A Different Halloween

Chapter 33

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They were currently standing outside the oddest house Emma had ever laid eyes on. She wasn't sure what to expect from a house called the rookery, some country home with birds roosting under the overhanging eves? What she was faced with was a massive white chess piece. Emma couldn't help but imagine a giant hand picking up the entire house and moving it to the next hillside as part of a game. She was walking up the garden path when a pretty young blond woman rushed passed her to engulf Lily and the now struggling Harry in a hug.

"Oh Lily, it's so good to see you again. I cried all day after seeing that picture of your house destroyed on the front page of the Prophet. It was blown to pieces, how did you survive it?"

Emma introduced Pandora to Dan and Emma before indicating the little girl holding her daddy's hand. "This angel here is Hermione and she's the reason we're all alive. She invited Harry and me to tea, otherwise we would have been home when that monster broke down our door. Hermione is definitely a witch though her parents are non-magical."

Pandora herded them into the house to introduce them to her family, Her husband Xeno was sitting on the floor playing along with their little girl. Xeno appeared few years older than his wife but you hardly noticed that, his outlandish clothes demanded all your attention. His current apparel may have missed out on one of the colours of the rainbow but it would be impossible to pick out which one in the maelstrom of colours that assaulted your eyes. The little blond girl, sitting on the floor beside her father playing with her building blocks, was almost lost in the kaleidoscope affect her father appeared to be trying to achieve. She wore a lovely yellow flower print dress and her smile when Lily spoke to the girl outshone her garishly dressed father.

"Hello Luna. My, you're getting such a big girl! This is Harry, that's Dudley and..."

A certain Miss Granger interrupted Emma, she was a big girl and didn't need anyone else to introduce her. "Hello Luna, My name is Hermione Jane Granger. I'm so pleased to meet you." She kissed the girl on the cheek and was soon joined by Harry who'd squirmed out of his mother's arms, desperate to be down beside his best friend. He copied Hermione as best he could, seeming pleased that this was a name he could pronounce properly. "Me Harry, Luna." Still copying Hermione, he kissed the little girl on the cheek. This had all three toddlers giggling and laughing while the adults thought it was one of the cutest things they'd ever seen. Dudley appeared too busy staring at everything in this strange place.

The four kids were soon playing happily together, allowing the adults time to chat. Lily couldn't wait for news of their missing friend. "Pandora, where's Mary? Please tell me they're all ok?"

Pandora hated to be the one to give bad news but had to on this occasion. "She and John took baby Mary up to Manchester to live with his aunt just after you and Alice went into hiding. With both of them being muggle borns, they reckoned the death eaters would be looking for them. The final straw for them was when Mary's parents house was attacked and burned to the ground. I got a letter from her saying they could no longer bring their daughter up in Britain, it just wasn't safe! They applied as muggles to emigrate to Australia, their ship sailed from Southampton three weeks ago. That's all I know, everyone is terrified to give information about their whereabouts. Perhaps if they read about what happened, she may contact me again from Australia. We can't really blame her if she doesn't."

Lily reluctantly agreed. "If Voldemort was still alive, the Potters would be heading to that part of the world ourselves. As it is, we'll be staying in a muggle neighbourhood from now on. It was only being in a muggle house that saved us that night and having Dudley now living with us made our minds up."

Dan had expressed interest after hearing that Xeno owned and published a newspaper, both then disappeared through to see his magical printing press.

Lily and Pandora were catching up while Emma was surreptitiously watching James, who was quietly keeping a close eye on the children. All four toddlers were playing along quite happily, this appeared to please James a lot more than Emma thought it should. She then remembered James had been worried that Harry and Hermione would be so wrapped up with each other, they wouldn't interact with other children.

That clearly was not the case as they had played happily with Dudley and Neville, now it looked as if Luna was being added to that list. The little girl appeared slightly overwhelmed at first with all the company in her house, she could see her mother sitting close by though. It didn't take long for Luna to become involved with the game Hermione had come up with. She and Harry piled up high the blocks with the strange animal pictures on them so Dudley and Luna could knock them over. Emma couldn't help but think that before Halloween, Hermione would never have played a game like this with younger children. Meeting Harry had been very good for her precocious daughter. As this group grew up together, her extra months of age would stand out less and less.

She wholeheartedly agreed with the opinion she overheard James expressing, that the children should be allowed to grow up as normally as possible. Emma was prepared to let things go as they were for now. First sign of any strangeness and she would be demanding answers over this bond thing. Little did Emma know that time was closer than she thought.

On first sight, Xeno's printing press wouldn't have looked out of place as an exhibit in a museum. As he was discovering more and more with the magical world though, things were not always what they seemed. When his host demonstrated how it worked, it was ahead of any muggle printing press available at the moment. Computers were beginning to make an introduction into some of the larger and richer newspapers but Dan could see the future in the way Xeno laid out his pages. He may use parchment and a quill to write his articles but when he then used his wand, everything changed. The data was transferred from the parchment to the magical printing press where it was converted to the font Xeno stipulated. He could then add a graphic and have the text wrap around it and build his publication a page at a time.

Dan may not understand a lot of the stuff published in the Quibbler but in layout, it reminded him of a magazine from the thirties or forties. He promised to pick up some magazines to let him see the latest in muggle thinking on layouts and advertising, this had Xeno very interested.

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