Autumn Wild

At age nine, Lila Potter’s favorite time of year was autumn.

The winds blew the season in crisp and early through the highlands of their
summer home just beyond Inverness in early September, a bit later on Ayr
Island. By early October it seemed to her as if all the foliage of the world was
ablaze in rich tones of red, gold, and brown.
Autumn was everything to Lila. Her birthday was in autumn... the eleventh
of November, just as the last brown leaves fell from the trees like big, brown
flakes of bran. Her favorite fruit – the tangy, wild apples that grew in Ayr’s
North Forest – littered the ground in liberal heaps. Some became food for
squirrels and wild hippogriffs, but plenty of them ended up in Lila’s tummy. For
the whole of two months her hair and face and hands were perpetually stained
with their pulp and juice, much to her fastidious mum’s consternation.
Autumn was the time when all the new staffers at Black and Potter arrived
with their families, beginning new stints with various Foundation projects and
initiatives. Autumn was also the time that all the new students arrived at the
Dumbledore School for Gifted Young Witches and Wizards. Lila was always
fascinated by new people, and Ayr was always full of them... everyone on the
island came from somewhere else, except for the children of the DSG teachers
and the Black and Potter staff who had been born there.
Children like Lila and her brother and sister.
Best of all, autumn was the time when her family traveled. This was when
she got to have her parents and sister and brother all to herself. Mum wasn’t at
her office or on call, Dad wasn’t working late at the school or with Uncle Sirius
underground, and Drew and Bel weren’t staying with the aunts.
Autumn holidays were totally different than the spring ones, Lila always
thought. In the spring, she and her brother and sister were always spirited away
to stay with Grandfather Granger while her mum and dad took a week’s holiday
just for themselves. While Lila enjoyed these visits, loved her mum’s dad, and
liked the quaint Oxford home where he lived, it wasn’t the same as when it was
just the five of them.
After all was said and done, sometimes in the autumn Lila liked being with
her family and no one else.
First, there was Dad. Of course there was no one else in the world quite like
Harry Potter. Everyone seemed to know that, but no one knew it quite the same
way that Lila did. No one laughed as he did, no one listened the way he did, no
one could make her feel safe and secure the way that he did. Her dad knew
everything, had seen everything, and had done everything. He was her favorite
person in the whole wide world.
Even when she did something really bad – and Lila managed to get into
lots of mischief without even trying – Dad never, ever yelled at her. He talked to
her, found out her side of the story, and then let her know how disappointed he
was in her behavior. Somehow, that never failed to make her feel worse than all
her mum’s yelling.
Best of all, Dad was the only person in the world who liked to fly as much
as she did. Autumns were the time when the Quidditch seasons began, and Lila
never tired of talking about the England teams or going to games with her dad.
He’d given her a starter broom for her fifth birthday, and despite her mum’s
horrified protests, had let her travel beside him on his biweekly flights across
Scotland from Aberdeen to Hogsmeade. By the time she was eight, she could
easily fly alongside Dad to London whenever he went to visit friends.
“Regular little Seeker, you are,” Uncle Ron always said, half-admiringly,
whenever she played Quidditch with his three sons and only daughter. Lila
always held back a little, just a little, whenever she did... she was the best flier of
the bunch, but also the youngest. She didn’t want to make Uncle Ron’s boys
mad, or to embarrass Maria, who was the same age as Lila yet very wobbly on a
broomstick.
“Some things just can’t be taught,” Aunt Ginny would remark wonderingly,
whenever the kids came down from one of their pick-up games. “Even Fred’s
Malinda didn’t fly so well at that age, and she’s a Seeker for England. And Lila
is only a child...”
Mum, who at home always fussed about Lila’s constant preoccupation with
flying and infrequent book reading, simply glowed. Lila beamed as her mother
smoothed down her wild brown curls.
“Lila takes after her father,” she’d remark with pride. “She certainly didn’t
get that sort of talent from me.”
“Indeed...” and there was Dad, placing his hands on Lila’s shoulders after
ruffling her hair affectionately, “it’s quite obvious she didn’t. We all know what
you’re like on a broomstick, love.”
“Harry!”
Lila giggled.
Mum’s lips were pressed together. “Thanks for rubbing it in, dear. And
now, if you’ll just...”
“But at least she does look like you, Hermione,” Dad said contentedly,
leaning over Lila’s head to kiss Mum quickly before he got into even more
trouble. “And thank the heavens. She’s got the best of both worlds if you ask
me.”
Yes, she did look scarily like her mum. They both had the same shade of
brown hair (although perhaps Lila’s was a bit more tame when she wasn’t
flying), the same nose, the same ears and mouth, the same fine-boned face, the
same knees and feet and hands. When she looked at pictures of her mum as a
 Autumn Wild
girl, Lila saw herself... save for the sparkling green eyes that were just like her
Dad’s.
Lila was very proud of having a mum like the one she had. Her mum was
smart and sensible and wise... you could talk to her about anything, and she
wouldn’t laugh at you... not like the aunts, who found everything she said and
did funny even when she was meaning to be serious. Mum wasn’t as friendly as
Dad, not quite as easy to get along with, but everyone listened to what she had to
say.
Mum always knew just when to hug you to lift your spirits, and when to
kiss the hurts away. She smelled nice, too... whenever she buried her face in her
mum’s lap or hair, she remembered her nose filled with warm and comforting
scents like vanilla and cinnamon spice and firesmoke. And Lila always thought
she walked like a queen.
She and Mum were growing closer these days, as someday Lila would no
longer be a child. Mum was who she went to with her “girl” concerns... for as
great as Dad was, he wasn’t a Witch and never would be. But Mum was. She
knew. She always knew.
Lila rather liked being a big sister as well. Her younger brother by two-and-
a-half years, Andrew, was her diametric opposite – he looked just like Dad but
with his deep brown eyes was their mother’s kindred spirit. Drew didn’t like to
fly much, even on the oldest brooms with Safety Charms. So whenever they
played together in the North Forest, often Lila would dart high above the trees
while Drew tucked himself under a tree with a book, the fallen leaves as his seat.
But for all their differences, they were very close. There was no one else in the
world who Lila shared as many secrets with.
Then there was the baby, Isabella. Always called Bel by her family, little
Isabella Potter had inherited her paternal grandmum’s lovely dark red curls that
seemed at first glance more suited to a Weasley than to a Potter. But however
much the aunts and uncles teased her about being Uncle Ron’s second daughter,
Lila knew that her sister was one of them... for both girls had their dad’s green
eyes. She was only three, but showed the same sort of interest in flying that Lila
had at that age. Drew liked making up stories for her, and was at the present
teaching her to read.
Yes. Lila loved being around her family all the time, but especially in the
autumn, when she didn’t have to share them with the world.

~~~
But that was the autumn she met Alan... and for the first time, learned to
share her heart with someone else...
Even if it would be only for a season.
 Part 2
Every autumn, the Potter family had a ritual.
On the night of Mum’s birthday, after they said good-bye to their last
guests and all that, they crowded into their living room with second slices of
birthday cake and a lot of travel brochures and catalogues and advertisements
clipped from the Daily Prophet. Then sprawled on the floor, with sweets and
apples and popcorn and cider, the Potters planned their family trip.
These were the ten days in autumn when everyone on Ayr exhaled... the last
breath of October, first of November. The local first school closed down, DSG
took a break, and many Black and Potter staffers took holidays. Mum closed her
doctor’s office, Dad sent the school staff home, and word was sent to Uncle
Sirius that they were off for a fortnight.
“So, where should we go this year?” was invariably Dad’s opening
question.
“I dunno,” was Drew’s answer that year, as he was attempting to look at a
brochure for the Near East, gobble down massive amounts of popcorn, and read
Crime and Punishment: The Real Story of Azkaban at the same time. “Funnily
enough, there are two countries named ‘Greece’ and ‘Turkey’ right next to each
other... Greece and Turkey? Ha! Did you know that, Li?”
“Really helpful, thanks,” Lila said. “Mummy, what are you reading?”
“This is a letter from friends of your dad’s and mine, who used to live in
Brazil.” Mum waved a birthday owl that had arrived that morning from South
America. “Harry, why don’t we go visit Zach and Eva? We’ve not seen them
since they moved to Bariloche.”
“But we’ve been to South America loads of times... we went to Bariloche
for the winter holidays when I was eight,” Lila said. “Remember the beard
Uncle Charlie grew so he could play Father Christmas? And the time he had
getting it off the next day?”
Dad, Mummy, and Drew laughed, but Bel looked confused. “I don’
‘member,” she complained.
“That’s because you were a baby, Tinkerbell,” Drew pointed out. “If we
don’t go to Bariloche, Mum and Dad, can we go somewhere it’s warm? It’ll be
dead cold here in a few weeks.”
“Autumn should come with a nip in the air, I think,” Lila replied. “It
wouldn’t be properly autumn if it wasn’t.”
“I want snow!” Bel said.
They discussed back and forth like that as they always did. Mum and Lila
and Drew and even now little Bel had lots of suggestions, but Dad merely
listened. Lila noticed this for the first time this year, that he never suggested
much of anything, and asked him about it.
“Don’t you care where we go, Dad?” she asked.
“All I care about is being with you lot,” he replied. “I’m okay with
 Autumn Wild
wherever we come up with.”
Drew looked up at his mother. “Hey, I’ve got it! Mum, can we go to one of
the Thousand Worlds this year?”
“Not until you’re older, dear...”
“I asked last year, and I am older. I’ve read all about Equus and Wildemere
and Grass. And you and Dad have been everywhere... to Stormwatch and
Tartarus and even Avalon. How come we can’t go?”
“Because although you may be older, your sister isn’t,” Mum said briskly.
“And it can be very dangerous in the Thousand Worlds. Many fully qualified
Wizards have gone into the portals and not come out.”
“Well, one day I’m going to go and see for myself. Let’s see you try and
stop me then...”
“Andrew,” Harry said. That was all he had to say. There wasn’t even a
razor edge to his voice. Yet and still, young Drew straightened up and took
notice.
“I’m sorry, Mum,” muttered Drew. Then he hung his head.
Hermione leaned over and dropped a kiss on the top of it. “One day I know
you’ll be going, sweet. But that day isn’t quite yet. Your time will come, trust
me.”
“Well, since we can’t go anywhere that’s not here on Earth,” said Drew,
looking up at his mother gratefully, “then why don’t we go somewhere fun?
Like Disneyworld.”
“Disneyworld?” they all said together.
“Yeah, Disneyworld. Wizards don’t have anything like it, you know. And
we’ve never been before.”
“I never thought seriously about going to Disneyworld,” said Mum slowly.
“I’ve not been in nearly twenty years... not since your Uncle Draco was living in
America and I visited him there.”
Dad looked at Mum very strangely, in a way that Lila didn’t quite
understand.
“You never told me you visited Malfoy, Hermione...”
“Well, you were off to Avalon, weren’t you? And I honestly forgot... really,
Harry, it wasn’t that big of a deal.” She grinned, and there was a twinkle in her
eye that Lila comprehended no better than Dad’s look. “It sounds like a lovely
idea, Drew. I’m all for it, if we can get flights and hotel reservations and all that.
We’ve not taken a proper Muggle holiday since Bella was a baby... discounting
trips home to Oxford, of course.” She looked at the children, picking up little
Bel to tickle her on the stomach. “What do you girls say about going to see
Mickey Mouse?”
Bel giggled. “Eee! I like mice!”
Dad nodded. “What about you, Lila?”
“It’s sort of babyish, but I suppose it could be all right.” But it’s not really
an autumn place, she also thought. “Why not?”
 Part 3
Of all the parks in the Disneyworld complex, Lila loved the Animal
Kingdom the best.
She knew immediately why this was. The rest of her family seemed to
genuinely enjoy the themed areas of the Magic Kingdom, the countries of Epcot,
the movie sets at MGM Studios. But to Lila, a pre-pubescent child who had
lived and breathed magic from the womb and had set foot on every continent,
the artifice grated on her nerves.
Nothing at Disney was real.
Of course, it was always wonderful being with her family. Dad took a
boyish delight in everything, buying them whatever they wanted to eat despite
Mum’s protests about too much sugar, insisting that they stay out long past
bedtimes to see the Electric Parade and the fireworks at Epcot, and going on the
theme-park rides as many times as she and Drew wanted while Mummy took
Bel to play in the kids’ areas.
“You actually like this, Dad?” asked Lila after a while, rattling along on one
of the newest VR rides that took them across the surface of Mars.
“Yeah, of course I do. It’s cool.” He turned to Drew. “Having fun?”
Drew looked green. “I think I’m going to throw up,” he muttered.
“Ew, right, then not on me,” said Lila, scooting over to the far side of the
car. “Daddy, this is okay, but compared to a good racing broom, I’d rather...”
He placed a finger over his lips in the eerie red dusty glow. “Hey,
remember where we are. And Lila, you’ve got to learn to appreciate things for
what they’re worth. They can’t be us any more than we can be them.”
Yes, Lila knew this. She also knew that Drew was a fraidy-Kneazle, Bel
was but a wee thing who wasn’t particular about the source of her thrills, and
Dad and Mum were reminiscing over their Muggle childhoods as they went on
the various rides. But compared to the Wizarding world, this was all sort of
anticlimactic.
So the Animal Kingdom was refreshing. Although it was nothing more than
“a glorified, overpriced zoological park” as her mother pronounced it, Lila
found the lack of clunky Muggle mechanization refreshing. Dryad-at-heart that
she was, she also loved the trees that were planted everywhere, foliage from all
different parts of the world. Here the artifice seemed much less stark to her eyes.
They stopped into one of the Animal Kingdom restaurants to have a
character breakfast. This was mostly for Bel’s benefit, although Drew laughed a
lot as Donald and Mickey flanked him and Mum’s camera flashed. Lila allowed
herself a secret smile; Mum’s innocent-looking Polaroid was actually a
Wizarding disposable that would capture every nuance of her brother’s goofy
giggles and Bel’s maple-syrup sticky hair for posterity.
Lila allowed herself a small laugh, then excused herself to go back in line
for a third helping of the cinnamon-baked apples. Although nothing around here
 Autumn Wild
reminded her much of autumn, she could still taste autumn if she wanted.
Watching the characters at their table over her shoulder, she wasn’t looking
where she was going... and she ran straight into another child.
If Lila was an autumn girl, the boy who now sat sprawled across from her
was certainly the offspring of the cold winter moon. Everything about him
bespoke this... from his pale complexion to his watery blue eyes to his platinum
blonde hair. The only other person who Lila had ever seen with hair that shade
was her Uncle Draco. He was wearing spectacles, but not ones like Dad’s. This
boy’s lenses were round and thick, making his eyes look perhaps more watery
and small than they were.
He was scrawny, all pointy elbows and knobbly wobbly knees. He seemed
very afraid of her as well, for he sprang up at once, and began to apologize
profusely.
“Oh, sorry...” he stammered.
“That’s quite all right, I’m sorry too,” said Lila graciously, regaining
enough breath and helping the boy to sweep up the dry cereal that had spilled
from his bowl. She scooped it up quickly in large handfuls, pouring it back onto
the fallen tray for disposal.
“No, it’s not all right,” said the boy, with not a little self-loathing. “I seem
always to do this. I never watch where I’m going.”
“I’m sure it was my own fault,” Lila said quickly. Dad always said never to
let someone else take the blame for something that you had done. “I was
watching Mickey and Donald take pictures with my little brother and sister...”
“I wasn’t looking at where I was going, either.” Both children had done the
best they could at cleanup, and headed to the garbage bins. “I was looking at that
lady sitting over there.”
Lila looked at where the boy pointed and gasped. “Why, that’s my mother!”
“Really? I wondered. I don’t know where I’ve seen her before.”
Lila shrugged too. “My mum and dad know lots of people.” She did not
add, in both worlds, no less. She just looked up into the boy’s watery blue eyes
and grinned. It was the smile of a friend, and the boy recognized it as such. “Are
you here with your mum?”
Before the boy could answer, the hyper-efficient Disney cleanup crew was
upon them.
“Excuse us, please,” said a pimply teenaged girl, bustling them aside.
“Sorry, really I...”
But they were shoved gently away, and left to stand and head back to their
respective tables.
When Lila arrived back to her family, Dad was busily trying to de-syrup
little Bel and Mummy was embroiled in conversation with a strange woman.
The woman was lovely, perhaps a contemporary of the Potters, with hair like
moonbeams and eyes like stars.
“There you are,” said Mum. “Come and meet an old friend of mine.
Elizabeth, I’d like you to meet our eldest daughter, Delilah...”
“Pleasure. And it’s Lila,” she corrected. Lila never had liked her full first
name. She understood that it was a proud name, one rich with the traditions of
her grandmothers and a powerful Witch ancestress, but taken by itself Delilah
wasn’t exactly a name with the best history or connotations. She much preferred
her nickname, given to her by her father after his own mother, Lily.
“Lila indeed,” said the star-lady. “You look exactly like your mother.”
“I know,” said Lila. “You know Mummy then, Mrs...?”
“Carker. I’ve known your mother for a very long time. We were girls
together in Oxford.”
Lila frowned. “But you don’t sound like you’re from England.”
“My father was a Rhodes scholar from America,” she said. “I went to the
same primary school as your mother for a time.”
Mum was smiling. “Elizabeth Jennings Carker was one of the very few
female friends I ever had as a girl. When her parents moved back to New York,
I was inconsolable. It’s been years, hasn’t it, Liz?”
“Far too long, Hermione. It’s so good to see you, and after all this time. We
haven’t seen each other since... since...”
“Since you were married to Bill, I think,” said Hermione. “How is Alan
taking to him?”
“Oh, splendidly!” said Mrs. Carker, with not a little enthusiasm. “You
know, after Brian...” She trailed off, looking at someone who had walked up
behind Delilah.
The star-lady smiled. “Lila, I’d like you to meet my son, Alan.”
Lila turned around and came face to face with the boy she’d run into just a
few moments before.
Underneath his glasses, his watery eyes held a twinkle.
“Haven’t we met sometime before?”

Part 4
By the end of the day, Lila and Alan were the best of friends. After securing
parental permission, the children ran helter-skelter all over the Animal Kingdom
together like a pair of young banshees. Meanwhile, Harry and Bill took Bel and
Drew away so that the mothers could have some kid-free time to catch up.
“Fancy seeing you here,” said Hermione. “You’re looking well, Elizabeth.
I mean it, really.”
Elizabeth smiled. “So are you. I had no idea you had three now... they’re all
so adorable, Hermione!”
“Yes, they have their moments,” Hermione smiled. “However, don’t expect
any more the next time I see you. I’ve told my husband that this is it for us...”
“I thought you said you fussed at Harry about stopping the last time, after
Drew was born,” Elizabeth teased.
Hermione blushed a little. “Oh, Isabella was totally an accident. A most
 Autumn Wild
fortunate accident, but nevertheless, quite unplanned and unexpected.”
“Now, Hermione,” Elizabeth chided, lowering her voice. “Can Witches
really have that sort of accident? I thought that was one of the advantages!”
Elizabeth had known that Hermione was a Witch ever since they were ten
years old. Hermione wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about the mysterious letter
that had arrived early that summer, but she was full to bursting and had to let it
out. So she’d sent a long letter to Elizabeth, in which she cryptically explained
her dilemma. Yet Elizabeth figured it out... and understood. Elizabeth always
had been like that.
It was too bad that there hadn’t been a letter for Elizabeth as well. Perhaps
Hermione’s life might have been different...
As for how little Bel was conceived... conceived after Hermione had
insisted that two children were more than enough for any family... that was an
amusing tale she didn’t care to share with even her old childhood friend.
“Oh, do shut up,” Hermione laughed. “Let’s talk about yourself. Now that
Alan’s all better and you’ve got your new man, are you thinking of having more
children?”
“Dear God, no,” said Elizabeth, looking horrified at the idea. “I’ve just
made partner... and we’re both forty-four years old. There isn’t a chance in hell
that I’d want to sacrifice all that just to have another baby.”
“Well, the one you’ve got is quite the little gentleman. I see Lila’s quite
taken with Alan... they’re just like two peas in a pod.”
“That they are. From what you’re telling me, I think they’re very similar in
personality. Alan is just as rambunctious, and it’s a relief that finally I can let
him play to his heart’s content without worrying about him.” Elizabeth put a
hand on her old friend’s shoulder. “Thank you for all that you did, Hermione.”
“I didn’t do much, dear. Your son’s will to live was outstanding.
Leukemia’s a particularly nasty cancer... and for all my medical and magical
skill, if Alan hadn’t wanted to be cured, I wouldn’t have been able to save him.”
“I promised him this trip to Disneyworld two years ago,” said Elizabeth.
“We were supposed to go for his eighth birthday, but he wasn’t strong enough.
So now we’re here, and he’s loving every minute of it.” Elizabeth’s starry eyes
turned liquid. “As much as I love him. Hermione, he means the world to me...
I never knew that I could love anyone so much until...”
Hermione nodded. “I know. I don’t think anyone can know, until they
become a mother.”
Later, much later that night, Hermione lay wide awake, listening to Harry’s
even breathing a few inches away and thinking about the ordeal that Elizabeth
had gone through. She’d been through a lot in her own life, but the heartache
that her friend had endured was profound.
Elizabeth’s first husband, Brian Carker, was Alan’s dad. Hermione
remembered receiving Liz’s first breathless letters about “this boy on my
college’s football team who’s totally hot” while in her first year at Paracelsus
and Oxford, and remembering that in America football was an entirely different
sport. She remembered losing touch with Liz and running into her in London
while she was still married to Ron. Liz was just about to marry Brian, and was
so obviously in love that Hermione couldn’t help but make sad comparisons to
her own empty marriage.
Then their lives had gone on in their separate directions again. By the time
she saw Elizabeth again, Hermione was divorced and living in Atlanta. Elizabeth
had suffered her own loss as well... she and Brian had just gone through their
second miscarriage... and so the two women had a nice cozy chat at Lenox Mall,
comforting each other as only longtime women friends can.
The next time the women saw each other found them both in better straits.
They ran into each other in the Covered Market in Oxford of all places... and
both were very pregnant. Of course, Hermione had a bit more explaining to do...
for she had been divorced the last time they spoke... but both had a great laugh
over the coincidence.
Alan Elijah Carker had been born that August. Delilah Caroline Potter
followed three months later, in November.
About three years later, Hermione had received a distressed call from
Elizabeth while visiting her father in Oxfordshire.
Brian had died in a plane crash over the Atlantic.
Hermione pleaded with Harry to let Elizabeth and little Alan stay with them
for a time. Elizabeth had no one... her Rhodes Scholar Dad was dead, she was
estranged from the mother who had left them both long ago, and friends and
relatives were scarce in her life. Harry was reluctant at first, never having met
Elizabeth, pointing out the fact that her friend was a Muggle and she was
pregnant, but as it was his habit to refuse Hermione nothing, agreed.
So Elizabeth and Alan came to Ayr for the spring and summer, on a rare
permit that Harry had to squeeze out of Sirius with every ounce of stubbornness
that he possessed. She helped around the school, doing clerical work. Even
though she was a Muggle and what she could do was limited in some ways, no
one could fault her efforts.
There were detractors, of course. Ron’s wife Maureen was one of those
who thought it was a bad idea.
“There’s no way I’d have a woman who looks like a Veela underneath the
same roof as my husband, hon,” was her frank opinion.
“Understood,” said Hermione briskly. “I wouldn’t have her living with Ron
either. But you see, dear, the difference between the two of us is that I can trust
my husband.”
No, Hermione was more concerned about her friend not wanting to date at
all. At thirty-eight, she seemed to be of the opinion that her heart had been
buried along with Brian. All of Hermione’s attempts to get Elizabeth acquainted
with their Wizard friends – even just as friends – availed nothing.
“It’s not healthy, Harry,” Hermione complained to her husband one night.
 Autumn Wild
“I’m worried about her. She’s still so young and doesn’t even realize it.”
“Give it time, love,” was his suggestion. “And only put yourself in her
place. Imagine how you’d feel if something like that happened to me...”
Her eyes promptly filled with tears, and she clung to him fiercely.
Considering who the man she loved was, it was only too easy for her to imagine
herself in Elizabeth’s place.
The warmer season was punctuated by the birth of Drew. Although
Hermione’s pregnancy hadn’t been unduly difficult this time around, the
delivery itself was always quite the ordeal for a hyperempath. And afterwards,
Elizabeth was so much help with little Lila and around the house, leaving
Hermione to rest and take care of the baby and Harry to work and see after his
recovering wife.
When the first autumn leaves fell, Elizabeth announced that it was time to
go home. The Ayr people keenly felt her going.
“The house seems so empty without her,” Hermione had said to herself the
day after they’d seen Elizabeth and Alan off to London. For the first time in her
life, Hermione Granger Potter had forced herself to recognize the value of a
good girl friend.
Years passed... nearly four, to be exact... before she saw Elizabeth again.
Once again, husbands and children and work had got in the way of their
maintaining contact.
It was on a lazy Friday summer afternoon that Harry knocked on the door
of the small, sterile one-story building that served as her office. She’d locked up
for lunch and had been planning on catching up on paperwork when her husband
arrived.
Hermione frowned. Usually Harry just walked into her workspace without
preamble, waiting in the small reception area if she was with a patient, shifting
his weight from one foot to the other. At lunchtimes, when she sent her assistant
Stephanie to have lunch at the DSG cafeteria and locked up for a bit of privacy,
he usually just Apparated in if he wanted her for anything.
She didn’t even have to ask what was wrong. With one shared look, they
communicated in the way that long-married couples do.
“One of the children?” asked Hermione, heart in her throat.
Harry shook his head wordlessly. It was then that Hermione knew. Even
after no contact with Elizabeth for years, she knew.
Her friend needed her.
Less than a day later, Hermione found herself at a bedside in the critical
care unit at St. Ormond’s Hospital. The Potter children hadn’t been told where
she’d gone exactly, as they were too young to understand... they had been only
told that their mother had gone to London to visit a friend.
Over the dying child, Hermione saw the anguish in her friend’s eyes.
Save him, Hermione. Please...
Hermione wasn’t an oncologist. She wasn’t even authorized to work in that
hospital. Nevertheless, Hermione had friends and friends of friends who were
among some of the most prominent doctors in Muggle medicine. She used her
connections to buy the time she needed while she used mediWizardry and
hyperempathic bonding to persuade Alan’s body to reject the cancer utterly and
heal itself.
Alan had begun to not respond to any treatments, not to chemotherapy or
radiation or the new scatter-lasers. Now his body was being demanded not only
to respond, not only to stop letting the cancerous blood cells run rampant, but to
step up the production of healthy cells.
It took Hermione ten days of nonstop contact with the boy. Elizabeth
brought her food and drink and helped her eat and drink as Hermione continued
to hold Alan’s hand. Her new boyfriend, Bill, kept tryst with the distraught
mother, trusting Elizabeth’s insistence that “Hermione’s a psychic of sorts... she
knows what she’s about.”
For Hermione, the battle she was fighting was personal on more than one
level. Her own mother had died this way, even refusing her own daughter’s final
gift of alleviating the pain. Never again would she let such a thing happen.
On the dawn of the tenth day, Alan began to respond to her. That was a
joyous morning. The doctors and nurses were dumbfounded. Elizabeth held on
to her old friend and wouldn’t let her go. And by the time dusk fell, little Alan
spoke again.
Harry had come for her in the middle of the night. After saying a tearful
goodbye to Elizabeth and kissing little Alan farewell, Hermione allowed her
husband to take her home and put her to bed.
She’d slept, more or less, for nearly a week.
It was almost serendipitous, Hermione thought on that night in Disney, that
they’d run into Elizabeth once more. She’d been a friend to Hermione through
the good times and the bad, and although there was much the women didn’t
understand about each other’s lives, they were kindred spirits.
How different my life would have been if Elizabeth had never moved back
to America. Or if she had been a Witch, too...
“Something the matter?” Harry asked sleepily. It was then that Hermione
realized she’d been tossing and turning. She placed a stroking hand on his chest
as she curled comfortably into his side.
“No, just thinking.”
There was silence for the few seconds before he placed his hand over hers
to still it. “About...?”
“Elizabeth. It was really good to see her again, you know.”
Yawn. “Yes, it was.”
“Pity we live so far apart. It’s been a long distance friendship since we were
ten, you know.”
Pause. Then, “If you ever want to take a holiday to see your friend, love,
you know you have only to say the word.”
 Autumn Wild
“Well, now that Lila’s so taken with Alan, perhaps I will take you up on
that offer. That is, if you don’t mind keeping up with the Mad Professor and
Mini-Ron.” Hermione had nicknames for their kids that she only used with
Harry.
“Mind? Hermione, they’re my children too. Why would I mind?” He
laughed conspiratorially. “We’ll have fun, Bel and Drew and I... after all, there’ll
be no Evil Mummy around to tell us when we have to go to bed and that we
must wait until after dinner for all the ice cream we can eat!”
Hermione groaned.
“You can be assured that I won’t stay away too long, darling.”

Part 5
By the next spring, when Mum and Lila took their very first “mother-
daughter” trip to New York, Lila felt as if she’d known Alan forever.
He was the best friend ever. Lila had a gift for friendship and yet had
trouble keeping friends. All the little girls she knew seemed to grow either
inexplicably jealous of her or never quite got over being in awe of her parents.
Even the Weasley cousins like Maria and Ana were closer to each other than
they were to her. Once, Lila even overheard Aunt Maureen talking to her own
daughter about her when she’d stayed the night at Uncle Ron’s and they thought
she was asleep.
“It’s not fair, Mother! How come Lila gets to go to Hogwarts this autumn?
She’ll only be ten when school opens. She isn’t old enough yet!” That was
Maria’s voice.
“She’ll be eleven soon enough, hon. Don’t you worry.”
“No, Mother! Lila gets everything... she can fly better than I can, and she’s
becoming the beauty out of me and her and Ana... Ana told me she heard Aunt
Ginny tell Hazel so just the other day. And all the kids act like she’s so special
because of her parents... I’m just as good as she is!”
“Never mind what Aunt Ginny says,” said Aunt Maureen. “The opinion of
any woman who actually married your Uncle Draco cannot be trusted,
remember that. And don’t get me started on that Hazel girl.”
“But what if it’s true?”
“Maria Weasley, you look well enough. And you had better not let Delilah
Potter get underneath your skin. She’s got plenty of her mother’s ways, but she
can’t help that. In spite of herself, she tries her best to be a sweet girl. I suggest
you do the same.”
Her mother’s ways. Lila hadn’t bothered to find out what that meant from
the Weasleys. She just feigned indifference the next day. Aunt Maureen made
her breakfast, although she wasn’t very hungry. Uncle Ron made jokes with her,
although she wasn’t in a very jovial mood.
When Dad came for her, she was relieved.
“Do I have Mummy’s ways?” she asked him desperately, the second they
were safely back on Ayr... their island. Home.
Dad frowned. “What on earth are you after, princess?”
“Aun... someone said this weekend that I had Mummy’s ways. And the way
they said it didn’t... well, it didn’t seem so good. Have I, Dad?”
Now Dad seemed to be looking her over. “No, not particularly. You do look
uncannily like your mother, but inside I think you’re most like me. The only
thing I see of your mum in you is the way your laugh sounds, just like hers... and
the way you hold your head as if you owned the world and everything in it.”
Now it was Lila’s turn to frown. Did Aunt Maureen think she had an
annoying laugh? Or was insufferably stuck-up?
“I love those things about your mother,” Dad continued with a smile,
noticing her consternation. “And I love seeing them in you. Never mind what
anyone else thinks.”
And so, in Lila’s mind, the defense had rested its case. But she never
looked at Maria or Aunt Maureen quite the same way again.
That was the thing about girls. They were so very sometimey that it made
Lila weary of even trying to befriend them. One day they’d be all smiles and
shared apples and traded dolls; the next, they’d not want anything to do with
you. And few young Witches shared Lila Potter’s intense passion for flying.
The boys weren’t all that great, either. Either they developed these horrid
moony crushes on her, or absolutely ignored her, or teased the life out of her.
True friends were few and far between. Certainly there was Proteus
Maximillian, the oldest faun-child of a proud satyr family who summered in
Ayr’s North Woods... Dougal MacBride, a poorer than poor orphan who served
as choreboy for the sheep farm that adjoined their Inverness property... and
Mitch Black, Uncle Sirius’ younger son who understood everything and talked
to her as if she was an equal and not a little girl, but at seventeen far too old to
be a proper friend to young Lila.
Still, no one else was like Alan. No one.
During the fortnight that she and her mum spent in New York City, Lila
shared Alan’s world. She found it all amazing... playing in Central Park by day,
enjoying the quaint little shops in Alan’s Upper West Side neighborhood in the
evenings. There was lots to see and do... a reading at the children’s bookshop
around the corner... a kids’ play on Broadway with dinner afterward... even the
ferry to the Statue of Liberty was something fun and new.
Alan’s talent was his art. When Alan took pencil to paper, the animals and
people and figures he drew seemed to come to life. In fact, Lila was very
tempted to make them come to life once she saw her friend’s gift... and was only
deterred by her mother’s warning not to let him know she was a Witch.
“But Mummy, doesn’t Mrs. Carker know that we’re Witches?”
“She does, yes. And we’ll tell Alan as well, when it’s the right time.”
Late one memorable night, Alan showed her his star people. In their
pajamas they tiptoed up to the roof and stood in the chill spring air, staring up
 Autumn Wild
into the midnight sky.
“They’re like a big connect-the-dots game, aren’t they?”
Lila nodded. “I love looking at the stars with my brother. He’s far better at
finding all the constellations than I am.”
“Well, yeah, I know all the old constellations too. But what I like best is
drawing my own. Making up stories for them. Inventing all new ones.”
“Inventing your own? Honestly, Alan, that’s the silliest thing I’ve ever
heard,” Lila laughed. “All that stuff was thought up many thousands of years
ago...”
She left off laughing when she saw that Alan hadn’t joined in.
“Those people who said what the constellations were all those years back
were people just like us. They laughed like us, dreamed like us, did all the stuff
we did. Who knows who first told the story of Orion, or the Dippers, or of
Cassiopeia? Maybe it was an old man, telling stories by a cave fire... or maybe it
was just kids like us.”
“Just like us, you say?”
“Sure, why not? And if those people who drew pictures in the stars were
just like us, Lila, then I don’t get why we can’t do the same thing. I know my
star people are up there... let me show you.”
And he did. Suddenly Lila could see the sky in an entirely different way.
The next morning, Mummy and Mrs. Carker were horrified when neither
child was in their beds. A thorough search of the three-story brownstone was
conducted... Bill was summoned back home from work... the police were
called...
It was Mrs. Carker’s trusty housekeeper Susan who finally found the two
children, sleeping side by side atop an old blanket on the roof.
Mrs. Carker found the situation amusing, but Mum (“you could have
caught your death, Delilah Potter!”) fussed about it for almost a week after they
were back in Scotland. Lila even overheard her telling Dad all about it the
evening of their return, the second she thought the children were out of earshot.
“It’s scandalous, Harry! At her age!”
Dad seemed noncommittal. “Go on, Hermione... you’d think you caught
them snogging or worse.”
This seemed to annoy Mum even further. “Harry James Potter, this is your
daughter we’re talking about here. Doesn’t the very idea of this bother you in
the slightest?”
“Not at all.”
Pause.
“Sorry, love, but it doesn’t.”
“She’ll be eleven this November. Perhaps it’s time that we thought about
giving her The Talk...”
“Totally unnecessary. She’s only ten.”
“My mother gave me the Talk when I was two years younger than Lila is.”
 ”Which is why you’re so incredibly well-adjusted now, of course... oh,
don’t look at me like that. I’m only teasing you. I know you’re concerned about
the child, Hermione, but Lila is still only that... a child. She’s no more concerned
with the birds and the bees than we were at that age. Plenty of time for the Talk.”
“Children grow up faster these days, Harry...”
“Not in our world. Our children’s generation is the first actually to have a
proper childhood in a century. There’s no way I’m going to take that away from
them... away from her.”
So Lila didn’t find out until long afterwards what her parents meant by the
Talk. Instead she wrote to Alan by day and at night stole out into the garden to
look up at the stars. That was the nice thing about stars... if she woke up before
eastern Scotland’s first light and Alan stayed awake long after his Manhattan
brownstone fell asleep, they could share the midnight sky together again.
It wasn’t a first love. Both Lila and Alan would have laughed at that and
been slightly horrified by the idea, some of their innocence swept away by the
very suggestion of any amorous motive. It was, however, a first true friendship,
a bond shared between kindred.
Sometimes, one soul just knows another.
Simple as that.

Part 6
That spring sped by, and one fine day in late June, Lila was done with her
pre-Wizarding training.
It was a warmer than usual afternoon when Lila said farewell to the Ayr
Primary School. The school had just opened two autumns before, when it was
brought to Dad’s attention that the island’s growing population could sustain
such an institution. The island parents applauded the decision as a wise one.
Now instead of sending the children all the way to Hogsmeade, at age five the
Ayr kids could walk to school on their own.
Now Lila was off to Hogwarts, and unless she was selected for DSG, she
would have to spend the better part of the next seven years away from home.
She cried many a bitter tear over this sudden realization. Of course she
wanted to go to Hogwarts... her parents, her paternal grandparents, her aunts and
uncles, her older cousins, and just about everyone else she knew had gone there.
But it was a bitter potion to swallow that she would have to leave Ayr...
where everything and everyone she loved was.
Her parents, as great as they were, seemed not to understand this. Dad
thought she would love going to Hogwarts, ‘just as I did.’ Her mother told her
Hogwarts was a fascinating place, and held lots of memories for her and Dad
and Uncle Ron. Best of all, the library there was fantastic, and Lila learned to
tune Mum out as she went on and on about the many pleasant hours of study
she’d passed there.
 Autumn Wild

