Chapter 1: A Flower Garden in Cokeworth

They were his flower garden, Mr. Evans used to say. He would pluck them from the ground, making a popping sound with his pursed lips, and hold them up high until they giggled and kicked their feet. They looked very alike in those days, both slim, big-eyed, and fair, one towheaded and one red-haired girl. There were few enough in the way of gardens in their part of Cokeworth, but the two girls seemed to absorb the sunlight into their faces and smile it back to their tired father when he returned from long day after long day spent in his windowless cubicle.

When they were small, Petunia and Lily were always to be found together. They made castles out of discarded objects found around their neighborhood, and invented intricate fantasy worlds. Petunia, though older, adored her younger sister and followed her directives about what they would imagine next or which characters they would pretend to be. Lily's mind was the generative force in their world. "You are the queen, Tuney," she would intone to her sister, who would feel herself seeming to grow taller as she listened, "and I am a powerful sorceress. We rule this land, with the help of the birds. With our army of fairies we will make the flowers grow throughout this land." When school was not in session, the girls busied themselves with growing gardens, attempting to befriend birds and mice, and planting flower seeds from their mother's supply by the banks of the brown, polluted river. Many people confused their names, for the girls were rarely apart. It was not until the magic they imagined began to creep into reality that the beginnings of a breach appeared between the sisters.

First, the castle which they had built by the banks of the narrow, foul-smelling river remained intact after a violent windstorm damaged nearly every tree and many structures in the town. Branches floated in the river and debris clung to the reeds and bushes, but the castle stood firm. It had been built haphazardly of a pair of tall trash bins, rusted pipes, and newspapers the girls had scavenged from the narrow industrial housing alleyways. By all rights the castle should not have withstood a heavy exhalation. Yet there it stood, waiting for them, while the rest of the town began to clean up from the storm.

Petunia could almost convince herself that this could be merely luck. After all, the neighbor's mailbox had been uprooted completely in the storm, while their own had only been bent at a severe angle against the gate. But the incidents continued. Lily's flower crown bloomed when it touched her head. She could jump impossible distances from the swing. Bushes grew feet higher in seconds when she wished to conceal herself during a game of hide-and-seek. Petunia could not replicate these feats, try as she might, and so her fear and resentment grew as a weed in the garden.

When the odd ragamuffin boy from Spinner's End entered their lives, Lily was eight and Petunia was ten. Lily had been performing her queer tricks for nearly a year, and Petunia was threatening to tell their parents daily. When Severus Snape stumbled out from his hiding place in his ill-fitting clothes and earnest expression and the tear between the sisters became a chasm. Though he was by no means respectable looking, Severus held a glamor in Lily's ripe imagination. He told her better stories than anything her imagination had produced. She was ready to believe him. She had always suspected that there must be more to this wide world than the hard bricks and sharp lanes of their industrial town.

Lily always invited Petunia to "Come with us!" whenever she and Severus met for a ramble by the river, but Petunia declined every time. Petunia could see the relief and satisfaction on Severus' lean face when Petunia refused and he had Lily all to himself. Besides, the one time she tried to join them in the copse near the park, she had narrowly avoided being hit by a falling tree branch. Severus did it on purpose, Petunia was sure. She never doubted his hatred for her, even as Lily insisted that she was exaggerating. "He just doesn't know how to talk to mu-people, Tuney. His father is a bully. Can't you try to-" "No," Petunia would snap at any invitation to befriend Severus. The odd little boy might be stealing her sister from her, but Petunia would not watch it up close.

When Lily was turning ten and Petunia was not yet twelve, something happened which altered the landscape of their childhoods even further. Mrs. Evans had been surprised to discover that she was pregnant again. She was older than Dr. Holibrook preferred his expectant mothers to be, but he had delivered healthy babies from older women. The Evanses, though never very well off, could afford it, and they were overjoyed. The third Evans baby was born in June of 1970. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, rather sentimental about their garden of daughters, named her Rose.

As Rose grew, Petunia determined that this new sister would be her own pet, and would share none of Lily's wild fancies or freakish abilities. And circumstances seemed to promise that Lily would have little to do with Rose's upbringing. Some weeks after Lily's eleventh birthday, while it was still winter in 1971, a strange, stern woman in a tall black hat knocked on the Evans' door, bringing with her a letter and a message that would change everything.

