Trouble In Paradise
            --a *Harry Potter* fanfic by AngieJ (also known as Ebony Elizabeth)
 
DISCLAIMER:  I’m emphatically not JKR—she owns Harry and company, and the fact that I’m writing about them doesn’t mean that I want to infringe her copyright, it simply means that I’m obsessed with the fictional world she has created.  Certain elements of this chapter were inspired by Virginia Hamilton’s award-winning folklore collection The People Could Fly and Zora Neale Hurston’s *excellent* anthropological study of magic, superstition, and voodoo in the Caribbean, Tell My Horse.
 
 
Chapter Six – Curiouser and Curiouser
 
"We want far better reasons for having children
Than not knowing how to prevent them."
-Dora Russell
 
 
After sleeping for almost twenty-four hours, I’d awakened late on the morning of the third to the smell of bacon and eggs frying.  Listening to the household sounds revealed that Malinda either wasn’t in the vicinity or was fast asleep.  Since the bedside alarm clock pointed to You really ought to get up now, you lazy slug my guess was that she wasn’t at home.
 
Before I could swing my legs over the side of the bed and grab my thick robe from the chair, Fred bounded into the doorway, breakfast tray in hand.
 
“Sleeping Beauty hath awakened,” he said with that lopsided grin of his, placing the tray on my lap and sitting on the edge of the bed.  “How’s my favorite Chocolate Frog doing this morning?”
 
I socked him, laughing.  Chocolate Frogs happen to be his favorite kind of sweet.  The man has been known to eat several dozen of them at one sitting, and a number of shoeboxes in the attic are dedicated to the cards he’s collected over the years.  It’s also one of the nicknames he used to tease me with when we first began to date. 
 
Most women would perhaps take great offense to being compared to an edible amphibian, but it’s common knowledge that I have a few screws loose anyway.  Alicia Spinnet swears by that fact.
 
“Surely you can think of something more flattering, dear.”
 
“My favorite Dark Angel, then,” he said, spearing a slice of bacon and holding it up to me.  “Eat.”
 
I slid the bacon off the fork and took a nibble.  He was getting better.  When we first were married, he used to burn everything to a crisp.  This was largely due to the fact that he was impatient and had the average attention span of a two year old.   And although there are advanced first-aid spells for burns thanks to Dr. Hermione and Dr. Neville, there is no magical remedy for overcooking.
 
“I take it that you’re not still angry with me about the other night,” I remarked around the  forkful of eggs he lifted to my mouth.
 
He shrugged.  “Why would I be?  You had no way of getting out of there.  Ginny’ll have second thoughts about ever pulling something like that again.”
 
All at once, it came back to me.  Simon prodding me awake.  The garden dome.  Draco.  Three of Ginny’s brothers.  Harry, who had become a brother in all but name... four brothers, then.  Sparks flying.  Screams.  Malinda’s questions.  Harry’s stomach-turning golden transport globe.
 
“Did you kill him?”
 
Fred laughed, handing me a carafe filled with apple juice.  “Of course not.  There were some curses thrown back and forth of the magical and verbal variety.  Nothing that hasn’t occurred before.  George and Harry dragged Ginny out despite her protests.   Simon and I kept Ron from hitting Malfoy with something really unpleasant.  We all Apparated back to the Burrow save Malfoy, of course... I don’t know where he went, and don’t much care.  Mum gave her a tongue-lashing for missing the press conference, and Ginny’s staying there now to help out with Percy’s litter and Malinda.”
 
So that was where my daughter was, I thought as I took a huge swallow of juice.  I wondered why she wasn’t at home with us.  But something else about Fred’s recounting of events bothered me more.
 
“Really, Fred, when will you and your brothers ever treat poor Gin like a grown-up?  I mean, my own sister Olivia is quite a bit younger than she is, and she’s married with a child on the way.  The overprotectiveness is cute in small doses, but it gets old fast...”  I was cut off by the piece of buttered toast he dangled in front of my lips.
 
“It’s a bit different for older brothers than it is for older sisters,” Fred explained patiently.  “I mean, even when Harry was dating her, we looked at him a bit differently.  She’s the youngest and the only girl.  Mum and Dad always kept her close growing up.  So it’s still hard for us to get used to the fact that she’s a full grown woman.”
 
“She’s been legal in the eyes of the Ministry for ten years!  Fred, she is twenty-seven years old... not that much younger than we are.  Should she still have to take heat from her brothers about what she does?”
 
He nodded.  “If it affects the family, then of course.  That’s just how we are.  You know that.”
 
“No, I don’t know, Fred.  And it’s starting to bother me.”
 
Removing the now-empty breakfast tray, he set it aside and moved a bit closer to me.  “Listen, Angel, when I was growing up, there were times when Mum and Dad didn’t have two Galleons to rub together.  You know that.  I’m not from a wealthy wizarding family like your mum’s, nor an extremely prestigious one like the Malfoys.  We didn’t have much growing up, but we did have each other.
 
“That is the secret of our family’s strength, sweetheart.  That’s the reason why we’ve been able to put our surname on the lips of every wizard from Bahia to Kuala Lumpur.  Mum and Dad never said it, but the sacrifices that they made and the values they instilled in us let us know that the family comes first no matter what.  Ron wanted to remind everyone about the stock he places in his family at the press conference.  Ginny’s not being there didn’t help matters.  Draco’s values and our values are not the same.”
 
I shook my head.  “It’s not about all of you... it’s about what she wants.  The girl was with Draco for five years, and judging from what I’ve observed recently, she’s not even close to being over him.  They broke up when we were all fully expecting to hear their engagement announced.  What is it that you and your brothers have against the man?”
 
“He’s Draco Malfoy,” he said curtly.  “Never forget that.  The war changed him in many ways, but underneath he’s still the same little conniving snot he was at Hogwarts.  We don’t want her to be hurt.  And he has hurt her in the past... you remember what their first year or two together was like, don’t you?”
 
“I do.  But you can’t always be there to break her fall, hon,” I said softly.  “Draco may not be as insidious as he seems.  I think the war did more than change him.  He’s almost not the same person anymore.”  Not that any of us are, I added to myself.
 
“Hmm.  I do hear what you’re saying, Angel, but the fact remains that he has stabbed her in the back with this Hermione thing, and Ron by extension.  See, I would have expected it from him--Malfoy’s a prat by nature--but Hermione’s behavior is shocking the hell out us all.  Mum is absolutely furious with her and didn’t mind showing it at dinner last night.  Thank God she and Dad don’t know about the Draco Malfoy Thing.  It’d kill them.”
 
I took one very deep breath.  Then another.
 
“Frederick Weasley, do you realize that you just made an unfounded accusation?  An unfair, unfounded accusation?  I did suspect that she was cheating at first, but now I have my doubts.  During the Sleepless Marathon From Hell I endured, I made my own observations.  Hermione is not acting like a woman having an affair...”
 
“And how would you know, Angelina?  Is there someone I need to know about?”  He caught the look on my face and relented.  “I’m joking, love, I’m joking.  It’s just that Ron is beginning to suspect that perhaps Hermione is the one behind the Prophet article.”
 
I gasped.  Had things really gotten that bad between those two?
 
“If this Orla Quirke tramp is making waves with this nonsense, imagine what would happen if it got out that Draco Malfoy was sleeping with Dr. Hermione Granger.  That would be the Tabloid Headline of the Century.”
 
I inhaled and exhaled again.  “Fred, while I was running about with Ginny on New Year’s, another crazy idea jumped into my head.”
 
“Excellent!  Do tell.”
 
“What if neither Ron nor Hermione are cheating?  You know how they both are... both of them can give as good as they get.  They’ve had their minor wars before.  Always they’ve been able to kiss and make up.”
 
He seemed to consider this.  “That’s true.  Go on.”
 