~~~
One day over dinner, Uncle Ron told her she was a shoe-in for the house
team... “Gryffindor, of course, for our Lila-bird. No other house will do.”
“Where else?” Dad said proudly, smiling across the table at her. For once,
Lila didn’t meet her father’s grin.
“Indeed,” said Uncle Ron between mouthfuls. “I think it’s high past time
that Malfoy ate humble pie... between Fred’s daughter and his, the Slytherin
team’s had too much cheek these past few seasons for its own good....”
“Perhaps I want to be in Slytherin,” Lila snapped. Usually she loved Uncle
Ron, but this Hogwarts business was not making her too happy. “Or Ravenclaw
or Hufflepuff. Anything other than that stupid Gryffindor I’ve been hearing
about all my life.”
Everyone eating at the table fell silent.
“Eat your food, young lady,” said Mum with a warning in her voice.
“I’m not hungry. And I’m tired of hearing about Gryffindor Tower and
Gryffindor Quidditch and Gryffindor everything, when I hate scarlet and I hate
gold and I don’t want to go to stupid Hogwarts anyway!”
“Well, you’re certainly a grateful girl,” said Aunt Maureen. “Your parents
have had to pull all sorts of strings to get you into Hogwarts a year early, and
this is the thanks they get?”
“I’ll reprimand my own daughter, thanks,” said a tight-lipped Mum to Aunt
Maureen.
“About time someone did,” Aunt Maureen snapped back.
“Mo, that’s enough,” said Uncle Ron quickly, before Mum could respond.
“Maria, take Lila outside.”
Maria stood up and beckoned for Lila to come with her.
The two girls went and walked away from the house in silence. Lila
listened as her mother, Aunt Maureen, and Uncle Ron went back and forth about
her merits and demerits. She didn’t hear Dad’s voice. Then again, Dad never had
very much to say when Aunt Maureen and Mum were in the same room
together.
Out of the blue, Maria spoke.
“It’s your own fault, you know.”
Lila stopped walking and whirled on the girl she called cousin.
“Excuse me, but what is my fault?”
“The argument started because you were being bratty. You know Mum and
Aunt Hermione don’t care much for each other, and yet you had to throw your
temper tantrum and stir things up anyway, didn’t you?” Maria rolled her eyes.
“Personally, I think Hogwarts would be stupid to let such a big baby into the
school... and so does Ana.”
“I don’t believe Ana would say any such thing about me.” Anastasia
Weasley was Uncle George and Aunt Anya’s daughter, born on the same day as
Maria. She was quiet and mousy and existed entirely in Maria’s shadow. “And
you’re both only a few months older than I am.”
“At least we’re getting into Hogwarts this year by rights, and not because
we’re bloody Potters.”
Lila’s eyes were blazing. “I do not get special consideration because of my
mum and dad! I never have! You take that back!”
“Yes, you do. And everyone knows it. Everyone in the family and everyone
at Hogsmeade First School... I mean, your dad started up a school on that silly
little island of yours just because you went home and complained to him that
you were being teased at Hogsmeade School.”
“That’s a ruddy lie!” Lila said angrily.
“No, it’s just that you refuse to see the truth, Delilah. And the truth is that
everything you do and everything you’ve got is because you’re a stupid Potter,
not because you’re good enough on your own. Take away your famous mum and
dad and you are nothing.”
Maria then paused, as if waiting for Lila to do or say something. Anything.
But she was to wait for a long while. Several painful minutes passed, both girls
staring at each other. Tears streaming from Lila’s angry eyes. Sparks flying from
Maria’s superior ones.
Finally, Lila swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke.
“You know, there was actually a time when we were little, when I wanted
to be your friend. I wanted you and Ana to like me and accept me. I wanted to
share my dolls and secrets with you. Yet you always shut me out, and
encouraged her to do the same.
“But you’ve always been jealous of me. Now that you’re eleven and I’m
almost that, I can see that you’re growing to hate me. But Maria, I don’t hate
you. I could never hate you. You’re Uncle Ron’s daughter, and since I love him,
I can’t hate you. But I think now I understand why my mother looks at Aunt
Maureen as she does... because I feel the same way about you now. I feel sorry
for you, Maria Weasley.”
And her last statement was accompanied by a look that was so uncannily
like her mother’s that it completely unnerved Maria.
“I don’t want your stinking pity, Delilah Potter!”
“It’s there, whether you want it or not,” Lila replied loftily. “And I see now
that you wouldn’t even begin to understand why I don’t want to go to
Hogwarts.”
Lila turned on her heel and walked off to sit underneath the cedar of
Lebanon that Drew always liked to read beneath whenever they spent the day at
Uncle Ron’s. She leaned her head against the smooth bark, closed her eyes, and
let the sun dry her tears. It was there that Dad found her, and she first became
aware of his presence as he blocked her light.
“You know, I’ve never heard you talk to Uncle Ron like that,” said Dad, as
 Autumn Wild
a way of beginning conversation.
Lila’s face crumpled. “Oh, now he’ll never like me again.”
“Don’t be silly, he still loves the Lila-bird as much as ever,” Dad said,
finding a comfortable tree-root situated conveniently next to her. Lila took this
to mean that he was receptive to hearing her side of the story.
“But Aunt Maureen doesn’t like me much. And Maria hates me.”
“Well, your Aunt Maureen is...”
“She doesn’t care for Mummy, does she?”
“She and your mother have their differences, yes. However, that doesn’t
have anything to do with you, does it? In fact, if you listen to the conversation
we’re having just now, seems as if we’re talking about you an awful lot, aren’t
we? Lila, I’m disappointed that you seem to be so self-possessed lately.”
Lila bit her lip. Hard. No, this wasn’t supposed to happen. Her Dad
understood everything... this wasn’t supposed to happen!
“Daddy, I just...”
“Lila, your mother and I think you’re more than ready for Hogwarts.
Keeping you in Ayr for another year would make no sense. You’ve already
finished the last year of our Wizarding first school, so there’s no going back
there. What do we propose we do with you, keep you home forever?”
A lump formed in Lila’s throat, and as it moved heavily, she felt tears well
up behind her eyes.
“But I don’t want to leave Ayr,” she whispered chokily.
“Princess,” he said, putting his arms around her shoulders, “you have no
idea how much your mother and I will miss you while you’re gone. Bel and
Drew will miss you. But you’ll be home for all of your holidays, and we’ll have
summers together, and of course once you’re on the house team we’ll be in the
stands cheering you on.”
Lila rested her head against her dad’s chest. It was here that she felt safest.
“It won’t be the same, though. Even when I do come home. It’ll never be the
same again.”
“No, it won’t. But only think of this tree we’re sitting under, Li. Once this
tree was a seed, and then it was a sapling, and then a young tree. There are
Wizards alive today who were maybe your age when they saw that tree. And
now, look at it... seems as if it’s been here forever. If one of them were to pass
by here now, they’d say, ‘Shame how much things change.’ And they’d feel a
little sad, remembering.
“That’s the way change always is, Lila. We know that things can never be
the same, and we know that sometimes we’ll miss the way things were so much
that we can’t stand it. But when change comes, you’ll learn to appreciate it.”
“But you had every reason to want to go to Hogwarts, Dad. The Dursleys
treated you horribly. That’s very different from my life... I’ve had a splendid
childhood. I couldn’t have asked for a better mum and dad.”
“I couldn’t have asked for a better daughter,” Dad said. “And even as eager
as I was to have a better life, I was still very anxious about leaving with Hagrid
and going away to a world that I knew nothing of. Your mother’s always told
you she felt the same... and she came from a good home with loving parents.
Both of us had Muggle childhoods, Li. We didn’t know what we were getting
into, but I suppose we ended up all right. So will you. And you’ll love Hogwarts
just as much as we did.”
She smiled, kissed his cheek, and got up.
No, he still didn’t understand.
It might have been the first time in her life that Dad didn’t understand her.
And if Dad didn’t understand her, Mum was at the end of her patience with her
“foolishness”. Even Bel and Drew couldn’t understand what she was going
through... they were thrilled she was going to Hogwarts, but of course they
would be. After all, no one expected them to leave Ayr for a long while yet.
She tried talking to her friend Proteus about it, when the Maximillans
arrived from their winter home on the world of Wildemere in the last breath of
May.
“I don’t get it,” Proteus said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. Lila noticed a
bit of stubble there where there had been none the previous year. Soon he would
be maturing, and both his mother and hers had warned them of the sad news.
Lila would have to stay away from him for several summers once he began to
sprout that beard... because for an adolescent male satyr, an innocent young
Witch was an unthinkable playmate.
But that was not quite yet. Proteus was still merely a faun, and an often
clueless one.
“What exactly don’t you get, Pro?”
“Why going to the hog place is such a problem. Seems that’s what all you
Wizards and Witches have to do when you get to a certain age. Why not go?”
“Same reason why you’re not happy about being a hairy-face soon,” said
Lila miserably. “It means our childhoods are over. I can’t imagine summers
without playing with you...”
“Who says we can’t play together any more?” Proteus said, tapping one
hoof merrily into the pile of leaves they were standing nearest.
“Come on, Pro, you know our mothers will forbid it after this summer.
Whatever happens to satyrs after age twelve, she says I’m never supposed to be
alone with you until we’re both fully grown. And my mum even seemed a bit
nervous when I told her we were going to look for berries today... from the way
she talked, you’d think this would be the last time. This growing-up business
seriously sucks.”
“No sense in getting angry over what you can’t change, Li. And it’ll just be
for five years,” Proteus said sensibly. “Why, that’s no time at all for a satyr and a
Witch. When you’re sixteen and I’m seventeen, you’ll be nearly fully qualified
and I’ll be an adult in the satyr community. And we can play together again.”
Lila’s face fell.
 Autumn Wild
“I don’t think people that age play together much,” she said. “At least, not
Witches and satyrs.”
She asked Mitchell Black about it the second he got home from school.
Mitch was seventeen and he knew absolutely everything about Hogwarts. She’d
always looked up to him in a way, yet never understood why her friends at Ayr
School giggled and blushed whenever he waved or smiled at them.
Mitch was like the older brother she’d never had.
“It’s too bad I’ve just finished,” he said, smoothing her wild brown curls
back down from where the wind had blown them. “But there’s so many of the
kids from our parents’ crowd still there. I mean, there’s a Weasley in every
house, even Slytherin if you count Hazel, and of course, Ana and Maria are
coming in next term, same as you. You’ll have so much fun that you won’t miss
any of us.”
“Aren’t you going back to do an apprenticeship with Professor Goshawk?”
“Unfortunately not. Dad wants me here with Max so we can begin learning
the Foundation’s workings. I’m trying to persuade him to let me work with the
Ministry for a while, if you know what I mean... power and influence and all
that. I intend to be Minister once Percy Weasley retires, you know.”
“Oh,” said Lila, regarding the tall, confident youth with something akin to
skepticism. The idea of Mitch being the Minister of Magic was a laughable one,
but she knew better than to say so. “I’ve no idea what I want to be when I grow
up, Mitch. I’m not even certain I want to be a Witch anymore, if I’ve got to go to
Hogwarts to do it.”
“Of course you’ll be a Witch, Delilah,” Mitch said. For some reason, he
never called her by the shortened version of her name. He was also the only
person she didn’t correct when he did this. “Whatever else could you be? And
there’s loads more you can become once you grow up... when you’re a bit older,
I’ll help you figure it all out, okay?”
Lila felt as if she ought to have been grateful for this reassurance. Instead
she was more miserable than before.
Mitch, acutely conscious of her misery, wrapped her in a tight, brotherly
hug.
“Come on,” he said finally. “I’ll walk you home.”
When she got there, just in time for afternoon tea, there was a letter lying
across her bread-plate.
Alan.
She hurried through tea so swiftly that Mum had to admonish her to ‘slow
down before you’re sick, Delilah Potter!’ Then she tried to race away from the
kitchen, but then Dad made a casual remark about how nice it would be if
certain young daughters would help their poor old fathers with the washing up.
So she sped through the dishes, and once the last cup was washed and handed to
Dad, she clutched the letter and sped up the stairs to her loft bedroom, almost
knocking over Bel in the process.
 Shutting the trapdoor behind her, she placed a cushion atop it and sat down.
With a careful slit of her fingernail, she opened the Muggle letter, careful not to
tear the precious, strange-looking American stamps.
Dear Lila –
When I got your letter, I wanted to call you right away. Then Mom
reminded me that there is only one ‘phone on your whole entire island. Lila,
why didn’t you tell me you were a Witch? I know that your mother didn’t want
you to, but... I just wish you had told me before.
I can understand why you don’t want to go to that Witch school, even if
your mom and dad did go there. I tried to imagine myself in your shoes and
dude, if my mom and dad tried to send me away to some stupid boarding
school I’d be awful mad at them too. I’m just sorry that your mom and dad
can’t see that. I guess even the best moms and dads just don’t understand
stuff sometimes, though.
Maybe you could come visit again before you go. Ask your mom, okay?
Mom and Bill say it’s fine. They will be glad to see you.
Do you remember the star people I showed you when we were little?
I never told anyone else about them. The boys would make fun if they knew
and the girls would think it was strange. But there’s nobody else in the world
like you, Lila.
Write me back soon.
Alan C.
By the time Lila was finished with her letter, a blush like the sunrise
stained her cheekbones. She sat there, her face and arms and the top of her head
tingling pleasantly. She didn’t understand herself. There had been nothing...
well, nothing mushy and awful about Alan’s letter... so why was she smiling so
much?
There’s nobody else in the world like you, Lila...
“I think I’m going mad,” she told Daphne as that ginger pet Kneazle of hers
leapt into her lap. “Tell me I’m not going mad.”
Yet frustratingly enough, all Daff did was purr.

Part 7
On the first day of July, Lila headed down the sloping mid-island meadows
to the small village that had sprung up around the school, shops, and above-
ground Black and Potter Foundation buildings on a mission.
She was dressed in her very best green-and-yellow summer robes, for this
project required more effort than her usual tomWizard play garments. Hazel,
whose parents were off to southern Africa on safari, was staying with the Potters
and had absentmindedly arrayed Lila’s hair before going off to the village to find
and flirt with Mitch. Yet even Hazel Malfoy’s half-arsed efforts were better than
most Witches’ best attempts at hairdressing. Thus Lila’s thick brown hair had
been effectively transformed into shining brown curls, tied with ribbons into two
 Autumn Wild
pigtails.
A covered basket swung from her arm, filled with thirteen of her dad’s best
blackberry tarts. Lila’s Dad was the only man she knew who could bake like
mad without seeming absolutely silly... in fact, his baking was far better than
Mum’s. Dad was always fun in the kitchen, treating the preparation of food as a
methodical game that he approached with the same tactical mind with which he
managed Quidditch.
The Potter family had their springtime traditions just as they had for every
other time of the year. During berry season, every afternoon the Potter children
and their North forest friends would speed off looking for wild berries. When
they brought home the spoils to their respective homes, Dad and Mrs.
Maximillian made tarts and canned jams and jellies. Mum busied herself drying,
distilling, and pickling them for usage in Potions and unguents, bottling
ointments and wrapping togeter poultices. Mr. Maximillian distilled juices,
cordials, and wines. There were always a zillion of these products all over the
downstairs of the house, ready to be given to friends or taken to the school for
consumption in the cafeteria. Yet it was Dad’s tarts that Lila took on her mission
that morning... for she knew Uncle Sirius’ confessed weakness for them.
It was Uncle Sirius whom she would have to tackle this time around. When
she’d discussed her idea with Dad and Mum, they’d immediately said no.
“There’s no way your uncle will approve his passage here, Li,” Mum said.
“But Dad’s just as much in charge here as Uncle Sirius,” Lila pointed out.
“Yes, but in order to conduct Muggles here, we both have to issue
permission, Lila,” Dad said, in the tone he used when reminding her and her
siblings of something they already knew. “And Sirius will not give it for a boy
that age.”
“He’s been here before!”
“That was before he was old enough to understand and remember.”
“What about Obliviation? We can make him forget, Dad, if that’s what
you’re afraid of...”
“Do you really think that would be fair, Lila?” her mother asked quietly.
Instantly Lila felt ashamed for even suggesting it. Of course, she would
never want Alan to forget his visit. If that were the case, he might as well remain
at home. Lila felt embarrassed by even suggesting it.
Well, if she had Uncle Sirius’ permission well in hand, of course her
parents would agree. They had to. If she could only see Alan once before going
to Hogwarts, she told the stars that night as she lay in the bed next to Hazel’s
empty one, she would never ask anything of the heavens ever again. She’d go to
school without complaint, and even wear one of those ugly scarlet-and-gold
scarves Mum and Dad kept in the attic closet for school reunions and games.
That morning as Lila set off on her mission, she resolved to be her most
convincing. This was a personality trait that she’d received from neither her
mum nor her dad, but (had she known it) from her namesakes themselves. Lily
Potter and Delilah of Ur had both been cunning women in their day... perhaps
manipulative was the wrong word to use to describe them... persuasive was
more like it.
She had inherited their spirit in full measure.
So she was in full persuasive mode by the time she arrived at Uncle Sirius’
home, located on the beach about a quarter mile away from DSG and the
Foundation entrance.
It was Aunt Carole who answered the door. Lila liked her a lot. She was a
short, round lady with silver-black hair and dimples who was always laughing...
a contrast to her intense and powerful husband who more often than not looked
rather grave.
“Come in, Lila... my, how pretty you look today!” Aunt Carole said
warmly, kissing both of her cheeks. Most of the time, Lila didn’t like to be
kissed by anyone other than her parents, who did not do it often. But she never
minded attention from Aunt Carole.
“Thank you,” she replied sweetly, kissing her aunt back. “These are for you
and Uncle Sirius... and Max and Mitch, if they’d like some.”
“Blueberry tarts,” said Carole, after peeking in the basket. “Oh, I think your
Uncle Sirius won’t even give those boys a chance to eat them... Sirius! We’ve
got a visitor for tea!”
There was the pitter-patter of padded feet, and then a sudden pop... and
Uncle Sirius appeared, holding the daily newspaper in one hand. When he saw
Lila, he allowed himself the smallest of smiles.
“What brings you by, popkin?” he asked, settling himself into his favorite
armchair as Aunt Carole bade her sit down before rushing to the kitchen.
“Oh, well... Dad made some blueberry tarts last night and we wanted you to
have the first of the lot.”
Uncle Sirius looked into the basket that had been set on the table next to
him. “Very well then,” he said in a pleased sort of tone. “Very well. I suppose
you’ll be joining us for tea?”
“If you’d like me to,” she smiled. It was a genuine one, making Sirius
reflect on how utterly adorable Harry and Hermione’s little girl was... and how
much trouble that poor godson of his would have on his hands in just a few
years.
When tea was ready, and Aunt Carole came out with the tray, Lila insisted
upon pouring. As much as she shunned many other ‘girl’ things, she loved to
pour tea. Ever since her mother had shown her how when she was a really small
girl of eight, she’d prided herself on never spilling a drop. She even got the milk
right.
As they settled down with their tea, Uncle Sirius began to chat amicably
with the child.
“So, all done with Ayr First, aren’t we?”
“Yes.”
 Autumn Wild
“Looking forward to Hogwarts next term?”
“I suppose. It’s just that... it’ll be rather hard to leave everyone here. I’ll
miss my parents and brother and sister terribly. I’ll also miss you and your
family, Uncle Sirius...” and this was said so sorrowfully that Sirius stopped in
mid-sip.
“Oh, you’ll forget all about us the second you meet everyone in your year
and make new friends. Your parents met at Hogwarts and became the best of
friends, along with your Uncle Ron... and they didn’t know anyone. The same
thing happened with me, your grandfather, and Uncle Remus Lupin...”
“It won’t happen for me,” said Lila, still making sure she seemed sad.
“I know most of the Witches and Wizards who will be in my year already... and
I’m not especially close to any of them.”
“You haven’t met the Muggleborns,” pointed out Uncle Sirius. “That’s
always fun for those of us who grow up Wizarding... I remember when my
friends and I met your grandmother for the first time. We knew everyone else in
the house already, so she was fascinating to everyone. The other Muggleborns in
our year went to Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”
Lila saw this thread of conversation was going nowhere. So she decided to
get to the point. No sense in dragging things out.
“I’ve got a friend in America who I’d really love to see before I head to
Hogwarts.”
“Ah!” said Aunt Carole, who was American herself. “What school? Salem?
Marie Laveau? Hatrack River?”
“None of those,” said Lila. “He’s... I want to know if he can come visit this
summer, Uncle Sirius.”
Uncle Sirius looked at her for long moments. Any other ten year old girl
would have quailed under his assessing look. Not so Delilah Caroline Potter,
who’d inherited her father’s nerves of steel in good measure.
“I see,” said Uncle Sirius finally. “So who is this boy?”
“His name is Alan. He’s the son of one of mum’s oldest friends. He’s even
been here before. Please, Uncle Sirius. He’ll cause you no trouble and you won’t
regret it, I promise.”
Another long, assessing look. Lila couldn’t read it.
“All right.”
Lila’s eyes widened. “Really? It’s all right?”
“Yes, Lila. Unless you were wanting another answer...”
A little squeak emitted from Lila’s lips. She threw her arms around Uncle
Sirius’ neck, almost knocking the cup out of his hands.
“Thank you!”
“Not at all,” said Uncle Sirius, half-smiling. “Of course, the only thing that
needs to be done is to conduct a background check before we draw up the
permit.”
Lila pulled back. “Background check?”
 “Oh, yes... just standard procedure here, you know that. We have to know
what kind of Wizards your young friend’s parents are. But if Hermione knows
them, I am sure there will be no problem... I trust your mother’s judgment.”
She wondered if she should just wait and not say anything. Perhaps the
background check was looking for any signs of Dark Arts or questionable
activity, not what in particular those being checked did for a living. Lila,
however, wasn’t comfortable with the subterfuge.
“Uncle Sirius? There’s a slight problem.”
“Yes, dear, what is it?” answered Aunt Carole for him.
“Well, you see... they’re not Wizards after all.”
“Who isn’t?” asked Uncle Sirius.
“Alan’s parents. They’re Muggles. He’s Mrs. Elizabeth Carker’s son.” She
gulped. “And he’s a Muggle, too.”
Uncle Sirius placed a finger upon his chin. “I see,” he said thoughtfully.
“I see.”
“Mum and Dad told me you’d say no,” said Lila, unable to conceal the
disappointment in her voice. “I understand why you would, too... I may be only
a kid, but I’ve lived here all my life and I know that we do things a certain way.
We have to because of the Foundation and the school. I know all that. But Uncle
Sirius, I miss Alan so much. And I want to see him once before I go on to
Hogwarts.”
“I see,” said Uncle Sirius. “Well, Lila, you’ve given me something to think
about. I’ll send you an owl tomorrow morning with my answer.”
It was even worse than a no. That evening was sheer torture. Mum, seeing
that Lila wasn’t eating anything at dinner, demanded to know what she’d been
up to. At first Lila kept it to herself, but finally she recounted the story.
“I have no idea why you decided to go behind our backs to ask, Lila,” said
Mum severely. “You were warned about this...”
“Hermione, leave her alone,” Harry said gently. “And really, Sirius ought to
be Graphorn-whipped...”
“Harry!”
“No, love, you must admit I’m right this time. What on earth possessed him
to make the child wait for his answer until the morning, knowing how much she
wants this, and likely knowing what he’s going to decide at this very moment?
Well, I’ll answer that. Because he’s a...”
“Harry, not in front of the children!” interrupted Hermione, trying her best
to contain a laugh.
But Lila didn’t feel much like laughing. She moped all through dinner, and
went up to her bedroom shortly afterward. Hazel talked with her about it, as she
sat in front of Lila’s dresser, brushing her own long blonde hair that evening.
“I do understand completely, Delilah,” the older girl cooed. “I know what
it’s like to absolutely long for the Wizard you fancy, and not to be with him.”
“Alan’s not a Wizard,” said Lila, frowning. Hazel had taken to copying off
 Autumn Wild
Mitch and using her full first name, but Lila didn’t like the way the older girl
purred it. “He’s a Muggle. And I don’t fancy anyone in the way you mean yet.
Yuck! I’m far too young.”
“Well, our parents all met when they were little older than you are now,
didn’t they?”
“I don’t think they liked each other then,” pointed out Lila. “And especially
not your parents. They might have all met as little kids, but they didn’t become
mums and dads until they were all grown up, right?”
“It had to start somewhere, though. You must admit that.” She sighed into
the mirror. “Mitch has grown rather handsome as of late, don’t you think?”
Lila raised two chestnut eyebrows over corresponding peridot eyes.
“I don’t think of Mitch at all. Not like that.”
“Yes. You wouldn’t,” said Hazel patronizingly. “I keep forgetting that
you’re only ten, whereas Mitch and I are a man and a woman.”
At this, Lila laughed heartily, falling back onto her bed. Mitch was only
seventeen and Hazel was all of fifteen years old. Older than her, of course... but
the thought of those two thinking of themselves as fully qualified adults was
funny.
“Really, the immaturity of children is quite astounding,” said Hazel
haughtily. She liked to be laughed at no more than anyone else... and perhaps
even less, as she was a Malfoy. “You’ll see what I mean someday, Lila.”
Lila shrugged. She supposed she would, but until then, she wasn’t holding
her breath.
Then followed a long, sleepless night in which she disturbed Hazel often
with her tossing and turning. Suppose Uncle Sirius said no? What would she do
then? She knew her parents couldn’t take a summer holiday to New York. Dad
was often away on Foundation business or running the DSG Summer Institutes
for Advanced Magical Study, and Mum had four Ayr dwellers who were
expecting babies at any moment, another who was critically ill, and the annual
pre-school rush for immunization potion doses. Neither of them could be spared.
They wouldn’t agree to her traveling alone, either. She understood why,
although it galled her. The reason was related to the rationale her parents had for
raising their family on protected, controlled-access Ayr instead of in a Wizarding
settlement or in Greater London.
Despite her protests, despite the fact that she hated people pointing it out, to
the outside world her mum and dad were not just a regular mum and dad... and
she was no regular little girl. She was the firstborn child of Harry Potter and
Hermione Granger, perhaps the most famous Witch and Wizard in their world.
Her birth had made front page Wizarding headlines worldwide... her aunts had
saved the masses of clippings and shown her. The Potters even had to abandon
regular use of their summer home on the north mainland when the Wizarding
media found it and began to hide around the property, even going as far to
camouflage themselves with haystacks and bushes.
 Ayr Island was one of the few places in the world where her parents were
just regular people... prominent members of the community, but not gaped at or
paid any special attention to. On Ayr, Harry Potter was not the twice-blessed
man or the Boy Who Lived... he was just headmaster of the local boarding
school. And Hermione Granger was not the girl who’d accompanied him to
Tartarus, or the world-famous Mediwitch who had found the cures for the
Sponge and the fearful descolada plague... she was just the local town doctor.
They were simply a husband and a wife, a mother and a father, members of the
community and the village association same as any other Wizard and Witch.
On Ayr, the Potter children could roam free through forest and field and
glen, without Harry and Hermione worrying about their being photographed, or
harassed, or kidnapped or even worse. Lila knew that her parents were very
protective of them, only allowing them overnights with the Malfoys, one of the
vast Weasley connection, or with their closest friends... Witches and Wizards
who would be watchful and powerful to withstand trouble if it came.
For as admired and adored as her parents were all over their world, they
were also quite hated in certain circles. Lila remembered a friend of hers at
Hogsmeade First telling her to ask her mum and dad how many attempts had
been made on their lives... because she’d heard her parents discussing it one day.
She hadn’t wanted to, but when Mum picked her up from school and saw
something was bothering her, she spilled.
“What a question,” Mum said as they walked to the train station. “Then
again, I’d expect no less from a Finnegan child... Violet means no harm, I know,
but really...”
“Have people tried to kill you and Dad, Mummy?”
“Yes,” said Mum, without hesitation.
Lila gulped. “Lots of times?”
“Yes.”
“But surely not when you were little like me?”
“Lila,” said Mum impatiently, “you know all about our growing up. You
know about Voldemort, and Dad’s scar, and Tartarus...”
“Yes, but that was all a very long time ago... right?”
Mum sighed. “Not long ago enough for some, I suppose.”
“Were you ever... scared?”
“Often,” said Mum. “My childhood was different from yours, Lila. You
must remember I had no knowledge that I was a Witch when I was your age, or
that my mother and grandmother before me were... so my magical abilities
unnerved us all until I got my Hogwarts letter. And then as soon as I got to
Hogwarts, I met your dad and Uncle Ron.”
“Was Dad scared?”
“Ask him.”
So she did, that evening after dinner when they were all sitting around the
fireplace. Drew was a bit smaller then, but he already knew how to read. He was
 Autumn Wild
resting his head against Mum’s rounded tummy as he read her an old book and
she ruffled his black hair (for there was no Bel yet). Lila was helping Dad
restore a classic broomstick he’d picked up at an antiques shop.
“Seamus and Lavender’s daughter is a curious one, isn’t she?” Dad
remarked. “Well, Lila, to answer both of your questions, yes, there are people
who wanted very much to kill me, and yes, I was always half-frightened out of
my wits when I did all that stuff they’ve written up in the history books. The
only exception might have been when your grandparents were murdered by
Voldemort, and if that was the case, it’s because I was far too young to
understand.”
“Daddy, do... do people hate me and Drew because we’re your children?
Would they ever try to hurt us?”
Mum stopped ruffling Drew’s hair. Drew stopped reading. Dad put down
the polishing cloth.
“Lila,” said Dad, more serious than she’d ever seen him before or since,
“we would never allow anyone to hurt you or Drew, or your new baby sister
we’re expecting. Never. I don’t want you to ever worry about that...”
“But Grandfather and Grandmother didn’t want you hurt either, Daddy...
that’s why they went into hiding, didn’t they? And for all that, Voldemort still
found you....”
Mum and Dad were silent.
“If moldy Voldy ever came back, we’d be able to help Mum and Dad fight
him this time,” piped up Drew. “We’d blast him to bits!”
“Drew, Voldemort is not coming back,” said Mum. “He is the least of our
worries.”
“There are people who are angry that Mum and Dad and Uncle Ron beat
him, Drew, even though it was a very long time ago,” Lila said quietly. “Those
are the ones we have got to worry about.”
“And not worry at all,” said Dad, trying to sound lighthearted as usual yet
somehow failing. “No one here will hurt you. Ayr is a good place, and we’ve
only allowed good people to settle here. Dark Magic can’t touch you here, or
when you’re with your Uncle Ron, or any of your aunts and uncles...”
“All the same,” said Mum gravely, “you must mind that when you are away
from home, that you always stay with a grown-up Witch or Wizard until you get
older. And not just any grown-up... one of your aunts or uncles or older cousins.
Please promise us that you will never run off by yourselves, no matter how
angry you get with us. Please.”
That made Lila tremble a bit inside. She never thought to hear her mother
plead... it just wasn’t like Hermione Granger Potter to beg. Melodrama wasn’t
her style either.
“Promise me and your mother that, Lila, Drew.” Dad was now serious too.
“Okay, yeah... sure,” nodded Drew, turning back to the book he was sharing
with his mother.
 Lila looked at both her parents before saying in a small voice, “All right.”
She’d made that promise four long years ago, when she was very little, but
Lila never forgot it. She would never forget it.
That was why going by herself to see Alan was out of the question. Her
parents would never give their consent... and she wouldn’t deliberately disobey
them in that.
So Uncle Sirius just had to let Alan come visit. He had to! This would be
the last summer he’d get to meet Proteus... perhaps she could convince Mum
and Dad to let Dougal visit too, to help with Titan and Tinuviel and the colts...
perhaps she could do a lot of things.
Uncle Sirius had to say yes...
He had to.
He had to!

Part 8
Lila opened her eyes late the next morning. She yawned and stretched...
when had she fallen asleep? At any rate, Hazel was gone... presumably to make
hippogriff’s eyes at poor Mitch again.
She rubbed her eyes and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Climbing
down the ladder-stairs, she saw that the house was entirely empty... both Mum
and Dad had gone off to work, taking Bel with him. Drew, now old enough to
stay home during the summers alone, was nowhere to be found... but that wasn’t
surprising. He liked to go hole himself up in the DSG library more than was
good for his health, Lila reflected.
The table had been cleared away from breakfast, with only her place setting
remaining at her chair. Mum had left a bowl of mixed berries and a small jug of
cream for her, along with toast that still seemed to be nice and warm and buttery.
But Lila barely noticed the food. There was an owled note with the
Foundation seal resting on her plate, addressed to Miss D. Potter.
Uncle Sirius’ answer.
She ripped open the envelope and pulled out the very short note.
Dear Lila –
After careful consideration of your request, I am pleased to inform you
that you have my consent to invite Mr. Alan Carker to visit our fair island for a
fortnight in August.
– Uncle Sirius
P.S. Those tarts were the best I’ve ever tasted. Thanks.
“Not at all, Uncle Sirius,” Lila said, tossing the note up in the air gleefully.
“Not at all!”