"Your second daughter is a witch, Mr. and Mrs. Evans," the woman who introduced herself as Professor McGonagall had said in her clipped brogue, "and she must be educated if she is to control her magic. There is only one institution in Britain that can teach Lily what she needs to know: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

Lily was thrilled, but Petunia cried, hating and envying Lily's magic in equal degrees. She wrote to Professor Dumbledore secretly, and cried more tears over his reply. Slowly, though, the envy wore away and turned to bitterness. Lily was going far away where she and the other mutants, like that horrid boy from Spinner's End, could not disturb normal people. Petunia began to spend a lot more time with Linda and with Susan-next-door, and she gleefully joined in their scathing abuse of that disgusting Spinner's End boy and his absurd clothing. Petunia found that she could make a retreat into normalcy and respectability, the areas in which she could outstrip her sister. Mr. and Mrs. Evans could only watch sadly as their two flowers grew apart.

Petunia could also be smug in the knowledge that Lily would spend very little time with their new sister. Lily was preparing to attend Hogwarts for nine and a half months of the year, for the next seven years. Little Rose would be Petunia's companion, her little doll. Lily could take her freakish tricks and step right out of the family for all Petunia and the baby would care. When Petunia said her final, angry words to Lily on Platform 9 and ¾, she wiped her eyes and picked up her toddling sister. "It's just us now, Rosey. We don't need her, do we?" Rose applied her small, sticky mouth to Petunia's cheek, and Petunia smiled for the first time that day.

Rose resembled both of her sisters equally, green-eyed like their mother, blond like their father, and cheerful. She was neither as passionate as Lily nor as practical as Petunia, but she admired both her sisters equally. Still, Rose was Petunia's pet, and no amount of gifts and letters and moving photographs that owls could carry could counteract the simple fact that Petunia was present for her growing-up years, and Lily was not. Petunia went to high school in Cokeworth, and even the secretarial college she attended was a short drive from town. Petunia changed Rose's nappies, Petunia read her sensible bedtime stories, Petunia helped Rose to form her first wobbly letters and Petunia was there to soothe her tears when Rose lost her first tooth ("Will I lose my baby fingers too, sissy? Will I lose my hair?"). Rose was Petunia's baby, so it was a particularly savage form of heartbreak for Petunia when Rose, too, aged seven and one half, began to do magic.

It began with the mantel clock. Rose was always impatient for her seven o'clock ballet lesson to begin, and one day, after she had asked, "Isn't it time to go yet, Tuney?" for the third time in her precise little voice, Petunia saw the hands on the clock begin to fly. The time, in reality, was half-past five, but as she watched, Petunia saw the minute hand glide smoothly and quickly to the nine, to the twelve, and back down to the six before they slowed to a stop. Rose did not seem to notice what had happened. "Can't we go early, Tuney?" she entreated, with a touch of whine in her voice. Petunia had broken into a cold sweat. This could not be; the clock must simply be broken. But a knot had formed in her stomach that only tightened as the weeks passed and more peculiar things began to happen around Rose. When Rose tore a gaping hole in her favorite skirt, ruffled with a cat on the side, the skirt mended itself as Rose cried over it. Rose's year three teacher reported that the little girl who had been bullying Rose suffered a fall when the swing she had been sitting on mysteriously broke underneath her. Rose had been seething, but across the playground at the time, so Miss Ames did not see how she could have been at fault.

Sometimes Rose's magic benefitted Petunia, such as when Petunia's head cold miraculously disappeared in time for her to attend Rose's piano recital. But none of Rose's magic could make Petunia anything but miserable. The howling despair that she had beaten back after Lily's departure to Hogwarts rose up to engulf her again.

"Why doesn't Tuney love me anymore?" Rose cried to her mother one day when Petunia made yet another excuse for not coming home from college for dinner. "It's not your fault, darling," her mother tried to soothe her. "Petunia just doesn't like magic; it makes her feel left out, that's all. Suppose I invite Lily and James to dinner instead?"