“I’ve always thought of Ron and Hermione as being one of those sturm und drang couples.  All fire and earthquakes and volcanoes erupting and windstorms.  Ginny told me a long time ago that she thinks they cycle through several distinct phases of their relationship continually, ranging from all-out war to giving each other a wide berth to hot passion.  This is why she’s always admired them... in her view, this ‘circle’ keeps their relationship fresh and interesting.”
 
“Trust a woman who thinks that Draco Malfoy is magnificence incarnate to arrive at such an inane conclusion,” Fred observed.  “I’ve never been one to care much about anyone else’s love life but my own, but if that’s the case, seems like they’d wind up dead tired before long.  You can’t keep blowing hot and cold forever... it’s exhausting.”
 
“Perhaps the instability suits their unique personalities.  You know what they say.  Opposites attract.”
 
“Do they really?  And what would I have done with a drab, mousy girl with no sense of humor?”
 
I shuddered involuntarily.  The very thought of my husband with a drab, mousy girl devoid of laughter was enough to raise my ire... and yet, a long time ago, it had almost happened.  “I don’t know.  Stockpile Canary Creams for when things got too mundane?”
 
“See, that’s what I mean.  The family always said that George and I would be best suited for women who were actually sane... make that boring.  That’s why no one thought at first you and I woulnd’t last as long as we have.   I’ve stayed in love with you after all this time not because you’re so different from me, Angelina, but because under the skin we’re both nutters.  If anything, it has been Ron and Hermione’s similarities that have kept them solid, not their differences.”
 
I thought about this.  “Perhaps they should seek marriage counseling so they can find each other again.  What do you think?”
 
“Perhaps we should steer clear of it.  That’s what I still think.  This is not going to be cleared up overnight, and it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than you know.  It’s not our concern, not really, and the last thing I want to do is to claim ownership of the bloody mess.”
 
I looked down as he turned my slender hands over in his broad palms, then laced the fingers of his right one through my left.
 
“Much as I hate to admit it, Fred,” he met my grin, “you’ve been right all along.  This is way too serious and tangled for me.  Not to mention that I’m ready to demand a day of reckoning for all parties involved... someone is going to answer for me not sleeping for days, subsisting on a liquid diet of spirits from the Snitch and Hermione’s exotic American coffee... have you ever heard of a place called Starbucks, by the way?”
 
“Actually, I have.  Muggle something or another, sort of like Florean’s in Diagon Alley, I expect.  Malfoy’s opening one in the Emerald City sometime this year.  The story is that he thrived upon Starbucks drinks during his sojourn in Washington State.  Don’t know that British wizards will be much for coffee, but Draco Malfoy could probably sell London Bridge if he put his mind to it.  So you admit defeat, do you?”
 
“Yes, I concede.  For now.  But only if you promise not to rub it in.  And as long as you know I was only trying to help the situation.”
 
“You’ve done more than your fair share of helping, Angel.  Now it’s time to concentrate on finishing up your term as sports editor... and expanding our family.”
 
I closed my eyes as he kissed me.  When I could breathe normally again, I said, “We never did get a chance to talk about that, Fred.  I’m not so sure I want another child right now.”
 
This stunned him.  He drew back.
 
“Why not?”
 
“Malinda is enough to deal with.  She’s your daughter in every way.   I can’t imagine how Molly put up with both you and George when you were her age.”
 
“She’ll be five in April.  During the day, we can send her to the wizarding kindergarten that Percy’s twins attend in Hogsmeade... seems a bit of a distance, but it’ll be quick enough to take her via the Floo Network and then Apparate back.  Or we can look for something in Diagon Alley.”
 
“Fred, my time off was because the daycare we had her in kicked her out.  It was the third one in a row she was asked to leave!  The interior of that caregiver’s home had been reduced to rubble one too many times.  I’ve told that child she is not to fly that toy broom around the house...”
 
“That’s right.  You meant this house,” Fred pointed out.  “She’s a little kid, isn’t she?  How is she supposed to know to extend what you said to apply to every house?”
 
I didn’t say that it was partly his fault that she’d taken the blasted thing to daycare in the first place.  I wasn’t ready for a fight.  Not after breakfast in bed. 
 
So I simply said, “She has you wrapped around her little finger, Fred.  You took one look into those hazel eyes on that April Fool’s Day four years ago, and you were lost forever.”
 
“Correction,” he said tenderly, kissing me again.  “The first time I looked at her, I was found.  Holding Malinda for the first time was humbling, not to mention sobering.  I thought it ridiculous that you and me were parents, each equally responsible for the miracle.  Then all of a sudden, I realized that it made perfect sense.  She made sense.  I may be wrapped around our daughter’s little finger, Angel, but she’s wrapped around my heart.
 
“As for being lost, I was lost a long time ago.  Can’t remember the exact date or time, either.  Can’t remember what I was saying or doing when time first stopped for me and the only person that mattered in the world was her.  All I remember was that the girl who did it for me had sparkling brown eyes... and the softest brown skin...”
 
And after a while, I didn’t care about the Prophet or Orla Quirke.  I didn’t care if I had a dozen more kids, so that I resembled elderly Mrs. Hubbard up in Hogsmeade who lived in a charm-engorged boot with her thirty grandchildren.  I could have cared less about coming to the rescue of Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Draco, Harry, and whoever else was caught in their tangled web.
 
Somewhere far in the background, the breakfast tray and its contents crashed to the ground.
 
 
************
 
 
It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that I made it out of bed and to the Burrow to retrieve my child.  The weather had grown a bit warmer, and the piles of snow from the holiday storms were slowly melting into little puddles. 
 
Malinda was in the front of her grandparents’ home, jumping like a little bunny rabbit all over the lawn, splashing from puddle to dripping snowbank to yet another muddy puddle.  Her clothes were half-drenched, and her cheeks were rosy.  Behind her Gryffin and Raven followed her lead.  Gryffin kept missing the jumps and plunging into the snow, and each time he did, Raven would cackle blithely at her brother’s misfortune.
 
When she saw me, she squealed and stopped in mid-jump, causing a three child pileup on top of the biggest bank.
 
“Mummy!”  Extracting herself from the Weasley Kid Sandwich, she raced over to me and hugged me with all her might, leaving a Malinda-shaped mudprint on my everyday winter cloak.   “You woke up!”
 
“Yes, it’s a good thing I did, isn’t it?” I said, kissing her forehead and hugging Percy and Penelope’s twins.  “Inside, all of you... you’ll catch your death of cold out here.”  They scampered in.  I followed them up the walk, shaking my head.
 
No sooner had the front door closed behind the children before it flung open again.  Out stepped Hermione, eyes blazing, patches of color standing out on her cheeks.  Hermione enraged is a formidable sight.  One gets the feeling that anything in her path will be decimated.  I was glad I wasn’t the target of her wrath just then.
 
She stormed down the porch stairs and walked past me so fast that a sharp draft generated from her billowing cloak hit my face as she passed.  I think she was going to step outside of the gate and Apparate out when...
 
“Hermione!”  Harry had just come out of the front door.  His gaze noted my presence, then returned to his best friend who’d whirled around in a fury.
 
“I know what you’re about to say, Harry, so do us both a favor and stuff it!” 
 
He seemed to be angry as well.  “You know, you’re really not helping the situation by acting like a spoiled thirteen year old.”
 
She gazed at him coldly as he came down the walk and stopped a few feet away from her.
 
“Did I ever have cause to act like this when I was thirteen, Harry?  Or is your memory that shoddy?” 
 
Harry closed his eyes.  “No, Hermione.  Nothing’s wrong with my memory.”
 
“I didn’t think so.”  She was becoming more and more furious as she spoke.  “So they think I haven’t been much of a wife, do they?  They think I’m to blame for everything?  ‘If your priorities were in order, none of this would have happened.’  Honestly!  It isn’t enough that I attended the press conference for her ickle Ronniekins.  Oh, no!  Molly Weasley and that woman who calls herself my mother both think I’m obligated to let that man back into my house!”
 