Part 9
 Autumn Wild
Ever afterwards, Delilah Potter remembered that summer of 2026 as the
last real summer of her childhood.
Alan arrived on the first of August. Lila went with Dad to the London
Muggle airport to get him. They then traveled up to Scotland via the Hogwarts
Bullet Express (which cut the formerly eight-hour trip down to two and three-
quarters) to Hogsmeade. It was there that the wide-eyed Alan had his first taste
of a Wizarding town. Lila had such fun showing him everything.
“See, this is Honeydukes, the Wizarding candy shop... wait until you see
the sweets you can get from here!”
“Now, this is Zonko’s... my uncles have got a better joke shop, though... let
me show you...”
“And there’s the Shrieking Shack... oh, wait until I tell you the story of my
grandfather and Uncle Sirius and all their friends... and what happened to Mum
and Dad and Uncle Ron when they went there some years later...”
“Hey, there’s Dad... Dad! Can we all go for butterbeer and a bite at the
Three Broomsticks?”
“Now that we’ve eaten, let’s have a Fizzing Whizzbee sundae from Florean
Fortescue’s... trust me, you’ll love this.”
All too soon, their afternoon in Hogsmeade ended, and it was time to travel
to Aberdeen.
“Let’s see here,” said Dad. “Either we can get brooms here in town and fly
to the port, we can Floo, we can take the train to Aberdeen, or we can just walk
to the next Muggle village and take regular old Muggle transportation...”
“Fly!” both Alan and Lila shouted.
So they leased brooms from a new shop in town. The man tried to refuse to
take the rental fee from Dad (“the great Harry Potter, sir, it’s an honor...”), but
Dad left the Galleons behind on the counter anyway, promising to send the
brooms back the next day.
Then they were off. Lila wanted to ride with Alan, but Dad insisted on
taking the boy up.
“Come on, Dad! I’ve flown with Drew lots, you know I have! And I’ve not
dropped him in... oh, at least six months or so!”
“Drew weighs considerably less, as he’s younger than the both of you,”
Dad replied, laughing. “Besides, Drew’s ours, so if you drop him on his head it’s
considerably different than if you drop this one,” and he ruffled Alan’s blond
head.
Soon, they were careening through the air. Alan and Lila screamed at the
top of their lungs from the excitement. Dad laughed a great deal. Lila was only
glad that neither Mum nor Drew were with them... they would have been sick.
The port to Ayr was accessible only via an out-of-the way pub on the North
Sea. Dad, Lila, and Alan casually strolled out the back to the docks. Unseen now
because of magical fog and mist, Dad pulled out his wand and with a charm that
Lila was familiar with yet never seemed quite able to catch, summoned Char, the
old wraith-like boatman who ran the Ayr ferry.
“Wow,” was all Alan could manage as Dad and Char exchanged
pleasantries.
The half-hour ride from the mainland to Ayr was less than thrilling, as one
was surrounded by mist on all sides and couldn’t see very much. Lila and Alan
spent the time chattering away, while Dad looked out into the fog, keeping his
thoughts to himself.
“Oh, Alan. Ayr is the best place in the world. Wait until you see our house...
I’ve got a loft of my very own... and our stables... our horses have wings... and
meet the Talking Trees and the centaurs and the Maximillians, a family of real
live satyrs from the world of Wildemere who summer with us because their
seasons are opposite, you know. And there’s the Ayr school and the new village
and DSG and the Foundation... and the beach! You have to meet everyone... oh,
and Mum can’t wait to see you again!”
Indeed, Mum was there at the port waiting when they arrived, with warm
hugs for Lila and Alan and a tender kiss for Dad. Bel and Drew were there too,
and matched Lila in her excitement over her guest.
“Run along, children...” said Mum, with a wave of her wand. “There’s a
surprise on the kitchen table for all.”
With delighted squeals, whoops, and yells, the four children raced ahead in
the gathering twilight, leaving Mum and Dad alone to talk, strolling arm in arm
in the dusk.
“I hope we’re doing the right thing, Harry,” said Hermione, biting her lip.
“I only wonder if she isn’t getting too spoiled.”
“I’m not sure that it’s possible to spoil Lila,” Harry said. “In fact, I’m glad
we did this for her... did you notice how pale Alan looks?”
Hermione’s frown deepened. “Oh, no. I was hoping it was only the
moonlight. Perhaps I should check him for...”
“Do nothing without contacting Elizabeth first. Yes, I know you’re a
doctor, love, and a spanking good one at that, but trust me on this.”
Oblivious to the conversation that their parents were having, the Potter
children opened up their house and literally dragged Alan inside...
And the sight that greeted them was a lovely flavored-ice sculpture, a castle
floating in midair, hovering over the kitchen table.
Over the next two weeks, Lila had the time of her life. Every day she and
Alan made it up to the village to visit everyone and play with the staffers’
children. Every day they rode the little colts with their untried wings, most of the
time racing, other times flying in short hiccuping bursts that made them laugh.
Every day they brought nectar and ambrosia to the sage Talking Trees and
chatted with the lone centaur who was their keeper. And while the baby unicorns
refused to go near Alan, they did look at him from a distance, their golden horns
flashing in the dappled forest light.
There were visitors aplenty. The faun Proteus came every day for the
 Autumn Wild
berrying, and even stayed over one night. (Alan and Pro had to stay in Drew’s
bedroom, for Mum would not hear of even the best of boys bunking in Lila’s
loft.) Dad went up to the Inverness house one morning and came back with
Dougal, who stayed a delightful two days.
Then Hazel Malfoy came again for five days when her parents were off to
Dubai on business. On the night of her homegoing, there was a huge barbecue
and bonfire “just because”. All of Uncle Ron’s children came, including Maria,
who sent dark looks Lila’s way. Uncle George’s three daughters came, Ana
looking torn between Maria and Lila. Some of the adult cousins came too...
Cousin P.J. came with his wife Deborah and their tiny new baby son, Paul.
Cousin Elizabeth Molina came with her fiancé, Jack. Cousin Malinda, who
could fly better than anyone they knew until Lila came along, came with her
new boyfriend Quentin. Cousin Raven, who taught year one at the Hogsmeade
school and always knew the best games to play, came alone. The Finnegan kids,
the Thomas kids, and all of the village children came up for the fun.
Then Max and Mitch Black arrived with spectacular fireworks in hand,
fireworks that did not die after only a few moments but danced in the nighttime
sky long after they had been set off. And there was music, and Hazel’s lovely
grey eyes were exceedingly starry when Mitch asked her to dance. Then
Elizabeth and Linda went to dance with their young Wizards, and Max came to
ask Raven for a whirl.
Uncle Draco and Aunt Ginny arrived after a while, with a treat brought all
the way from distant Dubai... about twenty mat-sized flying carpets.
“Let’s see you try Quidditch, Arabian style, on these,” said Uncle Draco.
“Now, you have to sit cross-legged, and keep your balance...”
Mum was horrified (“if you don’t come down this instant, Delilah Potter...
shut up, Malfoy, I could hex you for bringing those things here... no, Harry,
don’t you tell me to relax, honestly, the child will fall off that thing!”) but the
game went on amongst the small fry as the teens danced and flirted and the
adults had their cocktails and cheeses and olives in the garden. Lila took Alan up
once, and then Quinn and Artie Weasley each took a turn, followed by Pro, who
nearly caused them both to fall down.
“Fauns aren’t very good at magic,” he admitted shamefacedly.
“Neither are Muggle boys,” said Alan, clapping him on the shoulder.
Lila came down from the sky only long enough to quench her thirst. As
there was no more of the berry cordial at the ready on the lawn, she went into
the cellar to fetch more...
“Mitch,” she said, recognizing the youth sitting upon a barrel in the damp
darkness. “I didn’t see you down here. What are you doing?”
“Hiding from Hazel Malfoy.”
Lila’s rich laughter rang out. “Why, don’t you think she suits you? I saw
you dance with her and I thought...”
“She’s a child. A spoiled, vain child who thinks she can have whatever she
wants. She needs to find a Wizard her own age. Or at least one who shares her
shallow interests, for I don’t.”
“Come on, Hazel’s not so bad as that,” Lila said, still laughing.
“Right, I agree. She is far worse.” His intense dark eyes gleamed in the
moonlit darkness. “So, having fun with Alan here?”
“Yes,” said Lila happily. “Alan’s the best friend anyone could ever ask for.”
“And very lucky,” said Mitch cryptically. “And very unlucky for me that
I’m not eleven again.”
Lila nodded with understanding. “I can only imagine. I don’t wish to be
seventeen ever myself. If I could stay a girl forever, I’d want nothing more out
of life. I hate change, Mitch.”
“Not all changes are bad, Lila. In fact, in a way, I’m looking forward to
when you are seventeen. It’ll be something to see.”
“I’m sure I’ll be miserable.”
“Only if you decide to be.”
There were footsteps overhead and voices. “Mitch? Oh, Mitch...”
And Lila, with a single conspiratorial wink, scrambled up the stairs to
throw her old friend’s stalker off the trail.
Later that night, after everyone had either gone home or gone to sleep, Lila
and Alan sat side-by-side in a tree, tracing their star-patterns and telling stories
about them.
“You know, this isn’t half bad,” said Alan thoughtfully. “Beats my roof any
day.”
“Not for sleeping,” laughed Lila, nudging him.
Yet before the dawn came, they were both in their respective beds, staring
up at the ceilings, too happy to close their eyes.

Part 10
All too soon, Alan had to leave.
“You must come visit us again,” said Uncle Sirius, in the tone that let
everyone know he meant it.
“It’s been a pleasure, sir,” said Alan.
They wrapped up his visit with Lila’s trip to Diagon Alley to get her
Hogwarts school supplies. Her mum and dad acted far more excited about this
than Lila was... for all she could think about was her friend’s imminent
departure.
“So what sort of pet would you like?” asked Dad cheerfully. “A rat? An
owl? A cat? A toad?”
“I’ve already got Daff,” Lila said flatly.
“Daff is the family’s Kneazle,” said Drew testily. “She’s the great-
grandkitten of Mum’s famous school cat, Crookshanks. You can’t take her, you
might lose her.”
“Don’t be silly, Drew, Lila can take Daphne if she wants,” said Mum. “Lila,
 Autumn Wild
dear, is that what you’d like? If so, let me know so your brother and sister can
choose a new pet.”
Lila only shrugged.
Alan frowned at her and pulled her aside.
“Come on, be nicer to your mum. It’s not her fault.”
“I only wish you were coming to Hogwarts. It’ll be so lonesome there
without you.”
“I’ll see you again next year. We can send lots and lots of letters. And take
Daff along... no one can be lonely with that kitten around.”
Lila smiled at him. No, it was impossible to be completely blue with him –
Alan – as their friend.
The next morning, they left Lila’s school things at the Leaky Cauldron and
took the airport tube to see Alan off.
As Alan and Lila had their last joking conversation, and Bel and Drew
pressed their faces to the glass to watch the planes depart for all over the world,
Harry pulled Hermione aside.
“You never contacted Liz, did you?”
Hermione shook her head. “I thought it best not to.”
“You also took a look anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
”It’s back.”
“Can you cure him?”
“I stopped the cancer cells that were starting to grow the best I could... in
the mornings, before he awoke, when I went to air out the boys’ bedroom. I tried
to reverse the spread as well, but none of my attempts were successful.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I could write to Elizabeth, Harry. But I feel that she already knows. And
Alan knows too. Something’s wrong. There’s something she didn’t tell me when
she sent that child with nary a protest. I’m not certain what it is, but I have a
guess.”
“That he’s had a relapse and is not responding to treatment?”
Hermione nodded wordlessly.
“Dear Merlin. How are we ever going to tell Lila, Hermione?”
She sighed.
“For now, we don’t.”

Part 11
That autumn, Lila was surprised to find how well she liked Hogwarts.
She’d heard so many stories about the castle and surrounding environs until
every day she had this uncanny sense of déjà vu. Of course, none of the teachers
were there when Mum and Dad were kids, but so much remained the same.
She was sorted into Gryffindor, of course. Almost everyone gave her a
standing ovation when the Sorting Hat announced this momentous decision,
even the Slytherins. This embarrassed Lila so much that she turned beet red...
she understood the special attention her parents warranted, but she’d done
absolutely nothing special in her life, save being their daughter.
Here at Hogwarts she wasn’t just another kid like on Ayr, but she learned to
live with that. Some of the teachers fawned all over her just because she was
Harry Potter and Hermione Granger’s daughter. Some were extra hard on her
because of it. No one forgot her name, though... faceless oblivion was never an
option for Lila.
Yet she learned to manage, learned to answer the other kids’ questions
about her parents if they were reasonable. She also learned to let others know
when they were pushing their luck and to quit prying while they were ahead.
Most of all, she followed her dad’s advice to don’t be me or your mother, just
simply be yourself.
When others saw that Lila didn’t think too much of herself or her illustrious
heritage, they accepted her into their circles with more ease than they embraced
Maria and her friends. Lila heard on the wind that this made Maria green... for
her parents were just as famous as that Delilah girl’s.
“Yes, that’s true,” one of Maria’s Ravenclaw first-year housemates finally
agreed, tired of the constant griping. “But there have been Weasleys at Hogwarts
every year since the 1970s and quite frequently before that... the Potters are a
much rarer breed. Exciting things happen when they’re around, you know.”
Which made Maria even angrier.
Maria was extremely consoled by the fact that she made her house team
and Lila did not. This was less because of talent and mostly because there
simply was not any room on the Gryffindor team, which along with Slytherin
had been packed with flying talent since the 1980s. Malinda Weasley’s seven-
year run had given the Slytherins nearly a decade’s worth of cups, but
Gryffindor was still a force to be reckoned with.
Lila found a willing mentor in the current Seeker, a seventh-year named
Nadine Goshawk. Nadine took the much younger girl underneath her wing as if
she’d already been named her successor... which she inevitably would be.
At first, Lila wrote Alan every day. By the end of September, it was twice a
week. Once Quidditch season began, it was once a week.
In December, she only sent two letters.
The winter holidays went by like a whirlwind. Lila returned to Ayr,
marveling at how much home had changed. Little Bel had begun school on the
island and was learning to read basic spells... Drew had grown three inches...
Dad had a bit more silver at his temples... and the laugh-lines that always
appeared in the corners of Mum’s eyes whenever she smiled had been gently but
permanently drawn there. Uncle Sirius’ eyebrows were now nearly the same
platinum shade as Uncle Draco’s, and Aunt Carole’s soft wispy hair was nearly
snow white.
 Autumn Wild
Maybe home had changed.
Or perhaps Lila had.
There was a Christmas card from the Carkers, and a special one from Alan
for Lila. She read it as she walked through the newfallen snow from the forest to
the village. The card contained a letter, and the letter was chock-full of Alan
news... and the letter contained a beautiful locket, set on a delicate golden chain.
An emerald, the same color as her eyes, cut like a leaf.
And a tiny diamond at its stem, shining like a star.
“I saved my allowance for a year to get this for you. I drew the design
myself and Mum’s jeweler set it for me. I hope you like it.”
Of course she liked it. She slipped it around her neck then, and wore it to
the New Year’s Eve dinner at DSG, where Mitch asked after it. When she told
him where it had come from, the youth’s eyes darkened, he muttered something
about children and their toys, and walked away abruptly.
Before she returned to Hogwarts, Lila wrote Alan a short note of thanks for
the gift, enclosing a small mail-order Muggle telescope and star chart with it.
”Whenever you look through this, Alan, think of me.”
Yet when she returned to Hogwarts for winter term, she barely thought of
Alan at all.

Part 12
Then came a cozy winter, filled with books and studying and games of
Exploding Snap in the common room with friends. It seemed to Lila as if she
blinked... and the winter was over, the snows were melting into great puddles,
and the world was slowly returning to green again.
“I think I love the spring as much as autumn,” she said to herself, as she
took a walk around the lake one morning before breakfast. She often did this to
clear her head... usually during waking hours there was always someone around.
Like her dad, although she didn’t mind other people much, there were many
times when Lila Potter preferred her own company.
She also liked going to the war memorial where the perpetual flame
burned. Her parents brought the family here every year for Remembrance Day.
That was the only time they would talk about the war at length... talk about what
life was like back then.
Lila couldn’t imagine living as her parents and grandparents did when they
were children. To see your classmates and teachers die so brutally... to see them
injured and crippled and tortured... to be afraid of the very shadows in your own
home... never to know if you were going to live to grow up, and yet taking
classes and trying to learn as much as you could anyway, in preparation for that
time...
No, Lila couldn’t imagine it at all.
She was so proud of her parents, her grandparents, and their closest friends
whom she called “aunt” and “uncle”. She was proud that they’d all sacrificed so
much so that kids these days would have nothing more to worry about than
Potions exams and Howlers from home... proud that her parents and their friends
had built a world where youth and death were diametrically opposed.
Breakfast was already in progress when Lila entered the Great Hall.
The mail was early that day. Lila had but one letter... it was from home,
written in Dad’s untidy, yet somehow legible scrawl.
Dear Lila –
We want you to come home for the spring holidays. There is something
that we need to tell you, and a visit that we all need to make.
See you soon.
Love,
Mum and Dad
All week long, Lila wondered about her father’s message. She wondered
about it in and out of class, on and off her broom, in daylight and in darkness.
And then when the Easter holidays commenced and she caught the train
from Hogsmeade to Aberdeen, she knew she’d have to wonder no more.

Part 13
It was worse than she could have ever imagined.
They let Alan tell her himself, over the phone in Uncle Sirius’ office.
“Lila, I’m sick.”
She dropped the phone. Even Lila, healthy child that she was, knew that
Alan couldn’t possibly be referring to a simple little head cold. She grasped the
desk, feeling dizzy... Dad’s arms were right behind her, just in case... Mum
pressed the phone into her hand again... and somehow, she found the words to
continue.
“Tell me,” she said quietly.
That’s when Lila heard about the long and unseen battle with cancer, the
chemotherapy and radiation, the trip to Disneyworld when his mother and
stepdad thought he was better, then the relapse just before he came to Ayr the
summer before...
“You knew? You knew this, Alan, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Lila, I didn’t want to spoil the visit. For you or for me. It was the best two
weeks of my life, really, I mean it... and then, when I came home, I got to go to
school for a whole semester. I didn’t get really sick until a couple of months ago,
honest.”
“Alan,” she whispered, his name a choked cry on her lips. “My mother...
she can cure you. My mother can cure anyone.”
Alan was silent.
“Just please agree to come, okay? My mom can’t wait to see you again...
and I’ll be glad to see your mom too.”
Lila hung up the phone, her eyes awash with tears.
 Autumn Wild
“You can cure him, Mum, can’t you?”
“Oh, darling...” She went to put her arms around Lila, but Lila pushed her
away.
“Save your hugs for Alan, Mummy. He needs them more than me.”

Part 14
“Why?”
The question came from Lila’s lips. She’d been with Alan for five days
now... five days in which she only left the hospital leaning against her mother or
in Dad’s arms, fast asleep. Five days in which Mum tried everything she knew,
to no avail. Five days in which Mrs. Carker seemed to have aged twenty years,
Bill seemed to have lost his ability and will to laugh, and Alan was either
sedated to the point of dullness or alert and in a great deal of pain.
In order to be allowed into St. Ormond’s ICU, Lila had been compelled to
lie about her age and relationship to Alan. She was Alan’s thirteen year old
cousin, and her parents were Alan’s aunt and uncle. Which wasn’t too terribly
far from the truth to make it uncomfortable.
It was the first moment they’d had alone. Mrs. Carker was still in the room,
but had dozed off momentarily, her long vigil finally getting the best of her.
Mum and Dad had gone with Bill to the cafeteria.
Lila’s telescope was set in the hospital room window. Within sight, but out
of Alan’s reach.
“What?” whispered Alan.
“Why, Alan? Why is this happening?”
Alan rolled dry eyes over to consider her.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think it’s because you’re so wonderful? Because so many people
love you so much? Because we can’t bear to see you suffer so?”
“I...”
“There are so many horrid boys walking about in good health, all over the
world. There are so many nasty and awful people who don’t have a care on their
minds. And then, a person like you... why you, and not them?”
Alan reached for Lila’s hand.
“There’s no easy answers, Li. There never are. So much is uncertain, as my
Mom always says. Maybe everything that happens is supposed to, somehow.
You know, like if I get better, then that was meant to happen. And if I don’t...”
“Alan,” she whispered, with horror.
“Then that was meant to happen, too.”
“Never. I’ll never, ever accept that.”
“Accept it or not, whatever happens will happen. You know, we Muggles
have a prayer that we’re taught when we’re little kids. ‘Now I lay me down to
sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep... and if I should die before I wake, I pray
the Lord my soul to take.’ I’ve been thinking about that lately, Li... because
sometimes in between the hurt and the pain and stuff, there this weird flash of
relief... and then... sometimes... I think I can almost see my dad... not Bill, you
know, but...”
Lila couldn’t see at all. “Yes, I know... your real dad.”
“I miss him, you know. I don’t remember him much, but it seems I’ve
always missed him. Mom loved him so much... she’s married to Bill and happy
enough, but I don’t know... I don’t think it’s the same as it was with Dad. When
I see your mom and dad together, that’s what I think my parents must have been
like... and if my dad was half as cool as yours, I think it’ll be nice. Getting to
know him.”
“Alan? Are you afraid?” she said quietly.
“A little. Not so much as I would be if Dad wasn’t there. Not just Dad, but
my Grandpa too. But... I’ll miss my mum and Bill. My school friends too. And
Lila, I’ll miss...”
She couldn’t help it. As strong as she tried to be, she dissolved into silent
tears, her only noise a series of shudders that racked her small, girlish body from
head to toe. Her emotional pain was so intense that it was almost physical... and
she fleetingly, irrationally wondered if this was what her mum felt when she was
Sharing.
“...I’ll miss you so much, Lila Potter. I know we’re just kids still, but... but
even a boy like me has these... stupid dreams sometimes... dreams about the
future... about me and you... and what it might have been like for us...”
“I’ll never, ever care anything about another boy as long as I live,” she
sobbed brokenly. “No one’s like you, Alan... please, please don’t leave me.
I can’t bear it.”
“Yes, you can,” said Alan, the odd light that always seemed to play about
his eyes sparkling in the depths. “And you will. You’re made of stronger stuff
than that, Lila. You’ll have other friends, and one day you’ll have all the
boyfriends you want...”
Lila snorted with derision through her tears.
“And someday, someone will want to marry you. What a lucky guy, I say.
He’d better treat you right, or he’ll have me to answer to.”
“Oh, it’s silly to think of me being married, Alan. I’m not even twelve years old yet,” she
sniffed.
“Yeah. But then again, neither am I,” he said.
And Lila was silent then, clasping his hand tighter with one of her, holding
her pendant in the other, bending her head over his waist, desolate.

Part 15
Lila was not there when Alan died.
Her parents were, however, and of course Mrs. Carker and Bill. Lila was in
the waiting room, curled into a little ball, sleeping under the watchful yet
passive eye of the nighttime nursing staff.
 Autumn Wild
She knew when her father touched her shoulder, she awoke, and she looked
into his eyes.
“He’s gone, then?”
“He died in his sleep just a little while ago. Your mother and his were with
him, holding his hands. He wasn’t alone.”
How odd she felt. Could it be possible that Alan was no longer here? No.
That was absurd. Heaven surely didn’t need him as much as they did... his
parents and her. This was all likely a very bad dream, one from which she would
presently wake up...
Any moment now.
Any moment...

Part 16
Lila did not return for the spring term at Hogwarts. This made the
Wizarding papers, and the op-ed pages were full of readers’ opinions. Some said
that the child could do whatever she wanted, as long as her parents and the
school staff didn’t mind. Others screamed bloody murder, saying that if anyone
but a Potter had requested to finish up her first year by correspondence they’d
have been thrown out of the worthy institution on their arses.
Then came a nasty rumor that Delilah Potter was rather dim-witted, and her
famous parents were arranging it so that her exams were taken by proxy, perhaps
even taking them for her.
“Merlin help us all if the daughter of famed know-it-all Dr. Granger makes
less than full marks in every course,” sneered one columnist’s poisoned pen.
Lila caught wind of the general uproar and insisted, much to her parents’
chagrin, that the press monitor her exams. She also insisted on making a
statement to the press, her very first, in which she explained everything and
revealed nothing.
“That one’s ‘Arry Potter’s da’er, fer sure,” said one admiring pressman
after reading it.
She spent most of her time during the daylight hours in the polished halls
of DSG, where she did her lessons in whatever classroom was empty. Although
she was studying by correspondence, the DSG professors more often than not
tutored her, especially the Linsenmayers (who ran the Magical Foundations
department). Lunchtimes she shunned the company of the older students and ate
with either her mum or dad, or over at the Ayr First School with the younger
kids and her former teachers.
At night she went for strolls deep into the forest. Alone. Hermione worried
after her, but Harry told her that she’d be fine... nothing in the North Forest
would or could hurt her, and if anything got in there that would, they had more
than enough friends to protect her.
So Lila was left alone to wander. She embraced the night and the clouds
and the rain, feeling as if fine weather and sunshine mocked her.
 She always wore her leaf-and-star pendant.
Yet even on the most pristine night, she never looked up at the stars.
And tears eluded her.

Part 17
By late spring, in the twilights Lila had begun to take out her favorite of
Titan and Tinuviel’s older colts, a chestnut beauty with black wings called
Destiny.
There was something about flying a horse that Lila just loved. She knew
her dad preferred brooms, but there was nothing like an animal who could enjoy
the experience of flight as much as you did.
She felt closest to Alan when she was up in the air.
One warm and muggy evening in late June, there was a crisis on Ayr. The
young son of one of the Foundation staffers had been wading and splashing,
along with a group of older children, in the shallow depths of the portside beach.
Unfortunately, there was such an undercurrent that all of the children lost their
balance, and the youngest was swept away.
“Timothy!”
The cry spread around the small island like wildfire. Within instants, a half
dozen Wizards on their brooms were zooming into the mist. The young
distraught mother Apparated to the scene of the disappearance. Uncle Sirius
came, along with Aunt Carole. Dad was away on Foundation business, but Mum
came, rushing up from home.
“My goodness,” she said, breathless from a combination of Apparation and
running. “What has happened, Sirius?”
He explained the situation. “Some of the villagers who were closest to here
when it happened have gone out to search... but you know that even the best
brooms aren’t much in the vortex.”
Aunt Carole was frantic. “They’ll have to circle back soon... great Wizards,
I fear the worst.”
Hermione’s quick mind immediately came up with a solution. “The
pegasuses... they can fly into the whirlwinds... they can even make it through
some of the portals to the Thousand Worlds! I’ll run home and get Tinuviel, it’ll
only take me a second... oh, how I wish Harry was back. I’m not expecting him
for a couple of hours yet, though...”
She had just started to whirl around on her heel and Apparate back to the
house, when a great winged shadow filled the misty darkening sky.
Carole was flabbergasted. “Oh, my word...”
“Delilah!” Hermione screamed.
Yet the girl was gone, zooming above the ocean and into the enchanted
mists that protected Ayr Island from unwelcome intrusion. She bent forward and
spoke soothingly into her horse’s ear.
“Just a bit lower, Dest... I need to see...”
 Autumn Wild
Destiny complied, her great wings spanning outward like those of an
oversized crow as she swooped down.
The child had been swept far out to sea. Lila could see him, faintly
struggling in the distant gray mists... far out of the reach of any of the search
Wizards and their brooms. He seemed to be getting tired... and Lila couldn’t
swim very well, and didn’t want to test her poor skills in the cold North Sea.
“Come on, Dest... let’s go!”
The girl and the horse became one continuous streak of brown. They
zoomed at a velocity that was much faster than even the whirlwind, racing
against the child’s fatigue and the encroaching darkness.
It wasn’t a struggle of a rescue, really. The only danger was when the boy
grabbed hold of Lila’s hand so tightly that he nearly pulled her into the water
with him... and would have succeeded if she’d been riding sidesaddle as she
usually did, as her mother admonished her to do whenever she was wearing
robes or a skirt while flying. But as she was straddling Destiny, she was able to
yank the kid upwards as Destiny ascended again.
“Are you all right?” Lila whispered.
The little boy looked up into her earnest green eyes, nodded, and began to
cry.
Now Destiny was flying high, so high that the mists were far below them.
Lila tucked her spring cloak more firmly about the soaked little boy and hugged
him until the shudders and sobs stopped.
Soon the soft sounds of thumbsucking and shallow breathing were muffled
in her robes as the badly shaken and exhausted child slept. Lila allowed herself a
small smile of relief.
Then she made the mistake of looking up at the sky.
The stars and the moon were now out... but instead of the usual
constellations, she saw Alan’s star-people. There was the Chinese Dragon, and
the Red Queen, and the President’s Detective... and the Mars Green Team...
and... she heard his stories. She heard his voice. She heard his laughter.
She saw his face.
Sing to me the song of the stars
Of your galaxy dancing and laughing, and laughing again...
When it feels like my dreams are so far
Sing to me of the plans that you have for me over and over again...
By the time she got back to Ayr, to the relieved young mother and the
cheering crowd and her proud parents, she was numb.

Part 18
Harry Potter had learned to come to terms with his nightmares.
One would think that he wouldn’t have the familiar bad dreams of his
childhood any longer. The last nightmarish thing that had happened in his life
had been twelve years ago, when Hermione had almost... had all but... even now,
he didn’t like to think of how close he’d been to losing everything that he
desired, the moment he had it in the palm of his hand.
Yet largely for the past decade and a half he’d had nothing but the peace
and happiness he’d longed for forever. Certainly, one of his most secret,
desperate wishes... my parents, I’ll never know them, I can’t see them or bring
them back... was forever denied him. Other than that, he could not complain.
He was more than well content.
He looked down at his peacefully sleeping wife, curled up next to him, one
leg swung comfortably over his in repose.
It’s all your fault, beautiful, he thought, grinning at Hermione, feeling like a
schoolboy again. Every day he loved her more... there seemed to be no end to
the depths of what he felt for her.
She’d given him everything he ever wanted... her hand in marriage, a real
home for the first time in his life, and three wonderful children who were not
only happy and healthy, but were turning out to be great people to boot.
The people on the island were wild about their beloved doctor, so wild in
fact that she’d even birthed three namesakes... two Hermiones and an ickle
Herman. As a tenured professor at Paracelsus, she was also a huge hit with her
mediWizarding students... and although she was a tough instructor, there was
intense competition for entrance into the summer intensive she ran in the DSG
facilities every summer. She also was a valued contributor to several of the latest
textbooks in mediWizardry. Her volume on magiparticular infections was a
perenial bestseller. She sat on the Malfosoft board, where Malfoy, although he’d
be loath to admit it, could not do without her.
Of course, no one in their world was nearly as mad about the talented Dr.
Granger as he was. That was impossible.
He knew he’d brought her as much joy as she’d given to him.
Yet the nightmares still came at times. Nightmares of Halloween 1981. Of
the Dursleys and the spidery cupboard-beneath-the-stairs. Of stones and
chambers, of Dementors and dragons, of drowning and fire and graveyards...
Of Tartarus and Avalon and Granger-Weasley weddings.
Of lonely days and even lonelier nights.
Of missing sweethearts and plagues and Demons and death.
Of his scar throbbing with pain...
On the night after his daughter rescued a little boy from the clutches of the
sea, Harry had one such nightmare, vivid in its intensity yet all but forgotten the
second he opened his eyes. So to bring himself back to reality, as per usual he
listened to the sounds of his home, the silent sounds of the night.
Somewhere just beyond the door, Daff was scratching, making the rounds
of the house on her nighttime prowls. The new dog, Felix, was likely sleeping
peacefully in the backyard... during his nights of insomnia the Potters were
treated to his barking and baying. Hermione’s owl, DuskChaser, could be heard
on a low branch just outside the window, hooting at the moon.
 Autumn Wild
And... someone was crying.
It sounded so much like his wife that Harry looked down at Hermione
quickly. No, she looked quite content in her slumber.
That’s when he realized.
Slipping out of bed, he tucked the covers back around Hermione and
quickly donned pajama bottoms and a robe that he tied loosely. Then he slipped
out of the bedroom, down the hall and up the ladder stairs that led to Lila’s loft.
She was sitting up in bed, knees drawn up to her chest, sobbing her heart
out, sobbing as if her heart would break if she stopped. So blind was she in her
grief that she didn’t see or hear him at all.
Harry didn’t hesitate. He made his way to her bed, sat down on it, and
pulled her into his arms.
“Oh, Daddy! Daddy, it hurts! It hurts so bad!”
“I know, princess. I know.”
“I’ll never, ever see him again... not... as... long as I live... never...”
There was nothing Harry could say. He only held her tight, held her in a
way that he hadn’t held his adolescent daughter in years, held her as she sobbed
and sobbed with no signs of stopping.
And although Harry understood grief and sorrow, understood perhaps more
than most, like all men he was helpless in the face of feminine tears.
All he could do was hold her, shutting his eyes tight, wishing like hell that
he could do something, anything to make his little girl all right again.
Then he felt soft arms steal around them both, heard the distinct rustle of
silk against linen, caught the slightest whiff of his wife’s subtle, sweet scent...
“Mummy,” Lila sobbed. “Mummy, please... my head hurts so...”
“You’ve been crying your eyes out, darling,” said Hermione, her own
brown eyes awash with tears for her daughter’s sake, stroking her head with the
skill of the adept hyperempath and absorbing the slight headache. “Here... does
that feel better?”
“Yes,” said Lila, her eyes still streaming with tears. “But I don’t want it to
feel better particularly... it isn’t fair that I’m alive and well, when Alan is...
he’s.... no, he was...”
“He is, said Hermione softly. “You had it right the first time. Alan is, sweet,
and what’s more, he loves you so very much. He’ll always love you, Lila. He
would never want you to grieve so...”
“It’s like... Mummy, Daddy, it’s like there’s a great big hole deep down
inside of me that I can’t get rid of now no matter how hard I try. Sometimes
I forget about it, but every time something reminds me of Alan, it aches.”
“The hole will never go away, darling. But with time, it won’t ache so
badly. It is rather like a wound... when it’s fresh, it hurts very badly, and when it
heals, there’s often a scar to remind you of the injury. The scar ensures that
you’ll never forget... for don’t you think that the forgetting would be somehow
worse than the pain?”
 Lila stopped crying. She looked up at her father’s famous scar, barely
visible in the moonlight.
“Help me,” she whispered to them both. “Help me to understand.”

Part 19
The next day, Mum and Dad and Lila went for a walk.
“Dad, you know what? When I was little, there were times when you’d
look at us, and... and you would seem sad. And I never understood why...
because you and Mum made sure that we were happy always.”
“Your mother and I had very little happiness in our lives for a long, long
time,” said Dad quietly. “We promised each other that when we had our
children, we would make sure that you would never know what we’ve known.
That you would never see what we’ve seen. We wanted to keep you away from
the hurt and all the evil and vile things we knew were lurking in the world.”
“In all that,” Mum said slowly, “I think we forgot to teach you that without
suffering, there can be no real kindness...”
“Small consolation for those who suffer,” observed Lila, not
disrespectfully.
“Well, there’s a unwelcome fellowship of sorts that’s connected with
sorrow,” Dad said. “Either you know what it’s like, or you have no idea. There’s
no way around that. If your mother and I had no idea what it was like to lose
someone we loved to death, we would have no idea how to work out what
you’re going through right now.”
“I don’t know how to go on,” Lila said dully. “Everything in life seems...
I don’t know... flat now.”
Mum and Dad both nodded slowly.
“Nothing but time will help,” Mum said. “And then one day, you’ll look,
and your world will start to look nicely three-dimensional again.”
“One day, you’ll laugh and not feel guilty about being happy,” Dad said.
“One day, you’ll think about Alan and you won’t cry. You’ll smile. You’ll think,
‘I can only imagine what Alan would say about this...’ Trust me on that one.”
“And my dear baby,” Lila glanced at her Mum strangely, for she never
called Lila ‘baby’ (or anyone else for that matter), “it’ll always be a bit
bittersweet, even strange. But in time, even the bittersweet and the strangeness
of it all will seem quite normal to you.”
Lila sighed.
“You say that Alan will always love me, will always be my best friend.
How can he? I can’t see him or talk to him...”
“Yes, you can,” her parents said together.
“Alan will always be there for you if you want him,” Mum said.
Dad nodded. “Just listen.”
They had come to the highest point of the island, the North Peak, where the
entire southern two-thirds of the island could be seen.
 Autumn Wild
Both Mum and Dad were quiet.
And Lila listened to the hush as well.
I am the diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you wake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry –
I am not there...
I did not die.
“Our loved ones never leave us completely, Delilah,” Dad said quietly,
breaking the silence. “How can they ever? Love does not die... it cannot die
because it cannot fail.”
“Alan hasn’t failed you,” said Mum. “When you rescued Roberta
Duckworth’s baby yesterday, don’t you think he was helping to guide you?
Don’t you think he laughed amongst those stars that both of you so love last
night?”

Part 20
In time, it got easier.
Lila felt ashamed that it could be so. How dare her Dad’s tarts not taste like
chalk anymore? How dare her laughter ring out often during the Weasleys’
summer Quidditch tournament? How dare she giggle and even... although she
wouldn’t own up to it... flirt with a Hogwarts fourth year friend of Quinn’s over
tea at Uncle Ron’s one memorable afternoon?
“If Alan had been my friend...” whispered Maria to Ana, observing this,
darkly.
But Alan had not been Maria’s friend. He was Lila’s. By summer’s end she
no longer flinched when his name was mentioned, and even brought him up
herself once or twice. When her mother traveled to London towards the end of
August to see Mrs. Carker, Lila went with her, unafraid.
“I’d love to have you two to New York again during your autumn break,”
said Mrs. Carker.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to make it, Liz,” Mum said regretfully. “I’m
expecting eight babies this season, and they can’t get another doctor. So we
won’t be taking an autumn holiday at all this year.”
Lila felt like a pricked balloon.
“However,” said Mum, with a small smile, “Lila can come if she wants.”
Mrs. Carker’s face lit up, and so did Lila’s. Travel... alone? Mum and Dad
thought her old enough to travel without them?
“Oh, Mum, I want! I definitely want!”
“Only for a few days, though,” said Mum with a wink. “We don’t want her
thinking we’ll pull her out of school at a whim, Liz. And she’s got to keep up
with her wand...”
“Of course,” said Mrs. Carker, still beaming.