This cheered Rose, who idolized her sister and adored Lily's laughing fiancé. James always treated Rose with exaggerated courtesy, calling her "little mademoiselle" (a jab at Rose's French studies at the independent school she attended), just before he pulled some outrageous prank that made her laugh. The last few times Lily and James had eaten with the Evanses, Rose's cup or her fork or her dessert had flown out of her reach just as she'd start to use them and began to travel in orbits around Rose's head. Rose would always look over to James, who would try to look innocent, but whose wand was always busily moving behind his back or under the table, and she would burst out laughing. Lily took a great interest in Rose's studies and in her piano playing. The family could never afford such things when Lily had been a child, but Lily was proud of her sister's accomplishments. "I'll take you to Hogwarts and show you around when you're ten," she promised. "You are going to have so much fun, Rosey!"

Rose was less assured on this point. From the questions she'd asked her sister and James, Hogwarts seemed deficient in some of her favorite aspects of life. She could not find out that there were any music classes, or art classes, or that anyone at Hogwarts spoke any French at all. Rose excelled at French, and could not imagine an entire school of people who could only speak one language. Also, she did not quite know how she felt about her own magic. Her magic, after all, was the reason that Petunia now avoided her as fervently as she had once loved her.

And, her magic would send her away. Rose longed to travel, but her longings were all for the ballet, for London, for museums, for Paris, and even for New York. She had no desire to go to Scotland, especially if Lily, who had left school, was not going to be there. But Hogwarts was a problem for another year. Rose's head was thoroughly turned with her sister's wedding and her role in it. Petunia's wedding in May had been nothing to it. There had been no bridesmaids, and no party. Petunia had worn a white dress, yes, but there had been nothing for Rose to do, and Vernon had not so much as looked at her. But for Lily's wedding, Rose would wear the smallest of the green smocked bridesmaids' dresses, and James' handsome friend Padfoot had promised to dance with the "little mademoiselle." Petunia's sudden coldness and withdrawal from her life still caused Rose many bewildered tears, but there was a great deal of light in that summer of 1979. Sirius Black was very funny, and was a very good dancer after all.

The weddings, as they so often are, were soon followed by more happy news: both Petunia and Lily were expecting babies that summer. Petunia felt sure Lily was only trying to upstage her in yet another area of her life, and she refused to acknowledge either her sister's marriage or her pregnancy. But the Evanses happily prepared to dote on both of their grandchildren, until Lily's phone call in February of 1980 turned everything upside-down once again.

Mr. Evans, who had gone along with magic and with witchcraft and with Hogwarts, and had taken great pride in his daughters' abilities, drew the line at prophecies. "No one can predict the future, Lily. Life is what you make of it. Our choices are what make our fate, Lil, not anyone else's say-so." Lily had sighed, sorrowfully. "Unfortunately, Dad, dark wizards can make choices, too," she replied. They were going into hiding, as the headmaster of Hogwarts seemed to think necessary, in response to a prophecy about Lily's baby. Rose grew more and more uneasy about the world of magic which she was to inhabit in just over a year's time. It seemed a dangerous place, full of powerful people who quarreled with one another over mysterious circumstances.

And then tragedy struck in May, not in the magical world, but on the A34 northbound outside of Birmingham, where the Evanses had been visiting their old college friends. The weather had been quite severe. Driving had been hard going already when an inexperienced driver had turned into the wrong lane of traffic. Mr. Evans had swerved, lost control, and collided with a truck going the opposite direction. It was over in minutes. Rose was at Lily's house in Godric's Hollow when Petunia called.

Lily had had the phone line put in for her parents' use; Petunia didn't call Lily, and Lily had learned not to call Petunia. But Petunia did call that once, for the first and last time. "Mum and Dad are dead, Lily. The police said it was a terrible wreck. They didn't know how to find you, of course. Of course I had to be the one, in my state and all. My baby's due in six weeks; I'm surprised the shock didn't kill me, I'm surprised I didn't go into labor at once. Vernon's making the arrangements. Tell your lie-about husband not to bother. We don't need his lot interfering."

It was with difficulty that Lily convinced Petunia to give the details of the funeral arrangements. The funeral was on a Friday, before the bank holiday at the end of May. A Ministry security team accompanied the Potters to the church at Albus Dumbledore's request. Petunia gave Rose a terse hug when Rose stretched out her arms; Lily, she ignored. James, fresh from burying his own elderly parents, wept openly. And then it was over, and the sun shone in the car park of the churchyard, and the three Evans girls had to learn to live without their parents.

