The Letter at the Wilton's'
Morning came soft and grey over the beech line. The kettle ticked on the hob; Margaret slid eggs from the pan, and Richard rustled the newspaper, half-reading the cricket scores. A thrush knocked at the kitchen window—once, twice—and then a soft thump sounded in the hall where the post fell.
"I'll get it," Richard said, pushing back his chair.
He returned with the circulars, a brown bill, and—on top—a heavy, cream envelope that didn't look like anything the Devon post usually carried. The paper was thick as card; the address flowed in dark green ink:
Mr. Emrys L. Void Upstairs Room The Wilton's' Cottage, Beech Lane Ottery St Catchpole
No stamp. A wax seal on the back—old-fashioned, deep red, pressed with a quartered crest Richard didn't recognize.
He frowned, turning it in his hands. "Emrys L. Void," he read out. "That you, lad?"
Void looked up from his toast and marmalade. "That's me."
Margaret wiped her hands on a tea towel and peered at the envelope. "Emrys," she said, testing the sound. "Like that old story you borrowed from the library—Myrddin Emrys, wasn't it? Welsh, I think. Prophecies and hills." She smiled, a little uncertain. "Probably a prank for the village fete. Or one of those fancy school advertisements."
"Or," Richard offered, half-joking, "a secret society trying to recruit you to wear robes and speak Latin."
Void's mouth tilted. "Or something," he said, and went back to his breakfast as if the room hadn't tilted around his name.
Margaret and Richard exchanged a look—the one that belonged to their quiet house now, somewhere between worry and a promise not to pry. The contract on the dresser said confidentiality in plain black type. So did Red's voice in their heads, steady as a plumb line.
Richard set the envelope by Void's plate. "Post came for you, then."
"Thank you," Void said. He didn't open it. He finished his eggs, cut another neat square of toast, ate that too. When he'd cleared his plate and set knife and fork together, he stood, tucked the envelope—whole—into the inside pocket of his coat, and pulled the buttons through with careful fingers.
"I'm going to the stream," he said, casual as weather. "Luna will be there. The twins too."
"The twins from the hill?" Margaret asked, already reaching for his scarf by habit, though it wasn't cold enough to need one. "Mind the bank—it's slick after last night's rain."
"And keep off Mr. Palmer's lower meadow," Richard added without looking up. "He's put new posts in and they're not set."
Void nodded, a brief promise. At the door he paused, palm flat to the lintel for the smallest moment—as though listening to the house breathe—and then he stepped out into the lane's pale light.
On the table behind him, the newspaper lay open to a column about local legends. In the margin, a single line caught Margaret's eye as she tidied—Myrddin Emrys—no more than a name, no tidy thread to the magician schoolbook people called Merlin in other stories. It felt like it should mean something and didn't, the way a word does at the edge of sleep.
"He'll be back for lunch," Richard said, more to the quiet than to her.
"Yes," Margaret answered, hearing the certainty in her own voice and not knowing where it came from. "He will."
The Stream
Void didn't open the envelope. He left it by his plate, heavy cream against scrubbed pine, the green ink glinting faintly in the kitchen light.
"I'll be at the stream," he said, already shrugging into his coat.
"Back for lunch," Margaret called, more by habit than rule.
He lifted a hand in answer and stepped into the soft morning, lane damp beneath his shoes, hedges beaded with yesterday's rain.
The path dipped through beeches to the ribbon of water where the bank fell away in a clean shelf. Luna was there first, bareheaded, hair like pale thistledown in the breeze. She crouched at the edge, flicking small stones with one finger so that they skimmed twice, then sank—except some didn't, not quite. A pebble would pause a heartbeat too long on the water, as if thinking it over, before it gave in and slipped under.
"Hello," Luna said dreamily, without looking up. "There's a rook's nest in the oak again. They like you."
"Good morning," Void said.
A rustle and a chorus of identical footsteps came from the willow. Two redheads burst through—freckled, grinning, impossible to mistake.
"Void!" one of them crowed. "Have you got it yet?"
"Don't be daft, George," said the other, eyes already scanning his hands. "He has the look. Letter?"
"Just this morning," Void said.
"Finally," they said together, like a well-practiced punch line.
Fred (or George) flopped onto the grass beside him; George (or Fred) dropped to a crouch, hands on knees. "We've taught you everything we knew by the end of second year anyway," said the first, airy and magnanimous. "Short of illegal fireworks, which are a third-year elective."
"Unofficial elective," corrected the other. "Very educational."
Luna tipped another pebble; it floated, spun once as if curious, and drifted to the current. "We told you it would come," she said to Void, matter-of-fact. "Ever since the day we made the pebbles listen."
George jabbed a thumb toward the water. "We saw you two doing that from the hedgerow. Very subtle."
"About as subtle as Dad's plugs collection," Fred agreed cheerfully. "Knew your letter was on its way the moment Luna started talking to stones like old friends."
"They are old friends," Luna said, unoffended.
The twins ploughed on. "Right then. You'll be our brother's year—Ron. Stringy, sulky when hungry, fond of chess and complaining."
"Terrible at keeping secrets," added the other, delighted. "If you land in Gryffindor, we'll teach you the secret passages."
"And if you don't land in Gryffindor," said his twin, "we'll teach you anyway. But it'll be funnier if you are, because then we can prank Ronniekins from inside the fortress."
"Imagine it," breathed the first, starry-eyed. "A pincer movement. He'll never see it coming."
Void watched the slow run of the water, then the pale flick of Luna's fingers. A pebble rose, hovered, and nestled back into her palm like something tamed.
"We'll see," he said.
