This way comes
Summary : So, a magnificent Gryffindor, a gentle Ravenclaw, a just Slytherin and a valiant Hufflepuff walk into a magical castle...stop me if you already know that one. Reincarnated Pevensies at Hogwarts AU, Marauders Era. Post 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' AU
Rated : T
Pairings : Canon pairings : James/Lily, one-sided Severus/Lily, Frank L/Alice, Andromeda/Ted T, Narcissa/Lucius, Molly/Arthur.
Disclaimer : Neither Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia belong to me
Author note : English still isn't not my first language.
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July 2018 EDIT: Since I wasn't happy about it, I've recently rewritten chapter 1. It's not beta'ed yet, and you don't need to reread it to understand the rest.
Love, muffin
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Chapter 1: 31th of July
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I finally snapped two days before my seventh birthday. A boy with more courage than common sense, said something about my mother and I threw myself at him. Blood dripped from Gibbins' broken nose, red and warm like the sky at dusk over the battlefield, like Susan's lips in winter, like the wound festering on Edmund's chest, like the flowers in Lucy's golden mane.
I stared at my own hand, bruised with the hit and speckelled with tiny red tears, and I knew. I knew my dreams about Narnia, about Aslan, about the four children weren't dreams at all. I finally recognized the invisible hurt for what it was, the symptom of a disease I couldn't understand. The wound had always been there, throbbing and crushing in silence. I simply had no name to put on the cavity carved in my chest, no explanation for the feeling of loss plaguing my dreams
Now I had a name, and it was Pevensie.
Our teacher grabbed my arm harshly, forced me on my shaking knees and straight to the Provisor's office. I barely remembered what they yelled at me for attacking my classmate, my mind twirling with memories of a life I had forgotten about. What was I even doing here, playing the life of an ordinary boy when my country, my siblings needed me?
The next morning, I was gone. It took me the whole day to reach the Old Professor's house. The mansion was empty, the professor had apparently long died. His heritage went to his twice removed niece, who cared little about it. I sneaked into the House without any difficulties. And I went to the spareroom in the second-floor. The wardrobe stood right there, covered in dust but otherwise intact. I opened the door, and I threw myself into the old fur coats with the reckless abandon of those who have nothing to loose.
I hit my head into the wooden back wall. There was nothing here.
Nothing at all. I was alone.
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I. Something Magnificient
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The day Martha Andrews saw her first patient die, she went home and made a cup of tea. One cup turned into two, then three, then a whole teapot. She spent the whole night in her kitchen, near her oven, brewing and sipping and starting again. Rince and repeat, until the bitterness of tea on her tongue matched the bitterness festering in her mind.
The day her husband left her and their son for another woman, Martha retreated in her kitchen and made tea. Literally litters of tea, six teapots everyday for a whole week, until the the smell of mint and jasmine had covered the enormity of the loss. All things considered, she gathered they were worst ways to cope. Some drowned their misery in alcohol, others in drugs, in games, in sex. In comparison, an unhealthy addiction to such a beverage only put her kidneys in jeopardy.
And so the day Minerva McGonagall, deputy headmistress of the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardly showed herself on her door, Martha politely smiled, invited her in her house and made tea.
Her hand didn't shook when she offered the stern looking woman a cup. Martha had enough anxious habits to cover an entire wing of the psychiatric ward, but with a needle or a teacup in her hand, her body never betrayed her.
"Ah, thank you," Mrs McGonagall said as she accepted gracefully the cup.
They all took a sip. Including her son, who hated the taste vindically. Martha felt her nerves settle for a time, falling back into her control, carving under the soothing pressure of sheer routine.
"You made an excellent brew, Mrs Andrews," the fifty-something old woman cleared her throat.
Ah. The marvels of civility. English women could spent entire afternoons dancing around the subject without speaking their mind once. "Thank you, I'm glad you like it."
"Darjeeling made an excellent brew," Peter mumbled pettily into his hand like every pre-teens owed to.
Both Mrs McGonagall and herself gave her son The Look, in a perfectly synchronized move. At the very least, Martha had no doubt left regarding this woman spending an extensive amount of time around teenagers.
"So," Martha ignored her son's impatience. "I believe you were saying something about...magic."
