Chapter Text
Based on a sample size of one, Holly Potter quite liked wizards. Hagrid, who saved her from that awful island shack that her uncle forced them all into and who gave her the very first birthday cake she’d ever received, was brilliant. On the other hand, the crowd of magicals in the Leaky Cauldron who’d pushed and tugged to get her to shake their hands had been rather less brilliant, although Professor Quirrell had been… interesting at least. And then Griphook had been gruff but helpful, and Madam Malkin kind and fluttery, and then she met the blond-haired boy. Rude, but the kind of rude Aunt Petunia would like, the kind that’s pleasant to adults and terrible to everyone else.
That boy was still talking. And he still hadn’t asked for her name. “And the Malfoys, of course, descend from the first son’s line…”
Well, Holly also hadn’t asked for his pedigree (as though he were one of Aunt Marge’s prized pit bulls) but he’d decided to enlighten her with it anyway.
Maybe this was what wizards did. Maybe it was a kind of normal-for-wizards small talk. Holly considered memorizing the names of her relatives for a couple centuries back but it sounded so boring. She’d rather hear stories about these people rather than be able to recite their full names and blood status, but she doubted she’d be able to find what she wanted to know about them in books. Everyone seemed to know her parents, but even Hagrid, who’d actually known them, hadn’t known them well enough to tell her about more than her parents’ looks and which subjects they’d done well in. That and that they’d been Head Boy and Girl, whatever that meant. It sounded more like a Smeltings concept than a Stonewall one.
“… I can’t believe you had to ask who Abraxas Malfoy was…”
Holly glanced hopefully over at Madam Malkin, who smiled at her and offered, “Sweetheart, wouldn’t you like to look at our dress and casual girl’s robes?”
“Yes,” Holly said, jumping right off her footstool.
“Girls,” the boy muttered.
Holly rather thought that if the boy were a better conversationalist, girls wouldn’t have to avoid him by being girly. Still, she didn’t argue with him. Half because that sounded like even more of a pain than listening, half because good girls don’t ever argue ran through her head in Aunt Petunia’s voice.
She went to the back of the shop and poked about in the fabrics, which was more fun than she would’ve thought. Some were so bright and shiny, sparkling under her hands, but others were a distinguished darker color. Even the gray fabrics looked nice, woven so finely with a faint shine. Much better than her almost future uniform for Stonewall. And everything was new, unlike all her clothes, which Aunt Petunia picked up from yard sales and threw into her cupboard occasionally. Holly was given the old sewing machine when Aunt Petunia upgraded hers (although the only person who ever used it was Holly, to fix Uncle Vernon and Dudley’s clothes, which often ripped under the strain of their fat).
The bell over the door jingled a couple times until finally—
“Draco, dear, are you ready?”
“Yes, mum. I’ve been ready for ages. Are we going to get my wand now?”
“Let’s find your father first. I think he’ll want to be here. Getting your first wand is one of the most important moments in life—”
Holly strained to hear more, but the two were gone quickly.
It figured that someone as irritating as Draco would have a mum who loved him as much as Aunt Petunia loved Dudley, but it still hurt.
Now that they were gone, Holly could stand closer to the front of the shop, ignoring the other students and parents who come in and out. Any second Hagrid was going to arrive and help her with her shopping. Any second…
But the seconds went by, building up into an hourglass of sand that weighed down on her chest. She could leave, but Hagrid had asked her to wait, and she liked the thought of doing her shopping with someone who knew their way around Diagon Alley. She felt naked around here, trapped with all these people who would crowd her as soon as they realized who she was.
“Would you like to order some more robes, sweetheart?” Madam Malkin eventually asked, and Holly sighed with relief. She had money and apparently she had the time.
“Yes, please,” she said, and what felt like all the cloth in the shop came alive for her.
By the end of things, Holly had two more sets of school robes, some underrrobes (dresses, really, but in such strange fashion), as well as some real clothes under different names (breeches and underunderrobes and loose shirts). Hagrid still wasn’t there when she finished. She stood outside the shop with all her bags, debating where to go since she’d have to go shopping on her own now. It wasn’t bad, and Holly was used to doing things on her own, it was just that… It was silly. She was being so silly, wishing for a sign of the man she’d only met the night before.
“M-miss Potter?”
