Could I request something with the Smeltings teachers? for Anon
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Miriam had fussed at Joe all morning before he left, and he was wrapped in several scarves against the fog, even though it wasn't particularly cold. He was still in the process of peeling them off of his neck when he reached his office. He could hear Alan inside already, tapping away at his computer, muttering at his invisible friends. It felt like the past year and a half had been an odd, disjointed dream, and now, he was waking up to any other day, rather than his first day back at Smeltings in a year.

He opened the door.

Alan glanced up to say, "'lO, Joe. Lewis put everything back exactly as you left it for him. There may actually have been measuring involved to be sure it was completely exact."

Joe shook his head, and settled back behind his desk. It did look the same. The shelves behind it were bare, and the computer was covered with its dust catcher. The old Smeltings issue typewriter was still shoved away in a corner. Aimlessly, he opened the drawer, and smiled. "Not entirely," he said, and pulled out a sheet of printer paper, on which Lewis had sketched the history classroom, with the pair of them leaning on the desk together. The figure of Lewis was handing over a stack of books and waving goodbye. He'd written, "Welcome back, Joe... I just kept the seat warm for you."

Joe turned it around for Alan to see.

Alan swiped it and looked at it carefully. "Bloody shame you couldn't both be here," he said. "Blythe tried, you know--to get a second history post opened. No luck at all."

"Well, I'm sure he'd rather be in Australia with his wife," Joe pointed out.

"Hmm."

"Hmm... what?"

"Well, I think it's a bit convenient, don't you? She gets a job offer, just as you start to feel good enough to come back?"

"You don't think it was a fake?" Joe asked, horrified. "He can't just walk away for me..."

"I expect there was more to it," Alan said. "For one thing, I don't think he's entirely well himself. He was always coming in achy and sick."

"Oh. I hope he's not terribly ill."

"I don't think so. It's a chronic thing, if it's anything at all. But there always seemed to be something else. Anna has a theory that Raymond and Dora are MI6 or some such rot."

Joe raised an eyebrow. "And they had to protect the Smeltings history department from dastardly international terrorism?"

"Well, probably not, when you put it like that. But Anna spun quite a story about it. She had them skydiving off a tower in Malaysia." He grinned. "I'm not sure how Dora'd keep that hat of hers on, doing that. But I'm quite sure that she does."

"Dora Lewis and the Temple of Doom?"

"Oh, not that one! Pick a better one. Or, she'd have her own. Dora Lewis and the Founder's Forge--they were here looking for artifacts from the Founders of Smeltings."

"Right. They're rumored to have vast powers to improve suburban gardening." Joe took the picture back, and tacked it up on the wall with a push-pin. He'd get a frame for it tomorrow. "I suppose it is curious, them disappearing so conveniently. Without so much as a forwarding address."

"Yeah. MI6 and Indiana Jones aside, Anna did see a fellow in London who she thought was Raymond--only he was posing as an indigent, down at Charing Cross Road. Also, he'd got younger."

"A nice trick, if you can do it. Did she talk to the man?"

"No. He got lost in the crowd before she caught his attention."

Joe sighed. "Well, hopefully, he'll surface again. Good bloke."

"Yeah, he is."

There was nothing more to say on the subject. Joe pulled the dust cover off the computer, and settled in to see how many contradictory and corrected messages Blythe had sent out overnight.

---

One of the Patil twins tries to get a date with Dudley after the war. for Ellen
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Padma Patil hadn't exactly been in Harry Potter's inner circle, though she'd been adjacent to it. The closest she'd got was being dragged to the Yule Ball by Ron Weasley, then promptly ignored. But she had been in Dumbledore's Army, and when Ginny Weasley had called all of them to Andromeda Black's house to celebrate Harry's birthday, there had certainly been no question of saying no. There were inner circles, but there were also circles a bit further out, and all of them responded. All of them felt that Harry needed to be reminded that he had friends as well as followers.

And all of them that were left alive showed up.

