Of Owls, Orphans, and Old Friends
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine.
Written for: springtime_gen
Title: Of Owls, Orphans, and Old Friends
Recipient's name: marginaliana
Rating: G
Character(s): Harry, Fred, George, Luna
"Why don't you leave the application in the basket?" Harry suggested, "And I'll look it over tonight."
"The application's just a formality, isn't it, mate?" Fred asked.
"You probably know us better than anyone," George agreed. "A few rolls of parchment aren't going to make any difference."
Harry blew out a noisy breath that tossed his fringe in the air and sat down on the edge of his desk. "Look, guys. To be honest, in some ways I think you'd be absolutely brilliant for the job, but in others.... I'm just not sure you're suited."
"That's fair, but who are you considering that's better?" Fred asked.
"I thought you said everyone you thought would be good at it hadn't applied, and everyone who did apply was rubbish," George added.
"Well, I did, but... look, I don't have to decide until next February. I promise I'll give you due consideration."
"Good enough, Harry, though I still don't see why you aren't taking it yourself when it was handed to you on a silver platter."
"Because I don't want to be Minister of Magic. I don't even want to pick the Minister of Magic, but that's what everyone wants me to do, so I'm going to try."
"Your grateful public has spoken," Fred grinned. "And here you are turning down plush jobs..."
"... and keys to the city ..."
"....and marriage proposals."
Harry colored. "Receiving undergarments in the mail is much less flattering than you might imagine."
Further conversation on the matter was mercifully interrupted by the arrival of a small black owl. Harry got up and crossed to the windowsill, but as he was reaching out for the envelope, something made him hesitate. Harry squinted at the bird with a sense of dread. "You look familiar. Didn't you bite me once?"
This elicited some cackling from his guests. "Is the great Harry Potter afraid of the widdle bwack owl?"
"He opened my finger like a tin of sardines, once. I still have the scar." He gingerly retrieved the letter, hastily tossing the bird an owl treat from his pocket.
"It's from Luna," he noted with some surprise, leaning back against the windowsill.
"What's our dear Lunatic up to these days?" Fred asked cordially.
"Haven't heard from her since just after The Battle of Brinwillen," George said thoughtfully.
"Dear Harry," Harry read aloud.
"Please be cautious of my new owl, Bart has a tendency to be a little nippy."
Harry paused long enough to toss the bird another treat. "I knew I recognized you. At least Luna mentions it at the beginning of the letter."
"Go on," Fred said impatiently.
Harry resumed. "As you may know, I am now running the Willowby Home for Wayward Waifs, which, as I'm sure you remember, was set up as a result of all the unpleasantness of the last few years."
Harry glanced up. "I didn't know Luna was running an orphanage."
"'Unpleasantness', she calls it", George quoted with amazement.
Harry went on. "Mrs. Willowby, our benefactress, is no longer with us, although considering she was a hundred and forty-eight at the time of founding, this is no great surprise. However, we have been completely stunned to learn that without her support, the owners of the building have decided to tear the place down and build a block of flats. Of course, Hogwarts still hasn't been reopened, many of the children are still too young to attend anyway even if it were, and three more members (the last three members, actually) of my volunteer staff have..." Harry squinted at the parchment. It looked like Luna had written "fled" and then changed it to "left" He resumed reading aloud. "....have left.
I'm writing to you, dear Harry, because you were always so good at coming up with solutions to the most impossible quandaries. Plus you are rich." George chortled, Harry ignored him. "I would like to invite you to a nice cream tea this afternoon. I'm afraid I am still trying to unstick all of our cups and saucers from the ceiling (some of the children are a little high-spirited) but I'm sure I will have it figured out by teatime. The fact that I am stuck up here, too, gives me a much better perspective on the situation. It's a good thing Bart can come up here to fetch this letter, owls were ever such a good choice for mail delivery, weren't they?"
"Good Lord," Fred sat up in his chair.
George glanced at his watch. "How long til tea time?"
~~~
Harry took the initiative to let himself in. The first sign that there were children about was the handmade artwork applied directly to the walls, not just little finger-paint doodles, but whole murals of stick figures and misspelled words that flowed off down the hall.
He heard a stampede of footsteps across the ceiling above, and a lot of giggling.
"Luna? Are you all right?" he called.
"In here, Harry!"
"Where is here?"
"My office, of course."