The twins exchanged a look that meant we'll make it happen anyway and fell back into the grass, talking over each other about moving staircases and portraits that eavesdropped, Quidditch tryouts and the merits of Skiving Snack boxes they absolutely did not have yet.
Luna tucked a pebble into Void's hand. "For luck," she said. "And listening."
He closed his fingers around it. The stream murmured. Above them, rooks lifted from the oak in a shiver of black wings, wheeling once before settling again, as if counting heads and finding the number right.
Void let himself in just before noon. Margaret looked up from the ironing board, a question ready—then stopped. A severe-looking woman sat primly on the edge of the Wilton's' worn armchair, hat in her lap, square spectacles catching the light. Tartan cloak. Thin mouth. The sort of posture chairs seem to achieve only when she's using them.
"Mr. Void," she said, rising. "Professor Minerva McGonagall. Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."
Richard, who had stood the instant she did, blinked once. "Wizard—?"
McGonagall inclined her head, crisp but not unkind. "Quite. I apologise for the surprise. Your ward received a letter this morning." Her gaze flicked to the kitchen doorway. "Addressed to Emrys L. Void."
"It's on the table," Margaret said, a little faintly. "He didn't open it."
McGonagall's eyebrows climbed a fraction. "Indeed?"
Void shrugged out of his coat. "I had more important places to be. I was expected at the stream."
A muscle in McGonagall's cheek considered twitching and, admirably, did not. "Very well. We must speak plainly. Mr. Void has been offered a place at Hogwarts. Term begins on the first of September. He will need a uniform—three sets of plain black work robes, a pointed hat, a winter cloak—books (Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1, A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration,Magical Drafts and Potions, and so on), a wand, cauldron—pewter, standard size two—phials, scales, telescope. Currency must be exchanged at Gringotts. And travel is by the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross—Platform Nine and Three-Quarters."
Margaret's hand found the back of a chair. "Platform… what?"
"Between platforms Nine and Ten," McGonagall said briskly. "I shall see him onto it. As you are Mugg—" She stopped, softened the word. "As you are unfamiliar with our world, the school assigns a guide to new families to ensure safety and propriety."
"We don't keep pets," Richard said, odd with politeness. "If that matters."
"It matters only that students may bring an owl, a cat, or a toad," McGonagall said. "Not required."
"Luna and her father can take me," Void said, cutting cleanly across. He spoke as if naming the weather. "I'm not going with a stranger who's just arrived and says she's from a school."
McGonagall blinked. "The Lovegood's?" Surprise cracked her composure for the space of a heartbeat. "You know the Lovegood's?"
"The Lovegood's?" Margaret echoed, baffled. "Xenophilius and Luna? They're—"
"Wizards," McGonagall supplied, almost gently.
Margaret and Richard stared. They had watched Luna lug jam jars and drift along hedgerows like a thistledown child for years and never once thought to put fairy stories in the same room as her father's odd newspaper and onion-domed roof.
Void's voice stayed calm. "I've known for a while. We play near the stream and by their house. The twins are there half the time too."
"The twins…?" Richard ventured.
"Fred and George Weasley," McGonagall said, eyes narrowing—not unkindly, but taking stock. "Mr. Weasley's second-year sons."
"They told me not to talk about magic to non-magical folk," Void went on, looking at the Wilton's. "So I didn't. Every time I came back here."
McGonagall stared at him, properly taken aback. "You have been—exposed—without any formal introduction, and yet you observed the Statute more faithfully than many adults." A beat. "Admirable. However, Mr. Void, you still require a proper guide. I will be it."
Void's gaze didn't move. "Are the Lovegood's not proper? Is there something wrong with my friends' family?"
"Void—" Margaret murmured, instinctively smoothing the air.
He didn't look away from McGonagall.
The professor's chin lifted a fraction. "I intend no slight against the Lovegood's. The school bears responsibility for our Muggle-raised students. It is school policy that an official escort be provided."
Void walked into the kitchen, returned with the heavy envelope, and broke the red seal. He scanned the single sheet, flipped it, checked the back, then the enclosed supply list. "There's no list of rules in here," he said evenly. "How am I to confirm what you're saying is true?"
McGonagall drew in a breath. "Mr. Void," she said, each syllable precise, "I am not in the habit of inventing Hogwarts policy to gain afternoon walks in Devon. The acceptance letter contains your offer of a place and the equipment list; administrative procedures are conveyed by the Deputy Head or Head of House in person. You are, at this moment, receiving them. From me."
They regarded one another for a long, thin second.
Then McGonagall's tone eased a notch. "Compromise. The Lovegood's may accompany us. I will meet you with them, take you through the entrance to Diagon Alley, ensure your exchanges and purchases are correct, and deliver you back to this door. You need not step anywhere with me alone. But the school escort will be present."
Void considered it, the way he considered currents before stepping into a stream. At last he gave a single, small nod.
Margaret let out the breath she hadn't meant to hold. "We'd be grateful," she said. "Truly."
"Very good," McGonagall said. "Please ask Mr. Lovegood to meet us at the Leaky Cauldron in London tomorrow at ten. I will arrange passage from there and supply any shortfalls. Bring no pets—since you have none—and no more Muggle money than your train fare; everything else can be handled on-site."
She tapped the parchment; a second, smaller note appeared beneath the main letter—an appointment card bearing the Hogwarts crest and her tidy signature.
"To ease your minds," she said, passing it to Richard. "And to satisfy Mr. Void's admirable insistence on verification."
The corner of Void's mouth moved; it wasn't quite a smile. "I'll tell Luna," he said.
"See that you do," McGonagall replied, and for the first time in the Wilton's' sitting room, she sounded a little like someone who might, one day, be fond.