I am Happy to Publish Another Chapter of The Apprentice of The Red Witch
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The book was not where it was supposed to be.
Minerva McGonagall stood in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library, her index finger tracing the spines of volumes she had already checked twice. Advanced Transfiguration and Its Theoretical Limits. She had left it on her desk three days ago.
And yet the book was gone from her office.
She was halfway through the next row of shelves when a silver shape burst through the library wall and stopped in front of her. A phoenix. Dumbledore's Patronus. It opened its beak and spoke in the headmaster's calm voice.
"Minerva. My office, when you have a moment."
When you have a moment. As if Albus Dumbledore had ever sent a Patronus for something that could wait. The man had a gift for making urgent things sound optional, and Minerva had known him long enough to hear the instruction underneath the invitation.
She closed the book she'd been examining, returned it to the shelf, and left the library without looking back.
The stone gargoyle outside the headmaster's office leapt aside at the password, and Minerva rode the spiral staircase upward with her hands clasped behind her back and her mouth set in a thin line.
She knocked once and entered without waiting.
Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, a cup of tea in one hand and a lemon drop in the other. Fawkes dozed on his perch by the window. The office was cluttered with its usual collection of silver instruments, spinning and humming and doing things Minerva had long since stopped asking about.
"Minerva," Dumbledore said, as though he hadn't summoned her thirty seconds ago. "How kind of you to come. Tea?"
"No." She sat in the chair across from him. "What is it, Albus?"
"Direct as always." He set the lemon drop down and folded his hands. "I need you to collect a student for their Hogwarts supply trip."
"Collect a student," Minerva repeated. This was not unusual. Muggle-born students frequently needed a staff member to introduce them to Diagon Alley. She had done it dozens of times over the years. "Which student?"
"Harry Potter."
Minerva felt something tighten in her chest. Harry Potter. The boy she had watched Albus leave on a doorstep eleven years ago, wrapped in blankets, in the cold November air, while she sat on a wall in the shape of a cat and told him it was a mistake.
"Harry Potter," she said carefully. "I was under the impression he was living with the Dursleys."
"He was." Dumbledore's expression didn't change, but something shifted behind his eyes. "He is now living with Natasha Evans."
The name landed in the room and sat there.
Minerva's jaw tightened. "Natasha Evans."
"Yes."
"And when, exactly, did this happen?"
"Approximately one year ago. She took him from Privet Drive and took him to a property in the countryside. Willowmere Hollow."
"One year." Minerva's voice was dangerously calm. "Harry Potter has been living with Natasha Evans for one year, and I am only learning of this now."
"I became aware of the situation but i chose not to intervene."
"You chose not to intervene."
"Minerva, you're repeating everything I say."
"Because everything you say is extraordinary, Albus." She gripped the arms of her chair. "You placed that boy with the Dursleys for a reason. Blood protection. The sacrificial magic Lily left behind. And now you're telling me that Natasha Evans, of all people, simply drove to Surrey and took him, and you did nothing?"
"Natasha is Lily's sister. The blood protection extends to her as well, though in a different form." Dumbledore picked up his tea. "And I had concerns about the Dursleys' treatment of the boy that I perhaps should have acted on sooner. Natasha acted where I did not. I cannot fault her for that, even if her methods were characteristically unsubtle."
"Unsubtle." Minerva's nostrils flared. "That woman is a walking provocation."
"You've always had strong feelings about her."
"Strong feelings. She threatened to hex my hat off my head the last time we spoke."
"To be fair, Minerva, you had just told her she was being reckless and irresponsible."
"She was being reckless and irresponsible."
"And you told her so in front of the entire Order." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Natasha does not respond well to public criticism. As I recall, neither do you."
Minerva pressed her lips together so tightly they nearly disappeared. "Why me, Albus? Surely Hagrid could go. Or Filius. Or anyone else on the staff."
"Because I need someone who will observe," Dumbledore said, and his voice lost its lightness. "Natasha has had Harry for a year. She has been training him, though I do not know the specifics. I need to understand what she has done with the boy, how he is. And I need to understand Natasha's intentions."
"Then send someone she trusts."
"I am sending you because you and Natasha do not like each other, and she knows it. She will not hide behind pleasantries. Whatever she shows you will be real, because Natasha Evans has never bothered to be anything other than exactly what she is in front of people she dislikes."
Minerva stared at him. She hated it when he was right.
"You want me to provoke her."