The porcelain under-cup clasped on the wooden table. "Indeed. Mrs Andrew, perhaps have you noticed some...oddities about your son. Strange things happening, without logical explanation, such as object levitating, or changing color."
Martha straightened without replying. She wished so deeply to dismiss this strange woman as insane, to ignore the doors opened and to burry it all in the same place she hid her doubts and insecurities. But she couldn't.
Because to be honest, her son had always been a bit weird. Such a good boy, mature for his age, always so understanding of Martha's shortcomings. Too much understanding. Peter had to deal with his father leaving them when he was barely five, and his mother working double shifts to make ends meet, and he never complained, not once. He helped with the house like no child should have to, he cleaned and cooked, all the while making his homework and going to school on his own, always with a smile for his mum.
But even before her husband's Great Escape, Peter had been a strange child. Jokingly, Matthew used to say their son had the eyes of a old man, serious and judging. And Martha couldn't deny he had a point.
And there had been, of course, incidents. Glasses exploding inexplicably when her boy was angry, for instance. One of her more insistant unwanted suitors turning bald overnight after acting particulary intrusive in front of Peter. In a way, it felt relieving to finally have an explanation for all the things she couldn't even begin to understand. In all the other ways, Martha was just downright terrified.
"Those strange things happening are what we call outbursts of accidental magic," the so-called witch went on with her explanation, with a discreet sympathic glance to Martha. "Perfectly normal for magical children."
Next to her, she could feel the apple of her eyes silently vibrating with excitement. Martha always had know that, somehow, Peter had been waiting all his life for something to happen. And right now, this something was happening.
"Magic, you say," he repeated with a false flippancy, before his voice turned way too charismatic and authoritative for the usual eleven-year old boys. "Prove it."
McGonagall, non-plussed, simply rose one eyebrow, while taking a long wood stick from her pocket. Then, she waved her stick, mumbled something in latin, and the cup she had been holding five minutes ago, the one from the set Martha received from her awful aunt Cecile, began to levitate.
Martha liked to believe she had an well-groomed life. Not an exceedingly happy one, certainly not a perfect one, not even an exciting one, but a tidy, busy, rationnalized life, with a job to do, a few friends to brighten her days and a son to provide for. There wasn't lot of space left for fantasy in it, and Martha didn't mind since she'd never been inclined to daydreaming in the first place. It wasn't perfect, and a bit boring, but it was hers, and that witch with her wand and her non-nonsense attitude and her magic had no right to trample recklessly on it, like it was nothing.
Peter, of couse, was ecstatic.
"Awesome," he whispered reverently, a familiar glint of curiosity and exitement in his blue eyes. "I could that too?"
"Yes, if you come learning at Hogwarts," the witch answered with a tiny smile, before giving her likely futur student a waxed-sealed letter, as you do. "This is your acceptance letter. You will find the list of necessary books and equipment within."
Peter hastily opened his letter with barely contained glee. "Dear Mister Andrews, we are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he red out loud for her sake.
Martha was at least three teacups too soon for this madness.
"A school...to learn magic?" she repeated uselessly. "But where? And I don't have a lot of money..."
"Hogwarts is located in Scottland," the professor interrupted her confused rambling. "And scholarship are proposed for families in financial difficulties."
Funny how more the older woman spoke, more Martha lost grip on her fragile sense of reality. "But..but...I don't..."
Peter put back his letter to hold her shoulders and looked at her right in the eyes. "Mum, it's alright. Don't freak out. Everything is fine. I'm not leaving you. But I really want to go."
Of course he did. He had waited his all life for this. All the longing stares, the unusually serious faces, he had been expecting something to happen. He would never have settled for a well-groomed life, her Peter, even without magic barging into their life.
"Let's say hypothically I say no..." Martha cautiously drew a breathe, her throat throbbing with anxiety. "What would happen?"
The Headmistress' expression ruled itself into a study in stern politeness. "It depends on Peter's opinion. If he wishes to go, his choice prevails upon yours..."
"I'm his mother, and he's eleven," she frowned, without aknowlegding her son's disgusted pout at the reminder. "I'm the adult here."
"Indeed," McGongall blinked owlishly. "However, due to previous incidents with muggleborn children whose parents didn't quite...understood the situation, laws had been set in place to allow them to go to magical schools regardless."