Harry refrained from a sigh and they began a systematic search behind all the different doors.
They eventually discovered Luna sitting on the ceiling of her office, calmly upside-down, and surrounded by an assortment of cups and saucers dotted about like bizarre china constellations.
Her face lit in a smile. "Harry! Delightful to see you but I wasn't expecting you until later!"
"We thought maybe we'd pop round early," Fred grinned. "Give you a hand."
"Allow me." George took out his wand. "I'll detach..."
"I'll catch." Fred aimed his own wand.
George went through several variations and permutations of the usual spells.
"I've never seen ... a sticking charm... that was this stuck...."
"Even her hat isn't falling off," Fred marveled. Harry was a little worried they sounded a bit impressed.
"Aren't they talented?" Luna beamed. "Imagine what they could do if they could get to Hogwarts for a proper education!"
Before Harry could even begin to speculate, George hit the right configuration and Luna came tumbling down into Fred's waiting Featherlight beam. She rotated majestically with a slight push from Fred, ending up on her feet like a cat. "Well, that is better, isn't it?" she asked, brushing off her skirt. "Why don't you boys see yourselves into the sitting room, and I'll get a few things from the kitchen."
~~~
"Thank you very much, love," George said graciously as Luna presented him with a bowl full of tea.
"So, um, does this sort of thing happen often?" Harry asked.
"Well, my mother always put on the most charming Devonshire tea on Sundays, but we usually only manage the occasional... "
"No, Luna..."
"I think he means you plastered to the ceiling, dear," Fred supplied helpfully.
"Oh, no, that was just an overpouring of excess enthusiasm."
Harry sipped his oolong from the soup bowl as if he did it every day. "Luna, I appreciate that your intentions are good, but you can't run this place by yourself."
"Scone?"
"Thank you."
"Clotted cream? It comes from a real Devon cow, if you're a purist that way. Her name is Eleanor."
"That's very nice, thank you."
Luna applied cream to scone with a cake-icing spatula and handed him one of the pot lids serving as saucers.
"I'm thinking," Harry began, with a glance at the twins, "That maybe Fred and George could give you a hand with the running of the place. Until we make more permanent arrangements."
"George and Fred? What have they got to do with anything?"
"Well, they do come from a large family, and they're masters of mischief themselves. They might help you keep a step ahead of... um, the little darlings."
Luna took the lid off the jam pot. There was no jam, however, only a small green frog nestled in the smooth curve of porcelain. It leaped straight into the air. Harry's Seeker reflexes kicked in, he dropped his tea, grabbed the frog before it even began its descent, and then sat there holding it on the palms of his hands. He thought surely that now Luna would get angry. Instead, she took the damp amphibian from him carefully, then smiled down at it beatifically. "Is there anything more charming than a spring frog?" she asked.
~~~
Harry paused at the front door before taking his leave and regarded the twins.
"You really think you can handle them?"
"Amateurs." Fred dismissed Harry's concerns with a wave.
"Just use your powers for good," Harry added with a smile. "No teaching them more and better ways to get into trouble."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Harry, what do you take us for?"
"Although, really, that graffiti in the hall could use a little perspective work."
"And those waterspray charms in the loo? The pressure ratio was pathetic."
"Uh-huh," Harry replied warily. He took his coat down from the hallway rack. There was jam in the pockets, but Harry hadn't been born yesterday.
~~~
Harry didn't generally like to capitalize on his fame, but it did get him past the receptionist at the Prophet without an appointment. Five minutes after arrival, he was being issued into a screamingly chartreuse velvet chair in front of Rita Skeeter's desk.
"Rita," he greeted her, leaning back in the cushion and regarding her with a blend of fond nostalgia, loathing, and hope. "Rita, Rita, Rita."
"Harry, Harry, Harry," she purred back, eyeing him speculatively over the top of her hornrims.
"I'm desperate," he confided.
"I'm intrigued," she allowed, tacitly inviting him to go on.
"I have a little human interest piece that I want promoted, and I want the last drop of potential wrung out of it. I want every witch and wizard in range of your paper sobbing into their porridge by eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you to tug on their heartstrings so hard," he paused to pull his fingers into a fist, "that they're begging for mercy by the second paragraph."
"Why, Mr. Potter. I always knew that under that mousy exterior of yours was the heart of a dominating lion," she exclaimed, in her most complimentary of tones. "Tell me, when will you be announcing your acceptance of the position for Minister for Magic?"
