"Parvati, how did you do it?" Padma said as she stalked into her sister's room. They had just finished a rather late supper, where their parents had discussed their academic successes for the year. It had been a great surprise to their parents that Parvati had finished her first year with better grades than Padma.
Parvati played innocent as she unpacked her trunk. "What did I do?" The twins only shared a bathroom since they were nine, after a rather bad fight that had left both with identifying scars on their elbows. After getting their own rooms, they claimed it was all faked to get more space and the better bathroom. It had exiled their older brother Parviz to a room over the garage. The then sixteen-year-old had no complaints, as it allowed him his own entrance and better access to the rooftop garden.
"You're a Gryffindor," Padma whined. "You're not supposed to beat Ravenclaw in grades. Quidditch, yes, academics, no."
"That's the problem with you Ravens, resting on your laurels," Parvati said, lyrically, pulling out the picture that Dean had drawn of her and Seamus singing. It had been done in pastels, yet it looked so real. She tapped the corner with her wand and it expanded. Lavender had worked on her outfit for the picture. She wore a deep scarlet dress, with a golden sash, and her hair was up in an elegant braid that Parvati had no idea how Lavender had done. Seamus wore what Professor McGonagall had called a full Scottish kit, kilt and all. They were standing in the lectern of the Hogwarts Chapel.
"We study more than any other house at Hogwarts!" Padma said, moving to stand beside her sister. "Nice picture. Thomas's work?"
"Yes," Parvati said, moving over to the wall with the now almost yard high framed picture. "Dean gave it to me for our birthday. As for your studying, maybe you're not studying with the right people. Ravenclaw is weak in Herbology, and your practicums aren't as good."
"I wish Parviz hadn't finished before we started," Padma griped, as Parvati hung the picture across from her bed. "Then I would have had someone I knew who knew the subject to help me. You're right that our year is rubbish in the subject in my house."
"Nothing was preventing you from asking Neville ... well aside from my house's gripe against Brocklehurst, Li, and Turpin," Parvati said, digging into her trunk again for a few pictures of her and her fellow Gryffindors. The picture that McGonagall had taken of the nine in her year after the announcement of their class rank found it's place next to her bed stand. "I'll introduce you to him next autumn. And to Harry too. He can help you with your transfiguration wand work that Mum didn't like."
"I really wish I hadn't ended up in Ravenclaw," Padma said, sitting down on the bed. "I know, I'm more studious than you are, but not that much. I didn't think we would end up in different houses."
Parvati stopped her unpacking, and stood in front of her sister. For the first time in a very long time, she looked directly into her twin's eyes, letting her expression grow serious. She took a deep breath and admitted something she hadn't intended to. "I asked for Gryffindor. The hat said I could do well in Ravenclaw, but I wanted something different."
"It said I could have done well both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw," Padma said, not meeting Parvati's eyes. "I wanted Ravenclaw, though. I wanted to be like Parviz. I wanted to be at the top of my class, and have fun like our brother. He made it sound like Ravenclaw was the best place to be. It's not. It's full of a bunch of self-centered brains. We don't have friends. We don't like anyone who is the least bit different. We're cliquish, and I've never heard a single one of us use another's first name if they didn't have to."
"I think you need to spend a little time in Gryffindor," Parvati said, moving to sit beside her sister. "You're my sister, I can let you in. I asked Professor McGonagall, remember."
"I wish I'd taken you up on that," Padma said. "I missed you at Hogwarts."
"I missed you too," Parvati replied, placing her arm around her twin. "I had friends that you didn't but they can't really replace you."
"They sure seemed to replace me," Padma said. "We didn't even share breakfast after the New Year."
"I'm sorry about that," Parvati said, starting to cry. "Hermione got sick and I got drafted to pick up her work every morning. By the time I got to breakfast, you weren't there any more, and I couldn't find you. Then you wouldn't stay after class to talk to me ..."
"I was mad," Padma said, also in tears. "You'd never missed it without telling me before. I couldn't bring myself to even look at you."
"I wish you had. I felt so bad when you stopped speaking to me," Parvati said, as they scooted up on the bed. "I couldn't even tell anyone why."
"I'm sorry," both girls said, their eyes locked on each other. They stayed, gazes locked, for quite some time. As they did, all the tension in their bodies, built up over the year, seemed to wash away.
"Ginny, Mum says it's time for bed," Ron said as he looked in at his sister. She was busy writing a fairly long letter, and there was a stack of letters on the kitchen table, weighted down with two forks, positioned so Ginny could still read the top letter.
"I have to finish this letter before you spoil the rest of your first year for me," Ginny said, as she dipped her quill into the inkwell. "It's important that it sounds like I don't know what's happened since the last one."
