Fall 1991

Marlene shook her head at the letter Minerva had owled them earlier that same day. They’d both read over it twice but it was still a lot to take in. They’d gone into the year expecting some wild letters detailing Harry’s first year escapades, but a troll? Really?

“I swear I never encountered a troll during my academic career.” Sirius sighed. This kid was intent on giving them a run for their money.

“Right and of course you’d have gone looking”

“As if you wouldn’t have.”

“No you’re right. Our Harry comes by it completely honestly.”

Sirius looked sad for a moment. It was always a question in his mind how much Harry was like the parents who’d given him life and how much he was like the couple who’d ended up raising him. He hoped James and Lily would be proud of the way their boy had grown. In truth he was like all four of them.

“Lily wouldn’t have gone looking for a troll. But it seems like the little girl who just happened to be in the bathroom was just as vital in bringing the thing to heel.”

“Well it’ll be good for Harry to have a friend like that. I do hope that he and the Weasley boy keep her around.”

Harry had a long history with Ron Weasley, Marlene recalled. The pair of them were fast asleep in Ron’s crib at the burrow the night that Sirius finally admitted that he loved her. Back when everyone was still alive… it was hard to think about those days.

With the help of a mind healer and the patchwork family that came together in the wake of tragedy, Marlene was a happy person, but not the same person she’d been when her family was alive and she was just a teenager, unknowingly meeting the baby boy who she’d raise.

“I’m certain they will. Fighting a troll today together and all. That’s a little like the Marauders origin… I mean we were only fighting Avery and Snape, but…they looked quite a lot like trolls?”

Sirius’s face dropped. The whole experience of sending Harry off to his first year of Hogwarts brought up painful memories for them both. It was to this day, difficult for Sirius to reconcile the image of Peter Pettigrew, the bumbling little boy with whom he shared a dorm for 7 years, with the fact he betrayed James and Lily and tried to frame Sirius. He was a murderer and a backstabbing little rat on the run, but he had also been their friend once. He had been the one they’d been trying to defend, that day in 1st year. James was his fiercest defender… and he still trusted him to the end. What had happened?

It was a pointless rumination. He shook himself out of it. They were here and now and Harry had recently stuck his wand up the nostril of a troll.

“Where’d the troll even come from?” Marlene mused. Absentmindedly pulling at one of her springy spiral curls.

“I dunno. Maybe the troll market? Trolls n things?”

Sirius had laughter growing in his eyes. It was one of the things that Marlene loved most about him. They could always make each other laugh, no matter what challenges life presented them with. Laughter that started with a glint in steel grey eyes was the constant in her life that she was most grateful for.

“Ah yes. Someone just went out and got one at the shop and left it in the loo. Seems as logical an answer as any” She set the letter down and found her way to her husband’s lap, and pressed her forehead against his. They were a good team. Parenting this kid was bumpier than a ride on the night bus, but they would always have each other to hold onto along the way.

“This shouldn’t be funny. He could have been badly hurt.” Sirius chided. He was surprisingly mother-hen-ish when it came Harry, but Marlene knew that didn’t actually render him humorless.

“But he wasn’t. So it sort of is…”

“Yeah… We should write to him. What’s the done thing for a kid’s first conflict with a troll? Do we send chocolates? A howler?”

“Why not both?”

“I love you, you know that? I couldn’t do this without you.”

“You’ll never have to.”