"You'll be the first to know my decision regarding that," Harry promised. "But first I need you to pop 'round to this address," Harry held up an innocent little white card between two fingers. "Do some interviews, and write a few moving vignettes. Make your readers weep, Rita."
~~~
Harry returned to his office by four. The cluttered little cube of a room had never seemed a more peaceful sanctuary. Hedwig was on top of his filing cabinet with something in her beak, but it mercifully wasn't a message. In fact, closer inspection determined it was a twig, which Harry found a trifle strange, but he didn't have the energy right now to spend on the enigma that was his owl. He pulled the shade down on the window in his door, and fell into his chair for a nap.
~~~~
Harry was having a very bizarre Wednesday. Hedwig had built a nest on his file cabinet and was now menacing him every time he needed something from the "A" drawer. Rita had sent him a nasty bouquet of ragweed and a very hefty cleaning bill from her tailor, but she also promised the article would be in print by tomorrow, and that it was very good if she did say so herself, and that she might possibly go up for some sort of award. Luna reported that Fred and George were still with her at the Home, although she felt the Weasley methods of child raising were a little strict, and she was a bit tired of hearing about how their Mum had done things, but on the whole the arrangement was going well, and if he wanted to come to tea the following afternoon, they now had plenty of cups.
~~~~
It felt odd to be back in McGonagall's office, but oddly comforting at the same time. There was even more plaid in it than he remembered, and the shortbread was buttery and tender.
"Headmistress," he began around a mouthful of flaky crumbs, "We have to get the school back up and running. What's taking so long?"
"We're trying, Potter," she said waspishly. Harry knew she hated it when people wasted time pointing out the obvious. "As soon as we get one area shored up something else falls down. Poor Mr. Filch has been hospitalized for stress on more than one occasion."
"She's pining," said the Sorting Hat from high on its customary shelf.
"What?" Harry and McGonagall asked at the same time. "Who's pining?" Harry added.
"The castle. A school without children is like a bird without song...."
Harry was rather afraid it might be gearing up for a sonnet, or a bit of haiku, and hurried on. "Yes, but what are we supposed to do about it?"
"Shore up the old girl's morale a bit," the hat suggested. "The Great Hall's still sound. Put on a play or something. I would be happy to assist with a musical."
"I don't think we really have time right now to be staging musicals," Harry said diplomatically. "But perhaps we could schedule a few public meetings or something."
"Whatever," the hat sniffed.
"Well, on to the next crisis," Harry said cheerfully, reaching for the box he'd left tucked at his feet and heaving it onto McGonagall's desk. "I was wondering, since the staff isn't busy right now, if you could all help me screen the applications to adopt Luna's orphans."
McGonagall's eyebrows arched up like a pair of dancing whooping cranes as she regarded the stack of papers. "Interviewing all these prospective applicants will take months, Potter, you do realize that."
Harry cast a thoughtful glance up at the Sorting Hat. "Hey. I don't suppose you could help us with this, could you?"
"Me?" the hat echoed, pulling its brim back from the edge of the shelf.
"Well, that's what you DO, isn't it? Sort people into houses?"
~~~
Hedwig's eggs finally hatched on the twenty-fifth, and Harry was not surprised to discover that half of them were black.
"Nippiness had better not be hereditary," he warned Hedwig.
She huffed indignantly at him.
"Oh, now. I didn't say they weren't cute."
They were so cute, in fact, that Harry cancelled all his afternoon appointments, and spent the rest of the day in his office.
~~~
"Harry, the place is packed," George exclaimed, peeking around the curtain into the Great Hall.
"Rita may be a bit of a harpy, but she came through on this one," Fred agreed.
McGonagall soon called everyone to order and got the sorting process underway. Harry was busy helping Luna with forms, occasionally glancing up whenever there was applause, and listening with one ear to the names shouted out by the hat.
"The Evingtons!"
"The Southbrookleys!"
"The Weasleys!"
Fred and George snickered, Harry turned to see a startled-looking Ron and Hermione turning from the refreshment table they'd volunteered to run. Hermione covered her chest in a Me? gesture and promptly burst into tears of joy as they rushed up to meet their new son. "Timothy is an excellent muralist!" Luna was heard telling them.
The next child up after that was a small, sulky-looking girl who glared suspiciously at McGonagall.