Part 21
And so one windy late autumn night, one nearly twelve year old Witch by
the name of Delilah Potter found herself once again on the roof of a Manhattan
brownstone.
She’d brought along a notebook. These nights she was recording Alan’s
star-people stories... complete with constellation pictures. She didn’t trust her
memory. She wanted to be able to read these stories someday to her sons and
daughters, telling them of her most beloved childhood friend, perhaps even
sharing the stories with the world so that everyone would know how wonderful
Alan Elijah Carker was.
As she worked, her brown curls in wild disarray around her head, her green
eyes sparkling, watering from the chill, time seemed to pass ever more slowly
for her.
Neither was she alone. She felt Alan’s presence most keenly up here.
Sometimes she felt that if she turned... she’d catch a glimpse of moonshine hair
and supernova eyes... perhaps even the slightest hint of a secret, friendly smile...
Yet whenever she looked over her shoulder, her friend eluded her.
That’s all right. I know he’s here with me. And he always will be.
It had taken her every single night that she was in New York. She’d had to
use the telescope and star chart she’d given him, too... Mrs. Carker had given
them back to her, saying Alan would have wanted it that way.
Now Lila was done, having scribbled on the last page a verse that had been
spoken as Alan was laid to rest in the last breath of spring:
Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light -
Good night, dear heart, good night, good night.
Reaching down, Lila picked up her wand and touched its tip to the page.
With a whispered charm, the words turned to living gold.
“Good night, Alan. And while I’m at it, good morning as well.”
She drew her leaf-and-star pendant off so that its chain could frame the
golden words.
And a single bitter tear dropped onto the page.

~finis~
 A/N: The first verse quoted is an excerpt from Mandy
Moore’s “Only Hope”, from the A Walk to Remember soundtrack.
The second is from an anonymous source. The third and final is an
epitaph written by Robert Richardson for Mark Twain’s daughter.
Also dedicated to my beloved late father Larry (1947-1998)
and my dear late grandfather James (1916-1999), for all the many,
many lessons they taught a little girl about life, loss... and love.
 Sequel to Autumn Wild. In 2032, eldest Potter child Lila is
“sixteen, going on seventeen”. Unlike the other young Witches in her
cohort, she has never been kissed... but there are several contenders for
the honor of being first.
Dedicated to all the Paradisers who wanted “more about Lila”.
You wait, little girl, on an empty stage, for fate to turn the light on.
Your life, little girl, is an empty page that men will want to write on...
There was nothing sweet about being sixteen.
At least, not when you were Delilah Potter.
 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen

L ila was the antithesis of growing old gracefully. She’d fought being
teenaged every step of the way. She mourned every milestone passed,
refusing to believe that she was no longer a little girl... refusing to
believe that she was actually transforming into a young woman.
How unfair. How wrong.
How absolutely vile.
Certainly Lila’s early teen years were awkward, and she suffered as most
adolescents suffer. She had her share of embarrassing moments, a thirteenth-year
bout with mild blemishes that only lasted the summer, and at times she only felt
graceful riding a broom or a Pegasus.
Whenever she looked back at it years afterwards, she always thought that
the first bad thing that had happened was Alan’s death. It was the beginning of
the end of her childhood... the beginning of feeling alone much of the time.
Pro’s leavetaking happened a few months after Alan died, one evening in
August. They’d taken Destiny up a few times, and frolicked together in their old
haunts in the woods, attempting to catch unicorns, fixing up their dusty
playhouse... having a ticklefest in the bracken of the forest floor.
As Pro walked her home, he’d mentioned it casually.
“My mother’s sending me back home tomorrow. Back to Wildemere.”
Lila had been horrified.
“Why? Summer’s only just beginning...”
Proteus looked into her eyes. Wordlessly, he stroked his chin.
When he removed his hand, Lila saw it.
There was the start of a real beard there.
Her tears had begun then. She said it wasn’t fair, he was only thirteen, he
was only a faun, surely no one would expect him to be a real grown-up satyr
yet...
“It’s not that,” he said, seeming embarrassed. “Mum is sending me home
because your parents and Mr. Black asked her to. They... they think that I... as if
I would ever...Lila...”
Then there was something that Pro had never done before... a quick, fervent
hug... and with a swift gallop, Proteus fled into the woods.
Lila marched into the house and confronted the first parent she ran into.
This happened to be her father, sitting at the kitchen table, going through a stack
of owls.
“Dad, how could you?”
Harry pushed his glasses up his nose, set his eagle-feathered quill down,
and looked at his daughter strangely.
“How could I what, Lila?”
She then descended into a series of shrill screeches, all but screaming at her
father. Somehow Harry was able to make out what she was saying, and pulled
her down into his arms.
“It’s for the best, princess,” he said into her hair, patting her on the back.
“You’ll see Pro again sooner than you think. Five years isn’t a terribly long
time.”
Lila couldn’t help but sob. Not to mention the fact that she had no
explanation for why her usually understanding Dad was being so cruel.
What didn’t help matters was that at that moment, Mum entered the
kitchen.
“Lila, you’re far too old to perch yourself in your father’s lap,” she said
briskly, turning to the sink to rinse off the turnips she’d just pulled from the
garden. “Come now, get up... you’re a great big girl now, aren’t you?”
Apparently not big enough for them to explain why they suddenly wanted
Proteus gone, though.
It took Mitch to explain it all to her, the next day. She’d gone to the western
shore landing to lament her loss, and he had found her there, throwing rocks into
the chill North Sea. He sat down next to her, finding the smoothest and most
unusual rocks, placing them into her hands.
They sat in comfortable, friendly silence for long moments. It had always
been like that for them. Lila had been the first child born in postwar times on
Ayr... even Mitch and his older brother Max had been birthed in Hogsmeade.
Although he was only seven years old at the time, Mitch had mirrored the adults’
excitement rather than Max’s apathy.
He’d been hovering nearby ever since she could remember, never her best
friend but her most constant one despite the difference in their ages. Unlike
Max, who was a lot like Uncle Sirius in appearance and manner, Mitch had a
healthy dose of his mother inside.
Aunt Carole knew people. So did Mitch.
“I can’t understand why parents always think they know everything,” Lila
sighed unhappily, after Mitch was done explaining away the very delicate
situation in terms that a not-quite-twelve year old child could understand and she
was quiet for a long time. “They don’t always.”
“Yes, but in this case, your parents and Dad are right.”
Lila turned to face him. “You can’t mean that you agree with them,
Mitch...”
“I do. In a very short time, Pro wouldn’t have been safe for you.”
“Pro would never...”

- 52 -
 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“Pro wouldn’t have been able to help it. He’s a satyr. They’re not fully
human, Delilah, with the same thinking as we have. They’re magical creatures,
and as such can be very dangerous...”
“But the Maximillans aren’t like that! They’re civilized.” She plunged her
chin into her cupped hands. “I should never imagine that Pro would hurt me,
Mitch. No more than I could imagine you hurting me. Friends don’t hurt each
other.”
“Not intentionally, of course not. But Proteus wouldn’t have been able to
help it. And you would have been defenseless against him.”
Lila frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You will someday.”
What she didn’t understand was why Mitch, when he left, said nothing to
anyone. When she came home that year for Christmas, she was informed that
he’d gone to Tir Na Og, where the International Confederation was housed.
According to Aunt Carole, he’d known of his acceptance into their diplomatic
training program ever since early in the summer.
But as far as she knew, he hadn’t said anything about it to the Potters.
Or to her.
“When he owls next, tell him I said hello,” said Lila flatly to Aunt Carole.
She shed no tears.
She did not sleep much that night, either. For Lila, true friends had always
been few and far between. Now they were all leaving her alone, one by one, in
some strange exile.
That was the end of childhood, she reflected, and the beginning of her
interminable teens.
Home was never the same again. Her relationship with her parents was
changing; she was no longer her father’s little girl after the day Mum had told
her she was too big for lap-perching. Her mother seemed to be constantly
exasperated by her reluctance to do certain things.
She had to sit up straight... not walk slouched over... bathe twice a day,
even when it was nicer to wait until morning... and for heaven’s sake, wear a
bra.
“It feels like I’ve got drinking cups on, Mum,” cried Lila, following her
mother up to her loft bedroom. “And the Muggle ones feel like harnesses. You
wouldn’t put any Pegasus in such a thing, so why me?”
“You need them for support,” Hermione said, unwrapping the package
they’d picked up from a visit to the high street in Hogsmeade. “See? Aren’t they
pretty?”
Lila looked at the lacy cups, held in place with a ribbon bow.
Unlike Muggle bras, there were no straps and no hooks on the ones
Witches were wearing these days. Her mum had some of both kinds, she knew...
Lila had done the washing alongside her ever since she was a small child. And
these were miniature versions of them...

- 53 -
 “No.”
Hermione sighed. “You are making this far more difficult than it has to be,
Lila dear.”
“Mum, I hate this,” she said miserably. “It’s not you. I just hate all this...
this stuff.”
“What’s wrong with being a girl?”
“It’s not that. I enjoy being a girl... but all this grown-up Witch stuff? Bras
and garters with stockings beneath my robes and silly perfume and minding
where I sit and minding that I bathe twice a day and shaving my... Mum, it’s just
not me and I hate it.”
Hermione snorted.
“Is that what you think being a Witch is all about, then?”
“Not really,” she shrugged. “I think it shouldn’t be about being a Witch in
the first place. Whatever happened to just being a person?
Or just being myself? Who cares if I don’t wear this thing? Who cares if
I flop around a bit? So long as I’m comfortable...”
“Lila,” explained her mother patiently, “you have to wear a bra. You are
nearly fourteen years old, and I’ve let you go without as long as I dared. But you
are getting to the point where you need the support. I won’t have you trotting
about, looking as if...”
“I’m not wearing it,” said Lila hotly, “and that’s that.”
She did eventually give in to the bra, though. She found that, horror of
horrors, she could no longer run or fly properly without one.
Imagine that.
As if that weren’t enough, the bra incident had nothing on the first time It
happened.

~~~
She’d been expecting It for some time. Mum had warned her about It, in
her usual scary too-much-information sort of manner, using a stack of medical
textbooks that explained everything and nothing to her at the same time. And it
wasn’t like she could ask anyone else about it, either... not her father or brother
or Uncle Sirius... and the other girls she knew were no help at all.
“Oh, It is ever so dreadful,” was Hazel’s assessment. “The absolute worst.
And Aunt Hermione’s terribly strict... you’ll have to suffer for ages until you
have the special girls’ Potions class Professor MacDonald teaches your fifth
year. Of course, my father let me get rid of It my fourth year, despite Mother’s
stupid protests... so I was only fourteen the last time I suffered from It.”
“I’ll still be fourteen this autumn when I’m a fifth year,” Lila pointed out,
as nonchalantly as she could. “Time enough for all that. I think I’m just a slow
developer.”

- 54 -
 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Seventeen year old Hazel Malfoy looked sharply at the younger girl when
she said this. Her grey eyes were unreadable, but Lila could tell that she’d said
something that offended the older girl.
“Of course, I’m very glad that I don’t have to worry about being massive,”
she said icily, leaving the younger girl to crumple in front of the mirror. “It
didn’t really affect me at all in that way. Here’s hoping you’ll be so lucky.”
Hazel was willowy and tall, with long legs and the grace of a supermodel.
Next to her, Lila felt positively dumpy. She looked at her rounding, petite shape
with chagrin, hot tears running down her face.
What everyone had failed to tell her was that It made one feel even
dumpier, if that was possible... the dumpiest. The first time It happened, she was
in her fourth autumn at Hogwarts... and when It came, she shrank away from all
contact with her friends, feeling like a pariah.
She even sat out a Quidditch match because of It.
Unfortunately, it so happened that her parents had come up to school to see
her play. When she wasn’t announced in the lineup, they came rushing into the
hospital wing.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mum, alarmed. “Are you ill?”
Lila shook her head, sipping on the concoction that Madame Perks gave
her. “I’ll be okay. No big deal.”
“If you’re not sick, then why aren’t you playing? Harry, look at her... she’s
positively flushed...”
Before Lila could pull away, her mother’s hands were cupping her face.
With a gasp, she knew.
“I knew It!” said Mum.
Dad was frowning. “Knew what?”
Mum looked at Lila. It was the first time that they’d silently agreed on
anything in front of Dad... agreed on something that Dad really didn’t need to
know at the moment, because he likely couldn’t relate.
“Harry, we’ll meet you back in the stands. Lila and I need to have a chat.”
After that, It wasn’t totally incapacitating, more of an inconvenience. Still,
Lila greatly preferred not to have to deal with or think about It... and she was
extremely grateful when that fifth-year girls’ Potions course rolled around,
becoming one of the first to master the brewing of the potion.
“Taken once per annum, you will never be troubled by It again,”
pronounced Professor MacDonald to all. “That is, not until and unless you wish
to be... when you’re a fully-qualified Witch and wish to have children of your
own.”
No, Lila didn’t wish that. And never, ever would.
What she wished was to be a little girl again... the girl she’d once been,
where bras and boys and It had been the alien artifacts of some far-off and
strange kingdom, a place where she was not a citizen.
A place where she didn’t belong.

- 55 -
 ~~~
The frustrating thing about time is that it never goes backward.
Time only moves forward, ceaselessly. Time never can be redeemed.
Time never can be rewound and replayed.
So the years passed, and with them, passed Lila’s childhood.
Other than the incidents mentioned above, she was quite unaware of what
was happening to her... willfully ignorant of how much she was changing
outwardly. To her, life was much as it had always been, with Hogwarts classes
and mates and Quidditch matches during much of the year, and glorious summer
and winter holidays on her beloved Ayr with her family and friends.
Lila was a decent student, if not the genius that her mother was.
OWLs came and went for her, and while she was not at the very top of her
year, she made a respectable showing. She was also a very good Quidditch
player, if not the prodigy that her father had been... her first-year bout as
Gryffindor Seeker had only lasted the year. For the six years that followed, she
was the team Keeper, and after her fourth year, its captain and strategist.
She was the sort of girl whom everyone liked, although she didn’t have a
best mate. Hogwarts was never wholly her domain, anyhow... it certainly would
never have the iconic status in her life that it had in her parents’. She quite liked
going to school, she enjoyed the people there, but she never got over her habit of
marking off the days until holidays and home.
Unlike her parents, she never stayed at school for a single school break.
Not even special dances or concerts could induce her to remain... not even when
a few stuttering young Wizards approached her furtively to ask her of her
Christmas plans, when she was a sixth year...
The year in which she’d just turned sixteen.
“I’m going home,” she invariably said. Feeling a pang whenever she said it.
Not of regret, but of longing.
“But you’ll miss the Christmas party,” protested Xavier Montague, a fellow
sixth-year from Slytherin House who secretly fancied the Gryffindor Keeper and
captain.
“I know it,” Lila said with a sigh.
“Then why,” he said, taking Lila’s hands in his own, “won’t you stay?
I was wondering... well, I wanted to spend some time with you. Get to know you
better...”
Even though she blushed at his attentions, Lila said nothing. All she could
do was shake her head slowly.
“Your cousins are staying... even your own brother! You’ll have the rest of
your life to eat Christmas dinner with your family. They realize that... why can’t
you?”
It was true. All of the Weasleys around her age would be staying, as well as

- 56 -
 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
her brother. Although she gave not a whit about what Maria did, and really
wasn’t close enough to Ana to care about her decision, it pained her that Drew,
who was thirteen and a third year, would willingly leave an empty place at their
table on Christmas morning. This would be the second year he’d do it...
“Lila, home is dead boring at Christmas,” her brother protested. “All my
mates will be here.”
“Right, and Mum and Dad and Bel will be there. Not to mention Aunt
Carole, Uncle Sirius, and all our village school and DSG friends...”
“Bel will be here next autumn,” pointed out Drew. “And she’ll likely want
to stay anyhow. Really, what is there to do at home?”
“What have we been doing there all our lives?” said Lila severely. “There
are a thousand family traditions we have... we have to help Mum decorate and
Dad with the puddings and tarts... and not even seeing Hogwarts decorated can
compare with the Yule lights in the North Forest...” She swallowed the lump in
her throat.
Drew frowned. His older sister was starting to worry him.
“Isn’t there anywhere you like better than Ayr, Li?”
Lila shook her head slowly.
“No.”
It was true. Lila loved every corner of the island, knew every inch of it as
she knew herself. She knew it from its highest point, Falcon’s Peak, which
afforded a panoramic view of the island and the mists. She knew its interminable
underground caverns, had memorized the path to the cave where the Way
Between the Worlds began, and was one of a handful in her generation who’d
ever seen the famous Stone Table... although it had never been made gold in her
lifetime.
She knew every inch of the Foundation corridors, and could find her way
around that maze in the dark... a magitech outage during a board meeting the
year she was fourteen proved her worth there. She knew her father’s school, too,
and indeed, the entire manor house with its otherworldly greenhouse and
whispering tapestries and marble halls.
Lila knew the village that had sprung up around her mother’s clinic, knew
every shop and the wares each one peddled, knew every family who lived there
and counted them among her own kin. She knew the smaller country manor
home, set a small distance from the village, that the Blacks had made into their
home and raised their sons in, knew it as if it was her own place.
She knew the interminable mid-island meadow, really very small if
compared to those great valleys and rolling lowlands of mainland Muggle
Scotland, but a vast sea of grass in comparison to the rest of Ayr. And she knew
the shore, the rocky west shore with its sea- washed and tide-smoothed
pebbles... as well as the sandy shore with its stables and port that connected the
island to the rest of the world.
But most of all, Lila knew the North Forest.

- 57 -
 When she was a little girl, so young that Drew was still in her mother’s
womb and she was small enough for Dad to carry, there had been a time when
her parents were walking to the Maximillans’, deep in the forest. It was an
autumn afternoon, and Lila had lifted her head, inclined her ear, and listened.
“Daddy, Mummy! The trees are singing!” she exclaimed.
Lila knew now that most parents would have simply laughed indulgently,
told her it was just the wind through the leaves, and kept walking. Her parents,
however, had stopped to listen... just as her three year old self had expected
them to. She had no idea at the time that all parents were not like hers.
“And so they are,” Dad had replied incredulously. “Wonder what they’re
saying.”
“Perhaps they’re mourning the lost ages, before your Uncle Sirius’
ancestors obscured the island from the rest of the world with the mists,”
suggested Mum. “There was a time long ago, Lila, when Muggle and Wizarding
children played together under these trees. They might be sad for that time.”
“No, Mummy... the trees aren’t sad... they’re happy we’ve come!”
And Lila stood by that. Most of the village children, settlers as well as the
younger native-borns, passed on a tradition that the forest was haunted... and
that it was a testament to Harry Potter’s legend that he chose to settle his family
there, irrespective of the Demons that dwelled in its midst.
There was nothing in that forest that could hurt Lila, though. When she told
the village kids that, when they saw how readily she fled into the forest’s depths
and made friends with its creatures, they stood a little in awe of her. Of course,
Ayr village gossip always said that Delilah Potter simply wasn’t a normal child...
how could she be, with parents like that?
“Right, it’s no wonderin’ the lass sees naught to be afraid of in the Forest o’
Wraiths,” said one old grandfather to the children, a wizened old gossip who had
come to live with them. It was only the Blacks and the Potters who called the
North Forest by its proper name.
“But Lila says there’s nothing that will harm anyone there,” said a young
DSG teen named Carrie, who was very friendly with the eldest Potter girl.
“The monsters, they likely go fleein’ before her... only recall who the lass
has got for a sire,” admonished the old man. “If you were to gad about that
forest as she does, you’d not return for a hundred years, Carrie MacTavish!”
That sort of talk frightened the village children. It created a barrier between
Lila and her peers, one which made her wander alone even more in the forest.
But it was all right. The trees were old friends... she rejoiced at seeing the
new saplings take root and begin their decades-long journey up towards the
canopy (“I can’t believe that I’ll be an old Witch before they make it all the way
up there,” she’d think to herself), and she mourned whenever an old tree was
lost (“its heart will return to the earth, I know, but their place seems so empty
now”).
The trees had known Alan as well. They remembered him always.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
It was only in the sky and amongst the trees when Lila thought about Alan.
At first, the year she’d turned thirteen, her thoughts Alanward had been all of
sadness and loss and regret. The leafy forest carpet had caught many a shed tear.
But the next year, she cried less... and the year after that, she smiled.
Alan would have understood how the treesong helped her to move through
the forest at a frighteningly rapid pace.
Lila told no one of this ability of hers. This was perhaps because she
thought nothing of it, thought nothing of being caught up in the enchanted song
of the trees and dashing through the forest so swiftly that she was here one
moment and there at the next blink of the eye in the next.
Might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch...
Of course, Lila didn’t relish her own company always. At times she missed
the carefree, uncomplicated days of her childhood. Sometimes she’d sit down on
a forest log and reminisce. She’d remember Pro when he was the same height as
she was, long ago when she wore pigtails and the tunic robes of a wee Witch...
remember her school friends from Hogsmeade and the island, making a
playhouse out of bracken... then remember when Mitch had brow-beaten his
brother and Ron Weasley’s sons into building a real treehouse `for the Potter
kids’, although it was really for her.
Sometimes, aching for companionship, she’d take Destiny through the
forest. Not to ride... you simply didn’t ride an earthbound Pegasus... just to hear
footsteps and breath and life beside her own... or that of the wild forest
creatures, each one a friend.
Unbeknownst to her, her mother saw this behavior and worried.
“I might have thought Drew would have been the loner,” she said to her
husband and the Malfoys that December, the Sunday evening after Lila had
come home from Hogwarts and immediately left with Bel for a nighttime ramble
in the woods. Ron and his family had just gone back home after dinner, but
Draco and Ginny had stayed a moment longer for a drink and a chat.
“Lila used to be interested in everything... so full of life as a child.”
Hermione sighed. “I wish I knew what happened.”
“Adolescence happened,” Ginny pointed out. “You’ve always said she
hasn’t been the same since her little friend died.”
“Yes, but this can’t be normal, Gin. I mean, we knew a lot of people who
died when we were her age...”
“That was a different time, Granger, and this is a different generation. Do
you think our brats could have dealt with being us?” Draco asked flatly, then
answered his own question. “We brought them up so they wouldn’t have to be.”
“All the same, Lila isn’t happy. I wouldn’t mind it so much if she was...”
“Lila will be all right, love,” Harry said. “Stop worrying.”
“Having no friends and being an outcast is not all right, Harry.” Hermione
shook her head, remembering. “There’s nothing right about it, and I can’t help
but worry.”

- 59 -
 “She has friends, Hermione, and she’s not an outcast by any means. From
what Drew tells me, she’s well liked and is always surrounded by a gaggle of
girls when she’s at school. She also doesn’t lack attention from the boys, which
isn’t surprising,” here he winked at his wife, tacitly noting their daughter’s
uncanny resemblance to her. “Perhaps she likes pulling away from the crowd a
bit... perhaps she wants to be able to hear herself think.”
Ginny nodded. “For all Lila’s physical resemblance to you, Hermione,
she’s got a lot of Harry’s ways. You’ve always said that, and now I see it.”
“Although I never had anything like a home to go to for the holidays, when
I was her age,” Harry said. “So what if she’d rather be here than at Hogwarts?
This is her home, and I’m glad she feels up to coming back.”
Just then, happily unconscious that she was being discussed, Lila was in the
forest, walking with her sister in the twilight, teaching her the signs that she
knew so well. Bel preferred the seashore to her dryad sister’s trees, but there
were few things she liked so well as a walk and a chat with Lila.
“But how can you tell unicorn tracks apart from satyr ones?” questioned
Bel, peering down into the snow.
“Easy. Unicorn tracks are perfect, shoeless half-circles... see, like those?
Satyrs have a vestigial toe in the back. It’d be here,” Lila pointed, “and often
adult satyrs wear shoes.” She thought of Proteus and frowned.
Bel thought she knew the reason for the face her sister pulled. “Oh, I know.
I always think, `doesn’t it hurt?’“
“No, the shoes don’t actually hurt them any more than clipping your nails
hurts you. It’s the same sort of stuff that makes hooves, you know. Same as our
nails.”
“Wow. Li, how did you learn all this stuff?”
She shrugged. “I’ve known so long that I can’t remember.”
It was a perfect December night. The newfallen snow lay in great drifts on
the ground, but was windswept enough to be negotiated on foot with proper
snowshoes. Above them, Ayr’s Yule lights glowed with surreal power, dancing
rainbows and glittering over the blanket of pristine white.
And all around them, the forest sang. It was a song borne of stillness and
harmony, a song that Lila always heard whenever she traversed the forest alone.
Yet that evening, Bel heard it too.
“What are they singing, Li?” she whispered after long moments, afraid that
her childish voice would disturb the spell and the melody.
She sighed. “They’re singing their winter elegies. Just as they do every
Yuletide.”
“What are they saying?”
“I haven’t the heart to tell you, wee Bel. For once you understand the tree-
language, you will become one with them... you will rejoice when they rejoice,
and you will mourn when they mourn.” Tears were running down Lila’s cheeks.
“And before you know it, this is the only place where you belong... the only

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
place where you are truly happy.”
Bel followed her sister home without another word. Even if it wasn’t her
place, she was going to help her whether she liked it or not.

~~~
The next morning, Mitchell Black was helping his mother assemble a
complicated set of bookshelves. Although magic helped with many household
tasks, even a wand couldn’t circumvent the A-B-C-D diagrams of Baddock and
Son.
“Mother, some of these planks simply won’t fit together,” Mitch said
finally.
“Then lengthen them,” said Carole practically. “I’ve no idea why we sent
you and your brother off to school, if you can’t even do that.”
“Lengthening it would weaken the wood and compromise the grain,” her
son shot back. “Conservation of matter cannot be ignored when performing
magic... something else I learned while in school.”
His mother made a sound of frustration.
“I’ve no idea why you bought Baddock bookshelves, anyhow. Father
always said the Baddocks were a dreadful lot of cheats and scoundrels, and I see
not much has changed in my absence.”
“They were on sale.”
“Cheapskate.”
“Ungrateful boy.”
Mitch laughed. “Mother, I haven’t been a boy for quite some time now.”
“Yes, I do realize.” Carole sighed, coming over to ruffle her son’s dark hair.
“It seems only yesterday that you were bouncing on my knee.”
“That was a lifetime ago.”
“Perhaps, when you’re a twenty-three year old Wizard who thinks he
knows everything. I remember when I was twenty-three. I thought I knew
everything too.”
“Well, not everything,” Mitch grinned, “but I do hold a diploma in
International Magical Relations from the Confederation Institute, Mother. That
ought to count for something... however, I know in this household, all that
counts is whether or not I turn up my bedcovers in the morning and eat a second
helping of mashed peas.”
“Exactly right,” said Carole with a matter-of-fact nod. Then, sobering, “I’m
glad you’re home, Mitch. So is your father, for that matter. He’s pleased as
Punch that you’ve decided to come here for your brother’s sake.”
“Yeah, great to see you and Dad too. When is Max coming home,
anyway?”
“Not until Christmas Eve. You are still going to pick up Hannah this

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afternoon, aren’t you?”
“I said I would,” groaned Mitch.
“And remember, she’s to sleep in your room, not the carriage house...”
“Mother, I’m not senile.”
Carole pecked her son’s forehead.
Their mother-son banter was interrupted by a knock on the door.
Before Carole could spring to answer it, Mitch held up a hand. “Don’t
worry, I’ll get it.”
He opened the door to find an unfamiliar, red-haired child of about ten or
eleven standing on it. The young girl was wearing a dark green velvet cloak that
fell to her ankles and matched her eyes, accentuated by a cap of the same color.
Mitch frowned. But before he could ask politely who she was and what she
wanted, the little girl launched herself on him, nearly knocking the young
Wizard off his feet.
“Mitch! Oh, wow! I can’t believe you’ve finally come home!”
He was confused, but didn’t want to let on. “Um... yeah. I did.”
His mother was laughing behind him, pleasantly plump figure shaking with
giggles. “Bella, he doesn’t recognize you.”
Bella... Isabella...
Bel?
“You can’t be Bel Potter,” Mitch insisted, holding the giggling child out at
arm’s length.
“But I am,” Bel said, tickled pink. “How old was I when you left, five?
Six? Now I’m nearly eleven. I’ll be starting Hogwarts this autumn.”
It was impossible. But true. Five years hadn’t seemed a very long time
when he’d made the decision to leave for Tir Na Og... now five years seemed an
eternity.
“Mitch, let the child in before she catches her death. Bella, dear, we were
just going to sit for elevenses... care to join us?”
She did. And she chattered with “Aunt Carole” as a dear old friend, and
with Mitch in much the same way that Lila always had... as an older brother.
“Tir Na Og sounds splendid,” said Bel wistfully. “Someday, I want to see a
place like that. My dream is to travel everywhere I can... I don’t want to stay on
this poky old island forever.”
“I totally agree,” said Mitch. “Nice place to visit, wonderful place to grow
up, but not really anywhere I’d like to live.”
“It’s not so bad,” Carole protested, with a hint of mild amusement in her
voice.
“Not bad for a place with no nightclubs, no theater, and only one pub...”
“We don’t need any of that, Mitchell Black, and if we ever do, someone
will start one up here. I may not have ever been to Tir Na Og, but I’ve traveled
quite a bit and there’s something I know.
There’s not another place like this island. It is by far the most beautiful

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Portal Land in the world.”
“Now you sound like Lila,” laughed Bel.
“Delilah... how is she?” asked Mitch, thinking fondly of his imp of a young
friend... a friend who’d been about the same size when he left as Bel was now.
“She’s...” Bel frowned.
Mitch frowned too. “What’s wrong, has she been ill?”
“No, not ill. She’s just not very much fun to be around these days. Always
moping around.”
Carole grinned. “She’s only being a teenaged girl.”
“Well, I hope I don’t catch whatever’s with her when I’m sixteen. Lila used
to laugh so much, Aunt Carole... and now I can’t remember the last time I heard
her even giggle. All she does is walk the forest.”
“She always did that,” said Mitch. Still, a frown creased his brow.
“Right, but she does it all the time now. Either she’s in the forest or she’s
flying. Mum’s worried, but Dad makes her leave Lila alone. I’m starting to think
that Mum’s right, though. There’s something that’s not right about her eyes...
and she never smiles.”
“Well, I’ve got to pick someone up from port this afternoon, but I’ll come
`round for tea later,” said Mitch. “I’d like to see the Professor and Doc anyhow...
and catch up with Drew as well.”
“Oh, Drew’s still at school,” Bel said. “But Mum and Dad will be glad to
see you. I’m sure Lila will too. Maybe you’ll be able to talk to her.”
Mitch shrugged. “I don’t know what I can say that hasn’t already been said.
But I’ll try.”