Holly looked up, wanting nothing less than to shake hands with someone who would fawn over her, but it was only that professor from earlier. “Professor Quirrell?”
“Wh-where is your g-guide?”
Holly glanced downward. “I think Hagrid must’ve had some important business to do.” A pint wasn’t exactly important business, but she didn’t want to get Hagrid in trouble. He’d been so nice earlier, with the cake and yelling at the Dursleys. When she looked back up, Quirrell was looking at her with a pensive expression. “I have my money, I can just—”
“Your letter, Miss Potter.”
She handed it to him.
He glanced over it, huffing lightly at a part of the list. “H-how much of-f th-this have y-ou bought?”
“Just my robes.”
Quirrell glanced over at her four large bags.
“And some extra clothes. But I can do this myself, really, if you just give me back my letter—”
“We’ll b-buy a tr-trunk first,” Quirrell told her. He spun on his heel and looked back at her. “C-come on, girl.”
“Thanks, professor,” Holly told him as she walked fast to match his strides. “I really appreciate it.”
“It is-s m-my own c-colleague who left you here,” Quirrell replied. “And y-you must be p-properly p-prepared for my own c-class.”
“Defense, right?” Holly asked. “I can’t wait. To start real classes, to go to Hogwarts… I never imaged any of this, even in my wildest dreams.”
“Y-your relatives n-never told y-you ab-about Hogwarts?”
“They never really told me about anything,” Holly said, shrugging awkwardly. “I think that boy at Madam Malkin’s told me more than my relatives ever did, and he was all haughty and terrible.”
“Unprepared, unarmed…” Quirrell said, quietly.
“I am! I’m going to be the worst student at Hogwarts.”
“…but so was she as a child…” he continued muttering under his breath.
Holly wondered if maybe, Quirrell hadn’t come back from the vampires all that well in the head. “Are you talking about the whole Voldemort thing?”
“You dare to say his name?”
Holly glanced down at the cobblestone path. The stones were smooth and gray, with no dirt despite all the shoes that must walk up and down them every day. Aunt Petunia would’ve loved it, even if it was magic. “I remember him killing my mum. Him ordering her to stand aside, the flash of green light, his laughter… him trying to kill me.” She looked up and saw that Quirrell had a strange expression on his face. “I think people won’t say his name because they’re scared, like Hagrid was, but if I’m going to be scared, I think I’ll be scared of the real thing rather than the names people make up for him.”
“And you believe there’s still reason to be scared,” Quirrell prompted.
“Hagrid said that some people think there’s a chance that he’s not really dead, just waiting to gather enough power to return properly.”
“What do you think, child?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t know any magic now, and I definitely didn’t know any as a baby, so how could I really have killed him? And besides… I don’t like the thought of having killed a person.”
“Even one such as he? Had he killed you properly, Lord Voldemort would not have had a single regret for the action.”
Holly shrugged. No one was completely remorseless, even when they were awful people. Sometimes Aunt Petunia would touch her hair and say it was better than her awful sister’s before attacking it with her scissors. Sometimes Uncle Vernon would gruffly tell her she did well in the garden, even though the next day he’d always find fault in it again. Sometimes Dudley would let her sit with him and watch a little TV before remembering he hated her and that he was thus obligated to pull on her hair anytime he felt like it and call her names.
“Everyone feels regret,” she said instead. “I don’t think you can avoid it, no matter how bad you are. Maybe he wouldn’t have cared about me or my parents, but there’s got to be a part of him that didn’t laugh.”
“Perhaps even several parts,” Quirrell replied, a small smirk on his lips, but he didn’t share the joke. “How much gold did you remove from your vault, Miss Potter? I’ll need to know what our limitations are.”
Holly slipped her handbag from her shoulder. It was a ratty, jean, over the shoulder thing, but Aunt Petunia had said that every girl needed a bag. Even freakish ones. The zipper jammed halfway through, causing the task to take much longer than it should.
“Reparo,” Quirrell eventually said, and her handbag twitched in her hands with a sort of shudder, and then Holly was zipping it open perfectly. When she looked at the bindings, she realized that even the small tears had fixed themselves.
“Thank you!” She held her bag forward for him to appraise.
Quirrell looked down and tapped one of the galleons inside with his wand. “Fifty-four galleons? Were you planning to buy everything plated in gold? That’s far more than you’d ever need.”