"Hmm," growled the hat for a long moment, before declaring, "Undecided! The next child, please."
There was a stunned silence. The hat had never before 'passed' on a decision. This unprecedented event happened four more times over the course of the evening, until at last there were only five children left on the dais.
"A word, Potter," barked the hat.
Harry glanced around. "What?"
"A WORD, boy!
Harry made his way self-consciously onto the stage. He sat down, feeling like a giant on the little child-sized stool, and let McGonagall lower the hat on his head. It was an experience he hadn't expected to have twice in one lifetime.
"As you may have noticed," the hat's voice echoed around in his head. "There are five children left. There is no one remaining in the applicants who would be well suited to raise them, but you would."
"Me?" Harry thought back loudly, having to bite his lip to keep from responding out loud.
"Did I stutter?" the hat asked acerbically. "This is through no fault of their own, I assure you. Some of the applicants would never be able to see past their last names, while others simply don't have strong enough magic to properly guide their considerable native talents."
"Some of those 'native talents' were demonstrated pretty graphically at Willowby," Harry couldn't help pointing out.
"These children have fine minds and good hearts, Potter, they will span all four Houses, and I expect all to be a great comfort to you in your old age."
Harry glanced over at the small group, standing tight together, some with wide eyes, some with wary. There was Cordelia Parkinson with her perfect black bob, tiny Matthias Malfoy, Gareth Goyle with his arms folded across his chest, Bessie Bulstrode, who was clutching a cat, and Simon Nott.
Next he looked up at McGonagall, who seemed to have somehow overheard the entire conversation, perhaps from having been the hat's accomplice for so long, and she was looking at him curiously.
"I wasn't exactly expecting this when I poured out my morning pumpkin juice, you know," he said to her.
"I felt precisely the same way when I read that Fred and George Weasley were being appointed tri-Ministers of Magic, along with Luna Lovegood," Minerva said dryly. "I expect we will all have to adapt."
"Don't you think they'll balance each other beautifully?" Harry asked, taking off the hat and handing it back to Minerva.
"You don't think Luna will be a tad outnumbered?"
"Actually, I'm more worried for the twins." Harry stood up. "And save some of that concern for me, Minerva. I'm about to become a father of five."
Written for: springtime_gen
Title: Of Owls, Orphans, and Old Friends
Recipient's name: marginaliana
Rating: G
Character(s): Harry, Fred, George, Luna
"Why don't you leave the application in the basket?" Harry suggested, "And I'll look it over tonight."
"The application's just a formality, isn't it, mate?" Fred asked.
"You probably know us better than anyone," George agreed. "A few rolls of parchment aren't going to make any difference."
Harry blew out a noisy breath that tossed his fringe in the air and sat down on the edge of his desk. "Look, guys. To be honest, in some ways I think you'd be absolutely brilliant for the job, but in others.... I'm just not sure you're suited."
"That's fair, but who are you considering that's better?" Fred asked.
"I thought you said everyone you thought would be good at it hadn't applied, and everyone who did apply was rubbish," George added.
"Well, I did, but... look, I don't have to decide until next February. I promise I'll give you due consideration."
"Good enough, Harry, though I still don't see why you aren't taking it yourself when it was handed to you on a silver platter."
"Because I don't want to be Minister of Magic. I don't even want to pick the Minister of Magic, but that's what everyone wants me to do, so I'm going to try."
"Your grateful public has spoken," Fred grinned. "And here you are turning down plush jobs..."
"... and keys to the city ..."
"....and marriage proposals."
Harry colored. "Receiving undergarments in the mail is much less flattering than you might imagine."
Further conversation on the matter was mercifully interrupted by the arrival of a small black owl. Harry got up and crossed to the windowsill, but as he was reaching out for the envelope, something made him hesitate. Harry squinted at the bird with a sense of dread. "You look familiar. Didn't you bite me once?"
This elicited some cackling from his guests. "Is the great Harry Potter afraid of the widdle bwack owl?"
"He opened my finger like a tin of sardines, once. I still have the scar." He gingerly retrieved the letter, hastily tossing the bird an owl treat from his pocket.
"It's from Luna," he noted with some surprise, leaning back against the windowsill.
"What's our dear Lunatic up to these days?" Fred asked cordially.
"Haven't heard from her since just after The Battle of Brinwillen," George said thoughtfully.
"Dear Harry," Harry read aloud.