There was no question of Rose living with Petunia; Petunia made her unwillingness to live anywhere near witches quite clear to them both at the funeral. James gave Lily one look after Vernon's car accelerated out of the car park, and said simply, "Rose is coming to live with us." At James' insistence, they gave the security wizards who had accompanied them to the funeral the slip and apparated into the Evans' back garden. They packed what they could of Rose's belongings into Lily's charmed handbag. Then, holding onto his wife's and his sister-in-law's hands, James turned on the spot. Rose's last view of Cokeworth was the struggling flower garden that lined the brick patio, and her mother's foxgloves which had yet to bloom that year. When she opened her eyes, she was blinking back tears and looking at the little cottage in Godric's Hollow, where an exasperated Ministry security wizard had been pacing for the past hour.

Chapter Two: A Smaller Garden in the West Country

Rose settled into her life at Godric's Hollow much more smoothly than she had expected. She'd been staying with her sister and James for nearly two weeks when Petunia had made her first and last telephone call, and the transition from visiting to living in the snug cottage was quite comfortable. James put an (illegal, as Lily huffed at him) extension charm on several of the rooms, including the den where Rose had been sleeping. With the help of the Order of the Phoenix, matters were arranged (and a few Muggles confunded) so Rose could attend year six at the the village primary school and, at Lily's insistence, take ballet on Wednesday evenings.

Godric's Hollow Village Primary School, Key Stage Two did not offer French language instruction, to Rose's disappointment. However, Rose continued to write to the French pen friend she'd been assigned in Cokeworth, and she devoured all books she could find that contained the French language or culture. Rose's childhood dream of going to Paris (which had offered such a delicious contrast to the scenes around her in Cokeworth) still occupied a secret but precious place in her heart. Though Lily and James' magic was very impressive, and though she did want to learn to conjure and transfigure and charm all the ways that Lily described, it seemed a hard fate that she should have to give up her favorite dreams simply because she was capable of performing magic.

As week succeeded week and Lily's pregnancy neared its conclusion, however, Rose found that she could be happy with her affectionate, though less familiar, sister. James continued to tease Rose and enchant objects which she was just about to use to elude her grasp, or place themselves upon her head, or transform into dormice. But he always seemed to know how far it was safe to go with these capers, and when Rose was not in the mood to be teased. He felt sorry for his wife's baby sister, and often invited his strangely named friends to tea with the idea of cheering her up as much as himself and Lily. Rose grew used to calling them by their odd nicknames, though she had to have it explained to her that their Christian names were not actually Moony, Padfoot, and Wormy. In short, it was a warm, affectionate, and merry little home into which she had come, and Rose felt that, all things considered, she had landed on her feet.

On a blazingly hot Thursday at the very end of July, Lily woke up feeling rather peculiar. She picked at the eggs and bacon James had prepared, tapped her swollen foot, and was generally and uncharacteristically agitated. When James repeated his joke about the ice in her water being an old family recipe three times and she neither laughed nor grimaced nor acknowledged that he had spoken, James looked at Lily more closely. Her lips were pursed and she was breathing in a deep, deliberate way, as if trying to calm herself. James began to wonder if today might be an important day for them all.

It was. Within three hours, Lily's discomfort had grown to the point where she asked for the healer to be brought from St. Mungo's. Rose was very proud to be allowed to help with such an important event. She brought towels, she brought ice water, she brought potion ingredients from Lily's private store, and she even assisted the healer to make a pain potion (I can do this! Perhaps I really can go to magic school! she had thought at she stirred the pearly concoction in the Healer's mini-cauldron). When the crucial moment arrived, however, Rose was hiding in her room, quite overcome. James had to come to fetch her to see her new nephew. He was beaming, and Lily was beaming, but Rose's eyes were the size of saucers as they placed Harry in her arms for the first time.

Babies! Rose had never had anything to do with them before, excepting the Year Two school friend whose mother had brought her baby brother to school every day in his pram. But she had never been close to a baby before, having been accustomed to being the baby herself. Her heart seemed to expand the moment she met tiny Harry James. Rose felt a surge of affection and protectiveness for the baby, who felt more like a brother than a nephew. Lily and James were soon given another reason to be very glad that they had taken her in, for Rose was devoted to baby Harry and was always willing to help with him in any way she was allowed. James and Lily had more time to themselves than the parents of new babies often have, for many days ended with Rose tenderly rocking "her baby" to sleep and singing him the French nursery songs she had learned.