A nice speech to cover that fact that because Martha wasn't a magical person, she was considered too stupid to make rational decision about her own son. Martha might not know anything about the magical world, but she knew a lot about humankind. Humans had the debilitating habit to think of people in term of groups: if you were in, everything was fine. If you were out however, you were an outsider, an intruder, lesser.
In Martha's case, she was clearly of the lesser category.
God, she couldn't do this, she just couldn't do this. If one woman could casually fuck up gravity with a flick of the wrist, what else would her kind do to Martha should she refuse to cooperate? A new, potentially dangerous world had opened its doors to Peter, and she knew nothing of it.
"Muggleborn?" Peter repeated the unknow term curiously.
"Children born from Muggles. The wizarding word for non magical people," the teacher explained easely.
Muggle. It sounded like an insult. The same way someone might say 'worm' or 'scum'.
"And what if I say no?" Peter asked, most likely for her sake. His excited expression had closed of into polite hostility, and a sharp glint lurked beneath those blue eyes Martha had no idea came from.
"Then you're under no obligation to go to Hogwarts. However you still have to attend mandatory classes with the Ministary to learn how to control your gift. Magic, when ignored, had a tendency to backlash. Letting magical children utterly untrained is too dangerous for everyone involved."
"I see," her son neutrally replied.
It wasn't like Martha had a choice in the first place. She might be out, but her son was half-way in already, wether they liked it or not. One step in her world, one step in theirs, where Martha could not follow.
But once again, it had always been the case anyway, hadn't it.
"Very well," she sighed, resigned. "We will try this...Hogwarts."
Peter beamed with the force of a thousand suns.
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II. Something Gentle
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The treehouse, nested at the top of the Sweet Plum tree was closer of a treemansion in size than anything else. But that was the Black way for you, it wasn't worth being called a house without at least two stories, a small tower, three security spells and a waterproof jinx.
It was also the only proof Sirius ever got that his father did have a soul after all, deep, deep down. Even the mighty Orion Black couldn't resist the combined force of his children and niece's puppy eyes.
And so five years ago, Cair Paravel had been built at the back of Grimmault Place's stark garden. Sirius' mother of course hated the whole thing with a passion. She justified her reluctance by saying playpretending was 'above the offspring of the Noble and Ancient House Black' but really, she just couldn't stand the thought of Sirius having fun, or Morgana forbid, being happy. Well screw her, Sirius would be happy or die trying, if only to spite her.
Sirius ran across the yard, dodging the Neck-Strangling Vine thanks to sheer habit and caught sight of a familiar pair of red ballerina dangling from the treehouse. Yep, yep, she had definitely taken refuge up in Cair Paravel, where Walpurga Black would never condescend to go, and she hadn't even bothered to warn her cousin. Rude, so rude.
He knocked three time against the sweet plum tree, and circular wooden stairs erupted from the trunk, opening the way to the Cair. He climbed gingerly to the top, skipping one step for two, as grown up going to Hogwarts owed to.
From the Cair, Grimmault Place looked smaller, not frightening at all, almost like a home. It was the only place in his house Susan actually liked, not that Sirius would blame her.
And here she was, the bright red of her dress a striking contrast with the greyish background of London's sky, black locks flowing on her back and a white wide-brimmed hat to protect her head from the sun. The whole fashionable outfit screamed for Narcissa's intervention.
Sirius slipped his legs next to hers, his shoes threatening to fall in the garden. It wouldn't mattered if they did anyway, that was why security spells were for. "Heya cos."
"Good afternoon Sirius," she replied easely, without offering an apology for retreating to the Cair without bothering to warn him.
He did not congratulated for her birthday. Ever since her eight's birthday, Susan categorically refused to even recognize its existence. Another occasion for happiness ruined by his awful cousin Bellatrix. Everything the dark witch touched turned to ashes, including her younger sister's smiles. Sirius had been young, but he did remembered a time where Sue beamed like the world had no limits.
She smiled still, but even her happy faces had an underneath bittersweet taste, like the one she made when Sirius offered her the cookie he had stolen from the kitchen. He kinda wished he had dragged Reggie on his way up instead of rushing to the Cair. His nerdy brother fared better at reading Susan's complex emotional rollercasters and act accordingly. Meh, whatever, Sirius could deal just fine on his own, thank you very much.