Holly flushed, snatching the bag back and zipping it up again. “I didn’t know! Hagrid just said to grab some of the gold ones and I didn’t know how much I’d need. I don’t know how much things cost.”
Quirrell did not look like the thought her answer was sufficient, because he was apparently a mean person. “Hagrid is not an example you should follow.”
Very mean, actually. “Hagrid was really nice to me!”
“Niceness does not prepare you for Hogwarts.”
“Meanness doesn’t either,” Holly told him as sharply as she was able. But with Quirrell’s look, she deflated a little. Quirrell was going to be her professor, after all, and if he was anything like the Dursleys, she really shouldn’t antagonize him. Still, she couldn’t stop herself from adding, “I know he maybe wasn’t the best person, considering he left me, but I like him. He bought me my first birthday cake! It had green frosting and was a little squished but it tasted really good.”
“Children,” Quirrell sighed. “How much g-gold did you have in your vault?”
“Lots,” Holly replied, knowing that was not the answer he wanted, but it was the only answer she had. “Lots of big piles of gold ones. Thousands, I think.”
Quirrell looked like he wanted to sigh again. “The most expensive thing on your supply list will be your wand. The rest of your supplies will amount to approximately ten galleons if I’m correct. You’ll buy a higher end children’s trunk for around fifteen galleons.”
“I don’t need a children’s trunk!”
“You don’t need a trunk with a maze of rooms inside or the ability to hold living things or room for thousands upon thousands of objects that you will throw in and immediately forget about. A children’s trunk is perfectly suited for your age.” And with that, he opened the door to Tulip’s Trunks & Tambourines and motioned her through.
Despite her initial annoyance, Holly was ashamed to say that she really liked her new trunk. The outside was a dark cherry wood with her initials down the side and when you opened it, you saw three compartments lined in a soft purple fabric. Though empty now, the compartments would begin to leave at the top the things she reached for most. When she held her hand over a specific compartment, silvery cursive writing would appear on the lid of the trunk to remind her of what she’d placed in the compartment. She dumped everything she’d bought from Madam Malkin into the first compartment and delegated the second one to school-related things, while the third could just be for anything else. Holly didn’t have much in the way of stuff, but she liked the thought of acquiring cool new things. And the best part about the trunk was that when she said, “Come!” it would follow her on for dog-like wooden legs. A proper adult trunk wouldn’t do that, so Holly decided it was all very okay.
She threw her various purchases into the trunk as they walked along Diagon Alley. Dragonhide gloves that Quirrell confirmed came from a real dragon unless the store had fallen on hard times and decided to turn to inferior counterfeit materials, textbooks that Quirrell called wastes of words but placed on the counter anyway, a cauldron and other potions materials, a telescope that Holly instantly looked through only to see the sun more clearly than she’d needed to, and more.
“It says I can get a pet,” she said as they passed by a shop whose chirping, hissing, and squeaking sounds could be heard from outside. “A cat, an owl, or a toad. Do people really pay for toads?”
“Some,” Quirrell said derisively. “Be quick.”
Holly tried to be quick, but she ended up walking all the rows of the pet shop, her faithful trunk walking behind her. She wanted this one and that one and all of them maybe, but wondered if her aunt and uncle would even allow her to have one. Holly could easily hide a toad from them, but she just didn’t want a toad. She wasn’t squeamish—Dudley had dropped toads on her loads of times, and by this point she didn’t mind them—but they sounded boring. A cat would be great, but despite all of Dudley’s pleading, her aunt and uncle had always been firm about not wanting a cat or dog ruining all their furniture. And a cat wouldn’t be happy staying just in her room. But if she got an owl, it could fly around outside when it wanted to and not bother the Dursleys at all…
“Would you be okay with coming with me even if I don’t have anyone to send letters to?” she asked the owls in the owl section. They were behind a sort of bubble thing, but otherwise roamed free in the enclosure. A couple hooted at her. “I could send letters to Professor Quirrell if you’d like to stretch. And Hagrid, maybe!”
She stepped inside the bubble, glancing between all of them. They were all different and beautiful, but a snowy white owl caught her eye.
“Hi,” Holly said.
The owl hooted at her and took off. For a second, Holly thought she’d just fly away, but the owl settled on top of Holly’s trunk with a small hoot. Holly couldn’t restrain her smile. It didn’t fade even as Quirrell told her she’d taken too long, because all she had to do was look at her beautiful owl and feel content.