"Please be cautious of my new owl, Bart has a tendency to be a little nippy."
Harry paused long enough to toss the bird another treat. "I knew I recognized you. At least Luna mentions it at the beginning of the letter."
"Go on," Fred said impatiently.
Harry resumed. "As you may know, I am now running the Willowby Home for Wayward Waifs, which, as I'm sure you remember, was set up as a result of all the unpleasantness of the last few years."
Harry glanced up. "I didn't know Luna was running an orphanage."
"'Unpleasantness', she calls it", George quoted with amazement.
Harry went on. "Mrs. Willowby, our benefactress, is no longer with us, although considering she was a hundred and forty-eight at the time of founding, this is no great surprise. However, we have been completely stunned to learn that without her support, the owners of the building have decided to tear the place down and build a block of flats. Of course, Hogwarts still hasn't been reopened, many of the children are still too young to attend anyway even if it were, and three more members (the last three members, actually) of my volunteer staff have..." Harry squinted at the parchment. It looked like Luna had written "fled" and then changed it to "left" He resumed reading aloud. "....have left.
I'm writing to you, dear Harry, because you were always so good at coming up with solutions to the most impossible quandaries. Plus you are rich." George chortled, Harry ignored him. "I would like to invite you to a nice cream tea this afternoon. I'm afraid I am still trying to unstick all of our cups and saucers from the ceiling (some of the children are a little high-spirited) but I'm sure I will have it figured out by teatime. The fact that I am stuck up here, too, gives me a much better perspective on the situation. It's a good thing Bart can come up here to fetch this letter, owls were ever such a good choice for mail delivery, weren't they?"
"Good Lord," Fred sat up in his chair.
George glanced at his watch. "How long til tea time?"
~~~
Harry took the initiative to let himself in. The first sign that there were children about was the handmade artwork applied directly to the walls, not just little finger-paint doodles, but whole murals of stick figures and misspelled words that flowed off down the hall.
He heard a stampede of footsteps across the ceiling above, and a lot of giggling.
"Luna? Are you all right?" he called.
"In here, Harry!"
"Where is here?"
"My office, of course."
Harry refrained from a sigh and they began a systematic search behind all the different doors.
They eventually discovered Luna sitting on the ceiling of her office, calmly upside-down, and surrounded by an assortment of cups and saucers dotted about like bizarre china constellations.
Her face lit in a smile. "Harry! Delightful to see you but I wasn't expecting you until later!"
"We thought maybe we'd pop round early," Fred grinned. "Give you a hand."
"Allow me." George took out his wand. "I'll detach..."
"I'll catch." Fred aimed his own wand.
George went through several variations and permutations of the usual spells.
"I've never seen ... a sticking charm... that was this stuck...."
"Even her hat isn't falling off," Fred marveled. Harry was a little worried they sounded a bit impressed.
"Aren't they talented?" Luna beamed. "Imagine what they could do if they could get to Hogwarts for a proper education!"
Before Harry could even begin to speculate, George hit the right configuration and Luna came tumbling down into Fred's waiting Featherlight beam. She rotated majestically with a slight push from Fred, ending up on her feet like a cat. "Well, that is better, isn't it?" she asked, brushing off her skirt. "Why don't you boys see yourselves into the sitting room, and I'll get a few things from the kitchen."
~~~
"Thank you very much, love," George said graciously as Luna presented him with a bowl full of tea.
"So, um, does this sort of thing happen often?" Harry asked.
"Well, my mother always put on the most charming Devonshire tea on Sundays, but we usually only manage the occasional... "
"No, Luna..."
"I think he means you plastered to the ceiling, dear," Fred supplied helpfully.
"Oh, no, that was just an overpouring of excess enthusiasm."
Harry sipped his oolong from the soup bowl as if he did it every day. "Luna, I appreciate that your intentions are good, but you can't run this place by yourself."
"Scone?"
"Thank you."
"Clotted cream? It comes from a real Devon cow, if you're a purist that way. Her name is Eleanor."
"That's very nice, thank you."
Luna applied cream to scone with a cake-icing spatula and handed him one of the pot lids serving as saucers.
"I'm thinking," Harry began, with a glance at the twins, "That maybe Fred and George could give you a hand with the running of the place. Until we make more permanent arrangements."
"George and Fred? What have they got to do with anything?"
"Well, they do come from a large family, and they're masters of mischief themselves. They might help you keep a step ahead of... um, the little darlings."