Lily and James themselves rarely left the house. The Fidelius charm protected them only so long as they stayed within the walls of their little house. It was not known how much Voldemort knew about Lily's family, but the Order of the Phoenix had come up with a way for Rose to attend her school without giving away the whereabouts of the Potter's house. Each morning, Rose would throw the prickly green "floo" powder into the parlor fireplace and arrive at the home of the oldest lady Rose had ever seen. "Auntie Bathilda," as the lady had asked to be called, would walk Rose down the lane to the crosswalk, where a very short walk brought her to Godric's Hollow Village Primary School. Every afternoon she repeated the process in reverse.

To most children in Godric's Hollow, she was Weird Old Lady Bagshot's grandniece, and Rose was instructed not to undeceive anyone. Ballet lessons were more complicated to arrange, as Bathilda Bagshot's home was several blocks from the studio, and Bathilda was getting a bit frail for long walks. But this gave James a prized opportunity to make use of his invisibility cloak and step out into the town. James was her biggest fan and supporter at ballet. Whenever he took a break from bragging over Harry's latest accomplishment of infancy, James switched to the subject of his sister-in-law: "You should see it, Moony! Rosey can jump about twenty feet through the air!" he would exaggerate, "and she can spin like a top and stop on a dime! I swear she's going to apparate by accident one of these times and I'll have to obliviate her whole class!"

Rose often guiltily acknowledged to herself that she was happier with Lily and James than she had been with her parents in Cokeworth. And this happiness only promised to grow after Professor Minerva McGonagall, as she introduced herself, made them a visit one April evening in 1981. "I have come to present an idea, a possibility, to you about Rose's education," she said, looking at them gravely over the tea things.

"I shall come to the point straight away: many of us are concerned that a sister of Lily Potter may not be safe at Hogwarts. I do not think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself could enter the castle," she explained, with a small and proud smile, "not as long as Albus Dumbledore remains headmaster. They say he is the only wizard You-Know-Who ever feared. Still, there are other ways for the Death Eaters to target Rose. They could attack her while she is in transit, they could attempt to place someone under the Imperius curse, they could attempt to have her kidnapped, and there are, besides, many students who express support for You-Know-Who and who might try to do her harm when students learn who she is. You-Know-Who may well order her kidnapping in an attempt to lure you out of hiding, Lily, or to learn your location from her in some . . . way," she finished. Rose swallowed.

"Now, there are several options," Professor McGonagall said in a placating tone as Lily placed her arm around Rose and squeezed. "You can attempt to educate Rose in private, here at your home, while we wait for this threat on your family to subside. Rose could attempt to attend Hogwarts under an assumed identity, in hopes that the Death Eaters will not learn that she has any connection to the Potter family. Or," and here the stern Scottish lady hesitated, "Rose might attend another wizarding school."

"Beauxbatons!" Rose cried, and then blushed. "Excuse me, Professor. Only, I've always wanted to go to France. Lily told me that Beauxbatons is a wizarding school in France. Is it a good school?" she asked, with an earnestness that Professor McGonagall found touching. She smiled as she answered,

"Beauxbatons is an extremely respected school with a very long and dignified magical history. Most of the students are native French speakers, however. Do you speak French?"

"I do!" Rose blurted. "That is, I speak it pretty well. I have studied French since Reception in Primary School. I want to learn to speak it better."

"You do not have to make this decision today," Professor McGonagall responded gently. "But if you choose to attend Beauxbatons, you will have the full cooperation of the Order of the Phoenix and the Ministry of Magic in getting you there safely. I will leave with you a letter from Albus Dumbledore detailing the options for Rose's education, and these informational pamphlets about other wizarding schools in Europe. Please do not hesitate to send me an owl with any questions." And within a few minutes of finishing her tea, Lily was escorting Professor McGonagall to the apparition point at the edge of their property and returning, lost in thought, to be embraced by her sister.

"Lily! Oh Lily, I could go to France!" Rose was breathless, and more excited than Lily could remember seeing her. "I could still learn to do magic and go to France! Oh, please, Lily, can I go to Beauxbatons? I can still come back to Godric's Hollow on holidays, oh, can't I Lily please?"