"I want you to observe her. If she is provoked, that is useful information. If she is not, that is equally useful." He folded his hands again. "Go to Willowmere Hollow. Introduce yourself to Harry. Offer to escort him to Diagon Alley for his school supplies. And see what Natasha says."
"And if she refuses?"
"She may. She is protective of the boy, and she has little reason to cooperate with Hogwarts." Dumbledore paused. "If she refuses, do not force the issue. Do not create a confrontation. But try your best to let Harry have the final word. He is the student. It is his letter. The choice of how he prepares for school should ultimately be his."
"Let Harry decide," Minerva repeated. "And if he sides with her?"
"Then we will have learned something about the nature of their relationship, and that, too, is valuable."
Minerva sat in silence for a long moment. Fawkes ruffled his feathers on the perch. One of the silver instruments on the shelf emitted a small puff of steam and went quiet.
"I don't like this," she said.
"I know."
"She is arrogant, secretive, confrontational, and she has absolutely no respect for institutional authority."
"All true." Dumbledore smiled. "She also removed a neglected child from an abusive household and has apparently spent the past year caring for him, which is more than any of us managed to do."
Minerva felt it. She had told Albus, eleven years ago, that the Dursleys were the worst sort of Muggles. She had watched them for a full day. She had seen enough. And Albus had left Harry there anyway, and she had let him, because the blood protection mattered, and because there was a war to win and a world to rebuild.
And now Natasha Evans had done what Minerva McGonagall had not.
She stood. "I'll go now."
"Thank you, Minerva."
Minerva turned and walked to the door.
She opened the door, descended the spiral staircase, and walked through the corridors of Hogwarts with her back straight and her stride sharp and her mind already turning over every interaction she had ever had with Natasha Evans, cataloguing each one, preparing for a woman who could not be prepared for.
She did not like Natasha Evans. She did not approve of her methods.
But she had taken Harry Potter out of a cupboard under the stairs, and for that, Minerva McGonagall was willing to walk into Willowmere Hollow and endure whatever came next.
The lamb chops were perfect.
Harry sat at the kitchen table pretending to read Practical Defensive Magic and Its Use Against the Dark Arts, but actually watching the way Natasha cooked was the way she did everything: precise, efficient.
"Stop staring at the gravy," Natasha said without turning around.
"I'm not staring at the gravy. I'm reading."
"You've been on the same page for twelve minutes."
Harry turned the page. "Thirteen, actually."
Natasha set two plates on the table and sat across from him. They ate the way they always ate.
Harry was halfway through his second lamb chop when someone knocked on the front door.
He looked up. Natasha had already stopped chewing. Her fork was suspended an inch from her plate, and her eyes had gone to the hallway.
Nobody knocked on the door at Willowmere Hollow. The house was hidden behind wards that made it invisible to anyone who didn't know it was there. The only people who could find it were people Natasha had personally keyed into the protective enchantments, and as far as Harry knew, that list was very short.
The knock came again.
Natasha set her fork down and stood. "Stay here."
"Who is it?"
"Stay here, Harry."
She walked to the hallway. Harry heard the front door open. He heard Natasha's voice, low and guarded, and then another voice, one he didn't recognize. A woman. Older. Scottish, maybe. The words were too far away to make out, but the tone was formal and clipped, and Natasha's response was short and not friendly.
Harry looked at his plate. He had half a lamb chop and three potatoes left.
He ate them in about a minute. It was hard for him to chew all that food in one, but the interest in knowing who came was more important.
He wiped his mouth, pushed back his chair, and walked to the front door.
Natasha was standing in the doorway with one hand on the frame, her body angled so that she filled the space between the door and the wall. It was a stance Harry recognized. She stood that way when she didn't want someone to come in.
On the other side of the threshold stood a tall, thin woman in emerald green robes. She had a stern face, sharp eyes behind square spectacles, and dark hair pulled into a tight bun beneath a pointed hat.
"Harry." Natasha's voice was flat. She didn't turn around. "Go back to the kitchen."
"Who is she?" Harry asked.
The woman in green looked past Natasha's shoulder and fixed her eyes on him. There was something that softened for just a moment before she straightened her spectacles and reset her expression.
"Mr. Potter," she said. "My name is Professor Minerva McGonagall. I am the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Harry looked at her. Then at Natasha. Then back at her.
"You're from Hogwarts," he said.
"I am."
