced at Ziva, who, recomposed, shrugged in defeat. "I told you you were pushing your luck." She offered, apparently having nothing else to say.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you said pulling-" He began.

"We are going to have a talk about that, by the way." Abby narrowed her eyes at the two of them, interrupting and ignoring Tony in a rather blatant manner. "I'm still going to wring your necks for being the last one to know." She promised, and Tony cringed. He believed her.

"I believe her." A by now familiar voice cheerfully agreed with him. "Especially since she made me the same threat about five times during the half-hour I was here yesterday. She seemed deadly serious."

And who else but Harry would be standing by the door, next to a crossed-armed Gibbs, and flanked by two Weasleys. The general answer to that was, unsurprisingly, total silence, because Tony had grown to directly associate wizards (barring Mary, for some reason) with impending disaster, and he wasn't looking forward to that at all.

"Well, hullo to you too." Ron said, mockingly bowing. "We sure appreciate the warm welcome."

Obviously, the one answering would either have to be Tony or Abby, but it was both. "My leg itches." Tony informed them, and Abby hurried forward to give the three newcomers a cheerful and extra-tight hug.

"That's entirely on you." Harry pointed out, surrendering his place on the Abby strangulation machine to Hermione, whose less than touchy-feeling attitude produced a harassed smile at the forensic scientist's hug. "I offered to fix it."

"Yeah, well," He answered warily. "I think I've had enough magic on that leg today to last for a lifetime."

Harry shrugged with a carefree smirk. "Suit yourself."

After that, Harry apparently decided to memorize the space. Or the people in it. He stared at each and every one of them, and then he gave them a hesitant smile, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "We came here to thank you. For your help in the case and for your help with Ginny."

It was kind of weird. Everyone gave their acknowledgement, but each was different from the last. Gibbs, obviously, just tilted his head; McGee gave a polite, vocal response, and Ziva nodded; Tony only broke his very effective ignoring them to make a concurring sound in the back of his throat.

After that, the atmosphere gained the relaxation of a dinner party. Tony heard bits and pieces of conversations here and there; such as Abby asking (loudly) how they'd gotten down there without an escort, and the answering smirks made him (and everyone else) exasperated. He heard Gibbs asking Jenny (quietly) why she'd come down here instead of her office – which was weird by itself; Gibbs didn't ask questions – and her answer that Mary had wanted to come see Abby made him bounce the little girl on his shoulders a little. He also heard Gibbs asking Harry about the eye's sudden appearance, again (Gibbs never, ever forgot anything) and the tight attitude the wizard reclaimed when answering that every lead they had about that had been void made him (and Gibbs too, judging from the grit teeth) edgy and unsettled.

But mostly, he just followed Ziva to Abby's office and found three comfortable-looking chairs (the fact that his back was being used like one was beginning to take its toll) to sit on.

Mary yawned as she slid from his back to the floor, and rubbed her eyes while she stumbled to her chair. Only then did Tony notice that she'd been using his shoulder as a pillow, and he started at that.

"Sleepy?" Ziva took over, brushing a loose bang from Mary's face. She was good at this – better than him, certainly.

Instead of hearing her mute protests that 'of course I'm not sleepy', Tony scrambled to make himself useful, and came up with Bert, lying on Abby's desk. He offered it to Mary. "Here. It's made-do as a pillow for the best of us."

Despite her best efforts, she had to grin at that. Which made prominent the bags under her eyes. She hadn't slept well, and she'd do to sleep now.

Well, at least he had the firm parenting thing going. "Even you?" She questioned, taking it from him and analyzing the toy.

"Even me." He confirmed.

Mary seemed to deem that a sufficient and satisfying condition for her to use that toy as a pillow. She took it and went back to her chair, but paused as she apparently found an issue with it. Turning around, she approached Tony, blinked up at him with wide, chocolate-dark and innocent eyes for a few seconds; and then shooed him from off his chair, dragging it to where hers was.

Tony was left looking after her from the floor, and Ziva could hardly be blamed for not containing her laughter. Mary pushed the two chairs together to make a make-shift bed and plopped Bert on one of them, laying down with her head on it. She was startled at the noise it made, but then it appeared to absolutely delight her. She pressed it three more times, and Tony was staring at her like an idiot with an open mouth.

