Obligatory disclaimer: All the characters, world building, and story beats here that don't belong to JK Rowling belong to Jim Butcher (or their associated media empires).

This is the sequel to Year 1: Stone Faced. Please check my profile for the completed year 1 story, or this one will likely be hard to follow.


London has a lot going for it as a city, not least of which is cool old shops you can just get lost in. I had found a comfortable corner in the upstairs of Hatchards, a book store that nearly predated the United States. You just didn't get stuff like that back in Chicago. Of course, I wasn't the only one that appreciated the ambience. The place was probably packed with tourists every day of summer, but even more so because of the book signing going on.

The corner I'd chosen was partially out of defense from the crowd of chattering pre-teens and their parents that had mobbed the table where the wizard I was staying with for the summer was set up, wearing out his hand giving autographs to children. With my height, I could easily keep an eye on him and the stairs. I usually had at least a head of clearance in any crowd, but with a bunch of kids it was easy.

It also meant I was easy to pick out of the crowd, and I barely had a few seconds' warning of a rapidly approaching mass of curly brown hair before I was dive tackled. "Harry!"

I shared a grin with the more-slowly-approaching pair of dentists as I awkwardly returned the hug of their daughter, the magical world's smartest 12-year-old. "Hermione, it's only been a week!" I insisted, "But I'm glad to see you too."

"Harry," greeted Dr. Jean Granger with a handshake, as Hermione finally released me so Dr. Helen Granger could also give me a quick hug.

"Jean, Helen, glad you could make it," I told them.

"I don't think there was any way we wouldn't," Helen said, looking fondly at the small girl who looked so excited she was in danger of vibrating right through the floor.

"I just knew it!" she insisted, "I knew he must be–" with a glance at the muggles nearby, she had the common sense to lower her voice so it wouldn't carry past our small group, "–magical. Only, with the four houses at the school and some of the things that come close, but have clearly been changed to not violate the Statute of Secrecy, it had to be someone that was at least familiar with Hogwarts, and the way Professor Tabby is described it's clearly someone who knows Professor McGonagall, and–"

"Hermione, breathe," I interrupted her, a moment before her father looked like he was about to do the same. She'd gotten a lot better about the run-on-sentence exposition since starting school, but still did it when excited. "Why don't you go get in line for the book signing? Tell him you're the friend I mentioned when you get up there."

Jean handed the young witch three well-cared-for but clearly frequently-read hardback novels as well as the new one they'd just bought downstairs and she hurried over to get into the signing line. "She's been mad about those books since they started coming out when she was seven," Helen explained.

"Hermione, mad about books? I don't believe it," I joked.

Her parents grinned fondly, but Jean shrugged, "She wasn't usually as interested in fiction, but the Magimals series somehow called to her. How'd you wind up staying with the author?"

"He's a former Hogwarts student, apparently owed the headmaster a favor," I answered. "I didn't even know he was famous until he mentioned the signing and asked if I wanted to come." While the series was apparently blowing up the children's literary market all over these days, it had only started coming out in Britain while I'd been just about out of the Chicago orphanage, and by the time it started to get popular everywhere I wasn't in the market for kids' magical fiction.

"From his author photos in the back cover, I've always thought he seemed sad, somehow," Helen mused, looking at the man signing his books, conversing with the children. "And those scars on his face…"

While he was wearing a long-sleeved turtleneck even in summer, he couldn't hide the scars that made it look like some kind of large wild animal had raked a claw from his eyebrows all the way down his cheeks. I admitted, "They're on his arms, too, probably other places. You know he's only in his early thirties?"

"No! I would have guessed forties at least," she said, a bit of pity entering her voice.

"I asked him about my mother, but he said he didn't go to Hogwarts until she had already left, so he'd have to be," I shrugged, "I haven't really gotten him to talk about it much, but McGonagall mentioned he lost a lot of friends in the war. Probably had a really hard life." After familiarizing myself with my temporary guardian's books and from what little I'd been able to pick up from him over the last week, I believed that writing a novel series was therapy, probably immortalizing his dead friends in prose. I wondered if they'd all been animagi, or if he just felt like they had the positive attributes of the animal forms he gave them in the novels.

Hermione rushed back up, reading off the dedication he'd made in her book, "He signed it, 'For Miss Hermione Granger, a lion if I've ever met one, RJ Lupin.' He was so nice!"

I nodded, because that had also been my experience. After Dumbledore and McGonagall had tried to keep me locked up in Hogwarts for nearly a year, I'd expected they'd pass me off to someone that would basically be a summertime jailor. But he'd started out insisting I call him Remus and had been similarly easygoing from there.

A camera flash drew my attention to where Remus was posing with two small boys with light, mouse-brown hair to either side of him, a man who was probably their father taking the picture. The man handed the camera back to the larger of the two boys as Remus finished signing their book and then, for some reason, pointed in my direction. "Incoming," I warned the Grangers as the trio headed in our direction.

"Excuse me," their father started, seemingly feeling a little out of place when he noticed the Grangers. I wasn't exactly a great judge of fashion or British class consciousness, but Hermione and her parents were all dressed in a way I'd at least classify as "preppy" while the man and his sons were much closer to my own ensemble of jeans and a t-shirt. "I'm Jack Creevey, and these are my sons Colin and Dennis. Mr. Lupin suggested that you also went to…" he glanced at the Grangers as if curious whether they were in on a secret, "...his alma mater?"

"Hogwarts?" asked Hermione's father. Off of Mr. Creevey's nod, Jean continued, "I expect you got an interesting letter when Colin turned 11? The same thing happened with Hermione last year…"

The Grangers moved to the side to commiserate with Mr. Creevey over the plight of surprised parents of muggleborn students, leaving me and Hermione with the two tiny boys, each bouncing up and down with a million questions. Smirking at the girl, I said, "Hey, Hermione, why don't you tell the Creevey brothers about Hogwarts?" She looked like she wanted to protest, but realized she had a lot of excitable muggleborn karma to pay back, and nodded.

With the signing line finally clearing out, I left the Grangers educating the Creeveys and made my way over to Remus' table. I sidled up and quietly asked him, "They were also big fans and suddenly made the connection that you're a wizard?"

"Minerva apparently told them during her home visit, when she saw that they had my books," he answered. "I'll have to ask her to give me more warning in the future. Those boys are loud. Sorry to pawn them off on you."

"No worries," I grinned, "I passed them right on to the Grangers."

"Probably for the best. I don't know why Minerva doesn't deliberately put the new muggleborn parents in contact with others who've already gone through it." He started gathering up his pens when he noticed the shop staff was beginning to pack up the table. "Well, that was exhausting. Remind me to stand firm on not doing a world tour the next time my agent suggests it."

"At least you wouldn't have to spend a ton of time in transit," I suggested.

"Unfortunately, I would. She's a muggle, so I can't exactly suggest that she doesn't need to book hours and hours of plane travel because I'll just apparate every–" he broke off suddenly, nostrils flaring as his body tensed up. I turned to follow his look as a hugely muscled man in an overly-tight cheap suit ascended up the stairs. He had thinning gray hair loosely slicked back and his own array of scars on a face that didn't look fully human.

Tossing a copy of Lupin's latest book onto the empty table, he grinned through a set of teeth that had been filed to points and said, "Make it out to, 'My old friend, Fenrir Greyback.'"


Author's Note: As with year one, the plan is to release this story twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) until completion.