Can Things Change

“Chapter 3 - Letters From No One,” Fabian started.

“Ahh, good times,” Aurora laughed, earning chuckles from Neville and Fred who had heard some of the stories about Aurora trying to get her letter.

The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Aurora her longest-ever punishment. By the time she was allowed out of her cupboard again, the summer holidays had started

“His birthday is the end of June,” Hermione asked, a soft seething starting in her voice.

“Yes,” Aurora answered hesitantly.

“You were locked in that cupboard for A MONTH!” she shouted. 

“Well, I mean I was let out to go to school.” Aurora replied, shying away from her irate friend.

“Because that makes it so much better,” Ginny said sarcastically. 

 and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches. 

Aurora was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Dudley's gang, who visited the house every single day. Piers, Dennis, Malcolm, and Gordon were all big and stupid, but as Dudley was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, he was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Dudley's favorite sport: Aurora Hunting. 

This was why Aurora spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where she could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came she would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in her life, she wouldn't be with Dudley. Dudley had been accepted at Uncle Vernon's old private school, Smeltings. 

“How in the world did he manage to get in there?” Ted asked, “That is an elite school, and we’ve already seen that this child can’t do basic math.”

“Other than tests, I did all his school work for him,” Aurora explained, “plus Uncle Vernon did go there, and I believe that he donated a lot of money to get Dudley in.”

Piers Polkiss was going there too. Aurora, on the other hand, was going to Stonewall High, the local public school. Dudley thought this was very funny. 

"They stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall," he told Aurora. "Want to come upstairs and practice?" 

"No, thanks," said Aurora. "The poor toilet's never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick." Then she ran, before Dudley could work out what she'd said.

“You sound just like your mother there,” Alice said. “She can be quite cheeky.”

“She got her mother’s temper too,” Ron added, ducking out of the way of a swat headed towards him from both Aurora and Hermione. “You would swear that she’s a natural redhead with her temper sometimes.”

“Only once she gets past the seething disappointed angry,” Hermione added.

“She gets that from James,” Sirius said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Dudley to London to buy his Smeltings uniform, leaving Aurora at Mrs. Figg's. Mrs. Figg wasn't as bad as usual. It turned out she'd broken her leg tripping over one of her cats, and she didn't seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Aurora watch television, and gave her several etiquette lessons that she said Aurora would need in the future, how to curtsy and how to shake people’s hands, and how it is appropriate for a lady to wear their hair, and after the lesson gave her a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she'd had it for several years. 

Remus whimpered, “That poor chocolate.”

That evening, Dudley paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Smeltings' boys wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren't looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life. 

“You would think that Petunia would see the parallel in her son walking around with a wooden stick that is training for later in life,” Lily snarked, causing Aurora to let out a bark of laughter.

“Oh I can’t wait to tell that to Dudley,” Aurora whispered to Fred, however both Sirius and Remus heard.

As he looked at Dudley in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Vernon said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn't believe it was her Ickle Dudleykins, he looked so handsome and grown-up. Aurora didn't trust herself to speak. She thought two of her ribs might have re-cracked from trying not to laugh. 

There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Aurora went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. She went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water. 

"What's this?" she asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if she dared to ask a question. 

"Your new school uniform," she said. 

Aurora looked in the bowl again. 

"Oh," she said, "I didn't realize it had to be so wet." 

“She doesn’t understand sarcasm,” Snape sneered, “if anything it will only make her more angry than she normally is.”

“I love it when you get all sassy,” Fred laughed.

“You love it when I do a lot of things,” Aurora replied, running her hand up his leg.

“I do not want to know that about you two!” Ron yelled, switching places with Hermione on the couch.

"Don't be stupid," snapped Aunt Petunia, swinging her hand at Aurora, catching her unaware, her ring cutting Aurora’s cheek. "I'm dyeing some of Dudley's old things gray for you. It'll look just like everyone else's when I've finished." 

Aurora seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue, grabbing a towel to wipe the blood off. 

She sat down at the table and tried not to think about how she was going to look on her first day at Stonewall High — like she was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably. 

Dudley and Uncle Vernon came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Aurora's new uniform. Uncle Vernon opened his newspaper as usual and Dudley banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table. 