Tony couldn't remain serious. He never could, and no one actually expected him to in a situation such as this. He cracked a grin at the little girl. "You have some serious potential. I'll corrupt you yet."

She grinned back at him from her pillow-rest.

Tony dragged Abby's desk chair next to his partner, the legs screeching against the floor. Ziva made a face at him at that, but Tony wouldn't be Tony without tempting fate, so he sent her a wink and a smirk. Still, he had a mild appreciation for his father for the life he'd contributed in giving him, so he reduced the noise as much as possible from then on.

He plopped down on the chair, leaning back when he delightedly realized Abby's chair was bought by the Goth and not NCIS. "I gotta get me one of these." He grinned at Ziva, who was scrutinizing the chair as if looking for something that would somehow turn this situation from very comfortable to very painful. He hastily straightened himself. "Or maybe not."

The smile Ziva offered was more amused and fond than predatory. She turned to Mary at the little girl's giggle, and affectionately (and possibly unconsciously), his partner ran a hand through her hair. Her eyelids dropped a little, and Tony leaned back again, Ziva's threat of violence all but forgotten.

"Or maybe I'll corrupt you. I am smarter." Mary mumbled, speaking as though there hadn't been an interruption since Tony's last comment to her.

The senior agent was left looking at her twitching lips with a scandalized expression, and Ziva adored the idea of adopting Mary more and more by the minute. "You seem to be quite the insightful girl." The Israeli commented, desperately closing her throat to the escaping laughter.

"I'm feeling really underappreciated right now." Tony announced to anyone who was willing to listen.

"Tony, shush." Ziva beckoned lowly with a wide smirk. "Mary is trying to sleep." The little girl in question buried her head into Bert (who produced a particularly loud and unpleasant sound) to hide her laughing expression.

And Tony conceded defeat, leaning back with a dejected sigh, and Ziva patted his leg as if comforting him. That made him want to be silly (don't ask why, because it's pointless) so he harrumphed with a little more drama than strictly necessary, and Ziva grinned at that, unable to resist commenting.

"I should teach Mary how to get you wrapped around her little finger."

Tony made a face at her. "Of course you'd get that one right." He whined, flickering a careful eye to Mary. She was yawning again, and, though they'd most likely set her back in her slumbering process, she seemed on her way to sleep quickly enough.

On an unspoken agreement, they fell silent, willing her to fall asleep completely. Ziva found her hand gravitating out of its own accord toward Mary's hair. She had no idea when she'd gotten to be so affectionate, but she was enjoying it, and it was leaving her with a particularly stubborn smile on her face, which could only be considered good.

Ziva restarted conversation in a lower and more cautious tone, which they'd been neglecting. This also gave Tony an excuse to get closer to Ziva, which wasn't exactly something the senior agent was complaining about.

"She had a nightmare yesterday." She said quietly, having been eager to tell him this for the whole day, but hesitant on how to approach the subject.

Tony started, and his gaze fell on Mary. A lock fell over her face and Ziva tucked it properly behind her ear. "I guess that's… normal." He struggled to say.

Truth was, this was terrifying him. Ziva mentioned one nightmare (which Mary would certainly be prone to having several times) and he was freaking out. How had he come up with the idea of adopting a child? How could he possibly do this, when he was so immature he could still act like a teenager around Ziva?

"Tony." Ziva, God bless her, seemed to know exactly what was running through his mind. And, obviously, she was ready to slap him for it. "Stop that. You look like someone killed your kitty."

"Puppy."

"Shut up." She warily answered, and his lips had to twitch at that. "What I wanted to say was that you are… incredible with Mary." She admitted, leaning forward to try and catch his avoiding eyes. He frowned, and the expression on his face told her that he disagreed with that so whole-heartedly, that she didn't even let him open his mouth. "Do you remember yesterday, when Mary was crying? Do you really think you cannot deal with a nightmare?"

Is first instinct was to say no. How could anyone think that the man-child that he was could be responsible enough to take care of a little kid?

But Ziva raised… a valid point. He'd been scared enough to make a run for it that moment – and yet, something about that seemed so wrong, watching that little girl's tears running down her face. So he'd stayed, hugged her, wiped her tears – in short, did everything he was supposed to. And he had no clue where it'd all come from.