"So can I see it?" Sirius swung his legs impatiently.
"See what?" Sue asked as she cut the cookie in half and gave him the bigger part.
"Your letter!" What else.
"Hm..?" she messed with his hair teasingly, which was always a good sign. "Think of your own Hogwarts letter, replace 'mister Sirius Black' with 'miss Susan Black', and there, you have it."
"Suuuuue," he whined, pushing her hand away and biting in his cookie angrily. "Just show it to meeee!"
"I don't think I will," she nimbled at the edge of her half of the pastry.
So, for a 31th of July, Susan was in a good enough spirit. She tended to get in a mood for each of her birthdays, staring aimlessly at things Sirius couldn't see and just being painfully sad. Susan was prone to what Dromeda called melancholic mood-swings every once in a while, but birthdays were usually the worst.
Once again, getting pranked with a 'surprise boggard' in her closet at eight years old by Bellatrix would so that to a person. His uncle had pretended his eldest daughter hadn't realized what she was doing, that she hadn't really meant to hurt her sister but Sirius knew better. Bellatrix had a dirty, wicked soul, if she had a soul at all.
"Don't you...want to go to Hogwarts?" Sirius said, making a active effort to reign in his excitement.
Sirius himself just couldn't wait for September to come. Finally he'd get to learn magic, make friends who weren't copies of their terrible pureblood parents, get away from this place until summer came again.
"I don't mind, I suppose," Susan eventually answered pensively, miles away from Sirius' elation, but whatever, he would take what he could get from his emotionally-drained cousin.
"It's going to be amazing, just wait and see," he bumped his fist in the air eagerly. "Amazing, I'm telling you!"
"Well, if you say so then," the brunette agreed dryly.
"Yeah, exactly!" Sirius grinned as if he had completely missed the sarcastic subtext. "You and I are going to rule this place in no time."
Susan hummed non-commitally as she leant against his shoulder. "Sirius. You do realize there is a quite significant chance we won't be sorted in the same house."
Actually, Sirius had tried very hard not to think of the sorting, with admittedly mixed results.
"Blacks go to Slytherin," he repeated his mother's words without enthustiasm.
Sirius didn't wanted to be sorted in Slytherin.
"I doubt this Black will," Susan said softly, pointing at her own chest.
Sirius really didn't wanted to be sorted in Slytherin.
"Neither this one," he agreed sheepishly.
Where Sirius wanted to go started with G and ended with Ryffindor. And it certainly wasn't the kind of place Blacks were supposed to found themselves, especially not Black heirs. His mother might genuinely attempt to murder him for daring to offend her sensibilities with his antics. And the rest of his family would follow in their disapproval, aside from Dromeda and Susan. Perhaps Reggie would turn his back on his brother too, the influencable brat.
Sirius was only eleven, and he had a family famous for their darkly-oriented deeds and opinions. Of course he was scared out of his wit, yet at the same time...the idea of displeasing them, of going against their teaching, of rebellion woke something made of thirsty throats, sharp teeth and bitter claws inside his chest.
Something like spite. Maybe Sirius was more Black material than his mother liked to complain, after all. He as well used loathing to keep going, rage as his fuel, revenge for a purpose.
Susan was made of another cloth though. People cloaked in sorrow had no place for ugly hate in their heart. But that was alright too. Sirius could hate well enough for two. There was plenty of room in his heart for vindictiveness.
"It's going to be great, you'll see," he patted her hand fondly, and meant every word.
And if it wasn't great then... Sirius would make it happen.
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III. Something Just
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They pretented Love was the greatest force to be, the purest of feeling, that nothing could stop it, and Tobias used to believe all that crap, swallowed the lie hook and sinker like the enornous fool he really was as a naïve young man.
He knew better now. Love was no blessing, Love was a curse, Love was a lying liar who lied. Love got you tied up to people you despised and who despised you in return, Love trapped you inside of your own life, Love dried you up of your good will and left you deprived and thirsty and empty. Love was marvellous until you exhausted your supply of it, which happened more quickly than Tobias would have thought.
Don't let anyone fool you, love came from a limited source, and nobody could buy for more, certainly not a poor and old fool like Tobias Snape.