Within a few days, it was settled. Professor McGonagall corresponded with Lily and James to arrange for Rose's transport to and from school, and certain members of the Order of the Phoenix planned to accompany her to Diagon Alley to purchase her supplies in August. Rose could not have imagined, when faced with the prospect of leaving Cokeworth upon the death of her parents, that so many things could happen to make her so happy. Life seemed to open to her, wider and wider, and the threat of Voldemort and the prophecy seemed like a mere abstraction as Rose lived between the end of year six and the beginning of her magical education.

Harry continued to grow and crawl and reach for toys and spit mashed peas into his parents' faces. Two weeks before his first birthday, he took his first unsteady steps into James' arms. James crowed, and sent a dozen celebratory puffs of pink smoke from his wand for the occasion. Rose clapped her hands and laughed, and then burst into tears. It had just occurred to her that she would be at Beauxbatons for months at a time, and would find Harry transformed when she returned for the Christmas holidays.

"What if he forgets me?" she sobbed into Lily's arms as Harry stared at her in bewilderment.

"He won't! He won't, Rosie, don't worry," Lily soothed her. "Did you forget me when I was at Hogwarts?"

"I don't know! When I was a b-baby I don't remember, m-maybe I did!" Rose cried. She scooped Harry out of James' arms and looked into his eyes, which were the same green as her own and Lily's. "Don't forget me, Harry! I'll bring you a present from France!" Harry gripped Rose's finger with a sticky hand.

"Is there a gift shop at Beauxbatons, then?" James teased. "Or will you be taking a shopping trip to Paris on your own, aged eleven?"

"I know what we can do!" Lily declared, ignoring James. "We'll take more pictures of you. I'll borrow Mooney's camera, and we'll develop them here. I've still got the ingredients in my school trunk, I think. We can put pictures of you in Harry's room, and I'll remind him who you are. How about that, Rose?"

Lily's solution cheered Rose considerably. Remus' camera was soon clicking busily in the house at Godric's Hollow. Soon the house was littered with moving prints: Harry in Rose's arms; family portraits of James, Lily, and Harry on the sofa, pictures of Harry toddling after Fat Lady, Lily's tabby cat; Lily and Rose, laughing in the kitchen; James playing with a snitch while Harry laughed and Fat Lady watched, longingly. After Harry's birthday tea, these prints were joined by several shots of Harry with Auntie Bathilda and of Harry's escapades on the tiny broom Sirius had sent him. Harry soon had a small gallery in his room, and Rose put several of her favorites in a stack on her nightstand.

When Sirius arrived on the first of August, a day which Rose had been fervently anticipating for weeks, he was so impressed with the photo project that he asked to keep several for himself. After placing them carefully inside a book which he was borrowing from James, Sirius looked up at Lily and James. "Do you agree, then?" he asked quietly. "Switching to Wormy will be safer, I am sure."

"I don't like it, mate," James grimaced. "But you're probably right."

"I'm always right," Sirius rejoined. "I was best man, I'm godfather; they'll expect it to be me."

"What? What is Wormtail going to do?" Rose asked, sensing this to be an adult subject, and yet making an effort all the same. "Why can't you do it, Paddy?"

"Never you mind," said Lily briskly. "You'll keep her safe, Padfoot? This isn't a joke, you know. They may know who she is, especially if she's with you."

"I'll keep my eyes on the road, Lily, don't fuss."

"I know you're not bringing her on that motorbike of yours . . ?" Lily raised an eyebrow at him in challenge.

Sirius raised his hands to show his innocence. "It didn't occur to me, Lily. Little Mademoiselle would get airsick and ruin the upholstery. Are you ready then, Mademoiselle?" he turned to Rose with a raised eyebrow and a roguish expression, as if they were preparing to do something much more mischievous than merely buying school supplies in Diagon Alley. Rose's heart skipped a beat as she met his eyes, though whether it was from his expression or from the excitement of her first venture into the wizarding world, she wasn't certain. Nevertheless, her "Je suis prêt!" was confident, and she smiled as she took Sirius' arm.

Sirius' French was almost as good as Rose's. "Très bien! Allons-y!" and arm in arm with Rose, he swept down to the apparition point at the edge of the yard.