Ziva was placing a large bet on spur of the moment actions. Tony's eyes were drawn to the hand she had poised on his knee. Then again, they wouldn't be here if not for that exact attitude.

He smiled at her, and, without looking, weaved his fingers onto hers. And that was how Ziva knew that, although they still had a distressing amount of topic to discuss, Tony wouldn't be having random panic attacks. For the near future anyway. (She gave it a week.)

Speaking of which. "Have you looked through the paperwork we will need to… well, all this." She gestured between the three of them, and Tony grinned. He liked the way she said that.

Then he sobered up at the actual content of her question. "You're gonna have to be a lot more specific than that. Are you referring to the papers that Jenny will give us regarding our relationship status, the red-tape Gibbs is forcing on us as punishment for breaking one of his rules, the more paperwork Jenny's gonna give (I think she likes these things) about the adoption, or the official documents we need to take care of with her family?" His tone was hardly mocking at all.

There was a very simple reason for which she focused on the last - she didn't remember the others. But the fact that her thoughts were directed at that one meant that they were also directed at something that, while she hadn't considered before, she realized now was an important point to be raised – and she felt apprehensive about it. "Mary's family – how…" She didn't know how to finish the sentence – she just eyed her partner, hoping he knew the answer to a question she was unable to phrase.

As soon as she brought up the subject, his mood changed. He frowned, as if trying to hide his irritation, and he warily glanced between his partner and Mary's sleeping form, fidgeting in the uncomfortable chairs – but still fast asleep. It was there where Tony's gaze rested for the longer while, hand running through his hair slowly.

"I've… spoken to her family." The words seemed to have been hard to get out. "They were more than willing to go through the adoption process, and they didn't look at all bothered to let her stay with me in the meantime."

For a few beats of silence, Tony let his riled up, tense posture stare back into Ziva's eyes.

He was annoyed and she knew that. She didn't get it either – it was their niece. They were supposed to love and cherish her, not treat her like some piece of discarded clothing they couldn't be bothered with. But she saw these kinds of things… too often. She could see where her aunt and uncle were standing from – but she couldn't say she agreed with it at all.

She was biased, she knew, because Mary had a gift of leaving anyone she met with an instant impression. Ziva looked at her and she saw Tali, in all her sweet innocence, and she was left with an ache in her heart that made Mary all the more precious. So, for all that, she whole-heartedly agreed with Tony – but she was tasked with being the level-headed one in this discussion, because this was her partner venting to her, and she needed to keep that half-controlled.

She gave him a look and Tony deflated, calming down. "It's not that I think they don't love her, it's just…" He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "They're scared. About the whole magic thing. The only one unbothered was her grandmother, and she was really regretful that she couldn't take the little girl in herself."

And he wondered whether he would fail this? "Well," Ziva pondered. "then it is a good thing you are unbothered by it as well." She smiled slightly.

And he relaxed. She was good at calming people – well, him, mostly.

His hand tugged at hers, and she somehow found room to lodge herself with him in Abby's chair – that might have had something to do with the fact that she wasn't exactly 'lodged', but mostly sitting on his lap. Her head nested on his shoulder, her nose nuzzled his neck and his heartbeat became a soothing rhythm in her ears.

They just didn't seem to be able to help themselves. If McGee ever fell asleep while he was alone with them again, he'd probably prefer the horn and the break of the car to his newest awakening.

"Gibbs will kill us." She murmured against his collar. She felt, more than she saw, his lips turning up.

"So now it's us, is i-" He released a strangled sound when something (it was anyone's guess but Ziva's as to what) produced a rather prominent pain in his side – Ziva shushed him, reminding him Mary was there with them, sleeping. Tony only glared back at her angelic smile, but that didn't last long. He could only sulk so much, what, with her breath tickling his skin.

"You really need to learn to be quiet sometimes, Tony." She advised, and he heeded her, considering that she really left him no choice.

She gave him a light peck on his lips, and he involuntarily tightened his hand on her waist. "Now who's pushing whose luck?" He muttered against her, and she grinned, because she was tired of warning him to keep his mouth shut.

She pulled back enough to be able to look at him properly. His hair was ruffled, his eyes were bright and his clothes were all but rumpled. She decided she liked the sight. She brushed a lock of hair from his forehead with a smirk, and she could see immediate apprehension flare on his face at her actions. But then she was kissing him, and he was kissing her back, and he quite forgot all about it.