To get him onto another topic, she asked, “Professor, the boy at the robes shop said something about sorting and Slytherins? What are those?”
“You’ll be sorted into a house upon your arrival. Gryffindor for the foolhardy, Hufflepuff for the fools, Ravenclaw for those who never look past their books, and Slytherin for the power-hungry.”
Holly had a feeling that those weren’t the official qualities of each house. “I don’t think any of those sound like me.”
“The qualities on the other side of the galleon are bravery, loyalty, intelligence, and ambition,” Quirrell said like it pained him. “But a wizard’s good qualities are often outweighed by the bad. Slytherin is the best option of them all, but even fools can be ambitious.”
“What house were you in, sir?”
Quirrell paused for a long moment. And then with a sigh, he said, “Hufflepuff.”
“That makes sense. You’re so nice to help me. That’s very Hufflepuffish, isn’t it?”
“Incredibly. There’s Ollivander’s. In you go.”
“You won’t come in with me?”
“Wands remind me too thoroughly of the stakes I tried to use to stave off my vampire attackers,” Quirrell said dryly and pushed her in.
“You must’ve needed a Gryffindor there to help you!” Holly called before the door closed.
Ollivander turned out to be an old man with a voice much softer than his height would’ve suggested. Holly liked him instantly for telling her more about her parents and for the fact that his shop was a chaotic yet subtly organized jumble of wands. Wands in cases, wands lying on top of cases, wands upon every surface, wands levitating near the window… It was brilliant. Less brilliant was that none of these wands seemed to work for her. Holly tried, mentally pushing something that she was pretty sure was her imagination instead of magic at each wand, but none of them seemed to fit. One wand even sent a shelf of wands falling down!
“Not yew!” Ollivander exclaimed, tugging that wand right out of her hand. “Definitely not yew. But perhaps…”
By the time Holly left the wand shop, her hair was singed on the right side, her glasses were cloudy with some kind of ash, and her hand was wrapped tightly around her very own wand.
“I’m a proper witch now!” she told Quirrell, who seemed to be in the middle of writing something on a long sheet of parchment.
“Mm.” The parchment vanished inside Quirrell’s robes before she could finish walking up to him.
“The wood matches my name—holly. It has a phoenix feather inside. I asked and Mr. Ollivander said I might see the phoenix at Hogwarts, and if I do, I’ll definitely thank him. Or her. He also said that my wand has a brother wand…”
“Explain.”
“It was very spooky. He told me that my wand’s brother was the one to give me my scar. Do you think that means that Voldemort and I are related?”
“That would be very unlikely.”
Peering down at her, Quirrell reached out as if to touch her scar, but his hand stopped before it reached her skin.
“I think it would be best to get going,” he said, his voice odd.
“I know we’ve finished my shopping and you’re a busy man, professor, but could we… Could we maybe get some ice cream?”
“If you do so very quickly. And tell me word for word what Ollivander said to you.”
After half-running to the ice cream shop they’d passed by earlier, Holly ordered a goblin green cone—not made from actual goblins, she was told by the cheerful owner—while Quirrell refrained from ordering anything. He seemed to prefer sitting down across from her and waiting her out. True to her word, Holly told him everything that had happened. Quirrell seemed very interested, much more than Holly was, really.
When he asked why, she said, “It’s still my wand, even if it has a brother. I can feel the way it’s mine and no one else’s. I don’t think it’ll leave me for Voldemort. But… professor, why do you think it’s him specifically?”
“Because the fates have it out for him. Did he tell you anything else?”
“No, but he told me about my parents’ wands. My dad had a mahogany wand, eleven inches…”
Holly continued talking since Quirrell seemed like a quiet sort of man. He asked questions occasionally, but mostly he seemed content to let her talk. Holly thought it might be because of his stutter; even though it had stopped for now, it might come back. She’d hate it if she were him, too. Dudley would’ve teased her so horribly if she’d had one.
Too soon, Holly’s delicious ice cream cone was gone. Instead of directing them toward the Leaky Cauldron, Quirrell led her toward a different pub, one closer to a street called Knockturn Alley, though not quite inside the alley. He motioned her through and with a bit of suspicion Holly entered. The reason they were there became obvious quickly. Hagrid, her first guide to the wizarding world, was passed out in one of the corner tables.
