Prologue: Teaching Tolerance

It was August. August the twenty-second, to be exact. The heat of the day was scorching, and only just petering out at sundown. The setting was a place by the ocean, with rocky cliffs and white sand below. A staircase climbed around the edge of the cliff to reach a snug, cozy cottage. A blue blanket was spread out on the beach. A man sat there, his long red hair tied back in a ponytail. From his left earlobe dangled what looked like a fang. His most striking features, however, were the scars that stood out on his face. They were not ugly, but made him look dangerous; a reminder to all that he was not someone to cross casually. On one side of him sat his wife, an unearthly beauty whose long blond hair shone with the setting sun. She held a sleeping baby on her lap. The little boy had brown hair, something unheard of in his father’s family’s red-haired legacy. Two small girls in identical swimsuits played in the water. One had red hair like her father’s and looked to be about two. The other’s hair was more like her mother’s, and she seemed about four.

After a while, the older girl ran over to her parents and plopped down beside them.

“I want to go to Muggle school,” she announced.

Her parents stared at her for a moment.

“Wait, what?” her mother asked, her incredulity showing in her shocked expression.

“I want to go to Muggle school!” she repeated, sounding slightly agitated at having to repeat herself.

Fleur Weasley could only stare at her daughter.

“What brought this on?” she asked.

“Yesterday, Aunt Hermione took me to the park, and I met Lindsey there, and she said she was going to go to kinder-something next year. And I want to go too!”

“You know what that means though, don’t you?” her father said. “You couldn’t tell anyone about magic, you couldn’t invite friends over, and you’d have to do homework and stuff.”

“I know,” she said, bouncing in excitement. “But Daddy, it sounds like so much fun!”

“If you’re sure, then.” He was still somewhat skeptical, but it wasn’t as if it could hurt, so why not?

The little girl grinned happily, revealing perfect white teeth, and then looked at her mother expectantly.

“If you think you can handle it, Victoire.”

Victoire bounced upright and ran off to tell her sister Dominique the exciting news.

It was unprecedented, as far as Bill Weasley knew. No Weasley child had ever gone to Muggle school. But he understood that it was for the best. It would be better for his daughter to learn tolerance of Muggles before she had a chance to learn prejudice. And what better way was there to teach it than by living it?


So when September first came along, so did the local school bus. Bill and Fleur waved goodbye to Victoire as she set off with a look of stubborn determination on her five-year-old face. I will make my parents proud, she thought. I will make them proud.

And she did.

Two years later, Dominique announced that she wanted to go, too. She’d heard all about it from her sister, and it seemed so different and, ironically, magical.

Three years later, Louis and his cousins Fred and James proclaimed loudly, in the middle of Sunday dinner at the Burrow, their desire to experience it. Soon everyone was preparing for the day when three more of the family would depart for kindergarten.