So it looks like Chuck and me are going to be settling in Grimmauld.

I know you lot are looking to spread your wings, and thinking about other places you might stay, but I wanted all three of you to know that you've got a home base here whenever you need it. And regardless of where you end up settling, that includes a standing offer for any babysitting, holiday visits, and possibly a dinner once a month if you'd like it. (Can't guarantee it won't be slightly burnt if I'm the one cooking it, but these sort of things aren't just for the food, right?)

Anyways.

I know it'll never be quite the same, without Remus and Sirius and Severus there, but it is a home, and we're family, so feel free to come back to the nest now and again for a visit, yeah? I'd like that quite a lot.

Hallo, luv.

I managed to extricate Dree from a rather damp and enthusiastic Mrs Weasley thank you earlier. Good on her and Em for getting you here.

I know things are all sorts of Not Particularly Fun right now, but I am beyond glad that you're here, and between you and Ginny both coming home nearly on the same day, it's rather like Weasley Christmas has come early.

In all seriousness, my dear sweet lovely amazing Chuck, thank you for holding on all this while, and for coming back home where you belong. We'll sort the rest out, I've no doubt.

I know you were rather insistent on limiting your list of visitors this evening. Don't blame you for that in the least. I'm sure it's been a rather horrible day all round. A rather horrible row of days, really. I do want to say hallo in person very much, just because it's one thing to hear someone's safe and alive, and another to see them for yourself, and my imagination has gone to some rather dire places of late, and I don't mind about your hair or any of the rest of it, but I don't have to fling myself over your hospital bed and weep with thankfulness just yet.

I'm ever so glad you're here.

There's a certain amount of poetic justice in both of us being stuck somewhere with a wolf at the door, isn't there?

I suppose the best thing for both of us to do is to wait as patiently as we can for it to pass.

Adam's so very confused. It's like he's lost his sense of balance the last couple of days. I hope he'll get some of it back once you're here safe and sound, but I'm trying my best to keep him from getting too frustrated by everything. Bea is switching back and forth between being the Best Older Sister Ever and an absolute brat, but that's decidedly understandable.

I miss you.

Come home soon, yeah?

Taking a mo to catch our breath.

Working our way through our chunk of the list. Haven't had any run-ins yet, knock wood. We've run into a few sites that've been cleared, but we've also come across two more that've been Fideliused already, so that's something.

Glad we've got Colin along - secret keeper extraordinaire, purveyor of salt, obtainer of random sandwiches. (Seriously, I've no idea where he managed to get some, but they were fabulous.)

Everyone all right? Staying safe?

I've been thinking quite a bit about love lately, and how very important it is.

As well as how difficult it is to deny, control, and stamp out.

Love is sort of mad like that, isn't it? It's tenacious and fierce, and grows under even the harshest environments. When we love someone, really, truly, deeply, it's one of the strongest kinds of magic there is. It makes us brave, and gives us hope beyond hope, and makes us into our best selves.

My parents met while they were in school.

My mum, Andromeda, was one of the Blacks, and as such, came from a long line of people who were exceedingly proud of their magical heritage, and she was told from a very early age that because she was a Black, she was superiour to pretty much everyone -- obviously, because she was magical, she had to be better than non-magical people, and because she was a Black, she was better than all those people who had magic, but didn't have that tradition, that geneology, that history stretching back across generations.

My da, Ted, his dad was a banker, and his mum taught primary school. He first found out about Hogwarts when he got his letter at the age of eleven, and went without the slightest idea of what to expect. He told me later it was like moving to a new country, because the language, the history and culture, the traditions were just so different from what he'd grown up with. Not necessarily bad, just different.

And these two people from totally different worlds fell head over heels in love for each other. Despite everything that was trying to keep them apart, they found a strength they didn't realise they had inside of them, and they stood together, hand in hand.

I am proud to be the child of people from two different worlds. I am my mother's daughter, but I am most certainly my father's daughter too.

Love is defiant. Love is beautiful. Love is radical. It transcends differences and conquers fear. And no matter how hard some people work to tell us who we ought to love, and who we shouldn't, it finds a way.

Hallo, cuz!

I know your hours are rather spoken for, and it'll be difficult to slip away, but if you can, I wanted to let you know that I'd love to visit with you over hols. You'd be welcome at Grimmauld, of course, any time you'd like, or if it'd be easier for you to meet somewhere else, it wouldn't be a bother on my end at all. And when I say any time, I mean it! I keep all sorts of mad hours. A late night cuppa or an early, early morning cocoa wouldn't go amiss.

I also want you to know that even though it'd be really lovely if you got the chance to come over, I would understand if it'd be too much for you to get away, or if you'd just rather not. You're the one who knows what you can get away with.

(Ah, for the simpler days of Tea Appreciation! I miss having you lot take over our shop.)