“That man,” Harry said from between clenched teeth, “is our best friend.”
 
“Oh, of course you’ll be taking his part, then!  You always do.  You always did!”
 
Harry seemed ready to strangle her.  “To be quite honest, Hermione, both of you are clog-dancing on my last nerve.  I’ve had it.”
 
“Tired of being the buffer, then?  Easily solved!  Stay the hell out of it.”
 
“When have I ever been given that option?  Remind me, please.”  She fumed silently at him.  “Ah.  Didn’t think so.”
 
“No one ever forces you to play referee, Harry.  You could always ignore us and go about your merry way.  As a matter of fact, why don’t you do that?”
 
“Can I really, Hermione?  I’ve learned from past experience that ignoring owls from you and your husband invariably results in me receiving a surprise visitor on my doorstep.  And then I’m subjected to all sorts of ranting.  ‘Harry, where have you been?   Do you know what he said?  When will he ever grow up?’”  His imitation of Hermione’s voice was spot on.  Then he went on to parrot Ron.  “‘She’s barking mad, Harry, I tell you.  If you only knew the half of what I put up with... that woman is driving me bonkers.’  You two do this every time, and after it’s over you always promise never to drag me in the middle again.  And that promise isn’t worth a bronze knut, Hermione.”
 
She continued to glare at him.  “Then I don’t want to talk about this anymore.  Why don’t we just go on to Lupin’s?  I have loads of work to do, and I’m sure Malfoy’s been there waiting for hours.  Besides, I can’t bear the women in this house a second longer.  Talk about morning sickness...”
 
“One of those women happens to be your mother.”
 
“Tell me something I don’t know, Harry, and while you’re at it, stop lecturing me.  See you at Lupin’s.”  She turned away from him and Disapparated.  I had to wonder if she’d even seen me standing there.  Somehow, I doubted it.
 
Harry’s eyes were fixed on the spot she’d disappeared from.  Then he was reminded that I was standing there.  “How are you, Angelina?  Ever manage to get some sleep?”
 
“I’m all right,” I said slowly.  “A bit worried about Hermione, of course.  I think we all are.”
 
He searched my face for a moment, then said, “There’s nothing to be concerned about.  Hermione will get over this.  Believe it or not, this is nothing new.  If I have anything to say about it, she and Ron will be reliving their honeymoon by this time next week.”
 
I grinned as he vanished without another word.   With a friend like Harry Potter, the rift between Ron and Hermione would soon be ancient history.
 
*************
 
Sure enough, the women inside the Burrow were abuzz with Hermione’s conduct.  According to them, she’d performed brilliantly enough at the press conference (which was held in one of the conference rooms at Draco’s Tolkien Hotel), but the minute everyone returned to the Burrow she completely ignored Ron.  After a while, her husband had begun to ignore her as well.  Apparently, by the end of dinner they were back at war, speaking to each other only through other people.
 
“Harry’s ready to murder them both,” Penelope said briskly.  “Can’t say I blame him.”  She, Molly, Dr. Caroline Granger, and I were seated around the kitchen table, eating a portion of the little twins’ Honeydukes assortments.  We were also stuffing envelopes with form replies to the deluge of post that had arrived at the Burrow following the scandalous New Year’s Day Prophet headline.  Usually Mo’s staff would have handled such matters, but with the impending Department of Investigations audit looming over their heads and press people from around the world staking out their Emerald City suites, they had their hands full.
 
Molly nodded.  “Bless the boy, he didn’t eat a bite last night.  He gets thinner every time we see him.  I do wish Harry would find a nice witch and settle down.”
 
“Marriage is not for everyone, Molly,” Dr. Granger noted, reaching for a Chocolate Frog.  “Especially not for a man with Sirius Black as a parent figure.”
 
“What’s wrong with Sirius?” I asked.  I’d never breathe a word of it to Fred, but I’ve always thought that Harry’s godfather is one fine-looking wizard.  He’s one of those mature men that is like expensive wine.  Aged to perfection... not that “old” is a word that any red-blooded witch would use to describe him.
 
Penelope snorted.  “Nothing, except he’s not the best role model for commitment.  Sirius is past fifty and has never been married.”
 
“I rather think that spending twelve years in Azkaban might have something to do with it,” I murmured, licking an envelope and then taking a bite of pumpkin pasty.
 
“No, the fact that he fancies young girls does,” Penelope said in a gossipy tone.  “For a moment before Ginny subjected us to that Malfoy twerp, Percy thought that she and Sirius...”
 
Molly choked on the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Bean she’d been chewing on and spat it out on a napkin.
 
“Horseradish!”  We all looked at her; Molly rarely used strong language.  “The bean, of course.  Anyhow, that’s all in the past.  We have enough on our plates in the here and now, don’t we?  Without dishing up tall tales.”  She glared at Penelope.  My sister-in-law blushed.  Being in Molly’s good graces is of paramount importance to her.  Perhaps if she didn’t try so hard, she’d succeed.
 
“I’ll have another word with Hermione, then,” Caroline Granger said, unwrapping a Chocolate Frog.  She obviously agreed with Molly that the conversation needed to return to the topic at hand.  “Hermione’s always been rather headstrong.  Right now she isn’t listening to reason.”
 
“Hate to say this, Caroline dear, but your girl has always been a bit irrational.  My Ron will sulk, but he isn’t nearly as quick to fly off the handle as she is.  I thought marriage would settle her down, but seeing as it’s well over five years after the fact, seems as if there isn’t much chance of that happening.”
 
“Oh, my Hermione’s been this way ever since she was a tot.  She’s our only child, and if the way she ordered her stuffed animals about is any indication, that was probably a good thing.  She’s a lot like her father.  Both of them are supremely confident in their abilities.  Neither of them take kindly to the idea of anyone--man, woman, or beast--controlling them.  They like to hold the reins.  Therein lies the trouble...”
 
“Should a marriage be a matter of control?” I asked.  “Shouldn’t it be a matter of give and take?”
 
Now Molly turned on me, brown eyes sparking.  “Ron has given that girl everything.  She has a fine home, everything money can buy, and a man that dotes on her.  And the one thing he wants most in the world, she’s too busy to give him.”
 
“Molly, Hermione is pregnant, isn’t she?  What more could he want from her?”  I didn’t get it at all.
 
“For her to be happy about it,” Penelope cut in.  “She ought to be ashamed of herself for the manner in which she behaved at Christmas dinner.”
 
Unfortunately, this was the first remark that Ginny heard as she walked into the kitchen.  She was stylish as usual, but the cut of her clothes seemed a bit too fine for just lounging around the house.  We all turned to look at her.
 
Her red hair was pulled up into a demure chignon, and I reminded myself to find out  where she’d gotten her turquoise robes.  They seemed to be made of many layered, veil-like fabric.  The robes clung softly to her curves before sweeping down into a full skirt that reminded me of morning-glories.  She also had an eye-catching golden chain fastened about her waist... from it dangled a platinum dragon pendant with emerald eyes.  The dragon hung parallel to her hips... she wore no other jewelry besides tiny emerald-studded silver hoops.
 
“Are you still talking about Hermione?” Ginny asked incredulously.   “Great wizards, she’s been gone for nearly an hour!”
 
“I’ll thank you to mind your own business, missy,” her mother said, tossing a newly sealed envelope on the table with vim.
 
Ginny’s eyes rolled to the ceiling.  “Fine.  I’m stepping out for a bit, then.”
 
“Are you?” Penelope asked.  “And where are the children?”
 
“In Percy’s bedroom.”  She paused for dramatic effect.  “Malinda’s trying her best to float his old Hogwarts castle model in midair.  She’s also making a valiant attempt to reduce the twins so that they can fit into it... Angelina, I think she’s using your wand to do it.”
 