Luna took the lid off the jam pot. There was no jam, however, only a small green frog nestled in the smooth curve of porcelain. It leaped straight into the air. Harry's Seeker reflexes kicked in, he dropped his tea, grabbed the frog before it even began its descent, and then sat there holding it on the palms of his hands. He thought surely that now Luna would get angry. Instead, she took the damp amphibian from him carefully, then smiled down at it beatifically. "Is there anything more charming than a spring frog?" she asked.
~~~
Harry paused at the front door before taking his leave and regarded the twins.
"You really think you can handle them?"
"Amateurs." Fred dismissed Harry's concerns with a wave.
"Just use your powers for good," Harry added with a smile. "No teaching them more and better ways to get into trouble."
"Wouldn't dream of it, Harry, what do you take us for?"
"Although, really, that graffiti in the hall could use a little perspective work."
"And those waterspray charms in the loo? The pressure ratio was pathetic."
"Uh-huh," Harry replied warily. He took his coat down from the hallway rack. There was jam in the pockets, but Harry hadn't been born yesterday.
~~~
Harry didn't generally like to capitalize on his fame, but it did get him past the receptionist at the Prophet without an appointment. Five minutes after arrival, he was being issued into a screamingly chartreuse velvet chair in front of Rita Skeeter's desk.
"Rita," he greeted her, leaning back in the cushion and regarding her with a blend of fond nostalgia, loathing, and hope. "Rita, Rita, Rita."
"Harry, Harry, Harry," she purred back, eyeing him speculatively over the top of her hornrims.
"I'm desperate," he confided.
"I'm intrigued," she allowed, tacitly inviting him to go on.
"I have a little human interest piece that I want promoted, and I want the last drop of potential wrung out of it. I want every witch and wizard in range of your paper sobbing into their porridge by eight o'clock tomorrow morning. I want you to tug on their heartstrings so hard," he paused to pull his fingers into a fist, "that they're begging for mercy by the second paragraph."
"Why, Mr. Potter. I always knew that under that mousy exterior of yours was the heart of a dominating lion," she exclaimed, in her most complimentary of tones. "Tell me, when will you be announcing your acceptance of the position for Minister for Magic?"
"You'll be the first to know my decision regarding that," Harry promised. "But first I need you to pop 'round to this address," Harry held up an innocent little white card between two fingers. "Do some interviews, and write a few moving vignettes. Make your readers weep, Rita."
~~~
Harry returned to his office by four. The cluttered little cube of a room had never seemed a more peaceful sanctuary. Hedwig was on top of his filing cabinet with something in her beak, but it mercifully wasn't a message. In fact, closer inspection determined it was a twig, which Harry found a trifle strange, but he didn't have the energy right now to spend on the enigma that was his owl. He pulled the shade down on the window in his door, and fell into his chair for a nap.
~~~~
Harry was having a very bizarre Wednesday. Hedwig had built a nest on his file cabinet and was now menacing him every time he needed something from the "A" drawer. Rita had sent him a nasty bouquet of ragweed and a very hefty cleaning bill from her tailor, but she also promised the article would be in print by tomorrow, and that it was very good if she did say so herself, and that she might possibly go up for some sort of award. Luna reported that Fred and George were still with her at the Home, although she felt the Weasley methods of child raising were a little strict, and she was a bit tired of hearing about how their Mum had done things, but on the whole the arrangement was going well, and if he wanted to come to tea the following afternoon, they now had plenty of cups.
~~~~
It felt odd to be back in McGonagall's office, but oddly comforting at the same time. There was even more plaid in it than he remembered, and the shortbread was buttery and tender.
"Headmistress," he began around a mouthful of flaky crumbs, "We have to get the school back up and running. What's taking so long?"
"We're trying, Potter," she said waspishly. Harry knew she hated it when people wasted time pointing out the obvious. "As soon as we get one area shored up something else falls down. Poor Mr. Filch has been hospitalized for stress on more than one occasion."
"She's pining," said the Sorting Hat from high on its customary shelf.
"What?" Harry and McGonagall asked at the same time. "Who's pining?" Harry added.
"The castle. A school without children is like a bird without song...."
Harry was rather afraid it might be gearing up for a sonnet, or a bit of haiku, and hurried on. "Yes, but what are we supposed to do about it?"
