On the second floor of number four, Privet Drive, in the smallest bedroom of the Dursley house, a few letters lay scattered across a simple desk.
The longest was from Hermione Granger. The summer breeze, idle and warm, drifted in through the window and turned the pages.
Harry,
You'll never guess who I ran into in Bath—Draco! He was visiting his grandfather, and I was visiting mine, and it turned out Bath has more of a wizarding presence than I ever knew. I really should find a book on magical historical sites; it seems like a fascinating subject.
I also finally saw Draco wearing something other than school robes or a dress shirt, which answers a question I've had for two years—he does own T-shirts. And I must tell you: he learned to skateboard faster than I did, which I find completely unfair. Is there anything he can't pick up immediately?
My original summer plans were entirely rearranged because of him. He introduced me to a Potions master who knows techniques that aren't in any textbook. I could hardly say no. I abandoned my trip to the South of France and spent the month brewing potions instead. Academically speaking, it's been the best summer I can remember. I am aware that says something about me.
How have you been? Are the Dursleys still furious about the telephone? Draco can use a Muggle telephone, incidentally—I thought you'd find that as astonishing as I did. Did the sugar-free pastries arrive all right? I've sent along two kinds of local bread from Bath for you to try. Draco and I tested them on your behalf and can confirm they're excellent.
I'll stop here—we're at a tea house and the live performance is about to start. After this I'll go buy you some fresh-baked Bath buns and Sally Lunn rolls to send along.
Hermione
The recipient of the letter was sitting on his bedroom floor with the floorboard up, extracting the last bread roll from its hiding place, happily working through it while he read. Hermione's Preservation Charm had kept it as fresh as the morning it was baked.
Harry chewed slowly and sighed.
What he wouldn't give to spend a summer in a small town like that—or anywhere, really, that wasn't this house and Uncle Vernon's steady, remorseless sarcasm. But it wouldn't be much longer. Sirius had already written to say he'd be coming to collect him.
He let himself imagine it: Sirius turning up at the front door, and Harry simply walking out. It didn't even have to be somewhere brilliant. Just not here.
His first birthday wish—same as last year, really—was to leave.
Later that same day, shortly after Draco had departed Malfoy Manor with his grandfather, Harry's first birthday visitor arrived.
Dobby appeared in the middle of his bedroom in broad daylight, which was new. He was wearing his usual improvised outfit—brightly coloured, assembled from scraps—with a small battered bag at his hip, and he was practically vibrating with importance.
"Great Harry Potter!" He straightened up to his full height, which was not very much, but was delivered with tremendous dignity. "Your master sends Dobby because your master knows Dobby is reliable!"
He reached into the bag—which was considerably smaller than what he produced from it—and set a birthday cake on the desk, followed by a pile of fruit syrup tarts, followed by a dark green box tied with ribbon, and finally a letter, which he pressed into Harry's hands with an air of great urgency.
"Dear Harry Potter must read this at once," he said, with the expression of someone delivering news of national importance. "Your master is very serious and wishes an immediate reply."
Harry looked at the envelope, then at Dobby. Something felt off.
He opened it. A letter and a newspaper clipping fell out. He glanced at the clipping—a photograph, and a headline he absorbed in one sweep—then read the letter.
Harry,
You'll have guessed from the enclosed that this holiday isn't entirely peaceful. I'd recommend getting to your godfather's as quickly as you can; a house with proper magical protection is considerably safer than a Muggle one right now.
I've had word from a reliable source that Pettigrew was talking in his sleep for weeks before he escaped—the same phrase, repeated: "He's at Hogwarts. He's at Hogwarts."
I haven't yet worked out who he's referring to. It could be me. But given that you're Voldemort's primary target, it could equally be you.
Don't underestimate him because he seems like a coward. Someone who can escape Azkaban is not to be dismissed. The Ministry will likely send people to your house soon—don't leave on your own before then.
P.S. The photograph in the box came from your mother's former Potions teacher, Professor Slughorn. I think you'll want it.
P.P.S. Slughorn asked me to pass along his regards.
Draco
The handwriting at the bottom was hurried. He'd clearly been in the middle of packing when he wrote it.
Harry set the letter down and opened the green box.
Inside was a photograph in a gold frame. A young woman in a white wedding dress, laughing, both hands raised as she threw her bouquet into the air. Beside her stood a man who looked so much like Harry that it was briefly disorienting—untidy black hair, glasses, hands in his pockets, grinning at the camera with a faint air of showing off.
Harry sat with it for a long time.
His mother's face was alive in the photograph—bright and unguarded, completely happy. His father kept making faces at whoever was watching. They had no idea what was coming.
Eventually, Dobby cleared his throat with great delicacy. "Is Great Harry Potter perhaps writing a reply to your young master?"