"Harry," Natasha said again, and this time she did turn, and her green eyes were hard. "Kitchen. Now."
McGonagall's mouth twitched. Just barely. "May I come in?"
"No," Natasha said.
"Then we'll speak here." McGonagall folded her hands in front of her. "I've been sent by the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, to escort Mr. Potter to Diagon Alley for his school supplies. His Hogwarts letter included a list of required books, equipment, and materials. It is customary for a member of staff to accompany students who may be unfamiliar with the wizarding shopping district."
Natasha's expression didn't change. "Harry is perfectly familiar with the wizarding world. I've spent the past year making sure of that."
"Be that as it may, the headmaster has requested that I personally accompany him."
"The headmaster," Natasha repeated, "Albus Dumbledore. The man who left a one-year-old child on a doorstep in November and then didn't check on him for nine years. That headmaster."
McGonagall's jaw tightened visibly. Harry saw the muscles move beneath her skin. Whatever she thought of that accusation, she didn't deny it.
"The headmaster is aware of the circumstances under which Harry left the Dursleys," McGonagall said carefully. "He does not dispute your decision to remove the boy from that environment. However, Harry is now a Hogwarts student, and there are protocols."
"Protocols." Natasha leaned against the doorframe. "You mean Dumbledore wants to know what I've been doing with Harry for the past year, and he sent you because he thought I'd be more likely to slip up in front of someone I don't like than in front of a stranger."
McGonagall's left eye twitched.
Harry looked between them. The air in the doorway had gotten very cold.
"I have been asked to escort Mr. Potter to Diagon Alley," McGonagall said, each word placed with the precision of a chess move. "That is all. Whatever personal history exists between you and me, or between you and the headmaster, is not relevant to the task at hand."
"Everything is relevant when it comes to Harry." Natasha straightened. "I am his guardian. I decide who takes him where, and when, and why. And I will be taking him to Diagon Alley myself."
"The headmaster's request..."
"The headmaster can make all the requests he wants. He lost the right to make decisions about Harry's life when he left him with people who kept him in a cupboard and fed him scraps."
The silence that followed was enormous.
McGonagall stood very still. Behind the square spectacles, her eyes were unreadable. Harry watched her throat move as she swallowed once, sensing that Natasha's words had hit something inside the older woman.
Then McGonagall turned to Harry.
She took her eyes off Natasha completely, angling her body toward him.
"Mr. Potter," she said. "The choice is yours. I am here to offer you an escort to Diagon Alley, as is customary for incoming Hogwarts students. Your aunt has made her position clear. But the letter was addressed to you, and the decision of how you prepare for school is yours."
Harry looked at her. She held his gaze without flinching, and he respected that, because not many people could hold a conversation between Natasha Evans and an eleven-year-old without losing their nerve, and this woman hadn't blinked once.
His answer had been ready before she finished the sentence. He had known what he was going to say the moment she mentioned Diagon Alley, the moment she said the choice was his. He had known because there was no choice to make. Not really.
But McGonagall had come a long way. She hadn't been invited in and spoken to a woman who clearly wanted her gone. Harry thought she deserved a few seconds of respect before he gave her an answer she wasn't going to like.
So he waited. He counted to three in his head, the way Natasha had taught him during the breathing exercises.
"Thank you, Professor," Harry said. "I appreciate you coming all this way. But I'd like to go with my aunt."
McGonagall's expression didn't change at all. She felt that Harry would go with Natasha.
"Very well, Mr. Potter," she said. "The decision is yours, and I respect it."
She looked at Natasha. Whatever passed between them was silent and brief, and Harry couldn't read it more than two women who didn't like each other.
"Ms. Evans," McGonagall said.
"Professor," Natasha replied.
"The train departs from King's Cross Station on September the first. Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. I trust you are aware."
"I am aware."
"Good." McGonagall straightened her hat. She looked at Harry one more time, and this time the softness was there again, undisguised, and it made her look like a different person entirely. "I look forward to meeting you properly at Hogwarts, Mr. Potter. Your mother was one of the finest students I ever taught. I expect great things from you."
Harry felt something warm bloom in his chest. "Thank you, Professor."
McGonagall turned and walked down the cobblestone path. Her green robes caught the last of the evening light, and her stride was long and certain, and she did not look back.
Natasha watched her until she reached the edge of the wards and vanished.
Then she closed the door.
"You didn't have to wait three seconds before answering," she said, walking back toward the kitchen. "I saw you counting."