"Shore up the old girl's morale a bit," the hat suggested. "The Great Hall's still sound. Put on a play or something. I would be happy to assist with a musical."
"I don't think we really have time right now to be staging musicals," Harry said diplomatically. "But perhaps we could schedule a few public meetings or something."
"Whatever," the hat sniffed.
"Well, on to the next crisis," Harry said cheerfully, reaching for the box he'd left tucked at his feet and heaving it onto McGonagall's desk. "I was wondering, since the staff isn't busy right now, if you could all help me screen the applications to adopt Luna's orphans."
McGonagall's eyebrows arched up like a pair of dancing whooping cranes as she regarded the stack of papers. "Interviewing all these prospective applicants will take months, Potter, you do realize that."
Harry cast a thoughtful glance up at the Sorting Hat. "Hey. I don't suppose you could help us with this, could you?"
"Me?" the hat echoed, pulling its brim back from the edge of the shelf.
"Well, that's what you DO, isn't it? Sort people into houses?"
~~~
Hedwig's eggs finally hatched on the twenty-fifth, and Harry was not surprised to discover that half of them were black.
"Nippiness had better not be hereditary," he warned Hedwig.
She huffed indignantly at him.
"Oh, now. I didn't say they weren't cute."
They were so cute, in fact, that Harry cancelled all his afternoon appointments, and spent the rest of the day in his office.
~~~
"Harry, the place is packed," George exclaimed, peeking around the curtain into the Great Hall.
"Rita may be a bit of a harpy, but she came through on this one," Fred agreed.
McGonagall soon called everyone to order and got the sorting process underway. Harry was busy helping Luna with forms, occasionally glancing up whenever there was applause, and listening with one ear to the names shouted out by the hat.
"The Evingtons!"
"The Southbrookleys!"
"The Weasleys!"
Fred and George snickered, Harry turned to see a startled-looking Ron and Hermione turning from the refreshment table they'd volunteered to run. Hermione covered her chest in a Me? gesture and promptly burst into tears of joy as they rushed up to meet their new son. "Timothy is an excellent muralist!" Luna was heard telling them.
The next child up after that was a small, sulky-looking girl who glared suspiciously at McGonagall.
"Hmm," growled the hat for a long moment, before declaring, "Undecided! The next child, please."
There was a stunned silence. The hat had never before 'passed' on a decision. This unprecedented event happened four more times over the course of the evening, until at last there were only five children left on the dais.
"A word, Potter," barked the hat.
Harry glanced around. "What?"
"A WORD, boy!
Harry made his way self-consciously onto the stage. He sat down, feeling like a giant on the little child-sized stool, and let McGonagall lower the hat on his head. It was an experience he hadn't expected to have twice in one lifetime.
"As you may have noticed," the hat's voice echoed around in his head. "There are five children left. There is no one remaining in the applicants who would be well suited to raise them, but you would."
"Me?" Harry thought back loudly, having to bite his lip to keep from responding out loud.
"Did I stutter?" the hat asked acerbically. "This is through no fault of their own, I assure you. Some of the applicants would never be able to see past their last names, while others simply don't have strong enough magic to properly guide their considerable native talents."
"Some of those 'native talents' were demonstrated pretty graphically at Willowby," Harry couldn't help pointing out.
"These children have fine minds and good hearts, Potter, they will span all four Houses, and I expect all to be a great comfort to you in your old age."
Harry glanced over at the small group, standing tight together, some with wide eyes, some with wary. There was Cordelia Parkinson with her perfect black bob, tiny Matthias Malfoy, Gareth Goyle with his arms folded across his chest, Bessie Bulstrode, who was clutching a cat, and Simon Nott.
Next he looked up at McGonagall, who seemed to have somehow overheard the entire conversation, perhaps from having been the hat's accomplice for so long, and she was looking at him curiously.
"I wasn't exactly expecting this when I poured out my morning pumpkin juice, you know," he said to her.
"I felt precisely the same way when I read that Fred and George Weasley were being appointed tri-Ministers of Magic, along with Luna Lovegood," Minerva said dryly. "I expect we will all have to adapt."
"Don't you think they'll balance each other beautifully?" Harry asked, taking off the hat and handing it back to Minerva.
"You don't think Luna will be a tad outnumbered?"
"Actually, I'm more worried for the twins." Harry stood up. "And save some of that concern for me, Minerva. I'm about to become a father of five."