Instantly Penelope jumped up.  “The little imp!  Percy was really proud of making that when he was a boy... he tells me that he spent hours upon hours on it...”
 
“Probably because no one could suffer his company,” Ginny drawled.  When Draco said on New Year’s Eve that he’d tainted her, I supposed he had a point.  “And don’t look at me like that, Penelope.  Those babies aren’t going to hurt anything.  They haven’t enough magical know-how yet to even shrink a cotton shirt properly...”
 
Penelope let out a frustrated screech and ran out of the room. 
 
“Retrieve my wand, will you?” I called after her, making neat creases on a form letter.  When I looked up, Molly and Dr. Granger seemed about to comment on my parenting skills or lack thereof, but I suppose they thought better of it and went back to stuffing.
 
“What do those things say?” Ginny asked, coming over to the table with an orange.
 
Dr. Granger held one of them up.  “Nothing.  But notice the yellow parchment.”
 
“A Project-A-Note,” Ginny nodded.
 
“Exactly.  Being non-magical myself, I couldn’t trigger it, but a touch of the wand will project a brief, friendly greeting from Ron and then a replay of excerpts from the press conference.  We Muggles would call it a hologram or virtual reality.”
 
“That’s right,” Ginny nodded.  “I remember when Malfosoft first came up with these.  Now there’s a whole line of Project-A-Note products... the latest one allows you to project the contents of a Pensieve into an average-sized room.  Draco has a similar Muggle device that’s sort of like a camera and a mirror put together, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it’s called.”
 
“Overhead projectors,” Caroline Granger supplied.  “Honestly, I can’t imagine how you witches get anything done without electricity.”
 
The front door opened, then closed.  Maureen Ludlam blazed into the kitchen in all her usual splendor.  She was wearing a tailored cloak fastened with an ebony-and-ivory checkered pin.  Removing her outerwear revealed a regular Muggle business suit with a fashionably short skirt.
 
“Done!” she said with triumph, tossing a newspaper onto the table and disturbing our neat piles.  It was the Prophet, complete with tomorrow’s date glistening on top.
 
The top story was short, sweet, and to the point.
 

RONALD WEASLEY SPEAKS
Calls Allegations False, Wife and Family Stand By His Side

 
EMERALD CITY (Jan. 2)—At a groundbreaking press conference held yesterday at Malfosoft’s five-star Tolkien Hotel, Ronald Weasley, Seeker for the Liverpool Lions and war hero, denied the numerous allegations made against him by one Orla Quirke, writes Tirzah Levin, News Editor. With wife Hermione Granger and many members of his well-known family standing behind him, Ronald called the charges unfair, groundless, and in extremely bad taste.
 
“I never slept with that woman,” Weasley told the gathering of reporters from around the world.  “Whatever evidence she claims to have procured is false.”
 
Granger, prominent mediwitch and war heroine, echoed her husband’s sentiment.
 
“I’ll thank the magical publications to keep their quills out of our affairs.  Ronald and I were absolutely outraged by the scandalous tone of that article.  The very fact that I’m here with him should tell you something about Ms. Quirke’s dubious claims.”
 
As reported first by the Daily Prophet, Orla Quirke, former employee of the Maureen Ludlam Sports & Entertainment Agency, has filed charges against Ronald Weasley with the British Ministry of Magic.  Quirke alleges that Ronald Weasley had a long-term affair with her that ended last year, resulting in a child, christened Baby M for our purposes. 
 
According to the Department of Investigations, she and several other individuals were ordered to care for the child in an undisclosed location in the parallel Faerie dimension.   Transport of underage minors to other dimensions and time periods is forbidden under MoM statutes, as is the transfer of UK wizarding coin to aforementioned dimensions.  Quirke and up to twenty other co-conspirators were to be paid a total sum of GL 7.000.000 for this “disappearing act”.
 
In addition, Quirke claims that she and others were threatened with illegal magical curses if they did not comply in this conspiracy of silence.   Charges were also filed against Quirke’s former boss Maureen Ludlam and Luke Lawless, another Weasley agent.
 
“I am deeply concerned about Ms. Quirke’s mental health,” Ludlam remarked gravely at the press conference.  “Instead of jumping to wild conclusions based on the claims of a poor sick girl, we ought to make sure that she gets the help she needs.”
 
And what of the child, pictures of whom were published in the first edition of this worthy publication for the New Year?
 
“Produce the kid,” Weasley challenged.  “I will take any number of paternity tests, Muggle medical or mediwizarding.  I think the results will show the truth... that I am not the father of Orla Quirke’s child.  When they do, know that my wife, my family, and I are going to demand some answers from the Daily Prophet and this Quirke girl.”
 
At press time, Quirke could not be reached for comment.
 
The front page article was accompanied by a full color photograph of Ron and Hermione seated next to each other at the press conference.  Holding hands.
 
“Brilliant!” exclaimed Penelope, who’d marched three weeping children into the kitchen just in time to hear the last third of the article being read aloud.  “Oh, Mo, I knew you could get this done!  The instant press conference was a tremendous idea.”
 
Maureen’s eyes twinkled.  “Think nothing of it.  What’s a good agent for?  I can’t take all the credit for pulling it all together... Luke Lawless helped in making sure the major news agencies were there, and of course Hermione was wonderfully supportive of our efforts.  To be sure, Cassandra Claire hesitated about giving Tirzah’s article the go-ahead, but all the other members of the editorial conference were anxious to print it.”
 
Molly stood up and hugged Mo tightly.  “You wonderful girl!  Ron told us last night you would come through for him.  How can we ever thank you?”
 
“The happiness I see on your face is payment enough, Mrs. Weasley... the happiness on all of your faces,” she said, looking around the table.  Penelope, Caroline Granger, and Molly were all beaming.  I managed a half-smile.  Mo noticed this, but didn’t comment.
 
Dr. Granger was pulling up a chair.  “We’ll soon be cleaning this mess up.  Won’t you stay to tea, darling?”
 
“Yes, Mo, please,” Penelope piped up eagerly.  “Percy and I are heading back to Hogsmeade tomorrow for the start of Hogwarts spring term, but we’ll have to have you for dinner one day soon.”
 
“And now that this is cleared from my mind, I’ve some news about Bill that I don’t think he’ll mind me sharing,” Molly said mysteriously.  She paused until she made sure she held our collective attention.  “Yesterday he received an owl from the board of directors at Gringotts.  Apparently the president took ill while on holiday in Majorca and has been forced to take an early retirement.  My son...”  her eyes filled with happy tears, “will be the first human president of Gringotts International in over four hundred years!”
 
That was wonderful news.  We definitely needed to hear something like that after the tumultuous twelve days and nightmares of Christmas we’d just endured.
 
“I’d like to hold a special dinner for the boy.  Make all his favorite foods, invite all of his friends and the family.  Adults only... it’s past time we had a chance to let our hair down without a dozen children underfoot.”  Her eyes flickered over to Maureen.  “Wouldn’t you like to come, dear?  We’d love to have you.”
 
“Actually,” she said, dimpling ever so slightly and blushing a little, “Bill told me all about his promotion and he said you’d probably do something like that.  He... well, he sort of asked me to come already.”
 
Molly, Dr. Granger, and Penelope all beamed at one another knowingly.  Then they dissolved into foolish giggles.  Maureen sat down, still flushed but looking inordinately pleased with herself.
 
Ginny and I looked at each other too.  Neither of us were smiling.  I followed my sister-in-law out of the kitchen, leaving the giggling women at the table and the sulking children seated on the floor.
 
Once we were out of earshot, Ginny whirled around to face me.
 
“That was getting too sappy for even me,” she said with a wink.  “I’m just not in the mood for One Big Happy Weasley Family moments right now.”
 
I stifled a laugh.  “Yes, all of the scandals resolved with a neat little bow by the heroine Maureen Ludlam, who just happens to have caught President Bill’s roving eye.  That girl had better watch out... your mother will have her trussed and dressed and handed to your oldest brother on a silver platter before she knows what hit her.”
 