"She came a long way. It felt rude to answer too fast."
Natasha's mouth twitched. She sat back down at the table and picked up her fork. Her plate was still half full. Harry's was empty, of course, because he had inhaled it with the urgency of a boy who suspected he might miss something important.
"She knew my mum," Harry said, sitting across from her.
"She did." Natasha cut a potato in half. "Minerva McGonagall is one of the most accomplished witches in Britain, too stubborn when she thinks shes right.
"Sounds like someone else I know."
Natasha looked up. Her eyes narrowed. "Watch it."
Harry grinned.
"She said she expects great things from me," he said, quieter now.
Natasha set her fork down and looked at him.
"So do I," she said.
Harry looked at her, this woman with the red hair and the sharp green eyes who had driven to Privet Drive a year ago and changed everything, and he thought that no matter what Hogwarts had waiting for him, no matter what great things were expected, the greatest thing that had already happened was sitting across the table from him, eating lamb chops and pretending she wasn't proud.
"Diagon Alley tomorrow?" he asked.
"Diagon Alley tomorrow," Natasha confirmed. "Eat your pudding first."
"I already finished everything."
"Then have seconds. You burned twelve hundred calories on that hill this morning, and I'm not sending you to a magical shopping district on an empty stomach."
Harry reached for the serving dish, and the evening settled around them, warm and ordinary, and the knock on the door was already becoming a memory.
Natasha took him by Side-Along Apparition, which was, without question, the worst way to travel that Harry had ever experienced, and he had once been stuffed in the boot of Vernon's car during a trip to the garden centre.
One moment he was standing in the kitchen at Willowmere Hollow, his hand gripping Natasha's arm. The next, the world compressed into a tube of suffocating darkness, his body folded in on itself from every direction, and then he was standing on a cobblestone street with his knees buckling and his breakfast threatening to make a reappearance.
"Breathe," Natasha said, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. "It gets easier."
"That's what you said about planks," Harry gasped. "You were lying then too."
The street in front of him was narrow, winding, and packed with people. Witches and wizards moved in every direction, robes of every colour, hats of every shape, voices overlapping in a wall of sound that hit Harry like a wave. Shop fronts lined both sides, stacked and crooked and leaning into each other, with signs that swung in the breeze and windows full of things that moved and glittered and, in one case, appeared to be breathing.
Diagon Alley.
Harry had read about it. Natasha had described it. He had imagined it a hundred times, sitting in his study with the books on the shelves and the photograph of his parents on the wall.
It was better than he'd imagined.
"Stay close," Natasha said. "We have a list. We stick to the list. We don't wander off and we don't draw attention."
Their first stop was Gringotts, the wizarding bank. It was an enormous white marble building at the end of the alley, guarded by goblins in scarlet and gold uniforms who looked at Harry with expressions that suggested they had seen everything and were impressed by none of it. Natasha handled the vault visit with her usual efficiency: she spoke to the goblins in short, precise sentences, produced a small golden key, and led Harry down into the underground vaults in a cart that moved so fast he forgot to be scared and just laughed.
The Potter vault was not small. Harry stood in the doorway and stared at piles of gold Galleons, silver Sickles, and bronze Knuts stacked in columns that reached his waist.
"This is mine?" he asked.
"Your parents left it for you." Natasha handed him a leather pouch. "Take what you need. Don't be stupid with it."
Harry filled the pouch and tried not to think about the fact that he had gone from having nothing to having a vault full of gold in the space of a year, because if he thought about it too long, his head started to spin.
They worked through the list. Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, where a cheerful witch measured Harry for his school robes while he stood on a stool and Natasha waited by the door, arms crossed, watching every person who walked past. The Apothecary, which smelled strongly of things Harry didn't want to identify and where they bought a basic potions kit: scales, phials, a mortar and pestle, and ingredients that included dried nettles and crushed snake fangs. Flourish and Blotts, the bookshop, where they bought every textbook on the list and where Harry had to be physically steered away from a display of advanced Defence Against the Dark Arts texts that Natasha told him he wasn't ready for yet.
"Yet," Harry repeated.
"Yet," she confirmed, and kept walking.
They bought parchment, quills, and ink. They bought a cauldron, pewter, standard size two. They bought a set of brass scales and a collapsible telescope, though Harry already had a better one at home.
And then, at the bottom of the list, the item Harry had been thinking about since the moment he opened his Hogwarts letter.
