FicWad

When Andrea had spent all that time agonising over whether or not she was going to school, she didn't have all the facts. She didn't take something very important into account. She couldn't have. There was no way Andrea could have known. She was only a child.

Andrea had failed to consider Albus Dumbledore. The greatest sorcerer since Merlin himself. The Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

He was brilliant. Undoubtedly so.

People said he was more than a little bit mad.

He was standing at Andrea's front door.

She gaped at him with undisguised astonishment. She had been extremely confused when someone knocked on the door - no one knocked on their door. Anyone who ever came to visit just barged right in. But whatever she had expected when she swung the heavy wooden door open, that most definitely, wasn't it.

Without taking her eyes off of the strange old man, with is long silver hair and beard, and extravagant star patterned robes, Andrea let out a yell.

"DAD!"

Her reaction seemed to amuse Albus Dumbledore. Because his eyes twinkled, and his lips quirked upward. As if hew as trying not to smile. His amusement grew as there was a loud clattering from the kitchen. And he waited patiently as the thumps of her father's footsteps approached them at a full out run.

"Andrea, lovie, what's wrong?" he gasped urgently as he came to a halt just behind her.

Andrea still didn't take her eyes off their gilded visitor. Letting someone that powerful out of her sight would be idiocy. Until she was sure he wasn't a threat.

She could do absolutely nothing if Albus bloody Dumbledore wanted to harm her or her father. But it was instinct that kept her gaze on him. Pure instinct. Which she was even more powerless to fight. So she continued to stare at him, and pointed at him in answer to her father's question.

He turned his worried gaze from Andrea's stiff form and directed it to the man standing in their doorway. When he took in the man who was standing before him, looking at him and his child with fond amusement, Adrien Moran was rendered speechless. That in itself was a rare occurrence.

It took him a while to remember the manners Andrea's grandmother had battered into him when he was her age. That she had failed to get into Andrea's head. When he did, he quickly slapped a hand down on Andrea's shoulder and steered her out of the doorway.

"Umm, come in, Dumbledore, why don't you?"

From the tone of his voice and the look he was sending Dumbledore, Andrea knew her father hadn't been expecting their visitor either. That didn't exactly help calm her risen hackles.

It also had the effect of setting alight her curiosity. If Dumbledore hadn't been invited to their island by her father, what was he doing there? How did he even know where to find them? Wasn't their island unplottable?

She regarded Dumbledore even more warily when that thought passed through her mind.

Dumbledore didn't seem to mind being regarded with such open confusion and wariness. Because he stepped over the threshold cheerfully. He swept off his scarlet travelling cloak and draped it on the hatstand to his left. He then smiled at the two of Morans until her father once again remembered that people were supposed to speak to each other.

"Want to sit down Dumbledore? The sitting room's this way," he offered, and steered Andrea toward the room in question, "I'll go make us some tea. Andrea, love, show Dumbledore into the sitting room."

With that, Adrien sprinted back into the kitchen to go about fixing them a pot of tea. Which meant Andrea was once again left alone with Albus Dumbledore. That her father seemed to trust the old man enough to do so calmed her quite a lot. But she still wasn't entirely comfortable exposing her back to him, like she would have to, to lead him through the house. It was a feeling she didn't know how to explain to someone so human. And it left her at a loss for what to do or say to the man who was looking kindly down at her through a pair of half-moon shaped glasses.

Unlike her, Dumbledore seemed to know exactly what to do. As though he chatted with harpies all the time. Unlikely, but Andrea didn't have another explanation.

"Through here, I believe," he said pointing a long hand in the direction of the sitting room.

When Andrea nodded in confirmation he walked on ahead of her. Through the coat room. Down the main hallway. He then turned to look back at Andrea, who was following behind him and still feeling bewildered. She pointed at the closest door on the right and he nodded.

When he quietly opened the door and walked into the sitting room he let out a happy sigh. He strode over to the fire and warmed his hands.

"Lovely and cosy in here, isn't it?" he commented as the heat of the roaring fire washed over them both, "But I fear, by your surprise, Catherine failed to let you know I would be dropping by."

"You know Aunt Cat?" Andrea asked before she could help herself.

"I do. I was teaching at Hogwarts while she was there. Yes, I really am that old," he replied jokingly.

If he was teaching at Hogwarts when Aunt Cat was in school, then he really was old. Aunt Cat was eighty-seven. Still wrangling dragons in Romania, mind you.

Wouldn't get on the wrong side of her, not unless you wanted to lose a limb or two.

That she remained on speaking terms with an old school teacher was a little out of character. At least, Andrea had thought it would have been. Evidently, she had been mistaken.

"Was she supposed to tell us?" Andrea asked, since Dumbledore didn't seem to mind her asking questions.

Besides, the silence between them was growing awkward. And judging by the clatters and bangs she could hear coming from the kitchen her father wouldn't be joining them all too soon. Trying to make dinner and tea a the same time wasn't going very well at all.

"Oh no, I merely expected that she would. Catherine has never been the type to remain silent when she feels it matters," Dumbledore told her cheerily.

This, at least, tallied with what Andrea knew of her Great Aunt.

"Okay, that makes sense," she allowed, and settled herself into her favourite armchair. This brought her much closer to the headmaster than she had been. Because her favourite chair was so very close to the fire that anyone trying to Floo in would trip over it once they stepped out of the fireplace.