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat. 

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper. 

"Make Aurora get it." 

"Get the mail, girl." 

“Has he ever called you by your name?” Remus asked.

“Once or twice maybe,” Aurora said, contemplating, “I actually think this was the first day he ever did, usually it was girl or freak.”

"Make Dudley get it." 

"Poke her with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Aurora dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Vernon's sister Marge, who was vacationing on the Isle of Wight, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and — a letter for Aurora. 

“You grew up muggle though,” Flitwick said, looking from Aurora to Dumbledore. “Why were you sent a letter, not have one of the four heads come and give it to you.”

“It was assumed that I was told what I was,” Aurora answered, trying to not glare at the Headmaster who thought that magic hating muggles would tell her anything about her heritage, and then sending Hagrid to introduce her to the magic world instead of an actual teacher. She loved Hagrid, but even Aurora knew that he was not the best person to send to introduce a muggle born or raised person to the wizarding world.

Hermione grunted, “Well you know what they say about people who assume things.”

Aurora picked it up and stared at it, her heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in her whole life, had written to her. 

“But I wrote to you all the time,” Neville said. “Gran told me that mum is your godmother, plus you were the girl-who-lived, everyone wrote to you.”

“Mail redirection ward,” Aurora said, knowing that all the mail sent to her before she went to Hogwarts was redirected to Dumbledore. “I had it fixed before 3rd year.”

Who would? She had no friends, no other relatives — she didn't belong to the library, so she'd never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake: 

Miss A. Potter 

The Cupboard under the Stairs 4 Privet Drive 

Little Whinging 

Surrey 

“Well we apparently will be checking all the envelopes before they are sent out from now on,” McGonagall said to her other professors, receiving nods from Sprout and Flitwick.

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. 

There was no stamp. 

Turning the envelope over, her hand trembling, Aurora saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a lion, an eagle, a badger, and a snake surrounding a large letter H. 

Fabian was interrupted by the nursery door opening, and a small boy with light brown hair and purple eyes walked out looking confused. “Aun’ Rory,” he said quietly, his r’s sounding more like w’s.

Aurora jumped up and ran over to the boy, picking him up. “I’m right here Teddy. I thought you were asleep.”

“Bad dream,” the little boy said, snuggling into his godmother’s arms. Aurora just wrapped him tighter, carrying him back over to her seat, Fred wrapping his arms around the both of them, with Hermione placing a blanket over the three of them.

“I take it this is your godson you mentioned,” Sirius asked.

Aurora looked down at the sleeping boy in her arms and smiled. “This is Teddy.”

Fred smiled softly at his girlfriend, looking a little wistful, while everyone else was looking at Aurora and Teddy, waiting for her to explain more. Aurora just shook her head and said, “Seventh book,” hugging the boy closer once more, barely keeping her eyes from drifting to Remus.

Seeing they were going to get no more answers from the girl, Fabian cleared his throat and continued reading.

"Hurry up, girl!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?" He chuckled at his own joke. 

Aurora went back to the kitchen, still staring at her letter. She handed Uncle Vernon the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. 

Uncle Vernon ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard. "Marge's ill," he informed Aunt Petunia. "Ate a funny whelk…" 

"Dad!" said Dudley suddenly. "Dad, Aurora's got something!" 

“Snitch,” Peter said, causing Ron to almost growl at him if not for Hermione’s hand on his arm.

Aurora was on the point of unfolding her letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Vernon. 

"That's mine!" said Aurora, trying to snatch it back. 

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

“Might be an improvement,” Fred said, careful not to wake the sleeping child in Aurora’s arms.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped. 

Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise. 

"Vernon! Oh my goodness — Vernon!" 

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Aurora and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick. 

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly. 

"I want to read it," said Aurora furiously, "as it's mine." 

"Get out, both of you," croaked Uncle Vernon, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope. Aurora didn't move. 

"I WANT MY LETTER!" she shouted. 

“Ahh yes, I see Lily’s temper there,” Marlene said. “Always straight to yelling she is.” She added sticking her tongue out at her friend when Lily glared at her.

"Let me see it!" demanded Dudley. 