The afternoon in Diagon Alley ranked as one of a handful of Rose's favorite afternoons of her short life. Previously, all of Rose's exposure to wizards and the world of magic had been limited to what she witnessed at Godric's Hollow, inside small residences. Never did she imagine that wizarding life could exist on such a scale. Her eyes lit up at the moving displays in shop windows, the drape and flair of robes on fashionable witches, and the very real goblins who could be seen before the searing whiteness of Gringott's Bank.

Sirius had Lily and James' vault key in his breast pocket, and he withdrew it with a wink at Rose's open-mouthed expression. They withdrew a sizable amount of gold from the vault ("We've got a large haul to buy today, after all. I do love shopping, Mademoiselle!") and proceeded to spend it freely at shop after fascinating shop. Lily had thought ahead and had sent owls to a few shops months before, so that Flourish and Blotts had Rose's required textbooks ready for her at the front desk, with Magie du Débutant at the top of the twine-bound stack. Madam Malkin's had special ordered Rose's Beauxbatons Robes, so they needed only to have them fitted. Sirius patiently paged through the copy of The Daily Prophet he had brought with them, while Madam Malkin's tape measure flew around Rose's frame to measure her height, the circumference of her waist, and her shoulders, so that the cape on Rose's delicate blue robes would fit. Soon, Rose's three required sets of school robes were wrapped in smooth paper, paid for, and added to the stack of parcels they had accumulated so far.

Rose knit her brow at the towering pile; by her reckoning, they would soon be unable to walk comfortably, and there were two more stops to make before they reached the end of their list. "How will we get to Eeyelop's and Ollivander's, Padfoot? Won't we have to leave the parcels somewhere?"

"Nah, we can't risk that. I've got it-" and with a flick of his wand, Sirius caused all the parcels to rise up into the air and bob gently, still stacked as they had been on the cobblestone.

"Oh, Padfoot! Will I be able to do that soon?" Rose asked in delight.

"I expect that spell's in your Magie du Débutant. I learned it first year. But I didn't learn how to do this-" expertly directing the packages to move along with them as they crossed the street to Eeyelop's Owl Emporium, "until third year. It's handy! But you'll amaze us all when you get home at Christmas, Mademoiselle."

Rose had brought enough money to buy an owl of her own, and she chose a female barn owl. "Une chouette effraie," she translated proudly to Sirius. "I'll call her Lis, for Lily."

"She looks like Lily. Tell her I said that," Sirius chuckled. "Let's get into Ollivander's quick; we're meeting Wormy for dinner at The Cauldron in an hour." He caused the packages to precede them to the door of Ollivander's shop, where they hovered outside the window while Rose led them in. It took a moment for Rose's eyes to adjust to the darkness of the shop. When they did, she was unsettled to find Mr. Ollivander himself looking at her gravely from behind the counter. He gave a smile that did not quite reach his watery eyes.

"Off to Hogwarts, are you?" he asked. Rose hesitated, but decided it would not hurt to deceive him. After all, Lily had said, the fewer people who knew who she was, the better. She nodded.

"Well, let's give this one a try." Mr. Ollivander held out a long, graceful looking wand of a dark wood. "Give it a swish, eh?" Rose did. A gust of wind blew the old wandmaker's hair straight back from his face, but he did not seem satisfied. Without speaking, he took the dark wand from her and replaced it with another, reddish one. When Rose waved this, the lights flickered, but nothing else happened and Mr. Ollivander quickly had it out of her hand.

Rose tried five more wands before she found one that, when she waved it, produced a burst of tiny silver fireworks that exploded with a dozen metallic pop! sounds. Mr. Ollivander nodded with a satisfied expression. "Cedar and unicorn hair. Ten inches. You're made of sterner stuff than you look, young lady. I wouldn't cross her, Mr. Black!"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Sirius said sincerely. He shook Mr. Ollivander's hand, and soon he and Rose, Lis and Peter Pettigrew were enjoying hearty sandwiches and chips as their packages bobbed outside The Leaky Cauldron's window. Rose wished they had some reason to stay longer in Diagon Alley, for she had never been in a place that she found more exhilarating. She enthused over their purchases, and Sirius teased her and praised her. Peter, usually so chatty, was uncharacteristically silent that day, a fact that Rose would long remember.