Harry looked up. He pulled a sheet of parchment toward him and wrote quickly.
Draco,
The photograph is extraordinary. I've never seen my parents like that before—so young. Please thank the professor who kept it all this time; it means more than I can say.
I've seen the clipping. If Pettigrew is coming for me, then so be it. I owe my parents that much.
P.S. Sirius is coming for me tonight.
Harry
He folded the letter and handed it to Dobby, who received it with both hands, gave a small bow, and vanished.
A second letter had already left Malfoy Manor that morning, carried by a magnificent eagle owl on a considerably longer journey—to a hotel near the pyramids in Egypt, where the Weasley family were currently enjoying the proceeds of their Daily Prophet Grand Prize win.
The reply took several days to arrive. The owl was exhausted.
The twins, predictably, were entirely unbothered.
"We all agreed he's probably after Harry," the letter read, in what appeared to be a jointly authored account of the family's reaction. "Ron, however, was absolutely terrified when he found out—probably thought Scabbers was going to track him to Egypt and exact some form of rodent revenge. Dad has the Ministry setting up protection charms around the Burrow, which suggests they're taking it seriously. Meanwhile, we're studying some very interesting Egyptian curse work. We'd be delighted to demonstrate on you at the earliest opportunity."
Draco agreed with the twins' main assessment: Pettigrew wasn't there for the Weasleys. If he had been, he would have acted during the years he spent in Ron's pocket, sleeping in the same dormitory as Harry. He hadn't. Whatever he was after, it had nothing to do with Ron.
The only new variable in Pettigrew's circumstances—the reason he was in Azkaban at all—was Draco.
That said, Draco struggled to picture Pettigrew as a creature fuelled by hatred. Fear was his element. He had always been a man shaped entirely by terror—terror of Voldemort, terror of consequences, terror of being caught. Revenge required a different kind of resolve.
Which raised the more interesting question: how had he escaped?
Azkaban held some of the most dangerous dark wizards of the century. None of them had managed it. Pettigrew, a mediocre talent whose sole distinguishing gift was the ability to become a small rodent, had quietly slipped out of one of the most secure prisons in the wizarding world without leaving a trace.
Something about that didn't fit.
And then, suddenly, it did.
Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban in his previous life—had walked out, as a dog, through a gap that no human form could have managed. Pettigrew, as a rat, had exactly the same capability.
Draco looked up from this thought and found his mother across the room, trimming flowers with quiet focus.
"Mum," he said. "I want to go to the Black family house."
Narcissa set down her shears. She looked at him steadily, in the particular way that meant she was reassessing. "These aren't normal times, Draco. Give me a reason."
"Sirius Black has been inside Azkaban. If anyone understands how Pettigrew got out, it's him. It could help us anticipate what he'll do next."
Narcissa's expression didn't change, but she picked up her shears again, which meant she was thinking.
"Harry's there as well," Draco added. "Sirius has invited me. And the Ministry has people stationed around the property—if Pettigrew was going to act, he'd hardly choose the most heavily guarded address in Britain."
"A wizard the Dementors couldn't break," Narcissa said, with the clipped precision of someone identifying a flaw in an argument, "is not notably deterred by Ministry personnel."
"Which is exactly why I want to talk to Sirius Black before anyone else does. He's been there. He knows something."
A small pause. "He was reportedly still coherent when he was released," she said, almost to herself.
"Not everyone who survives Azkaban comes out diminished," Draco said carefully.
Narcissa tilted a thornless yellow rose toward her nose and considered this. "I haven't been to Grimmauld Place since before Walburga died," she said, at last. "Seven years, perhaps eight."
"She wasn't the easiest woman to visit."
"No." A faint, cool smile. "And if she had any idea that her most-despised son had inherited the house, she'd be stepping out of her portrait to curse him." She set the rose in the vase and straightened it. "I confess I'm somewhat curious to see how he's managing."
Draco waited.
"All right," Narcissa said. "I'll take you."
She watched him leave the room, then turned back to her flowers. Her shears moved with quiet efficiency—trimming anything that overreached, anything that broke the line, anything that grew without permission. The arrangement had to be exactly right. It always did.
She thought, briefly, about Sirius. About Walburga, and the tapestry, and the long, implacable machinery of the Black family inheritance—which had, in its infinite male-line priority, passed every significant asset past all three sisters and into the hands of the one son who had been formally burned off the family tree. She had managed Bellatrix's vault for years. She managed Lucius's affairs. She managed everything, as she always had.
The flowers came into order under her hands.
"Dear Sirius," she murmured to herself, with a smile that had nothing warm in it. "I am quite looking forward to seeing you."
She picked up the finished arrangement and stepped over the discarded stems on the floor without looking down, and carried it out of the room.