Unlike alcohol. Alcohol held its promises, alcohol never betrayed you, and the sad reality of the end of the bottle existed only until you brought another one. Tobias wouldn't got as far as to pretend alcohol made him a better person, but at least it kept the sadness away. And Love, when he still had it, didn't made him a better person either anyway.
"Dad," Eddie walked inside the study without knocking, eyed the bottle of scotch with poorly hidden dislike but blessfully refrained from commenting. "I've received my letter. So did Sev."
Of course they had. The 31th of July, the twins' birthday, right one time. One of their damned owls had delivered the damn papers from the dam school. Tobias had heard the ruckus his wife had made at the marvelous news from his study alright, though he didn't see what was there to be happy about.
He was losing both his sons to the Devil and could do nothing to stop it.
"I know," he simply said, without being able to fake happiness at the prospect.
Not that he would have fooled his son anyway. The boy always had been way too perceptive for his own good. Not like Tobias himself. His other son was like that too in a way, too observant and smart for his own good, made of keen eyes, sharp tongue and dry wit. Sevy saw what Sevy wanted to see, though, and it usually went along his mother's vision of life.
"Dad, I know what you think about wizards," Eddie said while sitting on his old seat, facing his old man with his Serious Business face on. "But I'm convinced you're wrong. I can't believe anyone to be inherently Evil, magic or not."
He was such a good boy, his Eddie. Well-behaved, polite, rational, and always so naturally fair. Severus, he could see, was just like his mother, eager to loose himself to their magical madness and let his muggle heritage far from him. But Edmund was different. Sometimes, Tobias wondered if he was their father at all, for he had no idea where all this inner goodness was coming from. Not from Eileen, a selfish woman if there ever was, and certainly not from himself.
But they would twist him, turn him as one their own, until one day Tobias wouldn't be able to recognise him. If he went to that school for freaks, Snape knew it would only be a matter of time before the boy who used to ask stories about the knights of old disappeared for the disdainful wizard obviously superior to his old stupid Muggle of a father.
Tobias did not belonged to their world and Eileen would never let him forget it. Or their sons. What a fool he had been, thinking two people so drastically different, born and raised into opposed worlds, magical against mundane, rich against poor, could built a family against all odds, thanks to the holy grace of Love.
Love betrayed you eventually, so had Eileen. What his beloved wife hadn't quite managed, their school would. One day Tobias would look for Eddie and would only find Severus. That day he would know he truly had lost his son. Both of them.
"Would you write to us at least?" his son sighed, his black eyes inherited from his mother, intense and unwavering.
Tobias almost gasped with surprise. His son wanted his drunkard of a genitor to write to him? He honestly thought Eddie couldn't wait to get away from this Muggle hole. Sevy certainly did, and made no secret of his distate for their life.
"I..yes, if you want me too, that is," he replied, hating how his voice couldn't stay steady like his son's. Sometimes he honestly felt as if he had no idea who was the father and who was the son.
Sometimes he was convinced Eddie was just humoring them, both Eileen and himself.
"I do, Dad," he smiled softly at Tobias with that wise expression of his that should have nothing to do on a eleven-year old face. "I really do."
As soon as he left the room, Tobias' hand went for his bottle of scotch. And then stopped mid-air.
Uh. Maybe he hadn't ran entirely short on Love after all.
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IV. Something Valiant
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Once again, the girl who smelled like home was back in his forest.
Sensing her approach, Play-With-Fire hid behind enormous trees, where he could watch without being seen. He quite liked his sunshine girl, but unfortunately she was a human, and Mother had ordered him not to let humans see him. Dangerous for young unicorns, she had said. So he kept on watching her from afar, the few time she'd come since he was old enough to wander on his own.
Sunshine-girl drew closer to the Ancient Tree, and bowed down to Him. The Lord Oak answered to her show of respect with a soft whisper between his leaves. The girl beamed and bounced to come sit between venerable roots.
And so Play-With-Fire was left wondering about her and her curious habits. Other humans had never paid any particular attention to the Ancient Tree, even the magical ones. The boy who lived nearby, for instance, never came to this part of the forest, except to fetch his wandering friend.
But Sunshine girl? She knew.
She knew about the Trees That Talk. She knew about the ghost dryads whispering among the branches. She knew about the Lord Lion. Play-With-Fire heard her mention His name once. She had looked so deeply sad.