Ron looked at his sister's letter. Her handwriting was much better than his, and had noticeably improved over the last year. Ginny paused for just a few seconds, probably considering her words. As she did, she flicked the feathered end of the quill back and forth on the underside of her chin. She had a expression of concentration, as if she was trying to compose each sentence carefully in her head before committing it to parchment. "You're really taking these letters to Harry seriously," he observed.
"I have to," Ginny said, as she finished the sentence. "These letters are important, not just to me, but to Harry and history. Letters to Merlin from Guenevere is still in print, and he's been stuck in the Mists of Avalon for more than a thousand years. Guenevere's been dead almost as long, yet her words are still read. This is my chance to do something that might be remembered forever."
Ron let Ginny finish the letter in silence. He could understand that drive. When he had left for Hogwarts, he had wanted to do something to outshine his older brothers, to prove that he was just as good or better than they were. Bill was a curse breaker for Gringotts. Charlie worked with dragons. Percy was the second prefect in the family, and everyone said could be Head Boy in a couple years. Fred and George were always fun and popular. And Ron, well, he didn't think he was that smart, until he started helping his fellow Gryffindor first years when Hermione was sick. He wasn't that funny, his jokes seemed to always fall flat, but he'd discovered that you didn't have to be funny to be a friend. And as for being popular, the Sorting Hat may have called him another Weasley, and that had hurt a bit, as if he wasn't worthy of his own self. However he wasn't another Weasley at Hogwarts, not in Gryffindor. He was Ron Weasley, chessmaster, quidditch fanatic, unexpected fact-finder, and the only First Year Gryffindor ever to score a perfect score on Professor Snape's end of year exam. (Snape and Dumbledore had swapped exams for their first year classes. Dumbledore hadn't told anyone until after the results were posted. Ron had been shocked.)
Ginny yawned. She signed her name and put up the quill, just as their mother entered the kitchen.
"Ron, I thought I told you to get yourself and Ginny off to bed?" their mother said.
"Sorry, Mum," Ron said. "Ginny had to finish her letter."
Much to Ron's surprise, his mother just nodded her acceptance of that statement. "Ginny, dear, I'll make the copy for you. Head off to bed, and we'll send Errol with it tomorrow."
"Percy said that I can borrow Hermes, and send it tonight," Ginny said with an expression that Ron knew would cause his mother to cave.
"That would be why he didn't take Hermes across the garden then," their mum muttered. "I'll send it off for you. Go on up to bed, dear."
"Thanks Mum," Ginny said, standing up and giving her mother a kiss good night, as well as a hug.
Ron was sure that Ginny hadn't been that tall during the Valentine's Day Dinner at Hogwarts. She had to be at least a couple inches taller. He also noticed that his sister was now wearing a bra, though he really couldn't see that she needed one, though that might be her loose nightgown that swirled around as she turned and mounted the stairs. "Good night, Mum, Ron." As she disappeared up the stairs, Ron turned back to what his sister had been writing.
"I didn't realize Ginny and Harry had written so much," Ron said, as he looked at the thick stack of parchment.
"Your sister has really found something since you came up with this idea and sold it to Mr. Potter," his mother said. "I think she's developing in to quite a letter writer. She's even started exchanging letters with Aunt Muriel, and I am well aware of my children's opinions of Meriel."
"I think she wrote at least once a week, if not twice, since Harry replied to her first letter," Ron said, as his mother sat down to copy her daughter's letter.
"Most likely twice," his mother said. "Now, what is this I hear about you being barely in the second quarter of your year? I thought you were doing quite well. Percy seems to think you were doing better than that."
Ron lowered his shoulders and slumped into a chair opposite his mother. It was time. "I did my best, Mum, but I just couldn't ... well ... you know ... I got a little behind in the beginning, and I couldn't recover enough. Percy tried to help, so don't blame him."
"Now, now, Ronald, I sure you did your best," Molly Weasley said. "I will be very proud of what ever you did. I don't expect you to be like Percy. I do expect you to study well and learn. If Ravenclaw puts you barely in the second quarters of your year, that's expected. I don't want you to study to the point that it's all you are. That wouldn't be you, Ronald Weasley."
Ron sudden smiled. He had apparently managed to pull one over on his mum without even being at home. Fred and George owed him a sickle. "Actually, Mum, I'm right behind Hermione and Harry as third in the entire year, and I still had time to get Oliver Wood to let me practice as Keeper."
"Third in your year?" Molly Weasley said, putting the quill aside. "You are third in your year, and you ... Ronald Bilius Weasley, what am I going to do with you?"
"Make me a glass of hot chocolate so I can get a good night's sleep?" Ron replied with the biggest smile that had ever graced his face. "And can I have a couple ginger newts?"