The lab had been long since been vacated, since no one was actually interested in watching the two of them, so Ziva didn't have a lot of qualms on what she could and could not do in front of her boss. Of course, that didn't mean they wouldn't get the proper consequences from him later, but she chose not to think about that at the moment.

They took a while to decide to leave, and their acceptable excuse was Mary. Mostly, however, they just stayed, quiet to an extent that almost made Tony fall asleep too, very still in the empty room.

Ziva had never let herself be this inactive for this long. But Tony had always had a habit of making her do things that were unprecedented to her, and, when Mary woke up again, she could honestly say she had no idea of the actual amount of time that had passed.

Tony had had a very serious discussion with the little girl not long after. He had zero intention of doing something Mary didn't want him to do, and, for that, he had had to speak to her about the topic they'd been trying to avoid for days. His partner was there with him, but she was more of the silent bystander than anything else.

With Ziva and Gibbs' outspoken support of earlier, the question had become easier. The little girl had been more than thrilled at the idea of the adoption – but when she pondered her parents and what this meant, she'd gone quiet for a while. She was scared – the Navy Yard had become a sort of safety bubble in which the outside world had no effect. But now, reality was sinking in, and she understood what exactly it meant that her parents were gone.

When that happened, Tony proved Ziva right again in her assumption that he could deal. He would deal, because Gibbs was right, and this wasn't something they could bail on. They knew that parents should never be a little girl's first loss – ever. Very pointedly, because this wasn't the first time they had to tell a child mum and/or dad weren't coming home. But this was Mary, and she made it different, and they knew that too.

But though she would walk around the next few days with permanent red eyes, and Tony and Ziva would hear a lot of stories about her mother and father that just made them want to ask Harry where, exactly, the wizards responsible for their deaths were, she'd be okay. Eventually.

The rest was history.

There would be white dresses, Abby-squealing and golden bands, and enough confusion to make him dizzy. There would be bells and laughter, and plenty of head-slaps for panic-subsiding purposes. And, at some point, he was sure there would be actual tears in the stoically dry face of his partner.

And he would, for the rest of his life, vividly remember the conversation they'd have in the hotel room afterwards. ('The vows, the ring, the kiss and the ketubah turned out not to be so bad after all, huh?' 'No, but I still like this part much better.' – he'd lose a shirt, that night, thanks to Ziva's ripping hands).

But, for now, he was content with what he had, because, even if all that was a little ways down the road, it'd come, and he'd be more than receptive when it did.

Rule 11: When the job is done, walk away. So he did - following his brisk partner, and with a little girl, off in her own chattering world, trailing after him.

The End.

A\N: OMG! I FINISHED IT! I'm so proud of myself, which I really ought to be embarrassed to say…

To begin the, obviously, painfully long author's note, I have a question, and I better ask it now before you get bored with the length of this and move on: I may write a sequel. Now, bear in mind that this will not be anytime soon - most likely next summer only - but those of you with attentive eyes will realize that I left some open-ended story-lines that are just begging to be explored. Should I do it, or is this fine the way it is? Too much is as bad as too little, and I get the feeling that that phrase applies to me perfectly… Either way, I was thinking of setting it when Mary starts at Hogwarts, so… it's really up to you. If I do write it, I'll put a warning in this story.

What I write in the near future, for those of you who are following not only this story but also me (thank you, by the way, :D) is definitely going to be one-shots only, unless I decide to start a story and then leave it on hiatus until the summer, which I'm so not doing. Writing this was very enlightening as to how hard it is to balance school and FanFiction, and, right now, I won't have time to do it again anytime soon. :\ Apologies.

Finally, THANK YOU, ALL of you, who stuck with this story. Every hit, fav, follow I got made my day, seriously. Thank you especially to WolfReinMoon (who was wonderful enough to bear with my annoying rants since the beginning), ctc, LiveForeverMarie (who was my first reviewer), god of all, Too Lazy To Sign, Silvermane1, jgood27, Sakura Lisel and Guest, and anyone else who might review in the future! Hopefully… I love you all and I adore every word you wrote to me! :DDDDDD

Thank you!