Addie had never been to a picnic before, and this was not a day on which she would be breaking her streak. The lunch club did, however, have a post exam meet up in the art room. Professor Sprout had been busy marking exams, so had not been able to attend. However, she had given permission for them to meet without her supervision in the art room, so they had had, for the first time, an unchaperoned meeting.

"So," started Cho, as convenor, "as we haven't got designated talking points this week, I propose that we simply talk about our week and eat cake."

"I agree that we should eat cake, but nothing has really happened to me this week," Addie said.

"Lucky you," Neville said, wearily. "I now owe Percy Weasley a debt of gratitude and Granger, Potter and other Weasley a punch in a face and a body bind back to Granger."

"I can't believe that Granger would do that." Adrian stated, clearly only being aware of her clean façade.

"Well she did," Neville replied, darkly. ""I honestly thought that they weren't too bad. They said I was worth twelve of Malfoy and cheered me on when I stood up to Crabbe and Goyle, but the moment I stood up to them, I was a laughingstock. I wouldn't have thought that Hermione would have done that either, but Potter (not you) and Weasley have been a bad influence on her. The before Hermione would have talked to a teacher."

"Maybe she did, or maybe you didn't know the real Hermione," reasoned Cho.

"I seriously doubt that a teacher would believe that Grindewald's spirit possessed Professor Quirrell."

"I heard that it was a phantom that had travelled through time," Neville joined in, brightening slightly.

"So, nobody really knows what happened down there," Adrian concluded.

"It's probably best that nobody knows."

"I do," Addie said bluntly, "but I promised I wouldn't tell."

"Then don't," Cho said. "Like Adrian said, it's probably good the truth doesn't get around. We won't hold it against you.

The honest truth of the matter was that Addie very much doubted that they would even believe her. They would try – of course they would – but explaining what Dumbledore had told her when he had called her up to his office was probably too much for most people to comprehend. He had only decided that she should know the truth after she had started showing up to the hospital wing to see if she could visit her brother. Upon being rejected, she had asked if she could make an appointment to see him. When this was inevitably rejected, she had ended up writing him a letter and asking Madam Pomphrey to give it to him. There was of course no guarantee that he would even read it, let alone acknowledge it, but she had given it some thought.

Dear Harry,

I know you don't really care about what I think, but I just want you to know that I'm really glad that you're alive. I'm sure I'll see you around. Take care of yourself and don't eat anything given to you by Fred and George Weasley. I'm sure that you already know that, but they're monsters.

Love from,

Adelaide

With that letter written and delivered into the hands of a very apologetic Madam Pomphrey, she had stepped out and gone to meet her friends. It wasn't worth wasting her time on things she could never change.

On the last day before they left, they spread out the items they had ordered by owl post and spread them out before them.

"Well I suppose we should get started then," Cho said while brandishing a screwdriver, ready to pry the back battery covers off the calculators.

They worked methodically in an assembly line, going through the steps in the correct order as specified by the book.

Take the cover of your insulated calculator using a compatible screwdriver Carefully peel off the screen. Using the brush, carefully paint the back of the screen with the protean solution. Allow to dry. Repeat with other calculators and reassemble. Think up codes to communicate your meaning.

E π10y

With that done, they all boarded the Hogwarts Express and spent the entire time they were on their way home figuring out how it worked.

Of course there were letters that they could not figure out how to represent. Addie anticipated that the next few months would be slightly frustrating as they all figured out how to represent letters such as 'H' and 'J'. For the time being, however, they focused on assigning one another nicknames.

Addie was +E (which was lucky)

Cho was C0

Adrian was AD√1Aπ

Neville was NE

These were all of course reaches, but they all found the process slightly hilarious. It was also instantaneous so they were all aware of how convenient it was.

"C0C01A+E-F√06"[1] asked Adrian, when the trolley came round.

"Of course," Neville answered out loud.

"A5+y"[2] Addie responded.

Eating her pumpkin pasty, she couldn't help but wonder what her summer would bring. Would she and Harry talk at all? What would next year bring? Looking around at her group of new friends, she felt certain that that, of all things was not something she needed to worry about. She had good friends. Next year was going to be great.

[1] Chocolate Frog

[2] Pasty

A/N: So this is the end. I can't quite believe that I managed to keep to this consistently and didn't just upload it all on the same day. I am so grateful that so many people have read and enjoyed it.

The second part is already well underway. It already has more than 50,000 words and there's still a fair bit to go. It's going to be a long one. I haven't written anything quite that long before. I don't know exactly when I will start uploading it but I plan on getting it done over the course of my Christmas holidays. It's going to be a well needed balance to the stress of writing my dissertation.
By the way, just in case anyone was worried about the calculator communication thing, it's not going to be a massive feature in the next one. I just wanted a way for the owless and magically incompetence Addie to communicate with her friends when apart from them. There will be footnotes throughout just in case, but this isn't going to become a calculator text fic. That would be fascinating though.

UPDATE: You can now find part two on my profile. It's called Tense and Ostensible.