~~~
After breakfast, Lila took to the air, sparing Destiny in favor of one of her
two brooms. As she was wearing her favorite, fitted burgundy winter cloak,
trimmed in white rabbit fur for warmth, she opted for the matching skirt and had
to ride sidesaddle. Although she’d mastered the technique long ago, she still
preferred riding Quidditch-style.
So she’d come down a bit before lunch, raiding the pantry, assuaging her
hunger with bread, cheese, and pickle. Once she’d washed it all down with clear,
cold water, she bundled up further with scarf, muff, and hat, and set off for the
woods...
Ah. Here was solitude, surcease from the ever-darkening thoughts that as of
late had been taking over Lila’s mind.
Like one in a trance, Lila gave herself up to the eternal winter treesong.

~~~
- 63 -
 Mitch both loved and loathed the North Forest of his childhood. It had
never frightened him as a boy, but until he was around nine or so, he never liked
to spend much time there. This forest had always seemed so... so sad to Mitch.
It was much, much older than even the old-growth taiga of the mainland,
that ancient forest of Ayr. As he crunched through the snow beneath the trees on
that early winter morning, he reminded himself of all the many reasons why
he’d been glad to escape the tiny island that many in the Wizarding world said
was haunted.
Thank goodness he wasn’t his father’s heir. Max would become Gatekeeper
someday, and their father was already trying to teach him how to negotiate the
Ways Between the Worlds. After all, someday Max would have to lead others all
over the known worlds on trading missions and other important business... just
as Sirius Black had done ever since the war ended over thirty-five years ago.
Yet no matter how hard his older brother tried, he never seemed to
remember which portal led where... how specifically to enter each one... what
the features of each world were. Even though Max had been admitted to DSG
specifically to read Thousand World geography, it seemed as if he had no
interest in the stuff.
And no real talent for it, either.
Which was strange. Gatekeeping ought to come naturally to a Gatekeeper’s
heir. That was just how such things worked...
Or were supposed to work, at any rate.
Mitch, on the other hand, had learned a great deal of his father’s work when
he was still a boy. Although he’d not had the formal training of his brother, he’d
still received some tutelage from his father and could very easily open some of
the portals himself. The staff of the Gatekeeper had been in the Black family for
thousands of years, nearly seven hundred since the re-discovery of the portals,
and if something happened where neither Sirius nor Max could fulfill the duties
thereof, Mitch would have to take over.
He seriously hoped that nothing of the sort ever happened. His path in life
lay elsewhere; he was sure of it. He’d excelled in his coursework at Tir Na Og
and instead of visiting home on his breaks, he’d taken the opportunity to travel
to distant lands at a student rate. Bel’s eyes had lit up as he talked about his
travels... his had done the same whenever he’d listened to the tales of village
settlers at that age.
He was ready to take the junior post that the Confederation had offered and
work his way up. It had paid off for Percy Weasley.
But Mitch no longer wanted to be the Minister of Magic.
Inspector-General of the Confederation... now, that had a fairer ring, didn’t
it?
He’d make a great one. Ethical, just, and fair. There was nothing corrupt in
his youthful, clear-eyed nature. Power wouldn’t be a huge temptation for him
either. He’d been surrounded all his life by the most powerful people in the

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Wizarding world... Witches and Wizards who’d taught him how to wield it
effectively, how to wield it so that it worked, how not to lose your soul in the
process.
The harsh December wind chilled Mitch’s face as the first few flurries of
snow heralded a impending winter storm. He licked dry lips, suddenly back in
the here and now.
It had been the matter of Hannah which had brought him home. Soon, their
family would change forever. While he knew what his brother’s obvious
thoughts on the young Witch were, and his mother was quite supportive and
happy about the prospect of grandchildren, his father’s opinion was less clear.
Then again, Sirius Black had never been an open book...
Mitch shook off his father’s initial reaction to the news. Hannah
MacPherson was everything a young Wizard could want and more. Of course
old Sirius would support his son’s decision...
His thoughts were cut off by the faint sound of otherworldly weeping. Dark
pewter eyes followed the sound... the source of it seemed to be coming from a
strange glint just beyond the trees that alternated between flashing silver and
gold.
Mitch tramped through the snow, slowly... rounded the last few trees...
There sat a young woman, as lovely and mystical as some princess from a
fairy tale, weeping over the limp form of a unicorn. The woman was so
overtaken by her grief that she did not notice at Mitch at first.
However, the unicorn did, regarding him through blurred eyes the color of
the North Sea. The creature then turned its head away to rest on the girl’s knee,
and Mitch reflected that it had to be pretty badly injured if it hadn’t fled at the
sight of him.
Then the young woman looked up, looked up at him with her tear-filled
green eyes, and Mitch knew her at once.
This was no woman, but...
“Delilah?”
“Mitch,” she whispered. “She’s nearly dead. Come and see.”
He did so, coming down on his knees in the powdery snow and cold. He
laid a hand on the sweaty unicorn’s flank. Sapphire and amethyst veins were
visible through its translucent white skin, skin that was burning up with fever...
Lila’s eyes were filled with such anguish that it hurt him to look at her.
“Here, let’s see if we can’t levitate her,” he said, extracting his wand from
his cloak. “Perhaps the Doc could...”
“No, there’s nothing more that can be done,” Lila replied. “Her illness is
beyond even my mother’s skill. I just don’t want her to be alone when she dies...
stay with me, please?”
He could see that she was shivering a little from the cold, from being still
in such frigid weather. He knew that she should get back indoors, knew she
should have a cup of warm tea, socks, and a fireplace nearby.

- 65 -
 Mitch knew a lot of things, but inexplicably, he sat down next to her,
unbuttoned his cloak and folded her inside so that it covered her too, held her
hand within his, and waited for the unicorn’s death to come.
Lila did not look at him again just then. She did not speak, either. All her
attention was diverted to the dying fantastic creature. Yet he looked at her, and
looked again, and marveled.
The laughing, reckless little girl who he’d last seen on the western shore
five years ago had disappeared.
Seemingly, a dryad of the Old Country had taken her place...or perhaps
laughing little Lila of all those years ago was really what he’d always suspected,
a changeling, a girl not fully of this world.
He watched her intently, watched as the snowflakes cascaded down to cling
to the even brown curls that emerged from under her warm hat to flow past her
shoulders to the small of her back, to rest on her insanely long eyelashes. Her
facial features were still girlish, nose and cheeks reddening from the cold,
already red lips quivering with sorrow... but her mouth was not chafed like his.
Her mouth was petal-soft and appeared sweet as a berry in the snow...
Mitch caught himself. Despite his initial and mistaken flight of fancy, Lila
was only still an innocent child of sixteen. He was twenty-three, with five years
of post-Hogwarts worldly experience to boot.
He had no business wondering what her reaction would be if he kissed her.
He shouldn’t have been glancing at anything below her neck, either.
Not at the way her brandy-wine jacket and long skirt clung to new curves
and dips and places that he had no right to notice...
No more right than he had to be mesmerized by her lovely, teary green
eyes...
She’s sixteen, Black. Get a grip and quit while you’re ahead.
He was brought back when an anguished cry escaped Lila’s lips. The
unicorn had breathed its last.
“She suffered so those last few hours. And I feel... so helpless,” she sobbed,
drawing her hand away from the stiffening animal, burying her face in her
palms.
Without thinking, Mitch pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his
chest until she cried her heart out. Perfect, he thought. Just great. And by the
way, she’s sixteen. And don’t you forget it.
“I hate death,” she sobbed. “But I hate change even more.”
“That’s irrational,” said Mitch. “Everything changes.” Even you, he
thought but did not say.
Lila stared up at him, an incredulous light dawning in her eyes.
“You’ve even changed,” she said accusingly. “You’re... you’re not young
any longer. Why, you’re all grown-up.”
“I should hope so,” he said, half-annoyed yet amused. “Wouldn’t do for me
to act and look like a little boy at my advanced age.”

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“It’s not funny,” Lila said in her best et tu, Brute? tone. “Adulthood sucks
and I’m going to hate every minute of it.”
“I don’t know. There are some nice things about it.”
Lila’s mouth quirked. “I can’t think of a single one.”
“Really? I can think of several.”
The fact that Lila’s face didn’t change when he said this, that she didn’t
push him away or rise up in indignation, that she didn’t giggle or blush or
exclaim in horror was the ultimate testament to her innocence. Outwardly she
had become a young woman, but she was really being forthright... she had
absolutely no interest in learning about feminine wiles or the ways of women.
She’s only sixteen.
That’s the third time in a half hour that you’ve reminded me of this. Point is
well noted... my parents are her godparents, her father is one of my godfathers,
and her grandparents were my father’s dearest friends.
She’s a younger sister to me. Don’t be daft.
Right. And she’s only sixteen to boot...
Shut up.
“Perhaps we ought to see to the unicorn,” said Mitch at last, “and head
inside ourselves.” He was going to add because I want to see your parents, but
he knew at this point it would have been disingenuous. He’d set off that
afternoon to see the entire Potter family, but suddenly there were no other
Potters that he needed or cared to see... only her...
A sixteen year old girl.
“Her kind will take care of her. They go off alone to die, but she didn’t
want to be by herself,” Lila explained. “Now that she’s passed on, they will
come for her.”
Mitch nodded. “But aren’t you cold?”
“Not with you here, I’m not. I’ve missed you so much.”
Her words and her smile stole his heart, warming him to the core (she’s
only sixteen!). And all of a sudden, all thoughts of every other girl he’d even had
a nodding acquaintance with over the past half decade faded to nothing.
“I missed you too, Delilah.”
“But you left without saying anything.”
“I didn’t even tell my father, Li. I only told Mother... I didn’t want anyone
talking me out of my decision.”
They stood up then, Lila casting one last sad and regretful look back at the
unicorn, Mitch putting an arm around her slender shoulders.
“Uncle Sirius wouldn’t have. My parents wouldn’t have. And I wouldn’t
have,” she said earnestly. “Young though I might have been, I would have
supported you.”
“No, you would not have, Miss I-Hate-Change. You would have cried and
pleaded, and I didn’t want to remember you with tears.” His thumb dried one of
the streaks on the side of her face. “Just like you’re crying now... anyway, don’t

- 67 -
cry any more, I can’t stand it.”
“But deaths like that always remind me of Alan,” she said softly.
“You were so young when it happened. Do you still remember?”
“Like it was yesterday. And I’ll never forget... because there’s no one else
in the world like him. There never will be, either.”
Mitch felt her words sharply, as sharply as he’d noted her complete delight
in her friend all those years ago. He had no idea why he’d never cared for Alan.
There was nothing about the young boy that had been irksome. And it had been
terrible, the way he’d died.
Incidents like that made Mitch question the existence of the very Source
that his parents and godparents believed in.
Yet Lila was far too young to mourn Alan with this unnatural grief.
Alan wouldn’t have wanted that.
And it now made complete sense that she’d rather keep company with this
forest of wraiths than with other living, breathing young people. Mitch was
beginning to suspect that anyone who wanted attention from Delilah Potter
would have to compete with a ghost... a formidable rival, because she’d so
idealized Alan’s memory that no real Wizard or Muggle would ever be able to
compare.
Rival? Compare? Compete? Black, she’s sixteen. She ought still to be
playing with dolls...
And never mind what you were doing at sixteen... or what half the girls at
Hogwarts were doing at sixteen...
Just never mind.
You’re too close to her...too much like a brother... and far too old.
“Of course there’s no else one like Alan,” Mitch said, trying to be helpful.
“Pro’s leaving didn’t help matters either. But can the fact that I’m home for the
holidays be some small consolation?”
Lila looked up at him, corners of her mouth quirking up into a grin.
“Well. Perhaps a very small one,” she grinned, some of the old Lila
returning as she reached up to wind her arms around his neck and hug him
tightly.
It was then that Mitch knew he was in trouble. Really big trouble.
“Mitchell? Mitchell, where are you?”
Lila broke away from him with a frown. Mitch knew at once who it was,
and knew the timing couldn’t have been worse.
She emerged into the clearing where they stood, a pink-cloaked, blonde
bombshell with bright eyes and a smile that competed with the sun. Where Lila
was petite, the young woman was willowy and svelte... and in the wide scheme
of things, a rustic girl from even the most magical Scottish isle cannot compete
with a woman of the world...
“There you are,” said the woman. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Right,” said Mitch, not smiling. “Hannah, meet Delilah Potter. Li, this is

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Hannah MacPherson. Soon to be the new Mrs. Black. I’m sure you’ve heard all
about my...”
Lila wasn’t smiling either. No, she hadn’t heard, but she wouldn’t let on.
“Oh, right. Very nice to meet you.”
“Pleasure. It’s a great honor to meet the daughter of two magical legends,
I’m sure,” said Hannah brightly. “Funny, from the way Mitchell spoke, I thought
you were older.”
“No,” said Lila. “He’s seven years older than I am.” In the background,
Mitch felt each and every one of those seven years like a heavy weight.
“Interesting! So that would make you, what, fourteen? Fifteen?”
“I’m sixteen.”
“Amazing! You look about twelve! I wish I had such great genes... you’ll
look young forever, I’m sure. Wait until you’re my age. When you’re twenty-
one, you’ll know exactly what I mean.”
Lila snorted. “My cousin Hazel is nearly your age. And I don’t think it’s so
very old. By the way, Mitch, Hazel will be here for New Year’s Eve... I’m sure
she’ll be very keen on meeting Hannah.” She turned back to the blonde. “It’s
been wonderful meeting you, but my father’ll be expecting me for tea... I’ll see
you soon.”
And helplessly, hopelessly, Mitch watched his dryad disappear into the
whirling snow...
Right.
Dryads only existed in fairy tales anyway.
Not in real life... and certainly not on prosaic Ayr.

~~~
The day the unicorn died marked an epoch in young Lila Potter’s life.
Before then, Lila had been fighting a losing battle, struggling to maintain
every vestige of her childhood, to preserve her innocence intact. She’d not
shared in many the giggly confidences of the girls in her dorm, ignored the
overtures of boys like Xavier Montague, completely ignored the fact that she’d
traded in her limber girlish body for something very different altogether...
something that elicited a few whistles whenever her back was turned on a high
street or round Hogwarts Castle.
So that afternoon after tea, she stole up to her loft, locked the trapdoor,
turned up all her light, and shed her robes until she was standing in her
underwear. It was the first time she’d taken a good, full look at herself for years.
What she saw made her smile. She frowned over certain things, but mostly
she smiled.
No, she wasn’t a raving beauty like Maria Weasley or Hazel Malfoy.
Her very ordinary brown hair and slight stature ensured that she’d never be

- 69 -
a knock-out like her cousins.
But she did have her good points. What she lacked in size and height
(“I wish I had longer legs... mine seem too short, somehow”) she made up for in
eyes (“I’ve always really liked my eyes”) and curves (“I’ve always pretty much
had Mum’s face, but I’ve definitely inherited her figure, too, judging from the
pictures I’ve seen of her when she was younger... not bad”).
Somehow, between her last look in the mirror and now, she’d gone from
being shaped like a wand to being shaped pretty much like an hourglass.
Wow. When did that happen?
She took another, more critical look at herself. At second glance, she
wondered if perhaps she weren’t too curvy... Hazel’s dark words from a few
years before about It making one dumpy had never quite left her. Lila had a huge
fear that she was slightly overweight, and no one had the heart to tell her
otherwise.
Then, too, perhaps she could speak to Hazel about doing something
different with her hair. Hazel herself regularly changed her strawberry blonde
tresses... perhaps she could straighten Lila’s hair... or even try going with a
blonde, blunt cut or something... Lila tried to picture herself as a blonde or a
redhead... or perhaps with lustrous, nearly-black curls like Maria’s...
I love your hair. No, stop saying it’s plain. I love it because it smells like
cinnamon spice and it looks like honey... okay, like toffee in sunlight and
delicious Lindt chocolate in the shade... okay, I’ll admit that sounded
strange...but at any rate, I wouldn’t have your hair any other shade but rich,
warm brown.
Lila remembered overhearing her father’s murmurs to her mother, as they
danced together at a holiday party many years ago. It was a conversation she
perhaps shouldn’t have overheard, but one that always helped her when she
lamented her plain hair.
So perhaps she would keep her brown hair after all... perhaps she’d just
highlight it or something...
I’m being stupid, thought Lila. Why do I want to do all this stuff all of a
sudden? This morning, I didn’t think much about my hair, other than to brush it
down and shove it into a cap. Why should I care?
Inexplicably, she saw Mitch’s pewter eyes, his flashing white smile.
And when she picked up her fitted cloak, she smelled his scent of crushed
forest leaves, of clean newfallen snow, of soap and aftershave...
Ugh. I’m turning into Hazel. Or, even worse, Maria.
Please, someone blast me now.
Laughing at herself, she put her clothes back on. An evening in the crisp air
with Destiny would be the cure for whatever ailed her.

~~~
- 70 -
 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Xavier Montague was having a rather difficult evening of it. As
chairWizard of the Hogwarts Christmas Crash sponsored by the house prefects,
it was to his credit that the first time event had been such a success. It was a
testament to Xavier’s discipline, no- nonsense leadership style, and hard work.
But the absence of Delilah Potter from the festivities and fun added a bitter
sting to what should have been a huge triumph.
It was annoying, to say the least.
Annoying because Lila was only a girl. If there was one thing the only son
of Quidditch legend Rod Montague and DSG Deputy Head Jocelyn Capulet did
not lack, it was certainly unsolicited female attention.
Xavier even had his own (unofficial, unacknowledged) fan club.
What was even more annoying about all this was that Lila wasn’t even a
girly girl. Nothing like most of the sixth year Witches, who were all lipstick and
hair spray and cloying, nostril-clogging perfume.
Lila’s hair was usually pulled back with a barrette or into a no-frills
ponytail, her only fragrance was soap and water, and makeup?
Not on your life.
Yet she wasn’t a tomWizard like Emma Zabini or Stephanie Bryant.
When you were around Lila, if you were a red-blooded teenaged boy, you
couldn’t help but notice she was a girl.
And Xavier was as red-blooded as they came.
Yeah.
He was having a very hard time of it...
Speak of the devil. Obviously bored of dancing with her boyfriend, Maria
Weasley approached the Hogwarts resident golden boy. There was a smile on
her full lips that didn’t quite reach her intense, cobalt-blue eyes.
“Somebody looks as if they’ve melted a hole in their last cauldron... what’s
the matter, love? Not having a Happy Christmas this year?”
“Nothing.” Xavier looked her over with an appreciation that he didn’t
bother hiding. Half the Wizards over the age of thirteen around the castle
counted the youngest daughter of the iconic Red Weasel as the prettiest girl in
school. Maria’s sultry looks had claimed many a male victim over the years.
Between her lustrous dark-brown hair, soft skin that bespoke her mother’s Welsh
and gypsy heritage, and a body that on a ten-point scale regularly rated off the
charts as a heavenly twelve, Maria was regularly compared to every siren of the
Wizarding world and called a young Catherine Zeta-Jones by the Muggleborn.
The half of the Hogwarts male population that didn’t think Maria the
prettiest? They invariably rated her the sexiest, and scribbled elaborate boyish
fantasies on the toilet walls about what they’d get up to if she were their girl...
Michael Haughton, the current Head Boy, Ravenclaw Quidditch captain,
and her sweetheart of three years, was perhaps the most envied boy at school.
Yet something about Maria Weasley had always left Xavier cold. There was
something about her that was too showy, too in-your-face... she was simply the

- 71 -
majority of the girls in their class, done one better... sweet sixteen to the
superlative degree. Nothing special.
Nothing like her cousin. If Maria Weasley was the girl every bloke wanted
as their girl, Lila Potter was the sort a Wizard wanted for their best mate.
Maria was like sweet rum and cream.
Lila was a drink of cool, clear water.
Xavier, in a flash of sudden clarity, knew exactly which he preferred.
“X, you’re lying. What on earth is eating you?” Maria took his silence as an
invitation to sit. “Usually you’re the life of the party, but you haven’t set foot on
the dance floor all night...”
“Thought you were too busy playing tonsil Quodpot with Haughton to
notice.”
Maria placed a hand on Xavier’s knee. “I always notice when my friends
aren’t having fun.”
“Who says I’m not?”
She gave him a look.
“Right. I’m not.” He moved his leg so that her hand fell off, then turned
from her to stare at the dance floor. “And don’t pry, Maria. It isn’t that huge of a
deal, okay?”
“As I said before, I’m only trying to be a friend.” Her hand went to his
knee again. “I don’t see Lacey here...”
Xavier groaned inwardly at the mention of his ex-girlfriend. “She’s there in
the corner, with Nigel Graham. Been there for nearly half an hour.”
Understanding dawned on Maria’s face. “I see.”
No, you don’t. “Yeah.”
“Well, there’s plenty more blowfish where that one came from, I say...”
“Right.” Silence again. “Have you heard from Lila at all lately?”
Maria shook her head nonchalantly. “We’re really not very close, you
know.”
“Really? They say her parents were best mates with your dad...”
“They’re still great friends. But Lila and I... well, we don’t get on like our
parents. We’re friendly enough, but I’m sure you’re aware that we’re two very
different people.”
Right you are. “Any idea why she goes home every holiday?”
“Oh, she’s insanely close to Aunt Hermione and Uncle Harry, I suppose...
not ready to cut the old apron strings. I can’t understand it myself. I mean, I love
my parents, but I’ve got my own life.” Maria laughed, revealing her even white
teeth and creamy perfect throat to perfection. “Home is dead boring, usually. My
brothers are all adult Wizards with lives of their own...” She trailed off. “Why so
interested in Lila all of a sudden, anyway? Disappointed she isn’t around to steal
a maneuver from?”
“Yeah,” said Xavier dully. “You know Li. She wouldn’t have come even if
she’d stayed here... she’d be out on the pitch despite the snow.”

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“And would have had the entire Gryffindor squad out there with her for
good measure,” agreed Maria, wrinkling her pretty nose. “Lila is a fanatic. She
needs to learn that Quidditch isn’t everything.”
Right, and you could learn a thing or two from her. Xavier was growing
weary of Maria and wanted any excuse to get away.
“Care for another drink? Butterbeer?”
“No, but I wouldn’t say no to another goblet of that heavenly sparkling
pumpkin punch...”
Xavier was on his feet almost before the words were out of his mouth.
Instead of going to the bar, he detoured out of the Great Hall, finding a high
balcony just around the bend... needing fresh air more than anything...
Needing a pair of brilliant green eyes... the scent of first spring...
Needing Delilah.

~~~
Back on Ayr the week before New Year’s Eve, Lila was on a mission.
“Mum?”
Hermione looked up from the medical tome she’d been poring over. It was
her usual habit to spend a couple of nights per week keeping abreast of the latest
developments in her field. During this time, her children knew their mother was
all but inviolate... they were to bother their father with any and all concerns.
But this time, Lila couldn’t. She needed her mother.
“Yes, Lila, what is it?” said Hermione, taking off her reading glasses, trying
to keep the mild impatience out of her voice.
“I need you to help me.” Her voice was urgent, pleading.
Now Hermione was alarmed. “What is it, dear? Are you unwell?”
“No, no... I’m okay... well, actually I’m not, and... it’s just that... well,
I want to look absolutely stunning for the DSG New Year’s celebrations this
Wednesday. Can you help me?”
Hermione closed the medical journal. Had Lila announced that she was
quitting Hogwarts to become a tamer for the magical menagerie, Hermione
might have been less surprised. As it was, her mouth gaped open and she did not
blink.
“Mum? Are you all right?”
Impulsively, Hermione swept her eldest up into a hug.
“I’m fine. It’s just that I love you so much. And really, are you sure that
Hazel wouldn’t be better suited? After all, she’ll be coming in town with her
parents for the festivities... and she’d know all the latest fashions... she’s young
like you are...”
“No. I want you, Mum. I don’t want Hazel, she’d only want to copy
whatever’s the latest in Milan or Paris this week. You’re always so... so classy

- 73 -
when it comes to this sort of thing... and I don’t want to get my ideas out of
some rubbishy fashion magazine. You’ve got your own sense of style and I’d
like to find out what works best for me.”
Hermione’s grin made her brown eyes shine.
“Let’s make a date to do some shopping in Diagon Alley, then... just you
and me. We’ll catch the best after-Christmas sales and have a bite of lunch to
boot. And we’ll find you dress robes that will simply enhance you nicely,
because whether or not you know it, Delilah Caroline Potter... you are a stunner
already.”

~~~
Harry didn’t notice his eldest daughter’s dress until well into the party. As
usual, his most acute attention was reserved for his wife, who tonight was
resplendent in golden robes. Due to the cold, they’d taken sleighs up to the
school, not wanting the long mid-island walk in the snow drifts. As the cutters
only held two, Lila shared with her younger sister while their parents shared
with each other.
Lila had been in her best cloak by the time her father came outside, and as
there was nothing untoward in her appearance other than a very tiny bit of
makeup (which did indeed catch Harry by surprise and make a mental note to
say something to Hermione about it later... after all, it wouldn’t do to have the
girl grow up too fast), he tucked both of his daughters into the sleigh without
thinking much about it. During the ride, his wife had a thousand things to talk to
him about, things that he’d neglected because he’d spent most of the holiday
week between Christmas and New Year’s underground at the Foundation.
And there was much to catch up on. Drew had written them, thanking them
for his Christmas parcels and wanting to know if they liked his gifts...
Angelina’s owl had come that morning, saying that Malinda (who’d been
married two years before) would have to leave off Quidditch after the New Year
because she was expecting a baby... which would soon bring the number of
great-grandchildren for Molly Weasley to a whopping seven.
“All this news makes me feel old,” said Harry wearily. “I’m just getting
used to all of us having children... rather strange that those children are now
having children of their own. Shouldn’t be allowed.”
“Well, darling, you have to remember that Ron is on the younger end of his
family... and that we started our family rather late. Your own parents had you
when they were twenty-one. If we’d done the same, all of our children would be
adults now as well. As it were, Bel’s the youngest of the lot and she’s eleven this
year.”
Harry was silent, shaking his head, looking out at the swirling snow.
“What, are you wondering what I’ll do when she’s off to school this

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
autumn? I’m quite used to it, you know...”
“It’s not that,” said Harry. “I was wondering what I’ll do.”
Hermione laughed, took one of her husband’s gloved hands in between her
two mitten-covered ones, and smiled at him. “Oh, come on, Harry, you can’t
mean that you’re sorry to see them grow up. I understand that most parents
rejoice at the prospect of an empty nest. Look at the Malfoys. They...”
“Malfoy and Gin do not count. They foisted Hazel off on whomever they
could, whenever they could. That child had a nanny, a governess, and an army of
servants at her beck and call. You know how lonely that made her... why she
always begged her parents to come visit us. She even told me once when she
was younger, `Uncle Harry, there’s a world of difference between having parents
and having a mum and dad.’”
“They weren’t so bad,” said Hermione, defending her friends.
“Yeah, but all the same, they could have been far better than they were. It’s
all about choices and priorities, Hermione.”
“But who are we to criticize the choices others make, Harry? We might not
agree with what was done with Hazel, yet only recall that there are some among
our friends who believed that we kept our own babies too naïve and sheltered
here... that our children have no idea what being a Potter means to most... that
we never told them about the world outside.”
“They’ve done all right for themselves at Hogwarts,” said Harry
defensively. “That’s because we’ve taught them not to walk in our shadows.”
“Yes, but Harry, you know the danger... how Lila’s felt isolated at times
during her schooling... the fights Drew was in before Hogwarts, and then last
year, the matter of his supposed best friend Jacob posting all those leaflets in the
Great Hall... no matter how hard our children try, there will be those who will
treat them unfairly just because they’re ours.”
“But all kids go through that, it’s really quite normal. After all, you dealt
with your fair share of teasing because you were such a swot and Muggle-born
to boot. Our Weasley friends had to deal with being so prolific and poor... and
it’s funny to note the dwindling number of people who remember that family’s
humble beginnings...”
“Including some of the Weasleys themselves,” agreed Hermione with a
conspiratorial laugh. “Molly won’t let them forget, but she’s getting on, poor
dear.”
“Right. But as I was saying, I refuse to believe we’ve done the wrong thing,
love. Our kids... well, we just haven’t had to deal with some of the same
problems our friends have. Psychedelic potion use, pregnancy scares... our kids
aren’t trying to be adult before their time, thank Merlin.”
“We’ve been lucky,” said Hermione with a sigh of content. “Of course, the
fact that they’ve got the best father in the world doesn’t hurt.” She leaned up to
kiss her husband’s cheek.
“I’d say their mother myself,” Harry replied. “When I look at our Lila and

- 75 -
compare her to some of the other girls her age... all I can say is that I’m very
proud.”
Harry’s pride didn’t abate when they reached the manor house that housed
his school. His school over the past twenty-five years had seen marked success,
and the New Year’s soirée over the years had become a tradition. Invitation-only,
it featured the Wizarding world’s finest entertainment, the best food and drink,
and some of the most prominent members of the international magical
community.
The party began at ten sharp, with the bulk of the festivities coming after
the midnight countdown. At six-thirty, breakfast would be served, and always,
Harry and Hermione were still awake to say good-bye to their guests, having
stowed their drowsing children away in one of the upstairs dorm room with one
of the DSG prefects as sitter.
Now, however, those children weren’t quite so young anymore. Lila had
stayed up for the past four years, and Bel, who’d slept the day away, vowed that
this would be the first year she’d do the same.
Harry watched as his girls gave their cloaks to one of the doormen, then
turned away with his wife to greet the guests who’d already arrived early.
As he mixed and mingled, stopping to chat with Sirius for a long while, he
didn’t see his daughters for another hour. Then he saw Bel first, laughing with a
couple of her friends from the Wizarding first school. One of them he
recognized as the elder son of Sirius’ longtime assistant, Stacy Apostolides. He
waved... Bel, lovely in holiday dress robes of purple and gold, waved back.
Hermione, who’d been catching up with a couple of her school friends,
found him.
“Care to dance?”
He beamed at her. “Thought you’d never ask.”
And dance they did.
When a man is young and infatuated, he often believes that he truly knows
the meaning of the word “love of my life”. And when the young are “in love”,
when that exquisite feeling is new and hot and passionate, rarely is it noted that
the selfsame feeling is also quite deceptive, making one pledge promises that are
not always in one’s ability to keep.
Marry me, please.
I want to stay like this forever.
Grow old with me.
When a man grows older, when time and circumstance add silver to his hair
and draw the first few wrinkles in his brow and around his eyes, sometimes a
man reevaluates the promises he made in his rash youth.
Sometimes.
Not in Harry’s case, though.
And it wasn’t as if the past twenty years had been nothing but white-hot
passion, either. Certainly he couldn’t remember any really horrific fights, but

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
there had been days, weeks, and even months that had been extremely difficult.
For instance, there was the time early in their marriage when sheer stubbornness
had caused Hermione to lose their first child in her sixth month, the one before
Delilah, the one who would have been a son. There was the time when a rift
about the direction and purpose of the Foundation had Harry and Sirius at outs,
and Hermione had taken Sirius’ side because she thought the older Wizard was
right. Of course, he’d been in the wrong, but Harry was very angry with her for
a time... they didn’t speak to each other unless absolutely necessary for nearly
two months.
But most of that had been early on in their marriage, when they were still in
their newlywed years... when they were each still learning about a person who
they’d thought they knew as their own soul long before becoming man and
wife...
They’d thought wrong.
Through living together, working together, having and raising children
together, something had happened to them over the years.
Something that was more profound than all the sex, all the platitudes, and
all the promises.
They’d meshed until they were on one accord.
No, this didn’t mean that they never disagreed. No, this didn’t mean that
they’d lost their individuality or their own mind or opinions about things.
What it did mean was that by now, after nearly twenty years of marriage,
Harry and Hermione Potter had learned the meaning of their deathless vows.
He didn’t love her the same way he loved her twenty years ago... loving her
because of her, and all the many things she was in and of herself. Of course, he
loved her for the person she was even now, but now there was more.
These days he loved her even more because of him... because so much of
what made him who he was had now become inextricably knit to her.
Love you? I am you.
“Another year gone already,” Hermione breathed. “It seems like last New
Year’s Eve was just yesterday... time is passing too fast, my love.”
“Indeed. It seems like it wasn’t very long ago that we were dancing on our
first New Year’s Eve together, in Brazil... do you remember?”
“I’ll never forget.” She laughed. “I couldn’t believe I was married. It all
happened so fast that I was nearly afraid to blink.”
“I felt the same.” His laughter joined hers. “You’re still as beautiful in this
very moment as you were then, Hermione.”
“Oh, ever the flatterer... I hadn’t given birth to three of your children back
then, let’s not forget.”
“Right, and thanks to being an amazing mother to those three children,
keeping active as your usual pace, you’ve not gained an ounce... unlike your
lazy husband, who really ought to be put on a diet.”
“As if you’re massive! I’m still waiting for the infamous Potter potbelly

- 77 -
that Sirius always teases you about to show up. No, you haven’t let yourself go
yet, and I won’t let you.”
“So you do agree that I ought to go on a diet. What about exercise, then?”
Hermione looked up and caught the gleam in her husband’s eye.
“Why, you dirty old man... honestly, at your age!”
She laughed as he pulled her closer. Merlin, how he loved this woman.
Always had... always would.
But now a flash of red caught his eye... caught it, because the person who
was wearing it was so very similar to his wife in appearance that at first he
thought he was seeing a ghost of her from long ago.
It was only Lila, of course. She was accepting a cup of eggnog from one of
the young Foundation staffers whose name Harry couldn’t quite recall, smiling
up at the youth, making him blush.
“Your daughter’s being quite the charmer tonight, Mrs. Potter,” Harry said.
“And you were worried about her keeping to herself and not socializing... great
Wizards, what in hell?”
For he’d just registered what she had on.
“What’s wrong, darling?”
“What in hell does the child have on?”
Hermione glanced briefly, then turned back to him. “Dress robes and my
rubies. Not the collar necklace, but the heart pendant and earring studs... oh,
Harry, she won’t lose them, if that’s what you’re worried about... she’s quite
responsible...”
“It’s not the pendant, Hermione, it’s where the pendant is... did you see
those dress robes before she put them on?”
“Harry, darling, I saw it after she put them on. I helped her.”
“Helped her look like a tart?” He was incredulous.
“Harry James Potter, she does not look like a tart and I won’t have you
insinuating that any daughter of mine would. That outfit is both stylish and
tasteful, we spent a long time putting it together, and I cannot believe you’re
acting like this.”
“I can’t believe you let her wear that! Hermione, the girl’s... her... they’re...
I mean, they’re half hanging out!”
“They are not, don’t be silly.”
“I say they are! Look at the lad... can’t even keep his eyes on her face!”
“He’d be doing that even if she were wearing a tent at that age,” Hermione
said wryly.
Harry’s grip on his wife loosened. “Well, she can just put her cloak back
on, that’s all...”
Hermione grabbed him before he could head off in Lila’s direction. “She
will not, Harry Potter, and you can just leave her alone. She’s a good girl, she’s
having fun, and the last thing she needs is for her overprotective father to rain on
her parade.”

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“She’s too young for that dress!”
“She’s sixteen, going on seventeen. I think she’s plenty old enough. I, for
one, am glad to see she’s taking more of an interest in her appearance, because
she’s absolutely lovely. There isn’t a girl in her set who can hold a Lumos-lit
wand to our Lila when she actually puts some effort into it.” Hermione tilted her
head up to kiss her husband. “Just admit she looks fantastic, and tomorrow tell
her so.”
“Hermione, you don’t know boys her age! They’ll...”
“Oh, I don’t? At her age, exactly who was I friends with?” Hermione’s
eyebrow was quirked.
“But...”
“Right, nothing but boys. And of course, I was the sort of girl whom no one
ever had those kinds of thoughts about, wasn’t I? We won’t even start with Ron,
nor with some of the others. Because I’m sure you never even once, when we
were sixteen, had any thoughts about...”
“Okay, okay.” Harry started to concede, then shook his head. “But that
doesn’t make it right!”
“Fine. Go on and be just like my dad, then. You know how very
understanding he was when it came to me...”
Harry groaned.
“You know, I hate it when you’re right.”
Another kiss. “And I love it when you give in. It’s terribly sexy.”
He kissed her back this time. “That doesn’t mean I’ve got to like it. In my
eyes, she’s still my little girl.”
“Yes, it’ll take some getting used to. And darling, she’ll always be your
little girl. Some things never change.”

~~~
Lila was indeed having a fabulous time. In spite of feeling as if her chest
was going to fall out of the dress robes’ daring neckline, she felt light as a
feather.
And as stunning as she’d hoped.
Especially after the ten days she’d just had.
She had only been to Aunt Carole’s once since Mitch had arrived home.
But it didn’t matter. In the days up until Christmas, he’d been everywhere... with
the golden Hannah always at his side. Every time she saw them, she couldn’t
help but hear Hannah’s laughter in her ears... you look about twelve!... and
wanting to run in the opposite direction.
Yet she forced herself to make small talk with the older girl, forced herself
to smile even when she felt all wibbly inside.
A Potter didn’t run from a sticky situation.

- 79 -
 A Potter persevered.
Of course, perseverance where Mitch was concerned wasn’t as clear cut.
Especially since all of a sudden, she felt, well, weird around him. Every time she
saw him, she remembered what it had been like to be underneath his cloak,
wrapped up next to him in the swirling snow. He’d turned what would have been
a horrible memory into one that was worth salvaging.
For she’d replayed those moments several times over the past week and
more.
Several? Only several?
More times than she cared to admit, honestly.
And each time she thought about it, she grew more and more embarrassed.
After all, Mitch was like her older brother. His father had mentored hers, and
had been very close to her Grandfather James and Grandmother Lily. Mitch had
been around when she was born... he’d watched her grow up... he’d seen her at
her best and her worst as a child.
Likely he still saw her as a child. What young man wouldn’t, with the likes
of Hannah MacPherson to spend the holidays with?
And she... she didn’t want to think about him, to dream about him.
Mitchell Black was too familiar, too common, too boy-next-door. She
didn’t want to be like her parents’ generation... they’d all dated and married each
other because they’d been fighting a war together, and when they came out on
the other side and tried to match up with others, they often found that others
didn’t offer the surcease they needed. Even Uncle Ron had married a woman
whose family had been devastated by the war, and who herself had suffered at
the hands of one of Voldemort’s most trusted lieutenants.
Lila wanted someone mysterious and different to dream about.
Someone like...
Yet whenever she got to this point, she faltered.
For all she could see was his face.
That’s utter nonsense, Lila, you’re too young for him. Mitch would be
twenty-four years old in June. Twenty-four, months and months before Lila’s
seventeenth birthday in November. Likely he was used to a certain sort of girl.
Lila wasn’t as naïve as others thought; she knew what many of her peers got up
to in empty classrooms and bathrooms and sometimes under Silencing Spells in
their own dormitories. And Mitch (she had to admit) was quite handsome...
Hannah was certainly not the only woman to notice that. He wouldn’t have
lacked for girls willing to do anything with him.
And besides, speaking of Hannah, he was engaged to her. Thank goodness
Mitch knew restraint in public... she hadn’t caught them kissing or anything like
that. But Bel had said offhandly on Christmas Eve that she figured Hannah was
sleeping in Mitch’s room... and Lila was instantly glad that they’d gone to the
Weasleys for Christmas dinner that year. She wasn’t sure if she could have borne
sitting at table and watching them make eyes at each other...

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Not only is he too old, not only does he have way more life experience, not
only is he nearly a relative, he’s going to be a married man soon to boot.
Delilah Potter, you sure know how to pick them, don’t you?
Yet when she and her mother had gone down to Diagon Alley to shop, she
found herself asking over lunch:
“Mum, how did you know when you were in love with Dad?”
Mum had laughed to herself. “Well, first and foremost, you now know all
about me and Uncle Ron, so...”
“Right. And I still think you really should have told us, Mummy...”
That old story had come out during Lila’s thirteenth summer, when Maury
was working on a Wizarding history degree at university and learned that his
parents hadn’t been married when he was born. All of the children in their set
had heard the rumours about Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione being married long
ago, about some horrid scandal associated with Uncle Ron and Aunt Maureen,
but by the time they were old enough to discern, that was merely one rumour
amongst many others. And as their parents never had talked about it, the
children dismissed it as just mere nonsense.
It had been awful. Maury was furious at his mother and father, and felt as if
Aunt Hermione must always have secretly hated him, until Hermione pulled the
youth aside for a long chat and reassured him.
Artie and Quinn were noncommittal about the entire thing, but Maria, who
heard her mother’s version of events first, told Lila a story that made her hair
stand on end one long evening right before the start of fourth year. All in all, it
made for a tense autumn... because in the end, it was Drew who told their
parents what had happened and why Lila was acting so strange.
Grandmother Molly Weasley had been the one to set things right that
Christmas Eve. She told the adults that while she understood that not all stories
were fit for children to hear, this was one story they needed to know... and
deserved to hear from their parents.
What shocked Lila the most about it all was that it was something that
everyone older than Maury knew, including their older, same-generation cousins
like Malinda, Elizabeth Molina and Raven.
“Oh, but Rave and I were very small when it happened,” Malinda had
explained to Lila and Maria, later on that night after everyone had dispersed to
various corners of the Burrow. “Only four and five years old... we didn’t
understand very much... all we knew was that the adults were going crazy, even
our parents, who weren’t directly involved.”
“There were cameras and reporters around all the time that year,” Raven
added. “Linda and I found it all rather frightening... Aunt Hermione cried all the
time, and Uncle Ron yelled a lot at the press and at everyone around, and our
own parents went around whispering all the time... we thought everyone in the
family would be getting divorced in short order. Then the bad guys at the
Cabalistica took advantage of the mess. Trust me, it’s better that you missed it.”