"And my sister brought my nephew William to my birthday party!" she chirped happily at the Tree, and unknowingly to the eavesdropping unicorn. "He's soooo cute, like you wouldn't believe it."
Play-With-Fire remembered seeing her holding a human foal once, one with the wildest red hair he had ever come upon. She had bounced him in her arms, and the babe had giggled with delight. He was watching her with the same adoring eyes he had used with his Mother.
"I came here secretly today, my dearest tree friend," her smile turned mischievous at that. "So don't go rat me out to the Longbottoms! Frank would be so crossed with me for sneaking out without him. Well, it's his own fault if he's not here anyway."
The Lord Oak laughed in agreement, his branches shaking with mirth.
"I didn't really want to see anyone today. Anyone human I mean," she confessed, her happy grin sobering into an unusually distant expression. "I got my acceptance letter yesterday. For Hogwarts."
Play-With-Fire knew about Hogwarts, the place where magical foals learned how to wave their stick properly, right next to the Old Forest. Did that mean Sunshine girl would not come anymore to visit them? A seed of unexpected sadness grew in the unicorn's heart.
"It's not that I'm not happy, I really am. I've been waiting for so long," she mused out loud, thoughful. "Maybe I'll finally get to understand why I'm here. Why Aslan sent me to this place."
Aslan. The Lord Lion. She spoke of legendary figures, gods, as if she personally met them. A shiver, both of fear and excitement, ran along Play-With-Fire's spine.
"Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't have a mission here. Maybe I shall never see my siblings again," her voice turned wistful, heavy with grief. "Don't get me wrong, I love Molly, Gideon and Fabian. And Bill, and Arthur, and Frank and even my unborn nephew. I really do, from the bottom of my heart."
Below her, leaves shuddered with compassion. The unicorn wished he could come and drive his snout into her golden hair, so her sad expression would turn into one of delight once again.
"But sometime I feel like it's just not the same, you know. As if Peter, Susan and Edmund took pieces of my heart with them. There is just not room enough anymore."
She left pretty soon after that. At the place where she had sat, between the showing roots, laid a shiny red apple. An offering to him.
Who was this human?
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August, 1971, Longbottom House
Dear Lucy, Valiant Queen of the Prewett House,
I shall begin this letter by warning you not to expect any congratulations on my part, none whatsoever, for I never had any doubts on your acceptance to Hogwarts. How could I, when the memory of the day you turned my hair into an actual lion mane just because I said the lion you'd drawn looked wooby (it totally did, by the way, I'm not retracting that statement, ever) is still fresh into my mind (you still owe me several therapy bills, just saying).
There, I said it, you can pout at me, or at my letter in this case, all your heart content. Feel relieved knowing my mother sent her own congratulations (easy for her to say, it was never her hair in danger!)
Anyway, I cannot wait to see you at Hogwarts! What house do you think will have to handle your overwhelming (although amazingly awesome) presence? Not Ravenclaw, for you are as much of a scholar than I am, nor Slytherin (no offense, but you don't have a sneaky bone in your whole body, cos). So Gryffindor or Hufflepuff, then? Obviously, I'm rooting for my own house, but clearly I'biased on the matter. You'd make an awesome Badger for sure.
How is your family by the way? Mum told me she met Gideon at the Ministry (at least she thinks it was Gideon), and that he looked just fine and proper or whatever. Is it true he is trying to enter the Auror training Program? So wicked! It does feel weird to think about him without Fabian, though. And how's Molly settling in her new home? Did I tell you I met your nephew a few days ago? A edhead, just like his dad! I bet he will be Gryffindor, this one, just like any other Weasley.
Anyway, Mum is calling me to dinner, I shall leave you here before she hexes me into oblivion or something (she totally would, you know it!). I look forward seeing you at Diagon Alley next week!
Plenty of affection (of the very manly kind, mind you (yes I am abusing my Parenthesis Power, no I don't care (just watch me, my madness knows no limit))),
Frank, brave knight of Longbottom House (as consecrated by yourself)
PS: Haapppyyyy birthday cousin! You thought I had forgotten, did you not? Ye of little faith.
PPS: Sorry again I could not attend...I'll make it up to you, pinkie promise.