She giggled too, beckoning me into the living room.  “Angelina, I’m so sorry about the other night.  I just sort of... well, I really did lose track of time.  That was awful of me.  Believe me, I’m paying for it.”
 
I waved it off as we sat down.  “I’m well rested now.  Believe me, I’ve been caught up in the moment before... and to me, all’s well that ends well.  Which reminds me.  Since we’re speaking openly, there’s a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for ages.  Why on earth did you break up with Draco?”
 
She hesitated.
 
“Well, if it’s a long sob story where the violins play and you’d rather not share, then...”
 
“Not at all.  It’s not a huge secret.  Last June marked five years for us, which ironically coincided with Ron and Hermione’s fifth wedding anniversary.  We attended their gala, and then headed home... to his place, rather, since I was practically living with him at the time.  I gave him his present.  He gave me mine, this dragon chain.”  Her hand went to her waist to touch the pendant.  “Told me that whenever I wore it, I’d always be with him.
 
“That was all well and good, and I appreciated the sentiment, but I’d been expecting a ring.  So I broached the subject plainly... Draco hates subterfuge with a passion.  And he told me, ‘I can’t marry you yet, Gin.  At least not until Danae is done.’”
 
The Danae Project again!  Never mind that Fred and I had mutually agreed to stay out of his brothers’ and sister’s affairs... I couldn’t be expected to ignore such an intriguing piece of information, could I?  I was going to ask Ginny about it when she plunged ahead in her usual fashion.  She’s definitely a talker.
 
“Can you believe that?  I mean, I understand the monumental importance of Danae, but this is a man who’s told me time and again that I was the one who taught him how to love.  We’ve had our ups and goodness only knows we’ve had our downs, but when the chips are down we both know we’re good together.”  She shook her head.  “I think we could be good together forever.  We fit each other that perfectly.”
 
I had to agree.  “Yes, you do.  I’m sure dating other people hasn’t worked.”
 
“It hasn’t worked for me.  Far as I know--and I know him pretty well--he hasn’t been bothered about seeing anyone else, although plenty of witches and who knows how many Muggle women would love to take my place.  When I told him I was leaving him, all he said was, ‘No, you’re not.’  And when I left, he didn’t send a deluge of flowers or candy or anything like that.  Just a brief e-owl every week.  ‘Having fun yet?’, or ‘Miss me?’, or ‘Ready to come back?’
 
“He’s given me everything, Angelina.  Money is no object.  He’s fun to be with because he’s taught me to see the world in a completely different light.  And the sex was... well, to be perfectly honest, the sex is magnificent.  Hermione used to tell me all the time that she never thought ‘Malfoy’ had it in him to spoil a woman.  But he can’t give me the one thing I want... and that hurts.”
 
“Ginny,” I said softly, “I get the distinct impression that he does love you.  I don’t think he would have put up with your family for all these years otherwise... especially your brothers.  Be patient.  Good things come to those who wait.”
 
“I know, I know.  He’s asked me to come with him to Jamaica next weekend.  Out of the question, of course.  I’ve done some thinking and I’ve made up my mind.  If we’re not officially dating anymore, there’s no reason for me to be at his beck and call...”
 
“Why is Draco going to Jamaica?” I interrupted.  The fact that it was none of my business didn’t bother me at all. 
 
“Business, I expect.  He’s also to be the keynote speaker at some conference over there.”
 
“That’s right, I forgot that Grandmother’s asked him to speak!” I exclaimed.  Then, seeing her confusion, I explained, “He’s speaking at the annual Society Gala.  My mother’s people are pure-blooded Society witches and wizards.  Fred, Malinda, and I attend every other year.  It’s our highbrow version of a family reunion.”
   
“Oh, I forgot all about that!” she said.  Then her brows drew together.  “Last time Fred went to one of those things, he came back extremely angry.  Is all what they say about the Society true?”
 
“That we revel in the Dark Arts?  That Society elite helped Lucius design the Sponge, the Clamp, and the Inferno?  That we count among our members some of the most notorious ‘reformed’ Death Eaters on the planet?  That Society DEs who did not escape the Confederation courts are lauded as martyrs?  All of the above.  Why do you think I spend so much time with your family?”
 
She kept frowning.  “They still can’t accept what your mother did, can they?”
 
I shrugged.  “She’s been paying for it for the past forty years.  I doubt it.  Olivia’s marriage to Kenneth helped some, but there are still many who resent the Johnsons’ names even being inscribed on the Society rolls.  Mine and Diane’s especially... our children will never be recorded.”
 
“Draco’s told me a bit about pureblooded lineages around the world.  My family is magic as far back as anyone remembers, but you don’t see us lording it over those who have Muggle ancestry, do you?”  She sighed.  “I thought the Malfoys were bad, but... the Society looks down its noses even upon other wizards and witches!”
 
“Inbreeding, my dear,” I said ruefully.  “Turns the brain into scrambled eggs.  Not only didn’t my mother’s people learn much from this war, they know exactly what side they’ll be on during the next one.  They’re extremely ambitious and cherish the purity of blood and lineage over all else.  Oh, they’re not all evil and calculating.  Just classic Slytherin types like my sister Diane.  Which always made me wonder why the Sorting Hat put me in Gryffindor.”
 
Ginny patted my shoulder.
 
“To show your family and any other bigot that their ideas about blood are nonsense.  It isn’t who we are that’s important.  It’s what we become... and what we do with what we’ve been given.”
 
I placed my hand over hers.  “Either that, or it was a lucky mistake.  You don’t know what kind of people I come from.”
 
“The Sorting Hat doesn’t make mistakes, sis,” said Ginny.  “Trust me on that one.”
 
 
************
 
We began our journey to Jamaica on a crisp, mid-winter Friday morning.  Instead of taking the Floo Network, Fred booked a family-sized stateroom on a Three Fates ocean liner, which is a brand-new magical enterprise.  Many witches and wizards enjoy Muggle transportation, but are extremely impatient with the sluggish speed. 
 
What with the postwar baby boom and the expansion of the wizarding economy worldwide, there was a huge demand for diversions like Muggle cruises.  It was a simple thing to find secluded coves, enchant both ship and portal invisible, and increase the speed of the liner with clever use of time warps.  I’m sure that Malfosoft magical technology figured heavily in the design.  Seven years after its founding, Three Fates Cruise Lines is doing well on the magical stock exchanges and is a solid asset for any portfolio.
 
The Floo Network took us to the departure point for our cruise, which was on the Canary Islands.  Malinda was thrilled to see the huge ship, all the people, and all the magical creatures from every corner of the globe.
 
Soon, we were off.  It would only take a day and a half to arrive in Jamaica, and we planned to enjoy every minute of our stay. 
 
First, we changed into clothes more suited to a tropical climate.  Fred opted for Muggle clothing, selecting a white shirt and khaki shorts.  I’d secured a version of the robes I’d admired Ginny in, but mine were a bit more lightweight, sleeveless, and orange.  Malinda went into a light, cream-colored shift. 
 
Once we were on deck, Fred pulled out suntan lotion with the highest possible SPF and slathered it on his arms and legs and face.  There’s an equivalent charm for the purpose, but it’s not nearly strong enough to counter his tendency to sunburn.  I sat Malinda on my lap and began the laborious task of charming her wavy hair into tiny braids.
 
“Can I do your hair like this too, Mummy?” she asked happily, enjoying the attention being paid to her.  “I think it would stay better than mine does.”
 
“Yes, it would, as wild as you are.”  Her little hand went up to touched one of my long, thick natural ringlets.  Tirzah and others at work called my winter hairstyle ‘Ange’s lion’s mane look’.  I’d worn braids so much growing up that I was sick of them.  Jamaican witches can braid-charm hair in their sleep, and sometimes Linda Johnson did.  “But my hair’s fine for now, even though your Aunt Olivia will insist on plaiting it when we arrive.”
 