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 “And after it was all over, there was really nothing to tell,” Malinda
concluded. “I mean, your parents married soon afterwards, Maria... and Lila,
when yours finally married and moved to Scotland, we weren’t even old enough
for Hogwarts yet. So things have been the way you’ve known them for as long
as we can remember.”
“I can’t believe Dad was married to Aunt Hermione,” Maria said
incredulously to Lila in bed that night, after everything was explained and they
were drifting off to sleep. “How strange to think that we might have been
sisters.”
No, they wouldn’t have been, Lila decided. Only Mum and Dad could have
been her parents. As for the old scandal, Lila thought all concerned had been
very silly and stupid, and it was very lucky that things were righted in the end.
Because really, her Mum... and Uncle Ron? Whoever came up with such a
dumb idea? Although she was off and on with Aunt Maureen, most days Lila
liked her okay... and she couldn’t imagine anyone else with her favorite uncle.
And as much as she loved Uncle Ron, only Dad could be Dad.
But after that, Lila totally understood why her Mum and Aunt Maureen
didn’t get on... and why Dad never said much when Aunt Maureen was around.
She thought the real miracle was that her parents and Uncle Ron had somehow
become friends again... but then again, her parents and uncle were just amazing
like that.
In the here and now, her mother’s eyes had grown distant.
“I really never liked talking about those years much. And you lot were so
very little...”
“Maury wasn’t,” Lila said bluntly. “He was twenty when he found all that
stuff in Grandmother Molly’s attic, you know.”
“Well, that was his parents’ decision. Your father and I had discussed the
matter years before then. We would have told you and your brother and sister
eventually, when you were old enough to know. I wouldn’t have wanted it to
come out like that... at any rate, I think that I must have begun loving your father
even when I was a very young Witch dating Uncle Ron. But your father, being
who he was, was a really difficult Wizard to love.”
“I don’t see how,” Lila said.
“He was afraid for both me and Uncle Ron. Voldemort was killing people
indiscriminately, but he really wanted your father to suffer. So we were targeted,
and your dad thought that if he wasn’t as close to us, we wouldn’t get hurt.”
“But wasn’t there a moment when you just knew?” Lila pressed.
“There were several moments, actually. There was the moment when I met
him... and I knew he would be somehow important in my life. Then there was
the moment when we all became friends, but you know, he and Ron had to brain
a troll for that to happen.” Mum’s laughter rang out, and Lila joined in. It was a
story she’d heard many times over the course of her sixteen years.
“But I think what did it for me was when I saved his life during the war...

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
when if I hadn’t healed Harry, he would have died. I saved Ron’s life as well,
and they saved mine... but with your father and me, it was... different somehow.”
“Nothing before that?” asked Lila with a little dismay. If it took near-death
experiences...
“Oh, there were little moments before that. I think I was fourteen when
I first noticed how incredibly cute he was... and maybe a year or two older than
that when I realized how much I liked it when he held me. But if you want a
full-scale revelation, then it wasn’t until we were twenty and in Avalon... older
than dirt, I suppose, to you.” She smoothed back one of her daughter’s curls.
“You should have married Dad and not Uncle Ron,” Lila scolded. “I think
you were extremely silly, Mummy.”
“Yes, I was. We all were. But everything happens for a reason... it wasn’t
time for me and Dad yet, I suppose. I’ve made my mistakes, Lila, but all things
considered, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Is love always that hard? That sad?”
“No, usually not nearly as hard as it was for us. That’s why I always
wanted you and your brother and sister to know eventually. I want you to learn
from the mistakes your father and I made, so that you can have your happy
ending without all the wasted years in between that we suffered through.”
Lila sighed, thinking of Mitch and Hannah. “It seems like it’s hard work,
though.”
“Anything worth having is hard work. I didn’t understand that when I was
married to Ron; I thought that a marriage was just something that fell into place.
It’s not. It’s something that you have to tend with care. Any relationship is,
though... which is why I make such an effort to keep up with Mrs. Carker in
New York and your Aunt Eva in South America. Relationships are like gardens...
if you don’t tend them, they die.”
“But... what if... what should one do if they’re in Dad’s situation? If the
person they want to be with is with someone else?” Lila blushed.
Hermione looked at her daughter sharply.
“Well, love, you really ought to decide if that truly is the person you need
to be with... and evaluate why they’re with that other person. And then... all you
can do is live your life and hope.”
Lila then asked a question that made her mother’s mouth drop open.
“Honestly, Delilah!”
“Mother, I’m not a little girl any longer. And I really think I ought to know,
especially since that was what Maria implied when I was first told.”
“Maria was misinformed. Lila, listen to me. Your father would have never
done that. He has never done that. It’s the worst sort of thing to do, vile and
despicable. Remember what we’ve taught you about breaking a promise...”
“What about Uncle Ron? Didn’t he break his promise to you?”
“Uncle Ron and Dad are two different people. And Uncle Ron and I had no
idea of the seriousness of what we were getting into... we just went with what

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we thought was inevitable and didn’t really think it through. Your Dad just
wouldn’t have, dear.”
“You keep saying Dad, when I asked about both of you...”
Hermione’s chin went up. “Well, that begs the question, young lady...
exactly which married man have you fallen for? Or is there a secret marriage
that I ought to know about?”
Lila giggled, noting that her mother had changed the subject.. “No, Mum.
Nothing to worry about there.” Then her smiles faded. “I’m only afraid that
someone whom I like very much doesn’t like me back.”
“How do you know? Did you ask them?”
“No, but...”
“You really can’t guess at such things... Lila, I want you to have more
confidence about yourself. When you wear this dress, hold your head high and
show off your pretty smile. And always remember that fine feathers are all well
and good, but that there’s no replacing the beauty that comes from inside.”
Inner beauty aside, Lila was greatly enjoying herself that New Year’s Eve.
She found herself laughing inwardly the double takes that some of the older
staffers did, and the attention she was getting from the younger Wizards was
astonishing. Of course, at first she’d worried a bit about Dad, but Mum assured
her that she’d handle him and not even to think about it.
Now she was talking with Copernicus Richards. She wasn’t even really
listening to what Copernicus was saying; she didn’t understand a word of the
project he was talking about. But she did smile prettily, and nod, and mutter,
“Oh, how fascinating!” from time to time. She’d seen other Witches do this and
always thought it was stupid.
But by Merlin, it worked.
After Hannah MacPherson, Lila felt justified.
She was rescued by her sister, coming over with her small face flushed.
“Lila, Lila... you have to come and see!”
Excusing herself from Copernicus (who looked sorry to see her go), she
followed her sister to a corner.
“What is it?”
“You will never guess who just walked in.”
“Right, so I guess you’ll have to tell me.”
“Who is your favorite lead singer from your favorite band on the WWN,
Lila? Every girl’s favorite?”
Lila’s mouth dropped open. “You don’t mean to say...”
“Yes! Storm Hunter is here. Tonight. Octavian and I just saw him come in...
I think I’m going to faint!”
“Is he performing?”
“No! Someone sent him an invitation and he actually came! He was talking
to Uncle Sirius just a minute ago, and Uncle Sirius introduced me to him. And
Li, he said I was cute as a button! Oh, could you just die?” Bel’s green eyes

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
were dancing.
“Dying’s not a good thing, Bel, hang on... where is he? I don’t see...” Lila
looked over the crowd.
Bel glanced too, then giggled.
“What?”
“He’s looking at you, Lila.”
“Get out. He is not.”
“Yes, he is... no, don’t look!”
But it was too late. Lila had indeed looked.
And it was true. Storm Hunter was looking... no, staring... at her.
With his golden-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail and his lithe form
wearing a black leather trench coat, turtleneck, and leather pants.
When he saw her looking, he winked.
Bel giggled even harder. “Oh, good heavens! This is too much excitement
for me... this calls for another glass of eggnog.”
“Isabella Helene Potter, you are not supposed to be tipping up eggnog,
especially not the kind the House-Elves make here! It’s far too strong for you. If
Mum knew...”
“What Mum doesn’t know won’t hurt her... go on, see if he won’t ask you
to dance!” With that, Bel dashed off in search of her young friends.
Her baby sister was absolutely outrageous. Storm Hunter would never ask
some ordinary girl to dance. His name was written up in Witch Weekly along
with some of the most alluring Witches in the world.
What would he want with a little girl like her?
So Lila didn’t think much more about it, and accepted Maximus Black’s
invitation to dance. Lila had always liked Max, although she’d never been as
close to him as she had been to his younger brother. Perhaps this was because
Max was a good decade and more older than she was... he’d been a grown-up
Wizard for almost as long as she could remember.
“Any idea what you might want to do after Hogwarts, Lila?”
“I don’t know. I suppose I’ll play Quidditch for a while.” She realized that
she hadn’t given it much thought. “I think I’d rather work here, though. Maybe
I don’t qualify as a DSG teacher, but I’d love to work in the village or
underground in the Foundation.”
“A Quidditch career would be far more exciting than the everyday drudgery
of a real job.”
“Yes, but a Quidditch career would mean I’d have to travel, something that
I absolutely hate. I fear I’m a terrible homebody.”
“You’re like Mum, yeah,” Max nodded. “She’s not been further than
Aberdeen for nearly a decade. We keep wanting to send her and Dad off for a bit
of a holiday, but she never wants to go.”
“I knew there was a reason why I’ve always loved Aunt Carole,” Lila
laughed.

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 Max marveled at how much the young girl had grown up since he last saw
her. “I suppose I haven’t any right to ask, but is there some little boy you’ve got
stowed away at Hogwarts that my brother and I will have to kill?”
“No one,” she laughed. “I don’t want a boyfriend, Max. Boys are too much
trouble.”
“You can say that again. Hannah tells me all the time.”
Lila tamped down a pang. She’d not seen Hannah all evening... or Mitch,
for that matter. “I’m sure she and your brother are very happy together.”
“Yeah, they said they had something to get from the village before...” Max
then realized what she said and frowned. “Together? What, is there something
I don’t know that I should?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said that Mitch and Hannah are happy together...”
There was a tap on Lila’s shoulder. She turned around.
And got immediately weak in the knees.
It was Storm Hunter.
“Excuse me, but could I cut in?” His voice was melodic, and smooth as
warm melted chocolate. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind at all,” Max said. “Thanks for the information, Lila.
Let me see if I can find my brother and Hannah... talk to you later.”
It couldn’t be happening. But it was.
She was whirling around the dance floor in Storm Hunter’s arms.

~~~
“Mitchell, I don’t want your brother to hate me,” Hannah said, sitting next
to him in the carriage house, wringing her hands. “That is no way to begin a
marriage.”
“I’d have to agree.”
“You see how little we’ve talked since he’s come home. Am I wrong to
think that something’s going on... that he doesn’t feel the same way about me as
he once did?”
Mitch was silent for a long time. “It happens. You’ve been apart for years.
Now you’re trying to find each other again, I guess.”
Hannah smiled. “You’re so understanding, Mitchell. Nothing like
Maximus. He’s so impatient... and sometimes he frightens me. Why should I be
afraid of the man that I’m going to marry?”
“Good point. But I hope you know that Max would never do anything to
hurt you. That isn’t his way. His bark is far worse than his bite.”
“Yes, and that inscrutability was why I fell for him three years ago. But
now it’s driving me insane... Mitchell, I’ve got to be honest. I’ve had more fun
with you over the past fortnight than I’ve had with Max, ever.” She sighed. “Pity

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
I didn’t meet you first. I still don’t understand why you don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I’ve had girlfriends before. It just never worked out.”
“Perhaps you haven’t met the right one yet.”
“Perhaps.” He did not look at her. “Or perhaps I’m singleminded and
driven, and a Witch would only slow me down. Divert me from the path I’ve
chosen for myself.”
“I wouldn’t.”
Mitch stood up. “Hannah, you cannot think I’d ever date a Witch who’s
worn my brother’s ring.”
“It’s not as if Maximus and I are married yet, Mitchell.” She moved closer
to him and placed her hand on his thigh. “On the other hand, I’ve really enjoyed
sleeping in your room... are you certain you’re comfortable upstairs here? I think
you’d be a lot warmer inside...”
Mitch looked at her, not bothering to hide his contempt. Obviously his
older brother had made a poor choice in Hannah MacPherson. She was selfish,
faithless, and vain...
“I’m going back to the party for a moment. Care to join?”
“In a moment.”
He turned to leave.
“The invitation still stands, Mitchell. Consider it an open invitation, even
after I’m married. A very enthusiastic invitation.”
“No, thanks.”
“If you ever change your mind...”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Mitch stepped outside the carriage house and took great gulps of fresh cold
air. Hannah had made him feel as if he was suffocating.
Although his body had reacted to her pawing, his mind and his heart had
recoiled from her...
In the dark, there were a pair of eyes. Dark coffee brown ones.
“You heard everything?” Mitch said, low.
“If I hadn’t, little brother, you wouldn’t still be standing.”
Mitch nodded. “Max, my apologies for...”
“Why? It was my mistake, not yours. Mind if I step inside and take care of
this? Meanwhile, you can let Copernicus know there’s someone who’ll be
needing an escort off the island at first light.” Max patted his brother on the
shoulder, then opened the door to the carriage house and disappeared.
Mitch thought of everything and nothing during the five-minute walk to the
school. Uppermost in his mind was the fact that he was glad Max finally knew
what a bitch his fiancée was. He deserved much better than Hannah.
So did Mitch, for that matter.
He thought of the girls he’d known at Hogwarts. He’d never been as much
of a player as his good friend and housemate Maury Weasley, but he’d had a
steady chain of girlfriends starting fifth year. It wasn’t until seventh that he’d

- 87 -
gone all the way, though, with a girl named Maura...
Maura...
What was her last name again?
Anyhow, that hadn’t lasted beyond leaving school. When he went to Tir Na
Og, there had been other girls. But nothing serious. The wonderful thing about
the Confed culture was that you didn’t have to have relationships to get shagged
on a regular basis. His Witch classmates and the unmarried female staffers
tended to be quite liberal in their views about things. He’d been quite popular...
Now, in his middle twenties, he felt jaded. As if he’d done and seen it all.
He was ready to begin his position as the Order’s deputy liaison to the
Confederation. Of course, it would mean staying on Ayr for the time being, but
Mitch knew that wouldn’t be permanent. It was a plum position, one that he
knew he’d gotten partially because his father was Grand Wizard, but mostly
because he was smart and diplomatic.
He’d graduated first in his class, after all.
When he entered the hall, the party was in full swing. It wasn’t quite
midnight, but the revelry seemed to bounce off the very walls in a sense-
overwhelming onslaught.
Mitch accepted a flute of cranberry champagne from one of the strolling
servers and ran into the Potters, who were coming off the dance floor just then.
After exchanging pleasantries, he asked, “Did your daughters make it here
with you tonight?”
“They did, yes,” said the Doc. “I saw Bel not very long ago, and Lila’s here
somewhere... Harry, have you seen her?”
“Not since I noticed that flimsy excuse for a dress my wife let her wear,”
the Professor replied with a quirk to his mouth.
“Harry,” the Doc admonished him. “Mitch, dear, we’ll chat later. I’ve got to
get my husband something to eat and drink before I hurt him.”
So Mitch wandered, seeing his mother at a distance and waving, making
idle chatter with those who he knew... and as Sirius Black’s son, he had at least a
nodding acquaintance with many of those in attendance. But always, his eyes
searched...
And searched.
And found.
She was in the middle of the dance floor, swaying with some tall man in
leather.
A man who had to be at least a good ten years older than Mitch himself
was.

~~~
Storm Hunter had danced with her for three straight songs. Lila felt there

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
were certain things in this world that were too much to be borne... this was one
of them.
“Shouldn’t we sit down?” she asked timidly, as the fourth song began.
“Only if you’re tired.”
That voice! That lovely, melting voice... Lila felt her knees wobble again.
“No, not tired. I should think you’d be tired of me, though. I’m not the
world’s best dancer.”
“Not a chance. You’re absolutely divine.”
Then suddenly, she felt someone pulling her away and out of Storm’s arms.

~~~
Mitch saw red all the way over to where the famous rocker stood, wrapped
up with the young Delilah Potter in his arms. Before he could think or reason, he
jerked her away and confronted the man in low, menacing tones.
“And just what do you think you’re doing?”
Storm shrugged coolly. “What did it look like I was doing?”
“It looked at if you were being inappropriate with a young girl, that’s what
it looked like...”
Lila was horrified. “Mitch!”
“Trust me, I did nothing inappropriate with her,” said Storm, smirking,
something in his tone implying an unvoiced “yet”. “Who are you, her brother?”
“No, I’m not. But she is a sixteen year old girl. Young enough to be your
daughter. You really ought to be ashamed.”
“And you’ve never heard of May-December romances?” He lowered his
voice so that only Mitch could hear. “I know a tasty little morsel when I see
one.”
Mitch had heard enough. Without further ado, he doubled back and
punched Storm in the jaw.
The famous rocker sprawled in the middle of the dance floor.
The music stopped.
Lila stared at him, horrified. Then, picking up the skirts of her dress robes,
she quit the scene.
Carole Black was at the scene of the crime in a second. “Mitchell Remus
Black, what in hell’s name has got into you? Are you mad?”
Yes. Perhaps that was an apt word to describe him lately.
Mad.

~~~
Lila’s entire evening had been ruined. What had begun as a magical night
- 89 -
had turned out to be something horrible and shameful.
And it was all Mitchell Black’s fault.
No, it wasn’t enough for him to bring that awful Hannah MacPherson
around. Mitch obviously shared Hannah’s opinion of her... that she was still
twelve. Likely in his eyes, she and Bel were in the same cohort.
Storm had been nothing but kind. When his hands had wandered where she
hadn’t wanted them to, she’d simply stiffened up... and he got the message.
It was the first time that an older Wizard had spoken to her as if she were a
grown-up Witch and not a child.
And Mitch, out of some misguided sense of neighborly chivalry, had gone
and ruined it all.
She hoped he went back to Tirna Bog or wherever the hell he’d been for the
past five years.
Of course, she had no such luck.
Not ten minutes after she’d made it to the greenhouse, he’d found her there.
“Oh, good,” was the first thing he’d said. “You’re not crying this time.”
Her green eyes were murderous. “No, because right now I could kill you.
Pity my wand’s with my cloak.”
Mitch sat down next to her on the bench. Lila slid to the far side of it,
folding her arms, turning away.
“You know I wasn’t wrong, Li. Storm Hunter is a known lecher. His
bedchamber floor is likely littered with the knickers of young girls he’s seduced
and then discarded. He had no right to dance with you... your father wouldn’t
have liked it,” he finished, hoping that invoking her beloved dad would get her
to understand why he’d made such a spectacle of himself for her sake.
It didn’t work. Lila turned to glare at him over her shoulder.
“You are not my bloody father, Mitchell Black.”
“Delilah, be reasonable. You have to admit...”
“Go away.” She turned around again.
“Fine. Fine! You know everything, so do whatever you want to do. Turn up
your robes for every old and decrepit Wizard whose fancy you strike. I don’t
care.”
Mitch was going to turn and leave... but he hadn’t counted on Lila’s cool
reaction.
“Good, you shouldn’t care because it’s not your concern, is it? You’ve got
your life and your fiancee and your plans, and I... well, I’m not a little girl any
longer. You can’t hit every Wizard who wants to touch me, because you won’t
always be around. And am I ever glad about that...”
Not his concern? Mitch was now riveted to the bench, dumbfounded.
Of course other Wizards touching her were very much his concern... he’d
AK any bloke who even thought about doing so on the spot. How absolutely
silly of her to think otherwise.
And of course she wasn’t a little girl any more.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
That was the bloody point, wasn’t it?
“Why don’t you just go, Mitch? I don’t want to talk about this any longer.”
“But I do. Delilah, first of all, I owe you an apology. You’re not little
anymore and I have no right to talk to you as if you were...”
“Or to hit innocent guests.”
“No, I won’t apologize for that. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Lila sighed. “Dad’s already bad enough without you adding to it, Mitch.
I know you’ve always been like the big brother I never had, but really, enough is
enough. I’ll be a fully qualified Witch this autumn... you can’t protect me
forever.”
“Oh, but can’t I?”
“You’re going to be bloody married, let’s not forget. Hannah seems to
command all of your attention anyway...”
That was when Mitch noted the other part of her earlier statement that had
dumbfounded him.
“Delilah Potter, you can’t be serious. Me, marry Hannah? What do you take
me for?”
Lila’s mouth fell open.
“But the other week... you introduced her as the future Mrs. Black...”
“Li, Hannah’s engaged to my brother, and after tonight, likely not even
that. Not to me. Never to me... oh, damn it, Li, is that what you really thought?
I ought to be offended. I’ve got far better taste in Witches than that.”
“She was with you everywhere,” Lila accused.
“That was because Max didn’t get here until a week ago. She didn’t know
anyone else here, so Max asked that I keep her entertained, show her about. No,
Lila, she’s not my Witch. Not even the type I like.”
“What type of Witch do you like?” she asked softly, not really thinking
about what she was saying.
“Well, I don’t really have a type, so perhaps that didn’t come out right... but
I suppose what I like most in anyone is sincerity. I don’t like it when people try
to pretend to be things that they’re not. And very often, young Witches do.”
“Young Witches are forced to, seems.”
“Not forced, no. But most blokes are shallow. They can’t see past makeup
and figure-enhancement charms. Speaking of which...”
“Oh, do shut up. They’re real. As if I’d ever...”
“Now, wouldn’t that be inappropriate? An older brother-type, referring to
that.”
Slowly, Mitch moved the ruby heart aside, dipped his head down, and
brushed his lips against the silken spot. Soft and light as the flutter of a
butterfly’s wing. Risking a great deal... risking everything.
But she didn’t hit him or seem horrified at all.
When he drew back, he saw that her cheeks were flushed... and her eyes
were shining.

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 “Yes, that would be totally inappropriate if you were my older brother.
Thank Merlin you’re not.”
“Thank Merlin,” he repeated, just before he kissed her. It was a soft, perfect
kiss... just touching, celebrating lips that reminded him of petals in the snow...
not demanding, merely appreciating.
Lo, how a rose e’er blooming...
Mitch pulled away first.
“Was that your first kiss?”
“Yes,” Lila breathed.
“Then it won’t be your last, mark my words.”
“As long as it’s not my last from you, I suppose I can learn to live with
that.”
He couldn’t help but kiss her again, sweet sixteen, a holiday flower- nymph
in red velvet. Her arms slid around him, hands resting on his shoulders as he
lengthened and deepened their kiss. Lila, who had dreamed of this moment for
years, who had never dreamed that this moment would have happened with him
of all people, found that her fears of being terrible at it dissolved to nothing
rather quickly.
It was only a kiss... but ah, what a kiss it was.
But soon Lila found herself wanting more.
Somehow, she found herself sitting in his lap, leaning up... holding on to
him so that she didn’t fall from the bench. Still kissing, of course. His mouth
tasted of cranberry champagne and he smelled exactly as he had in the forest a
fortnight before...
Then the clock began to strike. They could hear it... Mitch broke away and
pushed her to sit on the bench again, eyes wide, horrified as he sprang to his
feet.
“Oh, hell... what have I done?”
Lila was confused, but still very dazed. “Huh?”
“Delilah, I’m... please forgive me. I had no right... absolutely no bloody
right...” He stood up quickly. “Please, forgive me for what I did. If not now, then
perhaps someday.”
“Mitch, wait...”
“Happy New Year, Delilah. Good night.”
And he Disapparated before Lila could say another word.

~~~
Lila did not see Mitch again before she returned to Hogwarts. She had
mixed feelings about that. After he’d left her there in the greenhouse, she’d sat
staring into space for nearly two hours. Then she’d went inside and told the first
adult she saw (Aunt Carole) that she wasn’t feeling very well.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Aunt Carole had promptly taken her upstairs to the Headmaster’s suite,
fussing the entire time about her brash son and apologizing for his behavior. Lila
didn’t have to lift a finger as she was washed up and dressed in a warm boring
nightgown, then tucked into a bed fixed up with warmth-charmed blankets.
Even then, it took a very long time for Lila to get to sleep.
On the one hand, she wanted to give Mitchell Black a piece of her mind.
Not to mention kiss him again...
But all things considered, perhaps it was for the best. Mitch was too old for
her to be hankering after, she reflected. Best for her to be more realistic about
things next time... to perhaps give a boy her own age a chance.
When she returned to Hogwarts, Lila became the news of the winter.
For she’d decided to retain a thing or two from her New Year’s lesson, part
and parcel of her New Year’s resolution to finally allow herself to grow up.
She gave her cousin Maria a run for her money.
“I see you went home and got a makeover for Christmas, Lila honey,”
Maria said one day as they were leaving double Potions. “Nice.”
“No, not a makeover,” Lila said. “Just doing it because I can. But really,
Maria, it doesn’t have to be such hard work. Keep that in mind.”
And Maria had no idea what Lila was on about.
When Xavier asked Lila to Hogsmeade the weekend before Valentine’s
Day, she said yes. He was the perfect gentleman for most of the afternoon,
buying her a butterbeer and a bite at the Three Broomsticks, all the candy she
could carry at Honeydukes, and even a fun gag or two at Zonko’s, appealing to
her witchy sense of fun.
And then on the way back, they stole into the Forbidden Forest, found a
nice fallen log, and made out. Or, at least tried. But Xavier was far more touchy-
feely than Lila liked. She kept moving his hands so that they weren’t in the way.
“It ought to be natural, Montague,” she panted, pulling his palms off her
breasts.
“What could be more natural, Lila?” he groaned. “I’m a Wizard, and you’re
a Witch... what else is there to consider?”
“The fact that I’m not a slut, and don’t want my first time to consist of
rolling about in the snow with you. The fact that I’m totally not ready for that
yet. Anything else you need me to add?”
Xavier drew back, shocked. “You mean that you’ve not.... never...”
Lila shook her head. “Why is that so surprising?”
“Because... you do realize that you’re the last girl in our year who hasn’t?
The last girl who isn’t a troll, rather. What are you waiting on?”
“I’m waiting until I’m ready,” replied Lila without missing a beat.
“Ready for what? Lila, you’re going to be an adult Witch this year. You
don’t mean to say you’re going to enter adulthood and the real world with...
well, with no experience?” He laughed. “Come on.”
“I fail to understand exactly how shagging you would turn me into a real

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woman,” Lila said wryly.
Xavier continued to press for the next six weeks, until Lila broke up with
him in a fit of righteous indignation. Anything so that she wouldn’t have to hear
him beg... or proclaim that all seventeen year old Wizards were absolutely
gagging for it.
But it wasn’t until Maria’s sleepover that things really began to happen.

~~~
Maria Weasley’s seventeenth birthday party was the event of that spring. It
was to take place during the Easter holidays, in a fabulous upstairs penthouse
suite at the Tolkien Hotel in the Emerald City. Invitations went out during the
second week of March... and all who did not receive one were made to feel like
pariahs.
“I thought Maria liked me,” sobbed Lacey Ferguson into Lila’s shoulder,
the night after the invitations were owled and received.
“Oh, honestly,” Lila said impatiently. “You can have my invite, if it’s that
important to you.”
For Lila was not certain that she would be allowed to go. Of course, she
went home first when the spring holidays rolled around, and her father was
furious over the entire thing.
“I always said that Ron spoiled that girl, Hermione, and this is the proof.
I don’t care if this is the twenty-first century. Never in my life have I heard of
anything so ridiculous.”
“Oh, go on, Harry, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“Of course you don’t think it is, especially when you gave them
suggestions...”
“Harry, I did not suggest. They asked, and I advised.” She shrugged.
“I think it’s a splendid idea, even if I think it’s a bit extravagant myself. Ron and
Maureen are spending money that they simply do not have...”
“It isn’t the money, Hermione, it’s the fact that it’s unsupervised.”
“Oh, Harry, it isn’t as if there won’t be any adults there. Hazel’s
supervising, and she’s twenty-one...”
“Right, as I said, unsupervised, and coed. There’ll be both boys and girls.
Scores of them...”
“I thought you said they were all still children,” his wife snickered.
“Hermione,” implored Harry.
“Right, I’ll be the first to admit that it’s not the sort of thing I’ll be planning
for my own sprogs’ seventeenth birthdays. But I’m sure Ron trusts Maria...”
Lila snorted pumpkin juice up her nose and nearly choked.
Oh, how little their parents knew.
For to listen to some of the talk, one would have thought the event really

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
would be one huge bacchanal. Some of the girls had gone to Madame Malkin’s,
Gladrags and even Pandora’s Box to find nightwear for the event... and the
invited boys had laid up more firewhisky and butterbeer than the Leaky
Cauldron had seen for a year.
She’d nearly made her up mind not to go, when Maria and Anastasia
confronted her one day just before the spring holidays began.
“You are coming, Lila, aren’t you?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“Of course, it’s a decision that only you can make,” Ana said in her too-
sweet voice. Lila had given up hoping that Uncle George’s youngest would ever
develop a backbone. “But only think of the talk it would make. Remember,
you’re practically family... it wouldn’t look right if everyone who’s anyone is
there and you’re not.”
Lila started to ask her who she was supposed to be besides Maria’s stooge,
but relented. Over the years, she’d learned a fair bit of tact when it came to
dealing with her same-aged Weasley cousins.
“I’ll have to ask my dad.”
The evening after she came home, Harry climbed up to her loft for a chat.
“Daddy, if you don’t want me to go, I won’t. I’m not that particular about it
anyway.”
He sighed. “It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s just that... it’s dead difficult for
me, princess. I mean, I can still recall when I first remodeled this room for you,
and brought you up here...”
“It was my seventh birthday. I still remember it too. And I really did feel
like a princess then, having my own tower room... or at least, that was what
I used to pretend. But I wasn’t going to be a sappy princess who needed to be
saved, but a cool, butt-kicking warrior princess...”
“Which you are. I can’t believe you’re nearly grown up, Lila. I know that
over the past few years we’ve not been as close as we were when you were a
small child... and I’m glad that you and your mum have finally learned to get
along...”
“Oh, Dad, it’s not that I’m closer to Mum now. It’s just that Mum’s been a
girl before, and there are so many things happening to me these days that she
understands and can give me advice on. But you and I... we’re two of a kind and
always will be. I’m the female you, you know.”
He reached over to ruffle her hair. “No, you’re the best part of me. That’s
what I know.”
So Lila went. Against her better judgment, she went.
And that night, her life changed forever.

~~~
- 95 -
 Lila awoke very early on the morning of Maria’s party. Her stomach felt all
fluttery, as if she’d swallowed a Snidget. Not wanting to bother her mother with
her silly problem, she went into the pantry for the bottle of Higginbotham’s Best
Tummy Tonic. Mum didn’t approve of regular Higginbotham’s use (“they’re
only a lot of useless purple pills, honestly”), but a stomachache was a
stomachache.
The potion cured the queasiness immediately. Lila’s next task was to raid
the pantry for some bread; a bit of dry toast with tea would put her to rights
again. She’d just set the bread to self-toast when the side doorbell announced
(very softly, as the others were sleeping), “Remus Lupin, at the kitchen door...”
Lila flung open the door happily, not caring anything about her curlers or
her dots of Parkinson-Locke’s Surefire Blemish Unguent or her ratty white faux
Puffskein slippers. She hadn’t seen the dearly beloved Professor Lupin in ages...
although he visited his dearest friend and best pupils often, he preferred to live
with his family in Romania, where his private investigations firm was housed.
She hugged him tightly. “Uncle Remus, it’s been so long!”
“Far too long. Forgive me for calling at such an unreasonable hour...”
“Oh, Mum and Dad will be thrilled... they were just speaking of you the
other day...”
But here, Lila trailed off.
For Uncle Remus hadn’t come to the Potter abode alone.
His daughter, Melissa, was one of the two people with him. That in and of
itself Lila wouldn’t have minded. Although Mellie was a few years younger than
she was, somewhere between Drew and Bel in age, she was a sweet-tempered
child with ash-brown hair and her dad’s eyes. Mellie had spent the night a few
times over the years... once in the autumn when Lila had eaten green apples and
had been sick all night... so she didn’t care about the curlers and nightgown and
Parkinson-Locke’s Surefire Blemish Unguent.
No.
What she did care about was the fact that standing next to Mellie, with a
half-amused look on his face, was Mitchell Black.
It was the first time she’d seen him since New Year’s Eve.
The situation wasn’t made any better by her mother Hermione choosing
just that precise moment to walk into the kitchen, fully dressed, exclaiming over
Uncle Remus and Melissa, rescuing Lila’s burning toast (really, could she do
anything right?) as she ushered them in and waved to Mitch, inviting him in for
a spot of breakfast.
Sometimes, I really don’t like my own mother.
But instead of saying “no, thank you, breakfast is waiting for me at home,
I won’t impose” as any decent person would, Mitch instead replied, “Thanks,
doc... don’t mind if I do.”
The second Lila heard this, she began to fly out of the kitchen without
another word. Just as she reached the doorway, she was stopped by her mother’s

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
voice.
“Li, could you show Mitch to the other downstairs toilet?” Hermione
asked. “I’m afraid your sister’s got all her dratted sea-shore pets stowed away in
the one we usually use for company... and I’ve no idea what she’s got swimming
in the loo and sink this morning... thanks.”
Lila was furious. Furious at the obvious manipulation at such a ridiculously
early hour. Furious that she likely looked a fright at such an hour... like the bride
of Frankenstien.
Nevertheless, she walked him out of the kitchen, the door swinging shut
behind her.
“It’s just down there, you know perfectly well where it is,” Lila said, low,
conscious that her father and brother were still asleep.
There was a smirk in his pewter eyes. “I suddenly seem to have lost the
urge.”
If looks could Avada Kedavra, Mitchell Black would have dropped dead on
the spot. Lila whirled on her heel, and walked down the hall in an angry huff to
scamper up the narrow staircase to her loft.
When she went to swing the trapdoor shut, she found that she couldn’t.
For Mitch was now on the retractable stairs, weighing them down.
“Go away!” she hissed. “You have absolutely no right...”
“I just want to talk to you.”
“Talk? Didn’t want to talk about anything four months ago, did you?
You...”
He held a finger to her lips, stopping the flow of angry whispers. “You
know, if you really wish for your brother and your father to hear the entirety of
this conversation, please, keep me in limbo here on the stairs and continue
talking at that volume. I guarantee they’ll want to know more...”
Lila relented, letting him climb up (which he did with sinewy, feline grace).
When he went to shut the trapdoor, she shook her head and pointed instead to an
overstuffed chair. She sat on her unmade bed.
“I suppose you haven’t forgiven me for New Year’s yet.”
“Forgive? What is there to forgive?” Lila asked quizzically as Daff leapt
into her lap. “It was a holiday, we were both tipsy, and I’d totally forgotten until
you brought it up...”
“Which is why you just treated me as a criminal, of course.”
“It is criminal to kiss girls and then leave them with no explanation
whatsoever!”
“Well, as a first-time offender, I’m asking for your mercy. When I kiss a
girl, I very rarely leave her, Delilah... or leave it at just that.”
Her mouth dropped open. He’d thought it was because she was shocked or
offended.
How little he knew.
“Merlin, Delilah... Li, I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable around me,

- 97 -
not ever... so I guess what I’m saying is... I value your friendship too much to
ever try anything like that again, I promise. You have nothing to worry about.”
No, no! That wasn’t what she wanted him to say.
Suddenly, she didn’t want to talk about this. Not now. Not with him. She
didn’t want to think about New Year’s Eve or the conflicting emotions that the
entire holiday season had brought up when it came to him. She had Maria’s
party to think about... a party with kids her own age...
Lila didn’t want Mitch to make promises she wasn’t certain she wanted him
to keep.
“Mitch, perhaps snogging was a big deal back in your day,” she said,
making that “day” seem as if it were a thousand years prior, “but I am pleased to
inform you that this is a new generation. I’m perfectly willing to forget the entire
incident, and to never mention it again, if you are.”
“Good enough.”
“Right.”
There was a long silence. Not their usual comfortable silences though. This
one was fraught with tension, as Lila looked everywhere but in his direction and
he looked nowhere save at her.
“Well, I’d best get back downstairs. They’ll think I’ve drowned in the loo,
likely.”
“Yes, and tell them I’ll be there as soon as I can transform myself from my
usual morning hideousness into a normal-looking Witch again.”
He stood up, stretched (again, Lila was impressed by how comfortable he
was in his body--there didn’t seem to be an awkward bone anywhere), and
started towards the trapdoor.
But then... the last thing he said was:
“Shame. Because right now, you’re just as snoggable as you were that
night we’ve agreed never to speak of again. Nothing hideous about you.”
And Lila felt her cheeks burning.