A wand.
Ollivanders stood at the narrow end of the alley, its paint peeling, its single window dusty, and a faded gold sign reading: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. The shop looked like it had been old when the street was built and had simply decided to keep going.
A bell chimed when they entered. The shop was small and dim, lined floor to ceiling with narrow boxes stacked in rows that went back farther than seemed possible. The air tasted like dust.
An old man appeared from somewhere in the shelves. He had pale, wide eyes that shone in the dim light, and he moved silently, as if the floor didn't quite apply to him.
"Ah," said Mr. Ollivander, and his gaze went to Harry's forehead. "Yes. I wondered when I'd be seeing you, Mr. Potter."
Harry said nothing. The man's eyes were unsettling.
"It seems only yesterday your mother and father were in here buying their first wands." Ollivander's voice was soft and precise. "Your mother favoured willow. Ten and a quarter inches. Swishy. Excellent for charm work. Your father, on the other hand, mahogany. Eleven inches. Pliable. A powerful wand for Transfiguration."
He turned to Natasha. Something shifted in his expression.
"Ms. Evans," he said. "Ebony and dragon heartstring. Twelve and three-quarter inches. Unyielding. A wand for someone who does not bend."
"I don't," Natasha said.
"No," Ollivander agreed. "You never did."
The fitting took nearly forty minutes. Ollivander pulled box after box from the shelves and handed Harry wand after wand, each one snatched back almost immediately. "No, no." "Definitely not." "Perhaps... no." Holly, maple, ash, beech. Phoenix feather, unicorn hair, dragon heartstring. Nothing worked. The wands felt wrong in Harry's hand, dead or resistant, and more than once Ollivander took one back before Harry could even wave it.
Then Ollivander paused. He looked at Harry for a long moment, then disappeared into the back of the shop and returned with a single box.
"Holly and phoenix feather," he said quietly. "Eleven inches. Nice and supple."
Harry took the wand.
The moment his fingers closed around it, he felt it. A warmth that started in his palm and rushed up his arm, flooding his chest, filling the space where his core lived. The wand hummed. Not with sound. With something deeper, something that resonated with the energy he had spent a year learning to sense. Red and gold sparks shot from the tip and cascaded to the floor.
"Oh, bravo," Ollivander whispered. "Yes. Yes, that's the one."
Harry held the wand and felt complete in a way the practice wand had never managed. This was different. This was his.
"Curious," Ollivander said, almost to himself. "Very curious."
"What's curious?" Harry asked.
"I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr. Potter. The phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand gave another feather. Just one other. It is curious that you should be destined for this wand when its brother gave you that scar."
The shop went very quiet.
"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter," Ollivander said. "We can expect great things from you."
Harry paid seven Galleons and left the shop with his wand in his hand and a heaviness in his chest that he couldn't quite name.
Outside, Natasha was waiting. She looked at the wand, then at Harry's face, and said nothing about whatever she saw there. Instead, she nodded toward a shop across the street.
"One more stop. Eeylops Owl Emporium. You'll need an owl for post at school."
The shop was full of owls of every size and colour sat on perches and in cages, watching Harry with round, unblinking eyes. Barn owls, tawny owls, screech owls, great greys. Harry walked the aisles slowly, looking at each one, until he stopped in front of a cage near the back.
A snowy owl sat inside, white with amber eyes and an expression of severe intelligence. She looked at Harry, and Harry looked at her, and something passed between them that he couldn't explain but didn't need to.
"That one," he said.
Natasha glanced at the owl. "She's got a temper. Look at the way she's watching the others."
"I like her."
"Of course you do."
Harry paid and carried the cage out into the alley. The owl watched everything from behind the bars with calm, predatory interest.
"She needs a name," Harry said.
He thought about it. He thought about the books he'd read in the cupboard, the ones that had kept him alive when nothing else could. The stolen copy of The Hobbit. The Lord of the Rings, borrowed from the school library so many times the librarian had stopped asking. The white owl looked regal and fierce and ancient, and there was only one name that fit.
"Galadriel," he said.
Natasha looked at him.
"Lady of Light," Harry said. "From Tolkien. She's powerful and beautiful and nobody messes with her."
The owl ruffled her feathers, which Harry took as approval.
"Galadriel," Natasha repeated. She looked at the owl, then at Harry. "Fine. But if she bites me, I'm calling her something else."