“Ooh!  She tells good stories.”  She glanced over at her father, now stretched out on the deck lounger next to us.  Snoring under his sunglasses.  “She does good voices and stuff... and you do too, Mummy.  Tell me a story, will you?”
 
I kissed her cheek impulsively.  “All right, I will.  This is a story that my father heard when he was a little boy growing up around Muggles.”
 
“Oh, good!  I love Grandpa’s Muggle stories!”
 
“I know you do, darling.  Which one do you want to hear?”
 
Malinda whipped her head out of my hand to beam at me.  “Tell me the one about the people who could fly!”
 
She would choose that one.  The only one that was real.
 
They say the people could fly.  Say that long ago in Africa, some of the people knew magic.  And they would walk up on air like climbin’ up on a gate.  And they flew like blackbirds over the fields.  Black, shiny wings flappin’ against the blue up there.
 
Then, many of the Blackbird people were captured for slavery.  The ones that could fly shed their wings.  They couldn’t take their wings across the water on the slave ships.  Too crowded, don’t you know.
 
The folks were full of misery, then.  Got sick with the up and down of the sea.  So they nearly forgot about flyin’ when they could no longer breathe the sweet scent of Africa.
 
Say the people who could fly kept their power, although they shed their wings.  They kept their secret magic in the lands of slavery.  They looked the same as the other people from Africa who had been coming over, who had dark skin.  Say you couldn’t tell anymore one who could fly from one who couldn’t.
 
My father told my mother this folktale long before they were married.  Although she was full-blooded Society, she’d never heard of it before.  She was astonished to learn that it is by far the most cherished and treasured tale in all of black Muggle lore.  The story has several variations, but the main points of the narrative are universal amongst Muggle descendants of the black Diaspora.  Mum was also stunned by how accurate the details were.
 
“Of course, the black Muggles nowadays are skeptical just like all other non-magic peoples are,”  Dad had observed to her.  “They think that their ancestors were making up the part about flying.  They say that what they really meant was the Underground Railroad up in the States or the Maroons here in Jamaica.  Or any slave who disappeared for one reason or the another.”  Since everyone says I’m a lot like him, I can imagine that he shook his head at this point.  “None of them had any idea that there were people who could fly.”
 
No one knows where the Society came from.  Some trace it to ancient Egypt.  Some trace it to the prehistoric shepherd kingdoms that sprung on the shores of Lake Tanzania, or perhaps the mysterious civilization that built the Great Zimbabwe.
 
The records that we have show two distinct lineages.  One is derived from Ethiopia and is at least three thousand years old, although written chronicles have only been kept for half that time.  The other is derived from Angola and can only be traced back seven hundred fifty years.  There is also evidence of a third, Ghananian-originated line, but much of that culture was destroyed along with the local Muggle states during the Age of the Blight.  We do not now know if these bloodlines evolved separately, if there were others lost, or share a common link further back in the mists of time than we can presently reach.
 
There are now magical-genetic tests being devised now to reconnect the broken genealogical links, but that sort of thing is still in its infancy.  Most Society historians go by the shape, texture, and sheen of the plumage.
 
Plumage.  As in feathers.  That’s another thing.  No one knows where the wings came from, either.
 
When the Muggle slaves reported some among their number could fly, they really meant fly.  Those with pure Society blood can not only fly like a streak, levitate without a wand, and Apparate like any other witch or wizard... they can grow two wings.  These wings are feathered like an angel’s, extend from the shoulderblades, and can be as much as eight feet in diameter.  There are two distinct wing shapes:  cherubic and seraphic.  Half-Society wizards and witches like me and my sisters have an even fifty percent chance of being winged.  Two of us are; one of us is not. 
 
The closest approximation I give my Hogwarts friends when explaining it is that it’s almost like being born an Animagus.  Or a half-Animagus.  No, Society wizards don’t lay eggs.  No, they aren’t classed with veela or minotaurs or house-elves or other magical creatures.  They’re regular magical folk who just happen to have wings.  There are similar societies on other continents, with their own extraordinary and unique traits.
 
The wings are smaller than an eagle’s in Society children.  During the teen years, they expand and grow until they are ready for flight at full maturity.  African Society witches and wizards can sprout their wings at will, if there is a strong emotional trigger, or in the presence of danger.  For those of us born elsewhere, it takes a powerful incantation in order for it to work.  The reason why is complex... and was used to effectively cripple the wizarding world during the last war.
 
Before the Voldemort Wars, most major wizarding conflicts closely paralleled Muggle events.  For instance, the Grindewald War corresponded with the Muggles’ World War II... anyone who says that Grindewald and Hitler weren’t acquainted is off their rocker. 
 
When the Blight first came to Africa more than five hundred years ago, it came to the Muggles first.  The magical peoples, Society and otherwise, felt as if the Blight was a Muggle concern.  Those being enslaved were Muggles... any witch or wizard unfortunate enough to get caught would simply Apparate out of their chains.  If it was a magical child, there was always someone on hand to rescue them and others to dispense the necessary memory-erasing incantations.
 
Apparently, this worked for decades.  Our ancestors thought that the Blight would pass.  Such periods had come before.  They usually did.  Besides, there weren’t many dealings between Muggles and magical people in those days.  The Islamic jihads that swept through much of the continent a few centuries earlier and an increasingly superstitious Muggle population had caused magical Africans to withdraw from the mainstream much as witches and wizards in Europe and some parts of Asia did.
 
But the Blight began to take its toll.  Africa began to change.  Muggle states were weakening, their power being transferred into strange hands from foreign lands.  Suddenly, black skin became synonymous with all sorts of negative things.  Blackness in the eyes of many became the official badge of slavery, stupidity, and subservience.  Even the magical people--including those in the Society--found themselves trapped in the skin they were in.  And they resented the hell out of that.
 
Resentful though they were, they kept to themselves.  They didn’t heed the cries of the Muggle populations that were slowly being decimated, colonized, and clapped into chains.  The magical Africans looked like them, but they weren’t them.  So they continued to evade and escape capture, and repaid foreign Muggle indignities with creative curses.  In short, they watched their ancestral home being destroyed... and did nearly nothing to stop it.
 
Karma always catches up to those who do nothing in the face of evil.
 
About a hundred and fifty years into the Blight, one of the most diabolical witches to ever walk the face of the earth was born.  More’s the pity, too.  If it wasn’t for her, Voldemort might not have ever had the Sponge, and by extension, the Clamp and the Inferno.
 
Her name was Ibadiran.  She was born to a Yoruba witch mother sometime before 1600... no one knows who her father was, but magical children of the Diaspora are raised to believe that she was the spawn of a demon.  Obviously the villagers agreed, for Ibadiran was left to die of exposure. 
 
Unfortunately, some kind Muggle found her languishing in the forest and took pity on the baby.  That woman was the Ibo widow Ezinwene, and Ibadiran went into her home and her heart.
 
Ezinwene was a widow due to the Blight.  Her husband had died defending his village, and her sons were shackled and marched to the coast.  During Ibadiran’s childhood, they moved from place to place... for during those times, there weren’t many places between the Sahara and the coast that were safe from the reach of the slave raiders.  When the supplies from the coastal villages were exhausted, the slavers reached further and further inland.
 
They finally arrived in the capital of the state of Songhay--the legendary city of Timbuktu.  Unlike most Africans, the citizens of this city knew full well about the existence of the magical world.  It was here that Ibadiran learned that she was a witch... she and her mother had always known she had special powers, but they had no idea how special they were. 
 
Timbuktu’s University of Sankore had a special mystical center for its witches and wizards, the mysterious, star-gazing Dogon.  These wizards were known across the continent for their accuracy in astronomy, astrology, fortune-telling, and the Dark Arts.  It was the perfect training ground for Ibadiran, so Ezinwene offered her services as a cook in exchange for her adopted daughter’s admission.
 