~~~
After her unexpected morning visit, arriving at the Tolkien Hotel for
Maria’s seventeenth birthday party was pretty anticlimactic for Lila. A sack of
gifts from the Ayr people was slung one shoulder; her small traveling satchel
hung over the other.
Because her mother had insisted on accompanying her to the Emerald City,
Lila was one of the first guests to arrive. Hermione Granger Potter didn’t believe
in being late for any reason.
“Now, are you going to spend the day tomorrow with Maria and Ana?”
“For the last time, Mum, no.” Lila was tired of her pushing her to “make an
effort” with Maria, as if they had ever possessed some great friendship.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Certainly Uncle Ron and Aunt Maureen didn’t encourage their daughter to
uphold such falsities.
“Very well, then, I’ll be back at eleven tomorrow morning.”
“It’s really not necessary, Mum. Hazel’s coming back to the island with
me.”
Hermione looked disappointed. She reached out and kissed her daughter on
the forehead.
“Mum,” Lila protested.
“Have fun, dear. And do try to get some sleep.”
After her mother disapparated, Lila made her way into the glamorous hotel,
saying hello to the hobbits and handing them her bags after much insistence on
their part. She smoothed down her new blue robes, admiring her filed and clear-
polished nails, then made her way to the spiral staircase that led to the
mezzanine where the penthouse lift was located.
She wasn’t satisfied with her face that evening. The blemish unguent had
helped, but all her attempts at makeup made her feel rather clownish. She ended
up just going with a freshly scrubbed and clean face, the slightest dusting of
glittery dust on her lids, and a rose-scented natural gloss on her lips. Yet amidst
all the other girls whom she greeted with cordial smiles, she felt rather plain.
At least her hair had behaved for a change. Mum had helped her with it...
only Aunt Ginny and Hazel seemed to be able to manage the stuff at all, but
Mum had a few tricks up her sleeve all her own.
“My hair never behaved so well,” her mother had said, half-proudly, half
with a regretful little sigh as she charmed the curls in place with her wand.
“Honestly, between my genes and your father’s, I’ve no idea where the three of
you got such manageable hair.”
“Perhaps the genes cancelled each other out? Anyway, I’ve got your hair,
everyone says that... mine is the same shade as yours, and it’s just as thick,” Lila
had replied. Save for her moment of wishful thinking that winter when
confronted with Hannah the blonde bombshell, she’d never minded her hair and
didn’t understand her mother’s dissatisfaction with her own.
“Yes, but mine doesn’t hold a curl. Yours does very nicely... these will still
be here next week.”
“Or until I wash them out,” Lila laughed. She was most comfortable and
happy in barrettes anyway, with her hair brushed off her face, or in a ponytail.
Very little fuss.
Yet many of the other girls seemed to have gone all out for the event. When
she arrived at the suite, not only did Lila feel plain, but quite overdressed. The
temperature seemed to have been set at a balmy eighty degrees, made even more
cloying by the primal Lothlórien forest theme that the penthouse featured.
Although she knew that her curls wouldn’t fall, that the Sleekeasy mist would
not fail her, Lila just couldn’t help but be afraid that her hair would soon
resemble Daff’s fur whenever they washed her and let her run about to dry.

- 99 -
 Not only didn’t the other popular Hogwarts girls from Maria’s Ravenclaw
and all the other houses have to worry about potentially treacherous hair, they
also weren’t half as clothed as Lila was. Although it was only six o’ clock in the
evening, the girls were dressed as if it was the middle of the night.
Mighty Cliodna, I feel like I just stepped into a Pandora’s Box catalog.
When the boys arrived from the Rohan suite next door, it was all in one
bunch. Xavier Montague led the pack in black silk pajamas (what kind of pansy-
arsed man wears silk?), instinctively knowing the stunning contrast his bedroom
attire made with his pale features.
“And just why aren’t you dressed for the occasion?” asked Lionel Thomas
of her, eyeing her robes.
Because it’s still the middle of the day, you idiot. “I wasn’t informed there
was a dress code.”
“Of course you were, silly coz,” said Maria, coming over to loop her arm
around Lila’s shoulders. Unlike the other girls, who were wearing jewel tones or
black or white, she was wearing a camisole set that was melt-your-heart pink...
but tasteful. Lila had to give her that much.
Lila turned her head to plant a friendly kiss on the other girl’s cheek.
“Happy birthday, ‘Ria... and thanks for having me.”
“You silly hinkypunk, of course I’d have you,” she said. “You’re family,
even if you are rather strange... here, go into that room over there,” she indicated
an open tree-trunk, “and have Ana give you one of my gowns. We’re about the
same size yet... we always were, weren’t we, Li?”
She was certainly being very nice, and Lila appreciated it. “Perhaps later,
Maria... thanks again.”
There was music. There was dancing. There was plenty to eat and drink.
Lila caught up with several of the seventh years and heard all about their post-
Hogwarts plans.
“I’m going for the Auror Academy,” said Alford Aubrey, a seventh-year
from her own Gryffindor team, excitedly. “There’s talk of a new upsurge in the
Dark Arts, the like of which hasn’t been seen in two decades... I’d love to do that
sort of work.”
“Precisely why I’m going to read law, and then enter the Ministry,” his
girlfriend, Connie Purcell, agreed. “With all the advances in Wizarding justice
over the past quarter century, stopping the new Dark Arts movement will require
very different methods than those prior.” She noticed Lila nodding. “Any
pointers?”
“Pointers about what?”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll know all about it. Defense Against the Dark Arts and
all...”
“Oh, well, not really. It certainly isn’t my favorite subject... I’ve always
done my best work in Transfiguration, Care of Magical Creatures, and
Herbology... but...”

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“Of course you’d hate DADA,” Alford nodded. “I’m sure you learned more
about it from one conversation with your parents than from all our years
listening to Professor Baddock drone on and on about it...”
Lila shrugged. “Mum and Dad never really talk about any of that stuff
much. At least not to me.”
“You’re kidding me. The famous Harry Potter and the equally famous
Hermione Granger? What else would they likely talk to you lot about?”
“Let’s see. These days, how about curfew... picking up our rooms... doing
the washing up...”
“Blimey... you don’t mean to say that they’re the bane of your existence
just like regular parents?”
“They are regular parents,” Lila snapped.
And so she wandered about, greeting people, smiling. When it was time to
dance, her feet were light, and when the parlor games began, her laughter rang
out loud along with the rest.
Yet and still, Lila felt as if she were in it, but not of it. As if she were an
alien and a stranger in this place, as if she were really now in the actual
Lothlórien and everyone else was in the make-believe one. While Maria was
having her party in this fairytale forest, her beloved North Forest would be
missing her... she likely would have had a better time with Destiny.
How she longed not to feel that way. At times, Lila was beginning to worry
that her soul and her mind were slowly becoming attached to home and hearth in
a unnatural way. Perhaps Aunt Maureen was right... perhaps her parents had
indeed kept her and her siblings too cloyingly close.
Or perhaps Lila was so used to what was real that she had little patience for
much that was false. Growing up, she’d never known much about social
subtleties... Scots were blunt, Ayr Islanders were blunter, and Uncle Sirius was
perhaps the bluntest example of them all.
Her parents were more tactful than he was, but still very honest and frank
people. Her mother especially was a no-nonsense sort of Witch with little
patience for foolishness. And her father had always taught them that their word
ought to be as good as their bond... that their “yes” ought always to mean yes,
and their “no” always a no.
This wasn’t that kind of environment. Even after Hazel Malfoy arrived,
greeting her favorite younger cousin with an typical Hazel-admonishment (‘Lila,
whatever have you been doing to your hair? Come here...’), she didn’t feel at
home. Of course, Hazel was serving as chaperone, along with last-minute
draftee Maximus Black, so she couldn’t very well keep Lila entertained. She had
to circulate and keep an eye on things so that at the agreed-upon hour (one o’
clock in the morning) the boys would be banished to their suite.
Lila noticed a few things after Hazel set her hair back to rights and sent her
back out among the crowd. First, very few of the people she talked to at
Hogwarts on a regular basis had been invited. Not Lacey Ferguson. Not Nigel

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Graham. Not William Krauss or Kathleen O’ Toole or Corinne Bender or Violet
Finnegan...
Then, too, she noticed that Maria’s crowd behaved very differently than her
own. Perhaps that was why dating Xavier had never really worked out, she
reflected. Her friends were a very different sort than his.
Maria’s friends included the prettiest girls in the upper years of Hogwarts...
and some of the snottiest. More than a few times Lila noticed someone
obviously whispering about her, but she didn’t really care. She’d always been
whispered about and stared at, even at Hogsmeade First. It was simply part of
her life and she’d come to accept it.
The boys were mostly friends of Michael Haughton and Xavier Montague.
They were either arrogant Slytherin types (even if they weren’t actually in the
house proper) or “I’m-so-superior” Ravenclaws. None of Lila’s friends in those
two houses had been invited, either.
So she felt very out of place indeed. Maria, after her initial gushy greeting,
disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Lila tried talking to Ana, but she and
Ana were such polar opposites that there was nothing to say.
It was sweltering, so Lila went for something to drink. There were only a
few choices, and she was almost certain that the punch was spiked with some
potion or the other, so she opted for water.
Now most of the girls were standing in the center of the room, laughing
over some private joke that Lila only caught the tail end of and didn’t
understand in the least. Feeling very out of it, she had almost made her mind up
to slip downstairs and to sit in the lobby near the fountains when a silver tray
was levitated in front of her.
“Sweets for the sweet.”
The deep rumble vibrated in her ear. It was Michael Haughton, Maria’s
boyfriend. Long ago, Lila had harbored a momentary crush on him... but that
dissipated when she saw him bully a younger housemate into submission.
Michael was gorgeous, but had a cruel streak that made him completely
repellent to her.
Lila eyed the plate. There were small, heart shaped, pink-frosted cakes
there. Between her queasy stomach and the events of that morning, she’d only
nibbled here and there before leaving home.
“When will dinner arrive?”
“Before you know it... but you look rather as if you could use a bite right
now.”
She turned around and studied his face. There was nothing but sincerity in
his clear blue eyes.
“All right, then... don’t mind if I do.”
Lila took one of the cakes and placed it into her mouth whole. Chewing
slowly, she frowned.
“What kind of cake is it?” she said after swallowing.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“My mum’s spice recipe. Your cousin loves them... here, have another
one.”
Deciding that she liked the taste, she did so. She helped herself to five of
the cakes before Michael pecked her on the cheek, wiped her lips teasingly with
a napkin, and disappeared into the ever-increasing crowd. Washing it all down
with clear, cold water, her stomach finally felt as if it was settling.
Unfortunately, just as her digestive tract was set to rights, her head began to
spin a bit. All of a sudden, she felt as if she were sitting inside a furnace.
Xavier chose precisely that moment to appear right before her. Apparently
he’d been waiting until she’d separated herself from the group before seeking
her out for a chat.
“Having fun?”
“Of course, Montague, it’s a great party,” Lila lied.
“Be even better if you’d find your PJs... as it is a pyjama party.”
“I don’t really sleep in pyjamas,” Lila said truthfully, then reddened when
she saw in Xavier’s eyes what he thought she meant. “I’m more of a gown girl,
and if I’m really tired from Quidditch practice and whatnot, I’ve even been
known to sleep in my clothes.”
Xavier shook his head. “Too much information, Potter.”
“Well, I can’t help it if you’re a sack of walking hormones.”
“And I can’t help it if you’re a cocktease.”
“Right, because I find the idea that you actually have one extremely
funny.”
She left him standing there, alone, without another word.
But now she was getting dizzier, and warmer, and began to see everything
as if through a haze. She asked the hobbits on duty for water, she drank it down
as if she was a beached fish, and yet she still felt parched.
Oh, no... I think I’m going to be sick... I should have stayed home.
Just as Michael Haughton announced a game of Strip Truth or Dare (for
Hazel and Max had disappeared somewhere, and all the teens who’d drunk
anything but water were wasted), Lila found Maria and pulled her into a corner.
“What’s wrong?” asked her cousin, seemingly concerned.
“Nothing, I’m just hot.”
“I know, aren’t some of these blokes just...”
“Not that,” snapped Lila impatiently. “It’s burning up in here... could I still
have that gown of yours, please? I don’t want to put mine on before I shower.”
Maria complied immediately, telling Ana where it was in her luggage. Ana
showed Lila into Maria’s room, produced the gown, and left without another
word. She thought she heard Ana whisper a charm and lock the door for good
measure.
Lila looked at the closed door. Although she was a bit concerned about how
woozy she felt, she also was glad to finally be alone. Here, she didn’t have to
worry about giving good face. She didn’t have to primp after shedding her blue

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denim robes for the gown.
All she had to do was lie back on Maria’s bed and clear her head.
I’ll just close my eyes for a moment...

~~~
A few short hours later, Xavier shrugged Jo Henleigh off and pulled
Michael Haughton aside.
“Did you do it?”
“Yeah, some time ago.”
“Then where is she?”
Michael shrugged. “She could be anywhere. It’s a zoo, mate... people are
making out and passed out everywhere. And all these girls... isn’t it wild?”
“Yeah, wild. Brilliant to suggest this sort of thing to Maria, when all she
was going to have was the girls. I’m just shocked her parents went for it.”
“Oh, they don’t know that there’s such easy access to the rooms. And Maria
misled them... seems at the last minute, her parents changed their minds and
were going to have her Aunt Virginia chaperone it all instead, but the message
never got to her.”
“Aunt Virginia. Shit. Sounds like a prude.”
“Crikey, she’s no prude. Maria’s Aunt Virginia is Mrs. Draco Malfoy... her
husband owns the fucking hotel. We can do whatever we fucking please in here
and no one will say a word!”
“Really?” Xavier looked around, a glazed, mad look in his eyes. “Where’s
Lila?”
“Shit, I don’t know. You’ll have to look for her. Me, the night is young and
I plan to have another go once my old lady’s out of the loo.”
“Why wait until she’s out? Look at this place!”
“Yeah ... but you know I’m mad about Maria.”
“Shit,” laughed Xavier.
“Right. So go find Lila and don’t let all my hard work go to waste.”
So Xavier made his way over the couples making out, past a group of
excess blokes passing around naughty Omnioculars, around a bunch of giggling
girls huddled around a set of talking tarot cards. He left the girls’ suite and went
into the empty Rohan-themed one, where all the boys’ things had been left along
with Maria’s pile of birthday gifts.
He came back into the girls’ suite and started checking the rooms. He
disturbed at least one teen couple in mid-shag while doing this, and even walked
into Michael when he opened the fifth door.
The running shower had just shut off. Maria’s voice sounded, “I’m coming
out...” and Michael winked and motioned for him to close and lock the door.
He was just about to give up when he noticed a tree that he hadn’t noticed

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
before. It was set off in a corner, and as the door was completely shut, you
wouldn’t necessarily know there was a room there until you looked at it for
several moments.
Xavier tried the door.
It was locked.
He started to leave the floor then, to perhaps find her downstairs. Maybe
she was sitting next to the fountains... everyone knew how much Lila Potter
loved being out-of-doors. He’d invite her to go for a walk, as the Emerald City
had some of the most beautiful green spaces in the Wizarding world. And
between the little gifts Michael had delivered, and the warm, star-studded spring
night... whoever knew what they’d get up to?
Yet he wondered...
“Alohomora,” he whispered, pointing his wand at the door handle.
It opened.
Ah. Mission accomplished.
Lila lay sprawled on the bed. She was in the room alone.
Xavier couldn’t have asked for more.
He closed and locked the room behind him.

~~~
The next morning, just after dawn, Lila cracked her eyes open and found
that she had the worst headache of her life. Not only that, but she felt sore from
head to toe, as if she’d been thrown from Destiny and the ground had absolutely
bruised her.
Stretching, she almost hit Ana, who was sleeping next to her, tucked
beneath the covers. Lila, for her part, was on top of the sheets... and had nary a
stitch on above the waist.
She sat up abruptly, horrified. Her eyes darted about the room for any trace
of the gown she’d been wearing. When she found none, she glanced down at
Ana... her cousin was fully dressed and looked as if she wasn’t even aware that
Lila had been there.
Was this the room she’d fallen asleep in? Lila hadn’t any idea.
Nevertheless, she had no intention of staying in this place five minutes more
than she had to, and she certainly didn’t plan on staying here in just her knickers.
Snatching up a robe that happened to be laying on the adjacent bathroom
floor, she belted it tightly and went off in search of her luggage.
It only took her a few moments to find her belongings. But what she saw
on the way was absolutely sickening. Signs of excessive drinking and sex were
everywhere. The place was an absolute mess... and although Lila hadn’t done
anything untoward (at least, not that she could remember), she felt ashamed of
Maria... ashamed of being here.

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 This wasn’t a birthday celebration.
It was a drunken orgy.
And Lila was certain that her Uncle Ron and Aunt Maureen would have
been ashamed as well if they knew. They were more lenient than her mum and
dad, but they certainly wouldn’t have liked this.
She washed up best as she could, dressed, found the door to the impossibly
huge Lothlorien suite, and stepped into the hallway, where she heard voices
coming from around the corner.
“...badly about leaving them alone all night.”
“I don’t see why. Kids will be kids, you know.”
“Maximus, you’ve not been their age for over ten years, and you attended
DSG. I was seventeen less than five years ago, and I was at Hogwarts.
I remember very clearly the sorts of things that my mates got up to...”
“And got up to regardless of adult interference. I’m sure nothing horrible
happened... nothing that doesn’t happen to a lesser degree at school. Stop
worrying.”
Hazel and Max rounded the corner and saw Lila.
“You two are up early,” she said dryly.
“We never slept,” Hazel said. “It’s part and parcel of chaperoning, you
know.”
“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see either of you chaperoning much.”
“What, are you actually saying that you lot needed a sitter?”
Lila shrugged wearily. “I don’t know, Hazel. I just want to go home.”
Hazel looked Lila over critically, and saw something in her eyes that she
didn’t like.
“Are you unwell, dear?”
“I’m... something, I don’t know. Just want my own bed. Not my type of
crowd, should have never come...” Her eyes crossed.
And then she passed out. Only Hazel and Max’s quick reflexes helped
break her fall.

~~~
Mitch knew something was up when his brother showed up with Hazel at
the carriage house they shared shortly after ten o’ clock that morning. He heard
them in his sleep, talking in low tones on the landing, and knew that something
was amiss. So he got up, tossed on a shirt without bothering with buttons (he’d
been so tired the night before when he got in from the Foundation that he’d slept
in his jeans), and went to the stairs to assess the situation.
Ever since he was a kid, Mitchell Black always had a sense for the
rightness of things... and a very keen intuition that flagged when something was
very, very wrong. As the younger son of Sirius Black, a father who never talked,

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
whose moods were much like the weather outside, Mitch had long ago learned
to read people’s expressions, their body language, the very air around them. His
mother once said when he was a child that with him around, one didn’t need
Veritaserum... because Mitch could always tell when adults were lying.
“Good morning,” he said to his Max and Hazel that morning, by way of
greeting. “And how was the party?”
“Wonderful,” Hazel said.
“Glad it’s over,” Max said.
They looked at each other.
“Yeah, it’s that way sometimes, isn’t it?” Mitch remarked. “As long as the
kids had fun, right?”
“Yeah,” Max said.
Hazel didn’t say a word. Long had been the years since her crush on the
younger Black son had faded. She just stared at Mitch, folding her arms. And as
Hazel Malfoy didn’t tend to stare (as she was more used to Wizards staring at
her), the warning sparks went off again in Mitch’s brain.
So from his vantage point on the stairs, he glanced over at what Hazel and
Max were trying very hard not to glance at... and his eyebrows shot up.
“Erm, why is Delilah sleeping on the sofa?”
“She was tired,” Hazel snapped.
“She didn’t feel up to the walk home,” Max supplied.
Mitch pushed past them both and made his way to the sofa.
Lila wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were glazed over, though, and although she
seemed to recognize him, she didn’t say anything. Her breath smelled funny, as
if she’d been...
“Drugged,” Mitch said. “Some potion made with poppy extract... likely a
date-rape potion... great Wizards, what in hell happened there?”
Hazel and Max glanced at each other. The looks on their faces said it all.
“Fucking hell, you can’t mean to say that you left a lot of sixteen and
seventeen year olds unsupervised all night because you couldn’t keep your
hands from each other? Great Merlin! Do you realize that the Professor is going
to tear you limb from limb when he sees her? And Dad is going to kill
whatever’s left.”
“You aren’t going to say a word to Uncle Harry or Mr. Black,” said Hazel
menacingly.
“Oh, I’m going to do more than that if we can’t get this shit out of her
system... her mother is a doctor, or are you just so fucking worried about what
they’ll think of you that you don’t care if she gets medical attention or not?”
“Calm down, Mitch. She isn’t sick, only a bit hung over. She can sleep it
off here, and then we can take her home.”
“No, I’ll take her home. You two have done enough already.”
Hazel frowned. “Mitchell, we only want to help. We don’t want to make
the situation worse...”

- 107 -
 “Want to help? Good. Here’s how you can help, Hazel: get the fuck out of
my face. Thanks... and shut the door on your way out.”
There was nothing to say. Hoping that he could do something before any of
the parents concerned heard about it, Hazel and Max left him to it.
Mitch turned back to the task at hand. Lila was very clearly not only
drugged, but whatever had been given to her had been too much for her. He
wondered what she’d been given... and cursed the fact that she was too damned
young and naive to realize that at a wild party, you had to watch what you put
between your lips. He remembered the parties from his own seventh year at
Hogwarts, and Maura... Laura... whatever her name was, had been wise to all his
boyish tricks even at the age Lila was now.
But Lila had been raised to trust, raised to believe that people meant good
and not harm in most situations, raised to be sincere. She likely hadn’t known
any better, had only wanted a good time...
Mitch had no idea how he was going to flush the drug out of her system.
He had to try, however. His rantings and ravings to his brother and Hazel
notwithstanding, he knew that it wouldn’t be pretty if his parents or hers learned
of any of this. The Professor and the Doc would be furious... they were known
far and wide to be very protective of their children, and woe betide anyone who
did anything to hurt them. Max and Hazel had been stupid, not malicious.
Unlike whatever little bastard drugged her in the first place...
He hoped she hadn’t been taken advantage of.
Just then, Lila stretched and tried to sit up. Mitch helped her, moving to sit
next to her on the sofa.
“I’m hungry,” she whispered. “Do you have anything to eat?”
Without moving anything but his wand, he Accio’d a few pieces of dry
toast on a plate and placed it into her hand. When she just stared at it, as if at a
loss, he picked up a piece and put it up to her lips.
“Here, take a bite.”
She did so, chewing slowly. Then she gulped and said, “It was horrible.”
“What was?”
“The party. What else?”
“I know it was. And I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything. It was my own stupid fault... I suppose I’m just
not cool enough to hang around the popular crowd, that’s all. I felt like a fool,
Mitch... and now I’m sick...”
“Li, you’re not sick. Someone drugged you.”
“No, they couldn’t have. All I had was water... how naïve do you think
I am? I knew that punch was spiked.”
“Are you sure you didn’t eat or drink anything at all? Even gum or
candy...”
Lila frowned through her headache, trying to remember. “Well, Maria’s
boyfriend had these little cakes... but she was eating them too. So did some of

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
the other girls.”
“And did all the other girls wake up with headaches today?” he said,
Summoning the bottle of ipecac.
“No one else was awake when I left.” Lila’s eyes went wide as she
remembered how she’d awakened. “Oh, no... Mitch, I can’t remember what
happened after I ate the cake. I don’t even remember going to sleep.” She began
to panic. “What if something happened while I was out? Dad and Mum will kill
me!”
Tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Or even worse, what if some boy...”
“Yes?”
“Well... you know. How would I know?”
Ever since she was a small child, Mitch had always been one of those who
she’d gone to, in order to ask about things. Back then, Lila appreciated his frank
and blunt responses, even if sometimes they hurt.
Now, even with this new awkwardness between them, Lila knew that he
would give it to her straight... that he wouldn’t soften the blow. That he would
let her know the worst.
Mitch, for his part, was dealing with a range of conflicting emotions. He
was still angry at Max and Hazel. He was furious at the snot-nosed kid who’d
found the recipe for party cakes.
And he was worried that perhaps Lila’s fears weren’t unfounded... that
perhaps that selfsame snot-nosed kid, one of his friends, or more than one of
those friends had...
And then deep down, he was trying to push all thoughts of Lila in that vein
out of his head. She needed his help, not for him to make a tense situation worse
by acting as if he were still her age around her.
“Well, if something happened, you’d...” he swallowed, uncapping the
ipecac bottle and holding it to her lips, “you’d likely be in some fair amount of
pain. Or there would have been signs of a struggle, maybe... usually there’s
some blood and perhaps even another sort of stain... didn’t your mother tell
you?”
Lila took a small swig of the stuff and grimaced. “Yes, but you know my
mum. It was all from a medical textbook and it was several years ago. I’ve
learned more from just listening to my friends.” She frowned. “I did wake up
aching.”
Mitch was silent for a long while.
“But it was my arms and legs... felt as if they’d been pulled. Not... not
there.” She shook her head, trying to fend off the blush. “And all my friends
who have done it say you feel different... and other than the fog in my brain,
I don’t feel any different, not really.”
“Then it’s very likely that nothing happened. Don’t even think about it any
more, okay?”

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 “Oh, I feel so lucky about that. It was really a very horrid party, Mitch.”
He laughed. “You mean to tell me that you don’t want the same for your
seventeenth birthday?”
She laughed too, hard. And then she began to retch. Five minutes later she
was in his downstairs bathroom, washing out her mouth with some sort of
digestible astringent that he gave her.
“My brother calls this the alcoholic’s little secret,” Mitch said, capping the
bottle again. “Best stuff in the world.”
“I’ll keep that in mind once I become a drunk like you two.”
“Do you want me to walk you home?”
She shook her head. “I think I’d rather sit here for a while until I’m certain
I’m one hundred percent. My parents have enough to go House-Elf about...”
They sat back down on the sofa, without saying anything about it. And
when he pulled her into his arms, she didn’t protest or say anything, or point out
that it was the first time he’d ever done so. Neither of them thought much about
it at all, for it was really the most natural thing in the world.
“What are your plans for today?”
“I was going to go underground this afternoon.”
“But it’s a Saturday.”
“I have to. I’ve got work to do at the Foundation, and then I have to leave
the island tomorrow for Dublin... business trip.”
“Always working hard, I see.”
“It’s the only way I’ll move up in the Confederation. My six month
performance review is in June, and I wish to do well... I won’t have anyone
thinking that I’m being retained because of who my dad is.”
“I certainly can relate to that,” she said. “Ever since I was a little girl, there
have been times when I’ve wished that no one knew or cared who my father and
mother were, that I could go with them to Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade or
practically anywhere in the Wizarding world without being photographed or
followed. Can you imagine what sort of life that would be?”
Mitch laughed. “No. But it’s far worse for you than it ever was for me.”
“But you see why I always wonder if people really like me for me... or if
they like me because of my mum and dad. And the worst part is, my parents
aren’t even much like Hazel’s or Maria’s... they’re so regular that it’s
maddening... and no one ever believes me.”
“Well, I like your parents just as well as anyone else on the island does.
I mean, I can’t even think of your dad as anything but the Professor, and your
mum’s been the Doctor around here for as long as I can recall. And you know,
I’ve always liked you for you.... but I suppose I don’t count.”
“You do count,” she replied. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,
Mitch.”
“I’d go mad without you, Delilah. Make no mistake about that.”
And before either of them could help themselves, they were kissing again,

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
kissing so sweetly and perfectly that it would be forevermore difficult to dismiss
the New Year’s Eve incident as a mere fluke. It was one of those heart aching,
breath stealing, spring feverish kisses... a kiss that took the last remnants of fog
out of Lila’s head and placed the sparkle back into her eyes.
Mitch pulled away first.
“You taste so different today,” said Lila dreamily.
“Different how?”
“In December you tasted like crushed cranberries and champagne. Now
you taste like mint and sage and something else I can’t quite put my finger on...”
She slid her hand over the shadow of his cheek and chin.
“Perhaps you ought to taste me again? Just so you can figure it all out?”
“Perhaps I should.”
This time, the snog was electric. Long. Demanding. When Mitch pulled
away this time, they both were panting.
“Delilah, I think you ought to go home. Now.”
“Really? What if I say I think I ought to stay here?”
“Then I’d say that sweet little mouth of yours is writing a check that you
haven’t got the Galleons to cash.”
She giggled. “I’m a very rich girl, I’ll have you know.”
“A very rich little girl,” he pointed out.
“Here we go with that stupid little girl stuff again. Do you really kiss little
girls the way you kiss me? I’ll be of age this year... then what will be your
excuse?”
“Li,” he said with some exasperation, “I’m an adult Wizard by magical law.
You’re a minor... you don’t even have your license to Apparate yet. If anything
happened between us, anything at all, I could be charged and sent to Azkaban.
Besides, you’re so damned young. You’ve not seen the world, you haven’t really
done anything... how do you know you really want to be with me?”
“I’m not that young. And I know exactly what I want, Mitch. I want to sit
like this and stay here with you forever...”
“It’s not that simple. You’re not thinking about this at all, Li... you have no
idea what goes on between a man and a woman, not really...”
“Damn it, Mitch, I’m not asking for you to profess your undying love to
me! For Merlin’s sake, I’m only asking for you to be my first.”
There it was. The gauntlet had been thrown down.
“When I think about what could have happened last night, it scares me...
I’m not saying that I’ve got all these old-fashioned ideas about saving myself for
love or anything stupid like that. But I do want to be able to choose for myself.
I’m ready, Mitch, and I’d rather make it happen on my terms than to have it
happen to me.” She took a deep breath. “You’ve taught me so much over the
years... surely you could teach me this.”
“It’s not that simple, Delilah.”
“Why not?”

- 111 -
 “Because sixteen year old Witches just don’t skip around asking adult
Wizards to shag them, that’s why!”
“Fine,” she hissed, tears filling her eyes. “There’s a boy back at school who
likes me and...”
“Over my dead body.”
“Oh, so you won’t touch me because of some stupid misguided honor code,
but you can’t stand the idea of me being with anyone else either? Go fuck
yourself, Mitch.”
And with those words, it was Lila who left him in the carriage house this
time.

~~~
Telling Mitch to fuck off was easier said than done. Although she managed
to avoid him for the rest of the week, she couldn’t help but think about him all
the time.
She couldn’t get his face out of her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about
being in his arms, feeling just as safe as she did in her own home, feeling as if
she never wanted to leave. The scent of him, the taste of him, the memory of
how bold she’d been was driving her absolutely mad...
“Lila, you haven’t eaten dinner all week,” her mother said the day before
she returned to school. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing, Mum,” groaned Lila. Really, why was her mother so damned
nosy? Why did she have to notice everything?
As always, Dad came to her defense. “Really, Hermione, one would think
you’d never been a teenaged girl. I remember you used to pick over your food as
well.”
“Harry, I’m a doctor. And I know the signs of anorexia when I see them...”
“Mum,” snapped Lila, “I’ve been eating breakfast and lunch every day.
I don’t eat three square meals all the time at Hogwarts, especially during the
season. The food the House-Elves prepare is too heavy.”
“Oh, Mum, Li’s not anorexic,” laughed Bel, who had inherited her mum’s
hyperempathy in some small part, along with a great people sense. “She’s in
love. Isn’t it obvious?”
Lila glared at her little sister. “Remind me to kill you right after dessert.”
“Is that all?” Harry laughed, and even Hermione had to join in. “You’re
kidding! Who is the boy?”
“I’m not telling you, Dad... you’d likely have a hit out on the poor kid
before bedtime.” Especially if you knew who it was.
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Harry said, half-indignant. “You’re not a child
anymore, are you?”
Be nice if you could tell that to a certain Wizard who lives just across the

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
meadow grass. “Guess not.”
“As long as he’s good to you, of course I don’t mind it, princess. And I’m
sure you wouldn’t pick any bloke who wasn’t... I know you too well ever to
think that.”
“Well, we want to meet this boy,” said Hermione. “Invite him to the
Midsummer’s bonfire, will you? I think it’ll be the perfect time to get to know
him. Invite his parents as well.”
“His parents will be there anyway,” Lila said before he thought. Damn.
Talk about writing checks that you couldn’t cash.
So she endured her parents’ and sister’s speculations about every halfway
decent boy under the age of nineteen on the island and amongst their connection,
and laughed them off, and made her way upstairs to her loft. She studied for a
bit, then she packed for her return to Hogwarts, and after that, there was nothing
left to do but to blow out her candle and head for bed.
For in the dark, she was the mistress of her own destiny. She could think of
him. She could dream of him.
In the dark, things changed. Her hands became his hands, her fingers
became his fingers...
And as her moans came, she imagined his breath, hot in her ear...
You’re just as snoggable as you were that night.
I’d go mad without you, Delilah.
Perhaps you ought to taste me again?
And when white-hot lightning flashed behind her eyelids in an instant,
everything was absolutely perfect.

~~~
Spring had never been Lila’s favorite season. Not only had she disliked it
ever since Alan died, it was a particularly sad time for her parents and their
friends as Remembrance Day was celebrated then.
Lila began to go out with Xavier again, primarily by default after the May
Madness dance. He’d apologized profusely to her, and hadn’t exhibited his
former creepy behavior, so she didn’t mind going out with him on a Hogsmeade
weekend or sitting next to him in the Great Hall during the study hour. They’d
engaged in more than a few make-out sessions too, mostly in empty broom
closets and classrooms. These mostly left Lila feeling unsatisfied and out of
sorts... as if something was off.
Then, too, there were those times when Xavier would look at her as if he
were the cat who’d got the cream. And not in the most flattering sense.
All in all, Lila really wasn’t certain if she wanted to take that final step with
him.
Then again, perhaps if she did, if she got the whole bloody business over

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with, she could forget about Mitchell Black and move on with her life.
She was torn.
And then, something happened that changed everything forever.