"OUT!" roared Uncle Vernon, and he took both Aurora and Dudley by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, her head bouncing off the wall as she slammed into it from the force of the throw, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Aurora and Dudley promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Dudley won, so Aurora, her glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on her stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. 

"Vernon," Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, "look at the address — how could they possibly know where she sleeps? You don't think they're watching the house?" 

"Watching — spying — might be following us," muttered Uncle Vernon wildly.

“Yes because that is what we do in our spare time,” Alastor grumbled, “spy on muggles.”

“Well maybe someone should have been watching the Dursleys if you were going to place the savior there,” Regulus snapped, he did not like what he was hearing about his brother’s goddaughters home life, and from the sounds of it she was more than that, she was going to be his niece as well.

"But what should we do, Vernon? Should we write back? Tell them we don't want —" Aurora could see Uncle Vernon's shiny black shoes pacing up and down the kitchen. 

"No," he said finally. "No, we'll ignore it. If they don't get an answer… Yes, that's best… we won't do anything…" 

"But —" 

"I'm not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn't we swear when we took her in we'd stamp out that dangerous nonsense?" 

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Vernon did something he'd never done before; he visited Aurora in her cupboard. 

"Where's my letter?" said Aurora, the moment Uncle Vernon had squeezed his head through the door. "Who's writing to me?" 

"No one. It was addressed to you by mistake," said Uncle Vernon shortly. 

"I have burned it." 

"It was not a mistake," said Aurora angrily, "it had my cupboard on it." 

"SILENCE!" yelled Uncle Vernon, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful. 

"Er — yes, Aurora — about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… you're really getting a bit big for it… we think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley's second bedroom. 

"Why?" said Aurora. Thinking that this is the first time she had ever heard her uncle say her name and not just call her girl. 

"Don't ask questions!" snapped his uncle. "Take this stuff upstairs, now." 

The Dursleys' house had four bedrooms: 

“There are four bedrooms in that house?” yelled the Marauders, Lily, Alice, Marlene, Molly, and Regulus.

one for Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Vernon's sister, Marge), one where Dudley slept, and one where Dudley kept all the toys and things that wouldn't fit into his first bedroom. It only took Aurora one trip upstairs to move everything she owned from the cupboard to this room. The only things she had were three changes of clothes, a light purple blanket with her name embroidered on it, and a stuffed black dog. It was the only toy that Aurora had ever been allowed to have, without sneaking Dudley’s old broken toys. She remembered hearing her Uncle complaining about how it should be given to Dudley but her Aunt had actually stood up for her and said that it was the only thing that had kept her from screaming when she was first dropped off, so she could keep the ugly thing. Aurora however thought the dog was the most wonderful thing in the world, and it felt like home to her.

She sat down on the old toddler bed, with no pillow and a thin blanket, and stared around her. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank Dudley had once driven over the next door neighbor's dog; in the corner was Dudley's first-ever television set, which he'd put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Dudley had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Dudley had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they'd never been touched. 

Hermione and Lily both whimpered at the thought.

From downstairs came the sound of Dudley bawling at his mother, "I don't want her in there… I need that room… make her get out…" 

Aurora sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday she'd have given anything to be up here. Today she'd rather be back in her cupboard with that letter than up here without it. 

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Dudley was in shock. He'd screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother, and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof, 

“That child needs some major discipline,” Molly scolded. “His behavior is completely unacceptable, hitting his own parents, and throwing a pet.”

and he still didn't have his room back. Aurora was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing she'd opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly. 

When the mail arrived, Uncle Vernon, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Aurora, made Dudley go and get it. 

They heard him banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then he shouted, "There's another one! 'Miss A. Potter, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —'" 

“Very discreet,” laughed Peter. “Why didn’t he just open it in the hall?”

With a strangled cry, Uncle Vernon leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Aurora right behind him. Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Aurora had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind.

“Gotta get that practice in early, huh Ro,” Ron said.

“Well it is how I knew what to do,” Aurora laughed, with Hermione and Neville snickering, and Amice trying to hide a smile in Draco’s shoulder.

After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Vernon straightened up, gasping for breath, with Aurora's letter clutched in his hand. 

"Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom," he wheezed at Aurora. "Dudley — go — just go." 