This Dogon magical school was run by a famous Arabian centaur by the name of Al-Jahiz Sohrab.  Centaurs are known for keeping to themselves, the ones roaming about the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts being a case in point.  However, this one obviously was Timbuktu’s version of the Greek Chiron.  Sohrab was respected far and wide, and wizards from all over Africa and the Middle East sought his wisdom. 
 
Of course, Sohrab and Ibadiran fell deeply in love.  It’s too bad that they did not live happily ever after.  To be sure, I probably wouldn’t have attended Hogwarts if they had, but at the same time, millions would have been spared a great deal of pain.
 
Sure enough, Ibadiran and Sohrab were out frolicking a distance away from the city one spring day when a party of slave raiders surprised them.  It was perhaps an unfortunate thing that at least some of them were blacks who’d grown up in Timbuktu... otherwise, the very presence of a half-man, half-stallion would have frightened them to death.  A single bullet to the heart ended Sohrab’s noble life.  And at that moment, Ibadiran ceased to be fully human.
 
She was sold into slavery and shipped to the New World... the legend doesn’t say specifically where.  The problem was, Ibadiran didn’t know how to Apparate yet--she was barely fifteen at the time--and no one knew where she’d gone.  No one really cared enough to look for her, either.  All the good citizens of Timbuktu cared about was their beloved Sohrab’s death.  There were many grumbles that in a way, the tragedy was Ibadiran’s fault.  After all, centaurs weren’t supposed to fall in love, were they?  Obviously she’d conspired in his death.
 
Ezinwene’s mind took leave of her the minute she heard the devastating news.  She died less than a year later.  Meanwhile, monuments to Sohrab were constructed. The very memory of Ibadiran was soon forgotten.
 
As stated before, after the slave ship docked in Barbados, Ibadiran disappeared from the annals of history without a trace for almost twenty years.  No one knows exactly where she went or what she learned while she was there.  Different tales are told about her journeys in various parts of Mesoamerica, in the Amazon rain forest, even as far north as the Mississippi delta.  Sometimes she was alone.  Sometimes she was accompanied by her consort, a witch-doctor who was rumored to have been one of her captors.
 
All that we know for sure is that around 1619, magical Africans began to disappear without a trace.
 
Ibadiran, in her vengeance, had refined the very charm that had contained her.  Magical Africans had cast her aside and left her to die twice--first as a baby, then as a young girl.  She was simply returning the favor.
 
She had cast the first Sponge.  To wizards and witches then and now, the magical trap was devastating.
 
In four hundred years, the design has not changed.  It consists of a net-like field that can be either small as a closet or vast as a small arena.  Unless you are the one who casts the Sponge-spinning spell, there is no way of knowing that it’s there.  More than one wizard or witch can enter a Sponge at once... indeed, if you’re touching a person that is fully inside a Sponge, the Sponge metastasizes.  Not only are you Sponged as well, you have just created a brand-new Sponge.  Sponges, once emptied of their contents, expand again and are ready to trap their next victims.
 
Sponges can only be detected with powerful charms, usually transferred onto a protective mantle.  Once inside and covered, it can be disabled via a simple charm.  We have Hermione and Neville to thank for stumbling upon those inventions during their final year at Hogwarts, or the Confederation’s postwar mission to detect and inactivate live Sponges would have been a lot more difficult. 
 
Once a witch or wizard walks into a Sponge, the magic within them triggers a chain reaction.  They are almost immediately rendered unconscious.  Wands are useless.  The field begins to squeeze, absorbing one magical ability after another.  Usually the traits in which the individual has above-average talent are sucked away first.  Ability to fly... knack for Charms or Transfiguration... ability to Apparate... ability to use a wand... knowledge of the magical world... these are all drained away one by one. 
 
Not only does the wizard or witch become a Muggle in the end, he or she has no memory of who he or she is.  Show them evidence of magic and they will scoff.  They invariably end up thinking that their families and friends are insane.  If they are not watched, they eventually disappear and are never heard from again.  The ones that are recovered usually turn up in body bags... they either commit suicide or retreat into a vegetable state.  This led Hermione and Neville to posit the theory that the Sponge’s final effect is an accelerated dementia, similar in some ways to Alzheimer’s disease.
 
The total time that it takes for a Sponge to complete a squeeze is two and a half minutes.  It was as effective in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as it was in VW2.
 
Ten years later, we have a good estimate of the number of victims the Sponge claimed during VW2.  Over three million witches and wizards worldwide were either partially or fully incapacitated worldwide by the Sponge in only two years.  That’s an astronomical number of civilian casualities in even Muggle terms... according to Hermione, that was about half the number of Holocaust victims in their Second World War.  It is estimated that one-tenth of the wizarding population worldwide was Sponged... and the percentages in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France spike even higher.
 
Such meticulous records were not kept during the Age of the Blight.  There is no way of knowing how many African witches and wizards permanently lost their magic thanks to Ibadiran’s little toy.  We speculate that this may be the cause of magical black children in the New World suddenly popping up after a dozen or more generations of Muggles.  My Muggle-born father is a case in point.
 
The final part of the legend always makes my skin crawl.
 
Again, there were and are two strains of African wizarding genes:  Society and the regular strain.  During the Blight, magical blacks of the regular variety were affected by the Sponge as all others are.  Pureblooded Society witches and wizards were also affected, but with two distinct differences.
 
Instead of suffering from degenerative dementia, those with Society blood seemed to have trauma-induced amnesia.  They did forget about their magic for a time, but didn’t go mad.  In fact, they were model slaves.  Placid.  Dutiful.  Obedient.  Also, they retained their wings.  Hidden under the skin by powerful magic.  As undetectable as their magical heritage.
 
It is not known who first stumbled upon the incantation or how.  Most magical African slaves were Sponged, and after two or three generations had trouble recalling their family names, never mind lengthy and detailed spells and oral traditions.  Did it come to a weeping mother in a dream as she nursed her child to sleep?  Did an elderly man, pottering about a kitchen garden, recall his mother’s lullaby?  Was it whispered by Fate on the hum of the wind?
 
Kum... yali, kum buba tambe
Kum kunka yali, kum... tambe
Buba yali... buba tambe...
 
There was a great outcryin’.  The bent backs straightened up.  Old and young who were called slaves and could fly joined hands.  Say they would ring-sing.  But they didn’t shuffle in a circle like we do.  No, no.  They didn’t sing like we do, neither.  They rose into the air.
 
They flew into a flock that was black against the heavenly blue.  Black crows or black shadows.  It didn’t matter, they went so high.  Way above the plantations, way over the slavery land.  Say they flew away to Freedom.
 
The slaves who could not fly waited.  Just lookin’ up at all the ones who could fly. “Take us with you!” They were afraid to shout it... Overseer’s lash and his guns and his dogs would get ‘em.  Their looks said it for ‘em.  But the people who could fly hadn’t the time.  Couldn’t learn ‘em that quick.  They must wait for a chance to run.
 
“Goodie-bye!” the people called.  And they were flyin’ gone, so they say.  The Overseer told it.  The one called Master said it was a lie, a trick of the light.  The Driver kept his mouth shut.
 
The slaves who could not fly told about the people who could fly to their children, when they were free.  When they sat close before the fire in the free land, they told on.  They told their children, and their children’s childrens too.  They did so love fireflight, and Freedom, and tellin’.
 
They say that the children of the ones who could not fly told their children.  And now, me, I have told it to you.
 
Finished with Malinda’s hair, I set my wand and comb aside.
 
“I like that story,” she said.  “It’s like me and you.  You can’t fly, but I’m really good at flying!”
 
“Yes, you are, dear.”  I took the many small braids I’d created and proceeded to twist them into two large ones so that her hair would be off her neck in the hot climate.
 