Dumbledore took that to be the peace offering that it was. He inclined his head at her ever so slightly. Then took a seat on the nearby loveseat. He continued to smile at her like an indulgent uncle. A look which she was very familiar with. She had many uncles. All of whom treated her with a degree of unsure indulgence.

Accepting though they may have been, but that didn't mean they knew all that much about harpies. Or what adolescent harpies normally did. Or how they were supposed to act in comparison to ordinary children.

Andrea may or may not have taken advantage of that from time to time. But she had a feeling Dumbledore was quite a bit ore knowledgeable in that regard somehow.

"I'm surprised, Andrea, that you haven't asked me why I'm here. Catherine told me at length about your lively curious mind," Dumbledore said to her in a strangely neutral tone. Andrea was surprised that he spoke and didn't answer for a minute.

"You're here to see Dad 'bout something," she replied with a shrug, "Adults always tell me I'm too young whenever they want to say anything important. And it must be important if you came all the way here."

"I see," Dumbledore replied, then asked again, "And what about your curiosity as to how I came to be here?"

She wondered how Dumbledore knew she had been thinking about that when he arrived. Though, she supposed, it was a bit of an obvious question.

"You said Aunt Cat knew you were coming. She told you how to find the island, didn't she?" Andrea reasoned.

She blinked innocently at Dumbledore. He seemed to be very pleased indeed. But Andrea hadn't a single clue why he was so happy.

People did say he was a little bit barmy.

"That armchair is your favourite, am I correct?" he continued to question her with an intense look in his eyes.

"Yeah," she answered, becoming wary of him once again. She didn't know where he was going with that line of conversation. But she didn't like it.

Nor did she like the knowing look playing about his features. Or the way he glanced fro her to the dancing flames. The flames and smoke she could see things in, but Dumbledore most probably couldn't. She didn't like it at all. In fact, she felt for the first time in her life that she wanted to move away from the fire, and ignore the tantalising stories it played out before her eyes.

Andrea didn't know if that counted as illegal underage magic. It's not like she could stop seeing things. But, like her parentage, it wasn't something any old person needed to know about.

"What, may I ask, do you find so interesting in the fire?" he asked in an innocently curious way, and seeing her sudden alarm, raised his hand in a soothing manner, "I am not the Ministry, dear girl, I am merely curious."

"Nothing good, at the minute," she replied, hoping that was enough to satisfy him, she doubted it would be, though.

He raised his eyebrows at her. Andrea looked away from him and into the fire.

"A Grim. A good man. And a terrible thing, less than human. Waiting for something," she said a last, not liking that she'd said any of it out loud. It made it feel more real, now that she had. She had a strong suspicion exactly what that thing was. And she thought Dumbledore might just know too.

"I'm sorry to hear that, though it's not entirely unexpected," he sighed, looking sad for a brief moment. Just as quickly, the mood passed, and he returned to his jovial mood.

"Alas, that is not what I came here to discuss," he proclaimed just as her father entered the room laden down with a tea tray, "And i had a job finding here, even with Catherine's instructions. You've done a very good job with it."

"Thanks, Dumbledore," Adrien said as he doled out tea to each of them, "Want to stay for supper? It's almost read."

"That would be lovely, Adrien," Dumbledore replied delightedly.

"Great, so what did you want to talk about that you couldn't do by owl?"

"I am here to discuss your daughter," he said more seriously.

"Why he asked with a slight amount of alarm, "There's nothing wrong with Andrea, and she's never done anything wrong."

"He knows, Da," Andrea murmured fro where she was curled up in her chair.

Her father whipped around to look from Andrea to Dumbledore. He nearly flung his mug across the room, he began gesturing that wildly in his surprise. He began stuttering out something, but was halted by Dumbledore, just as Andrea had been a moment earlier.

"But first, I should give you this," Dumbledore proclaimed, and plunged a hand into his robes. Seconds later, he produced a letter, addressed in bright green ink. He held it out to Andrea, who just looked at it in confusion.

After a moment, she reached out and took it. She read the emerald ink on the front. It was addressed to her.

Andrea Celestia Moran,
The Blue Room,
Celeste Horse Ranch,
Bóruma Island,
Donegal,
Ireland.

Andrea thought it was a little unnecessarily detailed in its direction. What use would it be for an owl to know what room she slept in? How did they even know that? Why did they even bother with the address when Dumbledore was going to bring it with him?

"You may open it, if you like," Dumbledore prompted her quietly.

She did a he suggested and ripped open the letter in a flurry. When she got to the letter she didn't hesitate to flip it open and rad it. But when her eyes passed over the first sentence she was too stunned to carry on.

Dear Ms. Moran,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

She tore her gaze away from the sheet of parchment immediately and shot a sharp look at Dumbledore. She couldn't believe it. It couldn't be true, could it? If it was some sort of joke, it was in incredibly cruel one.

"This isn't, is it?" she asked weakly, hardly able to get the words out through her inexplicably tight throat.

"It is," Dumbledore confirmed.

Unable to do anything else, Andrea slapped a hand over her mouth and let out a muffled sob. Tears began to spill out of her eyes uncontrollably.

Never in her life could Andrea remember being so overwhelmed with pure, undiluted, iridescent happiness.