Rose was happy, if a bit uneasy, as the weeks brought her closer to Beauxbatons. Lily helped her to slowly fill her trunk with the clothes, spellbooks, supplies, and mementos which would be all that she would have of her own belongings until Christmas. Harry delighted her by beginning to say, "Ohs. Ohs!" in a manner that clearly referred to her name. Auntie Bathilda came for tea and to impart words of wisdom which Rose instantly forgot. Rose was unable to attend her last ballet class, because James was not able to take her.

"Professor Dumbledore asked to borrow my invisibility cloak, Rosey, I'm sorry!" he raked his hands through his wild black hair. "I wasn't thinking when I said yes. I should have asked if he could wait another week!"

Rose assured him that she was not distressed. "Besides, you could not have said no to Professor Dumbledore! He is so important, so famous, So-"

"Mad." James nodded. "No, you're right, but I am sorry to make you miss it. You can have lessons over next summer holiday, how's that?"

Rose, who couldn't think beyond the day of departure to Beauxbatons, agreed. The August weeks had seemed to fly by, but by contrast, the last few days before she left positively crawled. Rose spent a lot of time on the parlor floor with Harry, reading him The Tales of Beedle the Bard and singing his favorite nursery rhymes. On the morning of August 30, Rose awoke and put the final objects into her trunk: her album of still muggle photographs of her parents and Petunia, and her collection of moving photographs of Lily, James, Harry, and herself. "Don't forget me!" Rose implored Harry again as he grabbed handfuls of her curls. James hugged her, but Lily's embrace was crushing and both sisters had tears in their eyes when they released one another and Lily put her hands on Rose's shoulders. "Don't let anyone at that school intimidate you. You're as smart and as capable as any of them. Make us proud, Rosey. I love you."

"I love you Lil. Write me?"

"Every week." Lily smiled through her tears.

Rose couldn't think of anything else to say, so she nodded, gulped back her tears, and stepped into the fireplace. James had already taken her trunk and Lis's cage to Madam Bagshot's, so that Rose only gripped her wand and her small handbag as she arrived, spinning and sooty, in Bathilda Bagshot's parlor. Rose was surprised to be confronted with the figure of a tall and very old wizard with a long, snowy beard, wearing dashing midnight-blue robes. He smiled kindly as he performed a very elegant, if very slight, bow.

"Good morning, Miss Evans! If I may presume to introduce myself: my name is Professor Dumbledore, though I will not have the pleasure of being your professor this year. I know that you are surprised to see me. You were expecting Professor McGonagall, were you not?"

Rose nodded mutely, but a glance at Auntie Bagshot's smiling, wrinkled face gave her some assurance.

"Professor McGonagall is making arrangements for the start of term, and we find that the castle cannot spare her just now. The headmaster, by contrast, may think himself important, but he is always less necessary than his staff would like him to believe. I do have a good relationship with the school thestrals, however, and am at your service today to conduct you to France. Madame Maxime, who as I'm sure you know is the headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, is a dear old friend of mine. I should be delighted to have a cup of tea with her again. She serves a white ambrosia tea that is really most exquisite! Are you ready to depart?"

"I suppose I am. Is my trunk here, and my owl?" Rose tried to hide her nervousness, following as Professor Dumbledore strode out of Auntie Bathilda's house into her back garden.

"They are both in the carriage."

"Carriage? I'm going to France by carriage? How-?" But she did not need to finish her sentence. A silver carriage was indeed standing there, impossibly contained within Bathilda's garden walls. Rose wondered if the garden walls had been magically expanded, just as her own bedroom at Godric's Hollow had been. She did not have time to wonder any further in this direction, however, as she was too taken by the sight of the winged, skeletal, horse-like creatures that were harnessed to the carriage. Rose spun around, her mouth open.

"Professor Dumbledore, are we going to fly to France?"

"We are indeed! I do love a refreshing carriage flight on a Sunday morning," Dumbledore replied cheerfully.

Rose was torn between exhilaration and fear. Before she screwed herself up to step into the carriage, as he was plainly waiting for her to do, Rose forced herself to ask the question that was twisting around in her stomach. "Professor McGonagall seemed to think someone might try to attack me or kidnap me on my way to Hogwarts. How do we know…" her voice dropped away; she didn't want to seem less than confident in this twinkling and elegant man.

"How do we know that we won't be attacked in the air?" Dumbledore smiled warmly. "I do not think you need to fear that today."

"Why not, sir?" Rose asked hesitantly.

"Because, Miss Evans," he replied seriously, "You are with me."