“Oh, Hagrid,” Holly murmured.
Quirrell tapped his wand against Hagrid’s shoulder and said a word she didn’t catch. Instantly, Hagrid jumped up with wild eyes.
“Wha— ‘olly! What ‘appened?” He looked around and Holly saw recognition dawn in his eyes. “I only meant ta ‘ave a pint…” Hagrid sounded horrified. He smelled terrible, sounded worse, his words stumbling together as he apologized to her.
“It’s okay, Hagrid,” Holly said before he could berate himself more.
“Really?”
“I promise,” Holly said, even though she really didn’t quite mean her words. But it wasn’t like she was angry.
Professor Quirrell raised an eyebrow at her, the brow almost becoming hidden by his large turban.
Holly shrugged at him. There was no point in being mad at people who hurt you. She’d been mad at the Dursleys loads of times and it hadn’t helped at all. And Hagrid was loads better than the Dursleys, so she couldn’t be mad at him. It hurt, but a lot of things hurt. That was life. She’d had to help Uncle Vernon loads of times when he was drunk and angry. Hagrid wasn’t angry at least, just sorry.
At first, she’d thought Hagrid’s size was absolutely wicked, because he was so much bigger than her uncle. But now, she couldn’t get it out of her head that he was even bigger and could crush her like a twig if he were the kind of person to get angry when he was drunk.
Stop being a scaredy-cat, Holly told herself. Hagrid was nice even now, and he’d been gentle with her when he took her hand to make sure he didn’t get lost on the subway. He was nothing like Uncle Vernon, who was mean all the time and just meaner when he was drunk.
She wasn’t mad, just sad, but Hagrid looked even sadder, so carefully Holly stepped closer to him and put her arms around his big waist. She couldn’t even reach halfway across, but it still counted as a hug. Hagrid sniffled and did the same, enveloping in his arms. It was warm and nice and he was the gentlest giant in the world, even if he cared more about drinking than showing her around Diagon Alley.
“Ah, ‘olly, yeh deserve better.”
Holly burrowed closer for one more second, then let him go. “I’ll see you at Hogwarts?”
“I’ll be ‘ere when yeh get off the train.”
“Th-the b-bartender can g-give you a ssober up ch-charm,” Quirrell told him.
“And… Dumbledore, he, ah, doesn’t ‘ave ta know?”
“N-no,” Quirrell agreed.
Holly nodded her head. “I won’t tell. It’s okay, Hagrid.”
After saying their goodbyes, which Hagrid sniffled and blew his nose through, Holly left the building with her trunk scampering at her heels and Quirrell leading the way. She was quieter as they came to a stop below a sign proclaiming the little area as something called an apparition checkpoint. It seemed so silly to be upset, but Hagrid had seemed to like her, and he’d given her a cake, but then he decided to ditch her, but he also felt bad about it afterwards… Holly’s thoughts kept looping around her head.
“We’ll apparate from here straight to your home,” Quirrell said, interrupting her thoughts.
Holly looked up at him with surprise. “Apparate—is that like teleport?”
“It’s the proper wizarding term that shares some similarities with the muggle concept,” Quirrell replied. “Now, where do you live?”
“Number four, Privet Drive. It’s in Surrey.”
Quirrell nodded, his dark eyes intensely focused on her. “I won’t be able to apparate you as I’ve never been to this Surrey myself. Will you allow me to read your mind to get a clear picture of the location?”
Holly bit her lip. “You’ll look only to see where it is?”
“Yes. You’ll concentrate on how your street looks and I’ll apparate us based on your memories.”
“…okay,” Holly finally said. She wanted to ask him why they couldn’t just use the tube like Hagrid did, but Quirrell didn’t come off as the type to have ever used the tube before. He probably thought it wasn’t a wizard-y thing to do. “I’m concentrating.”
Quirrell stared into her mind for quite a while, but Holly didn’t feel a thing. She felt as though she should feel something—he was in her very mind!—but there wasn’t even a tickle. Finally, after a long moment, Quirrell said, “Interesting,” and straightened his back from the lean he’d taken to make himself closer to her height.
Maybe Quirrell was a really bad mind reader, Holly privately thought, and that was why it had taken so long. “What’s interesting?”