Aurora walked round and round her new room. Someone knew she had moved out of her cupboard and they seemed to know she hadn't received her first letter. Surely that meant they'd try again? And this time she'd make sure they didn't fail. She had a plan. 

“Well that’s never gonna work,” Draco said.

“You don’t even know what the plan is,” Sirius said, looking confused.

“No but it’s one of Ray’s plans,” Ginny added. “If Ray is the main contributor to a plan, just expect it to not work.”

“My plans work just fine, thank you very much,” Aurora defended.

Amice just looked at her for a second before saying one word, “Dragon’s.”

Aurora just blushed and looked away, while the Marauders looked worried, what was Aurora doing around dragons. Multiple, by the sounds of it.

“Mommy, I wanna see a dragon,” Charlie piped up from where he was sitting, looking at Molly with longing. Fred, Ron and Ginny just laughed.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o'clock the next morning. Aurora turned it off quickly and dressed silently. She mustn't wake the Dursleys. She stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights. 

She was going to wait for the postman on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. 

“That’s not a bad plan, too bad it isn’t going to work,” Ron chuckled.

Her heart hammered as she crept across the dark hall toward the front door — 

"AAAAARRRGH!" 

Aurora leapt into the air; she'd trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive! 

Lights clicked on upstairs and to her horror Aurora realized that the big, squashy something had been her uncle's face. Uncle Vernon had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Aurora didn't do exactly what she'd been trying to do. He shouted at Aurora for about half an hour and then told her to go and make a cup of tea with a smack around the head. Aurora shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time she got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Vernon's lap. Aurora could see three letters addressed in green ink. 

"I want —" she began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before her eyes. Uncle Vernon didn't go to work that day. 

He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot. 

"See," he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, "if they can't deliver them they'll just give up." 

"I'm not sure that'll work, Vernon." 

"Oh, these people's minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they're not like you and me," said Uncle Vernon, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him. 

“He should really listen to her. She obviously knows what she’s talking about,” Pandora sighed.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Aurora. As they couldn't go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom. 

Uncle Vernon stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" as he worked, and jumped at small noises. 

On Saturday, things began to get out of hand. Twenty-four letters to Aurora found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two-dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. 

“I wanna know what a Professor hasn’t gone yet,” Barty grumbled. This was getting out of hand, and starting to become a matter of secrecy if the letters are replacing actual eggs.

While Uncle Vernon made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor. 

"Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?" Dudley asked Aurora in amazement. 

“A lot of people,” Amice said. “I think I sent four or five letters to you and Cedric sent one or two a year after he learned to write.”

Aurora looked down sadly, grabbing for her necklace.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Vernon sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. 

"No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, "no damn letters today —"

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Dursleys ducked, but Aurora leapt into the air trying to catch one — 

“Again with the practice,” Ron laughed.

"Out! OUT!" 

Uncle Vernon seized Aurora around the waist and threw her into the hall, her head hitting the same spot making her see stars for a few seconds. When Aunt Petunia and Dudley had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Vernon slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

"That does it," said Uncle Vernon, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. "I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We're going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!" 

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the car, speeding toward the highway. Dudley was sniffling in the back seat; his father had hit him round the head for holding them up while he tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag. 

“Spoiled brat,” Frank said.

They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn't dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Vernon would take a sharp turn and drive in the opposite direction for a while. 

"Shake 'em off… shake 'em off," he would mutter whenever he did this. 

They didn't stop to eat or drink all day. This was day two of no food for Aurora as punishment for the letters showing up like they had been, between replacing the eggs and flying out of the fireplace. 

“Two days with no food,” Lily cried, clutching James’ hand. “My baby.” Aurora refrained from telling her that two days was nothing, and that she had gone much longer.

By nightfall Dudley was howling. He'd never had such a bad day in his life. He was hungry, he'd missed five television programs he'd wanted to see, and he'd never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer. 

Uncle Vernon stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Dudley and Aurora shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Dudley snored but Aurora stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing cars and wondering… 

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day, and they immediately came back up from the lack of food the prior two days. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table. 

"'Scuse me, but is one of you Miss A. Potter? Only I got about an 'undred of these at the front desk." 