All my love,

Tonks

And I am a member of the Order of the Phoenix.

I'm other things too, mind. I'm a mum. Former shop-keeper. Hogwarts alum. Rather terrible cook.

I remember what it felt like when I was first approached by a close friend, someone I trusted, and I was told that there were other people out there who thought like I did – who were horrified by the cruelty and restrictiveness of the Protectorate, and who wanted to change things for the better. Until that moment, I don’t think I’d ever realised just how hopeless and alone I’d always felt – and what an enormous relief it was to know that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.

I was worried at first about what I’d gotten myself into. Whether the people I was throwing my lot in with would be just as brutal and cruel as those I was trying to fight against. But when we have meetings, we drink tea, sometimes something stronger, and eat biscuits with jam, and argue, and think up solutions to problems, and try to figure out how best to move forward, and laugh, and mourn, and really, I don’t think I’d ever imagined how shockingly normal it is.

And how wonderfully freeing.

I was forced into hiding a few months ago. And I've had time to think about what this change has meant for me and my family. For instance, I find it really telling that now that I’m a fugitive, I feel more free than I ever have. I don’t have to worry about my children seeing others being tortured and killed because of compulsory attendance at some sort of ghastly circus, or that they’ll be subjected to cruciatus if they get in trouble at school. I don’t have to watch every word I say. I don't have to be careful in case my neighbours see me reading a forbidden book, or listening to the wrong station on the radio. I don’t have to worry about whether I’m bribing the Watch enough so they won’t break the windows in my shop, or whether the graffiti across the street will get me arrested.

It doesn’t have to be this way, you know.

It hasn’t always been like this, after all. It was different twenty years ago, and it can be different again.

One of the things I’ve been particularly struck by since I’ve taken a step back from the Protectorate, as it were, is how deeply afraid everyone is about everything. Including the people in charge.

Here’s what I mean. Do any of you lot know someone who is perfectly capable of passing judgement on other people, but can’t stand it at all when the same is done to him? The second someone says anything critical about him, he’s looking to throw a tantrum or pick a fight. Awfully insecure chap, isn’t he? Thin-skinned. No sense of humour.

And if I were to say, for example, that the Lord Protector wears frilly knickers to bed, or that his lifelong ambition was to decorate cakes, only he was absolute shite at it, so he decided to torture everybody instead because he was a petty, sick bastard, that’d be rather juvenile of me, to be sure. But it’s clearly a joke, isn’t it? It’s meant to poke fun at a powerful man. Which is something people do, by the way. And have done pretty much ever since we started writing things down.

Only we can’t do that here. It’s not allowed. And the only reason I can get away with saying this where other people can see it and not get dragged in for questioning or punishment is because I’m in hiding.

Awfully insecure of them, isn’t it? Almost like they’re afraid, or have something to hide. Frilly knickers, perhaps? Who’s to say. All I know is that a place that doesn’t allow free journalism, that shuts its borders, that doesn’t have a fair system of courts, that imprisons and tortures its citizens, and that has no bloody sense of humour, that place is a dictatorship, not a paradise. And even though the person in charge is powerful, he is just a man.

That's all for now. I hope you had a bit of a laugh. I think we could all use one from time to time, don't you?

Trying to get back into the thick of things after months of sitting on my arse is hard. I've no idea where I'm needed most. What d'you lot think?

I need to train up a bit, I know that much. And Wee Ickle Adam is still terribly small, so I can't hare off for too long at a time, but a few hours here and there are certainly workable, and I want to be of help. And stretch my legs a bit too, yeah?

I was thinking if we nosed around the camps again, perhaps I could give a hand - there are two babies in England we haven't picked up yet, aren't there? Buraq and Thomas? I know security was tougher before Christmas, but it might be worth our while to head back, and I'd save us a dose of polyjuice.

And I'm definitely prepared to help with the Fidelius efforts, too.

Right.

So.

This is rather inconvenient and everything, but my water just broke.

Remus and Sirius are rather knackered, but they're here. As is Evs. But Poppy, Charlie, if you want to join the party, you're more than welcome.

Right.

As everyone now knows, the portrait has the memory of a goldfish.

Training does not work on the portrait. In the least. And while it's monumentally satisfying to break china in front of it, therapeutic even, it does not appear to work unless it's really constant.

I've very nearly finished work on a lovely little glass box we will install around the portrait. It has curtains, and soundproofing. It'll look like a window. A window with particularly lovely curtains, if I do say so myself.

Remus, love, care to give us a hand testing out the spellwork?

Also, I think I managed to convince Frank to stop by for tea on Thursdays for the near future. Just so's everyone's aware. I'm not sure he's up for too much by way of socialising, but there's no need to tiptoe around him either, so feel free to say hallo.