They were crossing back through the alley, Harry carrying Galadriel's cage and Natasha carrying the bulk of the shopping, when a voice called out
"Harry? Harry Potter?"
A girl was standing outside Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour. She was about his age, with a round face, reddish-brown hair pulled into a plait, and wide, earnest eyes. She was wearing a light summer cloak and holding an ice cream cone that was dripping onto her wrist.
Harry didn't recognize her, but he stopped.
"Susan Bones." She stuck out her free hand, then realized it was the ice cream hand and switched. "Sorry. My aunt told me you lived near us. Well, near our house. She said I might see you here."
"Who's your aunt? Maybe I know her?"
"Amelia Bones, have you ever heard of her?"
"I know her a little bit she is Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Harry said, and he saw Natasha glance at him sideways with something that might have been approval. "Natasha told me. She said your family were good people."
Susan looked past Harry at Natasha, and her expression shifted into something between awe and nervousness. "You're Natasha Evans. My aunt talks about you."
"Does she," Natasha said. It was not a question.
"She says you're one of the most capable witches she's ever met." Susan paused. "She also says you're terrifying."
"Your aunt is a perceptive woman." Natasha's mouth didn't move, but her eyes warmed by half a degree. "Are you starting Hogwarts this year?"
"Yes. I just got my wand. Elm and unicorn hair." Susan held it up proudly.
"Good core for loyalty," Natasha said. "Take care of it."
Susan turned back to Harry. "Will you be on the train? On September first?"
"I'll be there," Harry said.
"Brilliant." She grinned. "Maybe we'll be in the same house. I'm hoping for Hufflepuff. My whole family's been Hufflepuff."
"I don't know what house I'll be in yet," Harry said, and the thought gave him a small, pleasant thrill of uncertainty.
"Well, find me on the train if you want," Susan said. "I'll save you a seat."
"I will," Harry said, and meant it.
They parted ways, and Harry followed Natasha back down the alley toward the Apparition point, Galadriel's cage swinging gently in his hand, his new wand tucked safely in the inside pocket of his jacket, next to the Hogwarts letter that still lived there.
The weeks passed. Harry trained. He ran up the hill. He practiced the spells Natasha had taught him and read every book in his study and tried not to count the days until September.
He counted them anyway.
On the morning of September the first, Harry stood on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters at King's Cross Station and stared at the Hogwarts Express.
It was scarlet, enormous, and beautiful. Steam poured from its engine and billowed across the platform, and through the haze Harry could see hundreds of students and their families: trunks being loaded, owls hooting, parents hugging children, voices calling across the crowd.
Natasha stood beside him. She had dressed for the occasion in her usual black, leather jacket over a dark jumper, her red hair loose around her shoulders. She looked exactly like what she was: someone you didn't want to cross.
"You have everything?" she asked.
"Everything."
"Wand?"
"In my pocket."
"Books?"
"In the trunk."
"The thing I taught you last week?"
Harry met her eyes. The spell she had spent the final weeks of summer drilling into him, the one she wouldn't let him board the train without learning.
"I remember," he said.
Natasha looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached out and put her hand on his shoulder, the way she had the very first day at Willowmere Hollow, and squeezed once.
"Write to me," she said.
"Every week."
"Don't let anyone push you around."
"I won't."
"And Harry." Her green eyes held his. "Be brave. But be smart first."
Harry nodded. His throat was tight, and he didn't trust himself to speak, so he did the only thing that felt right. He stepped forward and hugged her.
Natasha went still for a moment. Then her arms came around him, and she held him, firm and warm, and Harry pressed his face against her shoulder and breathed in the smell of coffee and leather and the faint herbal scent that meant home.
She let go first. She always let go first.
"Go," she said, and her voice was steady, but her eyes were bright.
Harry picked up his trunk, tucked Galadriel's cage under his arm, and walked toward the train. He found a compartment, heaved his trunk onto the rack, and sat by the window.
The whistle blew. The train lurched forward.
Harry pressed his hand against the glass and looked out at the platform, where Natasha stood with her arms crossed and her red hair catching the light, watching him go.
She raised one hand. Just barely.
Harry raised his back.
The train pulled away from the station, and the platform shrank, and Natasha shrank with it, and then the train rounded a bend, and she was gone.
Harry sat back in his seat. His wand was in his pocket. His owl dozed beside him. The countryside was beginning to roll past the window, green and gold and enormous.
He was going to Hogwarts.
And he was ready.
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