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address: 

Miss A. Potter 

Room 17 

Railview Hotel 

Cokeworth 

Aurora made a grab for the letter but Uncle Vernon knocked her hand out of the way, breaking a couple of fingers in the process. The woman stared. 

“Is she not going to do something,” Andromeda asked. “You have obviously just been hurt, and he is obviously not a Miss.”

“He was about three times the size of her, and looked more than a little crazy, I don’t blame her for not doing anything to help me.”

"I'll take them," said Uncle Vernon, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room. 

"Wouldn't it be better just to go home, dear?" Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Vernon didn't seem to hear her. 

Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the car, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage. 

"Daddy's gone mad, hasn't he?" Dudley asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon.

Aurora couldn't help herself, "Daddy's always been mad," she told her cousin in a mocking tone. 

“Punish the girl for me Dudley,” Uncle Vernon said, and Dudley didn’t even hesitate before punching her in the face, breaking her nose.

James, Lily and Sirius cried out in horror.

Uncle Vernon had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the car, and disappeared. It started to rain. Great drops beat on the roof of the car. Dudley sniveled. 

"It's Monday," he told his mother. "The Great Humberto's on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television." 

Monday. This reminded Aurora of something. If it was Monday — and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Aurora's eleventh birthday. 

Of course, her birthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Dursleys had given her a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks. Still, you weren't eleven every day. 

Everyone frowned, eleven was a big birthday for a witch or wizard, and here Aurora’s was just being ignored. The Marauders were all thinking of plans that they could do for all of her birthdays to make up for all the ones the Dursleys forgot.

Uncle Vernon was back and he was smiling. 

He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn't answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he'd bought. 

"Found the perfect place!" he said. "Come on! Everyone out!" 

It was very cold outside the car. Uncle Vernon was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there. 

"Storm forecast for tonight!" said Uncle Vernon gleefully, clapping his hands together. "And this gentleman's kindly agreed to lend us his boat!" 

A toothless old man came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them. 

"I've already got us some rations," said Uncle Vernon, "so all aboard!" 

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces, making Aurora’s nose hurt even worse with the biting cold. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Vernon, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house. 

“That is no place to take children,” Columba cried.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms. 

Uncle Vernon's rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas, and the chips and two bananas went to Dudley with Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia eating the other two bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up. 

"Could do with some of those letters now, eh?" he said cheerfully. 

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. 

Everyone just shook their heads knowing how wrong Vernon was.

Aurora privately agreed, though the thought didn't cheer her up at all. 

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Dudley on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Vernon went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Aurora was left to find the softest bit of floor she could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket. 

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Aurora couldn't sleep. She shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, her stomach rumbling with hunger. Dudley's snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Dudley's watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Aurora she'd be eleven in ten minutes' time. She lay and watched her birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Dursleys would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now. 

Five minutes to go. Aurora heard something creak outside. She hoped the roof wasn't going to fall in, although she might be warmer if it did. 

Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that she'd be able to steal one somehow. 

Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea? 

One minute to go and she'd be eleven. Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… nine — maybe she'd wake Dudley up, just to annoy him 

— three… two… one… 

BOOM. 

Fabian had yelled the word, and quickly apologized seeing the glare aimed his way from Aurora, luckily Teddy continued to sleep.

The whole shack shivered and Aurora sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in. 

“That’s the end of this chapter,” Fabian said.

Aurora stood with Teddy still in her arms, “We will continue tomorrow,” she said and started walking to the hallway off the main room. “There are rooms for everyone, the room knows what is needed.” Fred got up and followed after her, ignoring the glares that he was receiving from James and Sirius. 

“There’s bathroom’s attached to all the bedrooms. Those with children, their rooms will open into yours. Alice, Lily and Marlene you all will share a room. Marauders, you and Frank are sharing,” Hermione started explaining. “Severus, Regulus and Barty, you three are together as well. Pandora and Xenophilius, do you mind sharing?” They both shook their heads, and Hermione smiled, “great. Everyone else has their own rooms. Please sleep well, and we will see you all for breakfast in the morning.”

With that all the time travelers got up and headed to their rooms, Ron and Hermione pairing off, Neville with Luna, Draco with Amice, while Ginny grumbled, “Wish we had brought Blaise as well.”