“Your home,” Quirrell told her.
Holly made a face. “It’s not that interesting. Or even unique. Every house on our street looks like ours, down to the floor plan and flowers in front of the house.”
Quirrell hummed in agreement. “Grasp your trunk by its handle.”
Holly did so, and when she saw Quirrell’s hand reach for hers, she took it willingly. There was a crack and everything felt all wrong, squished and harsh and it kept hurting and hurting and—
Holly opened her eyes to the bright sunlight that illuminated Privet Drive. They were in the middle of the Dursleys’ backyard, hidden from view of the surrounding houses by the tall fence around the yard. Peering inside, Holly could just barely make out movement in the kitchen.
“That really hurt,” she said, shuddering at the fading pain. “Does it always hurt so much?”
When she met Quirrell’s eyes again, he was looking down at his hand with a curious expression, but he slipped his robe down his hand before Holly could see much more than a red tinge to his skin. Holly couldn’t remember letting go of him; she’d been in too much pain to even concentrate.
“It shouldn’t. I believe our magics are… very incompatible.” He looked around, taking in their surroundings. “This is where Dumbledore placed you?”
“Dumbledore? The headmaster?”
“After your… extremely unexpected survival, the headmaster announced to the wizarding world that you had been placed in a safe location and were well-protected from any remaining Death Eaters who might want to harm you,” Quirrell said, his lips curling up in something that definitely wasn’t a smile. “All this time, this is where you were.”
Holly nodded, unsure of what to say. “I was with my Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. And Dudley, my cousin. I’ve never seen a Death Eater before, whatever that is, so I guess it worked? I’d invite you in to meet them, but they really don’t like magic, and they hated Hagrid. Uncle Vernon tried to shoot him even! Hagrid bent the gun like a pretzel, but you still shouldn’t meet them. They’ll yell at you. You don’t need… You’re—you’ve been very nice.”
“And these relatives of yours, they’re not very nice?”
“They are sometimes,” Holly said, feeling as though she had to say something in defense of the Dursleys. “They took me in. And gave me clothes and stuff.”
Quirrell’s eyes looked over her clothes. Holly felt all too aware of the old yard sale clothes that hung off her frame. But he said nothing of what he maybe was thinking, only, “The day a muggle scares me off is the day I should simply give up my magic. But I have little interest in entering your home.” As if to himself, he added, “I’m not sure if it’s even possible. Those wards…”
“Oh,” Holly said. Overall that was good. Professor Quirrell didn’t deserve to be yelled at. His stutter would probably come back and Holly would feel really bad about the whole thing. “I suppose this is goodbye then, professor. Thank you for everything.”
“You’ve nothing to thank me for,” Quirrell replied with a short huff of his breath. “Return to your family. I expect to see you in September.”
Holly grinned at him. “I’ll read up on your class, I promise!”
And with a wave, she called her trunk with her and went toward the back door. When she looked back, Quirrell was gone. It seemed her family had gotten back from the shack in the middle of the lake in the time she’d been in Diagon Alley, because when Holly knocked on the door, Aunt Petunia pulled her in and screamed at the sight of Holly’s trunk and owl. Her arm was hard and bony around Holly’s shoulder and Holly realized she much preferred Quirrell’s hand, as much as it had hurt to touch it. It was always worse when it hurt on the inside rather than on the outside.
Holly was quickly sent to her room—she was allowed to keep it!—and once there, she opened her owl’s cage and her bedroom window to let her owl stretch its wings.
“We live at number four, Privet Drive,” she told her owl, just in case it got lost. She wasn’t sure if the owl could understand her, but she decided to take her hoot as a yes.
As the days passed, Holly made use of her owl only once.
Dear Professor Quirrell, Holly wrote, chewing on the tip of her quill as she thought of what exactly to write. Hedwig was sorely in need of entertainment, so she decided to write to the only person she really could. I wanted to thank you for your help the other day…
The letter ended up being rather long and rambling. It began with a thank you and in the middle she talked about how Hedwig (named for a goblin queen!) kept bringing back mice and placing them on Holly’s pillow and ended with her wondering what Hogwarts would be like. Quirrell didn’t write back. Holly was a bit sad, but she knew he was a professor at Hogwarts and a busy man. And it wasn’t like she wouldn’t see him again in September.