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the door three times. With a small sigh, she took a step back from the spare classroom and stood next to Rachel, gripping her hand tightly. Saffron looked over at her elder sister with a small smile. It meant a lot to her that Maya and the twins had come with her to meet Amanda. They had done everything together for most of their lives and even though school was going to change that, it didn't mean it had to change it entirely. Being there, together, proved that their bond was just as strong as it was when they spent every hour of every day together.

When the door opened, she was there. That was the start that all four Mitchells felt nervous wouldn't happen. But it had, Amanda stood there. She wore a warm welcoming smile and a black one-piece dress. She started off with a standard greeting.

"Good morning," she said, a little too brightly for the children's liking. It seemed rehearsed almost. "How are you all? I'm Amanda," She never gave them the chance to answer as she offered her hand out to all four of them individually, which they all shook politely. "I know you might have a lot of questions,"

"Not really," said Maya bluntly. "We know you know who we all are, we know you knew our parents, we know you sent Saffron the pictures at Christmas, but that's all we know. All we want to know is everything, everything you can tell us about our parents,"

"I understand," Amanda nodded, looking even more nervous now. She gestured them to come inside. "Come on in, I've set the desks up as a table. I've brought pie if you want some,"

"What flavour?" Rowan questioned.

"Apple," Amanda answered.

Rowan's eyes lit up. "My favourite, thanks,"

"It was a gut feeling," Amanda told him, feeling slightly more at ease now that one of them had said something positive. "Your mother liked it too, she came over to my house one Summer and my dad always made it for her. She loved it,"

The Mitchells took seats at the makeshift table where Amanda served three of them, excluding Rachel pie. Once they seemed settled, she took it upon herself to drive the conversation, for which the Mitchells were grateful for they weren't even remotely sure how to begin.

"Will I start at the beginning?"

Saffron nodded her head. "Yes, I think that would save us all the time of having to go backwards and forwards,"

Holding onto Rowan's hand again, Saffron braced herself for what was about to come. Finally, at long last, some concrete information on her parents.

"I first truly got to know your mother when I was in third year, up until that point I never really talked to her unless it was about classes or such. She was in Gryffindor and was best friends with Sage Gill, a girl who . . . well, we didn't really click, she was loud and confident and bossy. Your mother seemed to love that about her, but I never really saw it as a good thing until my third year. Because that year was when everything in school started to get very tense,"

"Why?" Rowan questioned.

"Because of You Know Who," Amanda told him, treading carefully around the subject. "He was beginning to become a more prominent figure everywhere. The war had technically been going on since before we even started Hogwarts, but that's revisionist in my opinion. The true war didn't start until seventy-three or seventy-four when it became clear that You Know Who had successfully built an army to do his bidding,

"This spread into Hogwarts, it was like a viral illness, and people inside the place that was supposed to be safest of all were infected by it. That was when I started my friendship with your mother and Sage. You see, we had a lot in common, I just hadn't realised it yet. Sage's family were strongly opposed to You Know Who and so were mine, because of this, certain people in the school held a grudge, because many of their family members were aligned with You Know Who,

"One day, I was corned in the library, and long story short, your mother and Sage saved me. From that point onwards, we were as close as could be. Even though I was in Ravenclaw and they were in Gryffindor, it didn't stop us from being best friends. The next few years in school, although tense, were the best of my life. We were inseparable and we were exactly what the other needed. Sage and I were dealing with the worry of our families being targeted by the de-- bad people, by You Know Who's followers. While Prina was having to come to terms with all of her father's death, not knowing how or why he died, so we helped each other.

"But ignoring everything awful that was happening, they helped build my confidence, we helped Sage become less harsh, and Sage and I helped Prina with her Grey---"

Maya's eyes widened, Saffron flinched, Rachel let out a squeak and Rowan spit out the crust of his pie.

All Amanda could do was smile at them weakly. "You didn't think that your mother didn't tell anyone about it, did you?"

The Mitchells were speechless, which was a sign of just how shocked they were at hearing that, as they were seldom speechless.

Saffron looked directly at Maya and gulped before answering Amanda's question. "I--I guess we never really thought about it,"

"It's okay," Amanda assured them briskly, with another pleasant smile. "Not many people know, not anymore . . . not anybody that counts, but I know and I've tried to help in any way I could, you just haven't known it," She paused. "Madam Pomfrey tells me she gives you constant prescriptions of doleo," She then added an afterthought. "Don't worry, she doesn't know exactly what it's for, just that it was for an inherent genetic reason,"

"Well, thanks for that," said Maya, appreciably.

"No thanks is necessary," insisted Amanda with sincerity. The way that Saffron read her, seemed as though the woman was alluding towards that act of kindness being the very least she could have done. Frankly, Saffron agreed with that notion.

"So why haven't you talked to us before today?" Rachel questioned, which was a question that Saffron, Maya and Rowan alike all seemed to forget about due to the conversation being driven by Amanda. But it was a question that they all wanted to be answered because something didn't quite fit right with them. Amanda never would have reached out to them if not for a coincidence. That meant she never had any intention of reaching out to them at all.

Amanda appeared to have had that answered prepared, as she answered it within a second of Rachel finishing her sentence.

"I am so sorry, truly, to all of you, I am, and I can't begin to tell you how much I wanted to be there for the four of you, but I wasn't ready. I know that's an awful excuse, but I never quite figured out to help you. I wasn't allowed to take any of you in --- not that I was ready, and any time I considered making contact with Ms Squire, I couldn't bring myself to do so," She sighed and paused. "Truthfully, I don't know when I would have reached out to you all. I wasn't even sure any of you knew who I was and I wasn't sure you wanted to. Simply because I didn't know if you wanted someone like me to. But, I now realise that I owed it to your parents and to the four of you to try, and it's up to each to you to decide where we go from here. I'll understand whatever decision you come to,"

Saffron opened her mouth but stumbled while reaching for the right thing to say. The frightening truth was that she wasn't sure what was going to happen next. She wanted somebody from her old life in her present life, but what price was that going to cost? More heartbreak? Revelations that she didn't want to be revealed? Or, if they're lucky, happiness?

What was even more lucky, from Saffron's perspective, was that Rowan felt that he had the right thing to say.

"I think we need to try and be a family,"

Saffron had to bite her lip to not smile at right. It made complete sense to her that Rowan had been sorted into Ravenclaw. He had the correct answer to Amanda's ambiguous proposal. No matter what it was, they had to try. For so long, they had only had each other and pictures of their tragic past.

But now, a piece of that past had come into play. Moreover, the piece was willing to stay in their lives. Even though Saffron mulled over numerous potential negative consequences, at the end of it all, as long as she had her siblings, she would be okay. She felt like Maya, Rachel and Rowan probably had similar feelings in that regard.

"Our mother felt like you were her sister," Rowan said to Amanda, not looking the woman who was overcome with emotion in the eye. "She chose you to be one of our Godparents . . . mine, and . . . and if I could tell her anything today, the real version of her, not the Grey one Saffron and Maya see----"

At that, the first tear rolled out of Amanda's right eye, because of this Rowan started to well up too, as he continued.

"If I could tell her anything, I'd tell her that we'd try and be the family she wanted us all to be," he told them. "And that includes you if you want that?"

Amanda wiped her eyes and smiled at them.

"I'd like that, I'd like that very much,"