~~~
It was just before the Leaving Feast when it happened. Exams were over,
the skies over Scotland were blue and balmy, and robes flapped out after
students like bat wings as they raced here and there about the castle and the
green. Lila had packed that morning, and spent the afternoon out on the
Quidditch pitch with Lacey and Nigel.
When she approached the castle, she felt the unseen eyes on her... and the
whispers.
“Did you see that rack? Talk about torture!”
“Yeah, that was one hot sight. Who would have thought?”
“Certainly not me. But she can torture me any day of the week!”
Lila turned to Lacey and Nigel. “You guys notice how weird everyone
seems?”
“Yeah,” Lacey nodded. “Wonder what’s happened while we were gone.”
Lila shrugged and waited as Lacey kissed Nigel good-bye before they
headed to Gryffindor Tower. Just inside the portrait hole, they were greeted by a
strange sight.
Practically the entire house was sitting around the common room. From
their demeanor, one would have thought someone died.
“Lila,” said David Hemphill, one of the fourth-year Beaters, “we’re going
to find out who did this. And when we do, we are going to rip their bloody
tongues out.”
“David, you’re scaring me. What’s happened?”
Evelyn Main, the Head Girl, came over and placed an arm around her
shoulders.
“Just after lunch, a gang of Slytherins and Ravenclaws passed these out to
every boy over third year in the castle... oh, Lila, you don’t have to look if you
don’t want to, it’s the most vile thing I’ve ever heard of anyone doing, and that’s
saying a lot...”
“Just hand her the picture,” snapped Fiona Figg, who’d just showed Lacey
a thick sheet of paper. Tears were running down her face. Lacey had gone very
red and her brown eyes were murderous.
“Yes, show me,” said Lila, who was now quite alarmed. “It can’t be that
bad, can it?”
So they showed her.
When she saw it, she dropped it and raced up to the dorms as fast as her
feet could carry her.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
In her wake, a picture bearing the legend Announcing Miss June 2032 --
Delilah Potter -- The Pride of Hogwarts! fluttered to the ground.
It was a picture of herself, asleep on the bed at the Tolkien Hotel, clad in
only the knickers she’d awakened in.

~~~
The fallout was absolutely horrible.
By the time Lila arrived home less than twenty-four hours later, Ayr Island
was overrun with Weasleys, including Grandmother Molly, who hadn’t left
Ottery St. Catchpole in nearly ten years. The Weasleys, along with the islanders,
closed ranks very quickly around the outraged Potters, who were ready to sue,
maim, and even kill a long list of individuals, not necessarily in that order.
Of course the sleaziest publications in the Wizarding world had obtained
the pictures almost before the students left school. Lila had her fair share of
enemies, and so did her parents. Even after Aunt Penelope owled them all the
second she heard of the affair, informing them that if said prints were published
without a release that the Ministry courts would hand her their heads on a silver
platter, PlayWizard and Totally Tantric proceeded anyway. Quidditch Digest, for
their part, doctored the pictures with the skimpiest of bikinis and added her to
their seasonal swimsuit calendar.
For the first time in his life, Ronald Weasley had to be physically restrained
so that he did not lay a hand on his daughter. Maria pleaded and begged for
understanding, saying she had nothing to do with any of it.
“Mummy, Daddy, please,” she sobbed. “I had no idea... I was asleep
myself...”
“That is complete and total dragonshit, Maria Shannon Weasley, and you
know it,” Maureen spat out. “Get out of my sight, now, and hope your father
doesn’t decide to lock you up in your room for the rest of your life.”
Draco and Ginny were put out with Hazel as well.
“You were supposed to be the adult in this situation,” Draco hissed. “How
did the boys get into the girls’ suite, and how the fuck did it happen that only
Lila was photographed?”
“Father,” snapped Hazel haughtily, “I cannot be everywhere at once. There
were nearly forty teens in the rooms, how was I supposed to keep track of what
they were doing and where they were?”
“Wait a second,” said Ron. “I thought I asked your mother to chaperone...
Ginny, you wrote me back and said that you’d keep an ear out...”
“I did not say anything of the sort!” said Ginny indignantly. “I was home
the entire night... Hazel and Max were supposed to be there, as you said that
your daughter and her friends would be fine on their own.”
“But after I spoke with Harry and Hermione, I sent you an owl.”

- 115 -
 “Hon, are you sure you’re remembering it all correctly?” Mo asked.
“Yes, after we got back from dinner here that day, I went upstairs
straightaway, wrote the owl to Gin, and gave it to...”
Ron’s roar was heard halfway across the island.
“Maria!”
But Maria was climbing the rickety ladder to the old playhouse in the North
Forest, not caring if her careful manicure was ruined, not caring if her stylish
butter-yellow robes got smudged with dirt or ripped. All she cared about was
making things right, somehow.
Even if that was impossible.
She found Lila in that old playhouse, as she knew she would. Lila was
curled up into a ball in the corner, dressed from neck to ankles in black, wrapped
in an afghan, rocking back and forth. Her eyes were closed and she seemed not
to notice that anyone else was there.
“Lila? Lila, please talk to me...”
Lila opened her eyes slowly. “Maria, there’s nothing to talk about. I lose
and you win.”
“What are you saying? Delilah, please... you haven’t lost anything...”
“Yes, I’ve lost everything,” Lila replied, voice dead. “Do you know that the
Hogwarts staff sent Mum and Dad a curt note about my ‘shameful behavior’?
I’ve been withdrawn from consideration as Head Girl. They’ve also said that
they’re going to meet over the summer and decide whether or not I should be
expelled permanently... after all, a Hogwarts girl doesn’t pose for magazines like
PlayWizard.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” said Maria, crying.
“Yes, it was. I trusted you and your friends even when I knew that you
weren’t to be trusted. You’ve done nothing but hate me all our lives, and now
I’ve got to reap what you sowed.”
“Lila...”
“Leave me alone, Maria. Right now I don’t think I ever want to see you
again.”
“You don’t mean that. Please... you aren’t like that. You’ve got to give me
another chance.”
“Why? So you can do this again, but only worse?”
“Please, please... you don’t understand.”
“But I do. Maria, you and your friends took away something from me that
can never, ever be given back, no matter how pretty you try to make it sound.
Nothing you can do or say can take it back...”
“I know who did it.”
“I don’t care.”
“But I do. Li, I’ve... I’ve broken up with Michael over this. He’s
heartbroken, but I... I could never date a boy who could be so cruel. But he told
me who took the pictures, that’s how badly he wanted me back. I shall never,

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
ever forgive either of them for what they did to you...”
“Maria? You know what? I already knew it was Xavier from the first time
I saw the pics. No other boy at Hogwarts would have done anything so vile. I’ve
already decided how I’m going to deal with him, and Michael, and especially
you.”
“What... deal with me?”
“Yes. I’m not going to deal with you at all, Maria. It’s simple as that. It’s
been a long time since I’ve pretended that we could ever be friends, but from
this day forward I will never, ever think of you as my cousin again.”
“No! Please... you can’t just cut me off like that.”
“Maria, perhaps someday, a very long time from now, we can meet as
cordial strangers. Right now I can’t see that happening, so I’m not holding my
breath, but who knows?”
“But I’m your uncle’s daughter! Think of our parents...”
“We are not our parents. And there is absolutely nothing of Uncle Ron in
you save for your last name. Good-bye, Maria.”
“I’m not leaving!”
Lila’s wand was whipped out and pointed at the other girl’s nose so swiftly
that Maria’s eyes crossed.
“You’re leaving one way or the other. Your choice.”
And so Maria returned to the cottage, weeping, with no choice other than to
face the parents’ wrath.

~~~
Ever since she saw herself all but nude in the first of the pictures, Lila had
retreated into a place inside where no one could reach her. Not Lacey and Fiona,
who raged all night and threw things and tried to hold her, willing tears to come
that never fell. Not the sad or pitying faces of her teammates and friends, nor the
leering ones of the most horrid boys or the jeering ones of her enemies.
Those she loved best couldn’t reach her, either. Not her parents, who were
at Hogwarts at the crack of dawn. Not her poor brother Drew, who ended up
bloodied and bruised when he tried to settle all the boys who were making jokes
about his beloved older sister with his fists. Not Bel, who cried inconsolably in
her arms at how horrible the entire situation was. Not all the vast Weasley
connection, nor the villagers, nor her dad’s DSG teachers, nor the Foundation
staffers...
Lila was in a world alone.
She alternated between her room and the forest, taking all her meals in
either one or the other. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to look at
herself, either... even though the days were warm, she covered herself. She
would never uncover herself again.

- 117 -
 She didn’t make herself up. She didn’t comb or wash her hair... she just let
it hang in a limp and tangled mess about her face. Her parents tried their best to
reach her... and each night, she’d wake up to find that one or the other had fallen
asleep in a chair pulled very close to her bedside... but in the end, even their love
couldn’t help.
Not when she was the laughingstock of the Wizarding world.
There was a creaking on the old playhouse ladder again, a few hours after
Lila had dismissed Maria. She snatched up her wand, wondering if that girl had
dared to return... she wouldn’t just threaten this time.
But it wasn’t Maria.
A pair of warm brown eyes stared at her with such love that Lila’s heart felt
as if it would shatter.
“Pro?”
“Yeah, Li. It’s me.”
She flung herself into his arms, the dam that had stoppered up her tears
finally breaking. And he held her for what seemed like hours as she cried,
clinging to him desperately, clinging to herself the last, long-lost vestige of her
childhood. Mourning the end of it all... mourning the end of her trust and
innocence and wonderment.
And when the tears stopped, the talking began. They talked until the night
was spent and the sun was high up in the sky. Lila laughed, and cried again, and
then laughed some more. They talked of old times, of midsummers past, of
moonlit berry-strewn paths they had once known in the balmy July evenings of
long ago, of the old songs that the trees used to sing as they rustled their emerald
leaves against the August wind, of the games they used to play.
They talked of Alan, and of Mitch. They talked about his teen years in
Wildemere and hers at Hogwarts and here on the island with the phantoms of
yesterday.
And for the first time since her heart broke, Lila was able to smile at the
sunrise.
“I’ll have to meet this Lysandra girl,” Lila said. “I can’t believe you’re
getting married, Pro.”
“Not until next year, when I’m nineteen. Satyrs begin their families young,
you know... we don’t live as long as you Witches and Wizards do, and we don’t
do very well in human civilization when we’re unattached.”
“I’m invited to the wedding, of course.”
Pro laughed. “Of course you are, you’ll have to be in it. And I told
Lysandra that we can honeymoon at home, but that I want to be married here.”
“Oh, that will be so lovely. I used to dream of the same, long ago,” Lila
said.
“I’m sure that dream will come true for you someday soon. From what
I remember and especially from what you’ve told me tonight, Mitch is mad
about you.”

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“Really, I don’t care anything about Mitch,” said Lila crossly. “Perhaps
I did once, but I don’t any longer.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And at any rate, he likely thinks I’m the world’s biggest tart. Between
those spreads and what I told him less than twenty-four hours after they were
taken...”
“How do you know how he feels? Did you ask him?
“Proteus,” said Lila crossly. “I don’t care how he feels.”
“Sure, I know you don’t.”
“Don’t be patronizing, either. I’m not in the mood right now.”
“Can’t win, can I?”
“When could you ever win against me?”
They both grinned at each other, exhausted but very, very happy.
For the more things changed, the more they stayed the same.

~~~
Despite the maelstrom of continued press, the Midsummer’s Night bonfire
on Ayr went off without a hitch that year, without intrusion by press or gawkers.
The entire island had become a virtual bower by the end of the month, and with
the flowers’ full bloom came the news that Cousin Malinda had given birth to a
baby boy.
“I still can’t believe that the child is a mother now, Hermione,” said Dad.
“It just seems wrong... I’m sure Fred and Angelina aged a hundred years when
they saw the baby.”
Mum could only laugh. “Harry, that ‘child’ is in her late twenties. I think
she waited quite long enough... and as for the new grandparents, they’re ecstatic,
I’m sure.”
Hazel Malfoy and Maximus Black were now sweethearting openly,
something that made Bel giggle uncontrollably whenever she saw them.
“I suppose since she couldn’t have Mitch, she settled on the consolation
prize...”
“Isabella Potter, that isn’t a nice thing to say!”
Bel shrugged. “So what? It’s the truth. And it’s funny... while Aunt Carole
and Aunt Gin love the match, neither Uncle Sirius nor Uncle Draco ever have
much to say when asked about it!”
“Yeah, I know Uncle Draco wanted to pair her off with some snotty
Slytherin with a bank account to match hers... he’ll give Hazel anything she
wants in the end, though. The Blacks are respectable, but they’re not rich by any
means.”
“Wonder what Mitch will say when he comes home?”
For Mitch had been in Dublin since his business trip, filling in for one of

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the Irish secretariat’s staffers on leave. Lila only knew this because Bel
volunteered the information. Not only hadn’t Lila asked anyone about him, she
was actively avoiding visits with Aunt Carole.
“Who knows? Mitch is so wrapped into himself that he likely won’t care.”
Bel looked at her sister sharply. “How unfair of you, Lila. That’s not Mitch
at all and you know it isn’t.”
Lila shrugged and changed the subject.
Although she still couldn’t bring herself to wear anything particularly
revealing, she decided to go back to regular hygiene as well, mostly because of
her dad and Pro. Dad said that he missed seeing his beautiful eldest daughter
shine... and Pro said that he certainly wasn’t going to introduce Lysandra to a
troll.
“She’ll be here a week before Midsummer’s, so you’d better find
something nice to wear.”
“Why?” said Lila, sticking out her tongue. “After all, I’m not the one
marrying her.”
He raspberried her back, and for a moment they looked for all the world
like the children they once were, not a Witch five months shy of adulthood and a
grown satyr who was all of eighteen.
Lila didn’t leave the island at all, and save for a few discreet owls that she
sent the day after Pro’s return, she was spared continued news of her centerfold
or any thought of the incident itself. After a while, she found that she did miss
the feel of summer sunshine against her skin... and she missed riding.
Destiny was nearly a fully grown mare now, and as her heat earlier that
spring had been terrible, Harry was talking of going off to Avalon later that
summer in search of a match for her.
She was astounded when her mother came to her and asked her if she
wanted to come along.
“But you and Dad always go alone,” Lila said.
“Well, Destiny is your horse, and since we’re going for her, it makes no
sense for you not to come along. Your father and I have other business to attend
to, so you can shop around for Pegasi. Besides, we promised the Lady that we
would present our eldest daughter to her when she was a woman grown... when
we spoke to her of it, you were here,” her mother patted her midriff, “and so
now we’re keeping our promise. Who knows where you’ll be next summer after
you leave school, and what you’ll be doing?”
During the days leading up to Midsummer, Lila rode Destiny every day.
She went into the North Forest with Proteus and Lysandra (whom Lila loved
right away) to play hide-and-go-seek and search for berries. In short, she
pretended that she was a child again...
But after all, it was only pretending.
For now, when the late twilights fell, Lila felt a bit out of place, even
though Pro and his Sandra tried very hard not to make her feel that way.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
“Leaving so soon?” Sandra would say, genuine disappointment in her
voice. “It’s only ten... the stars aren’t even out yet...”
Lila nodded, grinning down at their clasped hands. “Yes, I think it’s past
time for me to head home. I’m getting tired.”
“You always were a terrible liar, Delilah Potter,” Pro laughed.
“Tomorrow’s the bonfire,” Lila called, skipping away backwards, “and
I want to ensure I’m well rested for that.”
She didn’t go to sleep, though. Instead she headed to the stables and got her
horse, who loved the night just as much as Lila did.
“Softly, my beauty... yes, there you are...” she whispered, leading her out.
“The sun’s only just set and the moon is nearly full... let’s see if we can’t reach it
this time, shall we?”
And so the young Witch and her horse flew up towards the star-spangled
sky.

~~~
Mitch hadn’t been in Dublin, but in Tir Na Og when a number of his
colleagues were guffawing over something over lunch one afternoon in late
June.
“What’s so funny?” he wanted to know.
One of the Wizards pushed the magazine in question in his direction. “New
July issue of PlayWizard. Get a good eyeful of that. What I wouldn’t give to
have one night with her.”
“Cor, Sean, you wouldn’t get one minute with a girl like that. Keep
dreaming.”
It took more than a moment for the identity of the girl in the picture to
register for Mitch. Once it did, however, he snatched it up from the middle of
the table and closed it.
“Hey! I paid nearly three Galleons for that, I did!”
Three gold coins clanged down to the table.
Back at his desk, Mitch stared out of the window with unseeing eyes. Of
course there was no question of Delilah having posed for the pictures
deliberately. Obviously, this was what she couldn’t remember from the night of
Maria’s party... posing for some stupid boy’s camera. And the pictures were
posed, he guessed. None of the gestures in question were natural for Lila, as far
as he could tell... he’d seen her asleep many times since her early childhood, but
never holding a red rose against her thigh. And unlike most centerfold models,
who did shocking things in their moving pics, Lila was only dozing in hers, her
chest rising and falling rhythmically.
Her chest...
The caption the skin magazine had chosen was ironically apt.

- 121 -
 Sleeping Beauty... who will awaken her with a kiss?
He wondered what her reaction had been. He knew that it couldn’t have
been positive, that her parents and her family and friends... hell, his parents...
were likely furious. And as for the number of young Wizards who were now
getting their jollies from ogling her picture... her conquests were likely legion.
But Mitch had no idea how Lila had reacted.
Unless... unless she had done it deliberately... after all, hadn’t she said there
was a boy at school who she’d be more than willing to...
No.
He knew she hadn’t done this. It wasn’t her style.
But now, thanks to that stupid Maria and some hormonal teenaged idiot, the
whole world got to see... before...
Suddenly, his dreams of her were changed when he returned to Dublin. The
glimpse of her from the magazines fleshed out the secretmost corners of his
imagination, causing images of her to fill his sleep. Delilah laughing as he held
her above him, tossing her glorious sugar-brown hair over her shoulders, then
leaning forward so that it curtained her as he leaned up and their lips met.
Delilah tucked into him, spoon-fashion, as she closed her eyes and let his fingers
slide all over her soft skin. Delilah beneath him with tears standing in the
corners of her beautiful green eyes, thrashing her head back and forth against the
pillows as he...
And always he woke up, sitting up ramrod-straight, chest heaving.
Sometimes with a date nestled at his side; sometimes alone. But always, always
with a sense that he’d awakened to a strange dream... and that these dreams of
his were somehow reality.
He got a Confederation release from the Dublin assignment, packed up, and
headed home for Midsummer. Mitch had no idea what he’d say when he saw
her... they’d been nothing but awkward since he’d come home for Christmas.
All he cared about, in the end, was seeing her.
And saw her he did. In fact, she was the first person he saw, because he’d
planned his arrival precisely so that he would come in at the dead of night.
Instead of taking the Emerald City portals, he took a Portkey from Dublin to
London, arriving in barely enough time to catch the afternoon train from Kings
Cross to Hogsmeade. From Hogsmeade, he Apparated to the nearest Muggle
village with a train to Aberdeen and found himself at Char’s dock just as the
moon rose.
“Welcome home, young Mitchell,” said the ancient boatman with a smile,
swinging one of his pieces of luggage onto the ferry with surprising strength.
“It’s good to be back.”
As Char’s oar hit the cool water of the North Sea, Mitch took in the
surroundings. The North Sea at night was absolutely beautiful, especially in the
summer. All around them was clear, until suddenly the mist overtook them and
faintly, faintly he could make out Ayr in the distance.

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
Home.
As they came into port, Mitch saw her. She was on Destiny, of course... at
this time of night, either she was in the air or speeding through the forest. There
was no other place for her.
After he disembarked with his luggage, he sent his bags on their way and
waited for her to notice him and come down.
She was wearing robes of the palest blue, shimmering nearly white in the
starshine and moonlight. As he had been that winter, he was utterly enchanted by
the sight of her... his dryad was now a Diana, virgin goddess of the moon and the
hunt and the night.
And notice him she did. Almost immediately, she sent Destiny spiraling
back down to earth gracefully. The moment her horse’s hooves touched the
ground, Lila disembarked with a flurry of skirts.
She was wearing a Muggle denim jacket over her shimmering robes. Her
face was devoid of makeup, but her hair was a profusion of brown curls. Mitch
felt his throat tighten... he couldn’t speak. All he could do was stare.
Lila met it measure for measure. Then she was the first to break the silence.
“Hello, Mitchell.”
“Good evening, Delilah. How are you?”
“I’m the laughingstock of the Wizarding world. How would you be?”
“Perhaps not the laughingstock after all.”
“Great. Because I find all the offers to do adult Omniocular vids rather
hilarious. Not to mention the fan owls.”
“You’ve got fan owls now?”
She started towards him. “Yes. Ranging from the pathetic to the perverted.
And sometimes they manage both in the same sentence.”
Mitch threw back his head and laughed. When he looked at her again, she
was grinning from ear to ear.
“I’ve missed your laugh so much.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, of course. It’s one of the things I love best about you.”
The tightening in Mitch’s throat moved down to his stomach. “Delilah,
I was...”
“No, let me say it all for you. Yes, you acted like a confused boy, both
times. Yes, you’re far too old for my Wizard, and likely us being together will
constitute some strange form of incest... since after all, I do call your parents
‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’. But when we get past all that, Mitch, the fact remains that
I’m absolutely mad about you...”
She trailed off with a squeal as he lifted her off her feet and swung her
high. Her hands went up to rest on his shoulders, then slid around his neck as he
let her toes touch the ground as they kissed.
And kissed.
And kissed...

- 123 -
 “How many months before you’re seventeen, did you say?”
“Five months and eighteen days... would have to check with Mum and Dad
for the hours and minutes. Would you like me to wake them up?” His answer
was another kiss. “And just think, you’re going to be twenty-four in about ninety
minutes.”
“What will you give me for my birthday?”
“You’ll have to wait until my birthday to find out.”
He groaned, rolling with her in the soft sand. “That long? I’ll just have to
take my chances, then. Azkaban can’t be too terrible... after all, my father
survived it. He even escaped.”
“Mitch!”
“Surely you can’t think that your parents are going to love the idea of this,
Delilah... especially not your father.”
“He likes you well enough. I’m sure he’ll get over it... and we can always
wait until I’m seventeen to tell everyone, you know.”
“You’ll be at Hogwarts for your birthday, you do realize?”
“Then you’ll just have to come visit me, won’t you?”
“But boys aren’t allowed in the girls’ dormitories,” he said, nuzzling her
neck.
“And rightly so. Boys have no business up there, at least not until they
grow up. Because it’s a man I’d have for my lover, Mitchell Black... a man like
you.”
He was speechless.
“I want to learn from you, Mitch. I want it to be you.” She was sliding her
hands underneath his shirt, and he nearly went out of his skin. “I think I’ve
always wanted it to be you and only you.”
“I’m honored,” he said huskily.
“Well, that’s not entirely true. Perhaps Alan, if he had lived... I’ve always
been partial to blonds, you know.”
“Li, please. Merlin grant the kid rest, but Alan was definitely gay.”
“He was not!”
“Star people stories? Delilah, be serious. He was a great and fun kid, a
wonderful friend for you, and it was awful losing him like that, but he would
have likely fancied me or Pro long before he ever went for you.”
She pinched him. “I can’t believe you’re still jealous of him... oh, that’s
right! Pro is back... and he’s got a girl... and...”
Mitch rolled her over in the sand so that she was pinned underneath him
again.
“I see that the first thing I’m going to have to teach you is how to be a good
girlfriend.” He kissed her until she was half dazed. “Rule number one. When
your boyfriend is fooling around with you, the last thing he wants to hear about
is every other bloke you know.”
“So when do I tell about the other blokes? I believe in full disclosure, you

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
know...”
“Only after the fooling around ends.”
“And when does it end?”
“Never.”
And long into the night, there on the sand Delilah Potter and Mitchell
Black did indeed fool around.
To say the least.

~~~
Xavier Montague hated these visits to his mother’s home on Ayr. Ever since
his parents had split up five years ago, he’d preferred to live with his custodial
parent, the mercurial Quidditch legend Rod Montague.
His mother didn’t even have a real home. Not there. Rather, she ran the
DSG dormitories as a live-in deputy head. For certain, her suite was a
wonderful, well-appointed apartment in and of itself, but Xavier preferred his
father’s manor.
Nevertheless, he wanted to come for the bonfire.
He had to see Delilah Potter brought low.
Of course he remembered the night of Maria Weasley’s party as if it were
yesterday... the night that he had photographed the pictures.
“Alohomora,” he whispered, pointing his wand at the door handle.
It opened.
Ah. Mission accomplished.
Lila lay sprawled on the bed. She was in the room alone.
Xavier couldn’t have asked for more. He stripped down to his boxers,
Lumos-lit his wand, and walked half-naked to the bed. As the wandglow fell on
her delicate features, his eyes dilated with pleasure. Carefully, he drew back the
coverlet and looked his fill... then, impatient, he used a simple charm to rid her
of the gown.
She was exquisite. He couldn’t pick out one thing to look at first. Her
creamy skin... her breasts and hips... her small, pale hands with their delicate
shell-pink nails...her delicious-looking lips. Her body’s scent stole to his
nostrils... immediately, he was hard.
He slipped into the bed and reached for her. The moment his hands came
into contact with her satin skin, he got even harder. He cupped her face and
lifted her mouth to his, but the drugging potion in the cakes Michael had given
her had been sure. Delilah Potter slept on, unaware of his touch.
At first, her limp helplessness only served to excite him even more. By
Merlin’s beard, he would be able to fuck her at long last, without worry of
protest or repercussions. Michael was right... it was indeed a dream drug.
Xavier dipped his head down to her breasts first, of course, and greedily

- 125 -
feasted. However, unlike other girls, she didn’t shiver. Their tips didn’t draw up
in answering response, either. There was nothing, not even when he pressed his
lips against hers... no answering pressure upon his lips, no arms wrapped
around his neck, no giggles, no moans or gasps or sighs.
Nothing.
So Xavier tried shaking her.
“Wake up, love.”
But still Lila slept on, totally unconscious of his urgent voice and hands.
Stubborn, Xavier kept trying. He had to have her... he’d gone through too much
trouble... he’d go mad. His cock felt as if it would burst as it brushed her soft
thigh, but her total lack of response wasn’t exciting. It was rather like using a
wax doll... Xavier wanted a living, breathing Witch.
He redoubled the effort, covering her soft body completely with his,
determined to wake her up. He kissed, he caressed, he shook, he swore...
“Fuck!” he shouted.
He saw red then... what to do? Even as he struggled with his arousal, he
blamed her for it. If she’d just fucking given him what she owed him as his
girlfriend, he wouldn’t have had to drug her.
Bitch. Fucking bitch.
Well.
If she wouldn’t spread her legs for him, she’d for fuck’s sake spread them
for his camera. Merlin only knew when he’d get a sight like that again.
He slipped out of the room and returned soon with his Wizarding one-shot.
He had an entire roll of film. And he shot it all of her, finding her the perfect
poseable doll.
Good. Now he had a small piece of Delilah Potter... even if she didn’t want
to have any piece of him.
Just then, Anastasia Weasley stumbled into the room. Her pajama top was
open and her lipstick was smeared.
“Well hello, handsome,” she slurred. “Is that a pack of Ice Mice in your
pocket, or are you happy to see me?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said.
Certainly it had been a night to remember. Even if he hadn’t scored with
Lila, he’d had two perfectly lovely shags with two perfectly willing girls.
And then he’d brought the haughty little brunette low.
It’d been all his idea, of course. Michael had tried to talk him out of it, but
of course Xavier had been resolute. So Michael and a gang of other sixth- and
seventh-year Wizards had planned the spreads together, setting up a darkroom
just outside of the Slytherin dungeons.
Xavier didn’t feel even the slightest bit of remorse for what he’d done. In
his eyes, Lila could have avoided all this if she’d simply faced the inevitable... if
she’d shagged him. Merlin only knew how much he’d wanted her, liked her. It
was her fault that the like had turned to disdain and hatred.

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Besides, he couldn’t help but think that there was someone else. First of all,
she’d muttered something in her drugged sleep, more than once... he couldn’t
make out what she was saying, but it certainly wasn’t his name. Then, too, she’d
always run to him inexplicably, twice, as if she were trying to flee from
something else. Or worse, to use him to forget it.
Well, in the end, she’d been the one used. Her chance at Head Girl was
gone forever... Hogwarts would never allow a PlayWizard centerfold model to
represent their school. And it would be years before she dared to show her face
anywhere in public again.
When she did, she’d be treated like the fucking whore that she was...
That morning, shortly after his arrival on Ayr, a knock sounded on his door.
“Come in,” he said, still in the process of unpacking. When he saw who it
was, he froze.
It was Lila, followed by Mitchell Black.
“What are you doing here?” he snarled.
“It’s my father’s school, I’m always here,” she said dismissively. “I know
you wanted me to crawl into some hole and hide, but nevertheless, here I stand.
Pity we can’t always have what we want.”
“This is my room. Get out.”
“As soon as possible, yes, because it smells exactly like old socks in here...
but first, there’s something I need to show you. Before I do, however, I think
you’d better sit down.”
“Like hell I will...”
He was met with the point of Mitch’s wand.
“What part of ‘sit down’ didn’t you get?” he snarled. “Or do you need me
to help spell it out for you?”
Xavier sat. So did Mitch, across from him, still holding him at wandpoint.
“Montague, I spent more hours than you deserve thinking up what I was
going to say to you today. Then I realized something. Not only don’t you
deserve my words, not only don’t you deserve the back of my hand, you don’t
even deserve my scorn. In order for me to scorn you, you would have to be an
actual person, not a vile pig. And even calling you that is an insult to swine.”
She circled around him.
“So instead, I’m going to bid you goodbye, Xavier. And to show you there
are no hard feelings between us, I’m going to leave you with one final gift.”
A parchment envelope was dropped into his lap.
“Well, don’t just sit there,” Lila said, going over to where Mitch was sitting
to stand next to him with folded arms. “Open it.”
“You know, you can’t fucking tell me what to do!”
Mitch’s wand shot forward dangerously. “You’ve got one more time. Don’t
test me.”
“And just who the fuck are you? You can’t tell me what to do either...”
“Little boy,” Mitch replied with scorn, “the only reason why you aren’t

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mincemeat already is because Delilah Potter is a better person in one breath than
you’ll be in your entire life.”
Xavier smirked.
“You’ve got five seconds to open that envelope.”
Nothing.
“Five.”
Lila frowned. “Mitch, he’s a coward... don’t let him get to you...”
“Three. Two.”
Xavier shot them both murderous glances as he ripped the envelope open.
Lila and Mitch waited. They didn’t have to wait very long.
“Fuck! You can’t... what the fuck... where did you... how did you...”
Mitch took up one of the pictures that fell to the ground, examined it
critically, and then shook his head.
“You know what, Montague, you really don’t work as a nude. Especially
since I’m certain that the shower wasn’t very cold...”
Lila had a good laugh. “The crown jewels are a bit modest, aren’t they,
babe?” she said aside to Mitch.
“To say the least, love... Montague, I’d stick to my day job if I were you.”
Xavier snatched up the pictures, all of them, including the one Mitch held
and ripped them to shreds. He tossed the shreds in the fireplaces.
Lila and Mitch cracked up.
“There are more where those came from, of course,” said Lila. “I think the
bonfire would be a great place to show them off, especially the ones with
Michael...”
“That isn’t what that looks like!”
Lila nodded with mock sympathy. “Yes, I’m sure everyone will understand.
After all, you were so very understanding where I was concerned...”
“What the hell do you want from me, Delilah?”
“A full retraction. I want you to write a few letters. Instructions are here,”
she handed him another envelope, “and I want them printed in all the magazines
that bought and published my pictures.”
Xavier read her directions. “But your pictures weren’t manipulated! That is
your body...”
“Which you obtained access to through deceit and manipulation. That
makes those spreads as false as if they had been doctored, in my opinion.”
“I’ll... they’ll sue me! I signed contracts... I spent the Galleons on my new
brooms, on a place for myself after leaving school next year...”
“Oh, I’m sure they will sue, as my parents are suing them on my behalf.
They’ll have to recover their Gringotts vault-losses somewhere, won’t they?”
Xavier was furious. But helpless.
Lila had won after all.
“You can hand me the owls at the bonfire anytime before midnight,” said
Mitch. “I’ll see that they get to the proper places, of course. But please

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
understand that if you are even a second late, I won’t be very happy. And you
don’t want to make me unhappy, especially not where she is concerned. Bad
idea. Very bad idea.
“And speaking of which, after tonight, you have nothing to say to Delilah
Potter ever again. You are not to owl her, talk to her, or think about her... because
if I catch you even thinking about her, Montague, I’m going to reconsider my
original mincemeat plan.”
They both stood up.
“Oh, and Montague? Remember when I told you that it ought to come
naturally? Let me show you precisely what I meant...”
And his eyes widened as he watched Lila wrap her arms around Mitch and
kiss him in a way that Xavier hadn’t known she was capable of.
“There,” said Lila, pulling away with a pant. “Like that. Live and learn.”
She swept out of the room with a smile on her lips. Mitch looked after her
admiringly.
“You and the whole damned world can keep all the pictures you want...
because I’ve got the girl.”
And the second he was gone, Xavier proceeded to blast all of his mother’s
best feather pillows... just before snatching up his inkwell and quill for a long
day’s worth of writing.

~~~
The gardens of springtime do not last forever... and one must say good
night to even the best of playmates when dusk falls and home is calling.
So it is with childhood.
So it is with all things.
Spring ended that year on a balmy note, with an early evening breeze
promising a pleasantly crisp evening for the traditional Midsummer’s bonfire.
As always, the island’s vast midland meadow was filled with spring flowers, and
here and there if one was lucky, a wild rose bush could be found blooming
amongst the interminable grasses.
Yet the island was different that Midsummer for Lila. For one, she knew
that she could no longer ignore the world outside, or ignore the fact that she was
no longer Harry Potter’s small daughter. Continuing to pretend that she was that
small girl, and Ayr was all there was in the world would be as futile as a small
child hiding herself in a closet while the house around her blazed with flames.
Then, too, she was in love... and when a Witch is in love, when any woman
is in love, the very flow of time changes so that even the smallest of events have
significance.
It was the first time she’d ever stayed out all night. After their horseplay in
the sand, Lila had insisted upon showing Mitch the North Forest in the middle of

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the night.
“I’ve been here at night before,” he insisted. “I don’t need you to show it to
me.”
“No, you don’t know it as I do... you were older than we were, and never
really rambled as Pro and I did. It’s best on a night like this, when the moon is
nearly full. Come and see it now.”
So they purposefully wandered for the rest of the night in the forest.
Without a light. And in that forest there were creatures that Newt Scamander had
never heard of, creatures without human names, names known only to
themselves. There were shadows just beyond the corner of one’s eye, shadows
not sinister, but shy... as if those who cast them lived just on the edge of the
world of dreams.
The forest had its Midsummer songs, just as it sang of all seasons.
“This is a song of myself,” Lila said happily. “They’re singing for me, and
the girl who played beneath these trees so many years ago.”
“Why does it make you smile, then?”
“Because it’s a new song,” she replied. “The trees don’t sing of the things
that are. They can’t. They only sing of the things which once were... and
sometimes, very rarely, of things yet to come.”
“Do they ever sing about me?”
She stopped, and their clasped hands stopped swinging as they looked at
one another.
“Oh, of course they do. They sing of you often.”
“And what,” he said, pulling her into his arms, “do they say?”
“Perhaps someday I’ll tell you,” she replied softly. “Perhaps by then, you’ll
already know.”
Then there was his birthday dinner, long after they’d delivered the
ultimatum to Xavier, early that evening at Uncle Sirius and Aunt Carole’s.
Although they’d agreed to keep everything from their parents until she was of
age, many are the perjuries that lovers’ faces and eyes commit. Anyone who’d
thought to look and put two and two together would have had an easy time of it,
because they all but gave themselves away. Lila was positively glowing through
all the courses, and Mitch kept stealing glances at her. Neither could half believe
their luck... that somehow, they’d found what they were looking for right
underneath their own noses.
Just before Mitch blew out all twenty-four of his candles in one breath, Lila
laughed out loud in spite of herself.
Everyone looked at her quizzically. Everyone, that is, save for Mitch. Since
everyone was looking at her and not him, he winked knowingly at her... and she
flushed pink.
“Oh, I’m sorry... I was just thinking of something funny,” she excused
herself.
Aunt Carole nodded, believing she understood. Then she turned to her

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 Sixteen, Going On Seventeen
younger son.
“Mitch, you didn’t even give yourself time to make a wish.”
He merely grinned back at his mother. Over her head, his eyes said to Lila,
I’ve already got everything I want. What do I need with wishes?
Later that evening, just as the bonfire was beginning, her mother reminded
her of something.
“Well, where is he?”
Lila frowned. “Who, Mum?”
“The boy your father and I were going to meet tonight. I don’t see anyone
new here... didn’t you invite him?”
“Um, well...”
It was going to be a long five months.
Because all of a sudden, Delilah Potter couldn’t wait to be seventeen.

A/N: This is as far in the future in this

AU Paraverse as I’ll likely travel. Hope
you liked... as always, let me know.

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