Parvati had become an even bigger social butterfly since leaving school, and as soon as she was past the pond, she was chatting with Oliver Wood and Lavender Brown. Padma managed a conversation with Ron that wasn't too awkward, then cast around for others she knew. Cho Chang and Michael Corner seemed to have made up from their latest fight, and were sitting by the pond together. Padma had never really go along with either of them terribly well.

"Padma!" a voice rang out.

She turned to find George Weasley, looking oddly alone without Fred. "Hello."

He came over. "Good party, eh? I saw your sister settling in."

"Yeah, I... where's Harry?"

"Inside, tending to His Royal Highness."

"Who?"

"Prince Teddy of Lupinstan, true ruler of all civilization. He appears to have royally dirtied his nappies." George bit his lip. "How are you and Parvati?"

"We're fine." He didn't look satisfied by this answer, and Padma understood; when they'd realized that Fred Weasley was dead, she and Parvati had clung to each other, and Parvati had moved into the Ravenclaw dormitory for the remainder of the year--the Gryffindor dormitories had been severely damaged--because she'd been so terrified of the idea of losing her twin (it was the only thing Padma had ever seen her terrified about). George looked like he was scratching at a phantom limb. Padma tried to elaborate. "We're sharing a flat in Leeds," she offered. "We've been helping each other with our apprenticeships."

"Oh. Good."

That seemed to be all there was to say. All they really had in common was being twins. Padma looked around nervously, and spotted a tall, broad-shouldered boy that she didn't know. He was wandering as aimlessly as she was. "Who's that?" she asked. "I don't recognize him from Hogwarts."

"Oh, that's Harry's cousin Dudley. He's a Muggle. Did his little bit to help out last year, though."

"Really? Could I meet him?"

"I don't see why not. Oi! Dursley!"

The boy turned, looking quite alarmed at being addressed, but made his way over. "What?" he asked, giving George a narrow, untrusting look.

"This is Padma Patil," George said. "She wanted to meet you."

He didn't look like he quite believed this. "Oh," he said. "Er... Dudley Dursley."

"I'm pleased to meet you," Padma said. "George says you're Harry's cousin?"

"Yeah."

Dudley didn't seem disposed to say more, so Padma said the first thing that came to her mind, which was, "You don't look anything like him."

"I know. Everyone seems disappointed by that."

Padma shook her head--the fact that this good-looking, strong boy was worried that he didn't look skinny and specky, or have uncombable hair, was somehow endearing. "I think you got the looks in the family, personally," she said.

Dudley was apparently so shocked at this that he fell completely silent and went still, like a frightened prey animal.

George laughed. "Maybe I should leave the pair of you alone!"

Dudley turned to him with a fairly terrified look. "Er..."

"B'bye," George said, and wandered off (straight, Padma noticed, to Parvati).

"Don't worry," she said. "I don't bite."

"So... er... you're... er... a... you know?"

"A what?" Padma glanced in the direction George had gone, and assumed Dudley had seen Parvati. "A twin? Yes, my sister is called Parvati."

"No... a..." Dudley pointed at her in a completely baffling way.

"Indian?"

"Well, obviously, but, er... like Harry."

"A witch?"

"Right. That."

"Oh. Yes." Padma drew her wand and Conjured a shower of sparks. "Go, magic!"

Dudley blinked, then smiled sheepishly. "Reckon if you'd done that two years ago, I'd have run off screaming."

"George said you helped us last year."

"Not as much as I should've," Dudley muttered. "I was mostly hiding in a big house in the Cotswolds." He seemed to realize that this didn't sound impressive. "Punched one of the berks in the face, though," he offered. "His... you know... was broken, but he was trying to drag off one of the kids. I reckoned he'd fall as hard as anyone from a good punch."

"That sounds very brave."

"Right. Lupin said it was a really bad one, too, who liked to take little kids." Dudley deflated. "He got away, though."

"But not with the little Muggle-born?"

Dudley nodded.

"Good for you, then." Padma bit her lip. "Say, are you here with anyone?"

"Er..."

"Maybe we could be here together."