“One day when I can fly way up and up like Dad, I’m going to take you up there in the sky like he does.  Since you can’t fly, Mummy.”
 
There was silence.  Malinda seemed to still be thinking about it, which was unlike her.  Usually she’d be demanding another story by now.
 
“Those flying people in the story were mean.  Why didn’t they come back and help?”
 
I shrugged, thinking of growing up in the Society’s dark shadow.
 
“Why indeed, sweetheart?  I’ve asked that question myself.  And I must say that I don’t know.”
 
***************
 
Nestled halfway on the coast between tourist-saturated Montego Bay and the nude beaches of Negril is the tasteful Elysian Fields resort, popular with the Galleonaire set.  Even though Jamaica has long since lost favor with the trendy, Elysian remains a favorite weekend getaway and holiday retreat for the magical rich and famous.

Once a sugarcane and banana plantation left to ruin by a debt-ridden British family, the land was secured by the British Minister of Magic in the early twentieth century and auctioned off to the highest bidder.  This bidder happened to be my great-grandmother Lavinia Wigglesworth.  She purchased it from the Ministry and proceeded to restore the property with her own touch.
 
The huge plantation house, once renovated and expanded, became a first-class hotel.  The former fields transformed easily into lush gardens, swimming lagoons, and rolling lawns.
Nestled in quaint locations around the vast resort were private villas, which regulars and honeymooners preferred.  And Elysian is famous the world over for its court of rainbow fountains, which are over twenty feet high.  Each one sprouts a different color and flavor of liquid, but the spray itself is as refreshing as water and doesn’t stain your clothes.

Of course, Muggles only see the ruins.  There are rumors amongst them that the place is haunted.  Perhaps even the best of our spells can’t completely conceal the ghosts of our laughter.

In addition to Elysian, my great-grandmother and her sisters and brothers own eleven other magical resorts around the world, mostly in tropical climes.  I’ve visited each one at least once.  Elysian is my favorite.

We arrived at the Three Fates port a few miles east of the Muggles’ Montego Bay.  I heard my sister standing on the docks before I saw her.
 
“Angelina!”  Her lilting, pretty voice always sounded like tinkling bells to my ears.  “Set that niece of mine down and let her come to me.”
 
“Aunt Olivia!  Uncle Ken!” Malinda exclaimed, running through the crowd in the direction of my sister.  As if she hadn’t seen those two rascals on Christmas Eve!  She is becoming quite the little actress.  By the time Fred and I arrived with our luggage, she was already riding on my handsome, sepia-skinned brother-in-law’s broad shoulders.
 
Olivia kissed me and gave Fred a hug.  Fred and Kenneth immediately began to talk... Ken is the one person in my family besides Olivia and my mother that he actually likes.  Which says a lot.  There aren’t too many people that Fred Weasley doesn’t get along with.  He has very little use for the Society, though, and I understand the sentiment.
 
“Where have you been, girl?” my younger sister hissed at me.  “Grandmother’s lip is already curling.  Diane and her family got here two days ago.  You know Grandmother doesn’t like it when you arrive at Convention late...”

“Grandmother had better be glad we’re here at all,” I remarked dryly.

Of course, the first order of business was to pay our respect to Grandmother as she held court.  I knew exactly what to expect, as the routine never changed.
 
Lavinia Wigglesworth is in actuality my great-grandmother.  She raised my mother, whose own parents died shortly after she was born.  Grandmother Lavinia is one hundred and twelve years old.  Her dreadlocked hair is twisted into silvery-white cotton ropes that fall past her knees.  Most of the time, she wears them piled up into a magnificent crown.  Her unlined skin is the color of cinnamon, and her eyes are as black as coal.  Once she was a plump woman, but age has slimmed her down to a wisp.
 
She and my mother Linda live in a vast private home that is a distance away from the main Elysian grounds.  This house is situated alongside other beach estates, owned by Muggles.  After Ken and Olivia dropped us off, we walked around the back and into Grandmother’s screened-in deck, followed by Fred who was holding Malinda in his arms.  The view was magnificent.  You could see the sapphire sea to the south, lush forest to the west, mountains in the distant east, and rolling lawn in the foreground.
 
She always has a formidable spread at her teas, which occur every day of the week at four o’ clock sharp.  My mother is always present, seated at her right side.  There are also a changeable number of Society witches present, usually hailing from the Greater Antilles.  The largest number of them come from Haiti... the powerful Haitian contingent thought of joining with their Louisiana cousins and splitting from the Society a number of years back.  Thanks to Grandmother’s oily rhetoric, they were talked out of it.
 
Grandmother was seated on her usual throne, a high-backed wicker chair given to her long ago by her late husband.  My mother stood behind her and the spread table.  Diane the Diamond Dinosaur sat at her right side in Mum’s chair.  Snickering.  With her earrings and necklaces and tennis bracelets flashing.  I suppressed the familiar urge to wrap my hands around her giraffe neck and strangle her.
 
“Well, if it isn’t my wayward English granddaughter,” she said in her genteel, clipped version of the local dialect.  Her eyes flickered over me, then in the direction of my husband and child.  “Good afternoon, Frederick.”
 
He set Malinda down and let her run to my mother.  “Mrs. Wigglesworth,” he muttered.  All of his brothers and sisters save George hate their full names with a passion.  Grandmother, when she bothers to address him at all, never calls him Fred.
 
Her coal-black eyes returned back to me.  “Angelina, the Convention began yesterday.  Did you receive my parrot?  Or was it lost in the holiday post?”
 
Diane did not quite succeed in smothering her snicker with a long, bony hand.
 
Take a deep breath, Ange.  “We’ve both had to work, Grandmother.  We got here as soon as we could...”
 
“Yes, I’m sure you did.  Your presence is appreciated, especially since you have this strange habit of forgetting our annual gathering.”  She turned back to Fred.  “They say that your famous brother has run into a bit of trouble, Frederick.  Pity.  Things of that manner have an uncanny way of surfacing no matter how hard you try to cover them up.”
 
Seeing my husband was too angry to speak, I said quickly, “Surely you’ve read the follow-up stories which dismiss the allegations as groundless...”
 
“I rarely read the Daily Prophet,” she interrupted.  “We have our own wizarding publications.  As I do not care for Quidditch, scandal, or other such trifles, there is little in that publication to interest me.”
 
“Grandmother, Angelina is still reporting for the Prophet,” Diane supplied.  I’m sure if she hadn’t taken that opportunity to speak, she would have burst.
 
Her eyes went back to my husband.  “The place of a wife with young children is in her home, Frederick.  Surely your enterprise is not so piddling that you can’t afford to take care of my granddaughter.”
 
“Angelina chooses to work, Mrs. Wigglesworth.”
 
“Because you give her that choice, Frederick.”
 
“Begging your pardon, madam, but your granddaughter is my life partner, not my House-Elf.  Issues of subservience shouldn’t enter into a relationship of equals.”
 
“Oh, Mother Lavinia, ‘seven years no’ nough to wash speckle off guinea hen back’,” my mother snapped.  “Angelina does what she likes, she always has.”
 
“I know she has, Linda.  After all, I wanted her to attend the Academy here in Jamaica, and you sent her and Diane to that British school in Scotland.”
 
“I wanted to attend Academy, Grandmother,” Diane said, eyes mocking me.  “Father sent me to Hogwarts against my wishes.”
 
Grandmother ignored Diane.  “I wanted her out of Hogwarts when Lucius owled me about the plans of the Dark Lord, and you allowed her to stay.  I wanted her to come here at war’s end, and you did little to echo my sentiment.”
 
“I came here during the war and stayed put, Grandmother!  I even postponed my own wedding to please you.  You always know best, and you were right.” 
 
That was Diane again.  My hand went to my shoulder bag.  The next time my older sister opened her yap, she’d find my wand stuck in it.
 
“Not to mention the fact that all three of your children married outside of the Society, against my wishes.  Two of them are married to foreigners who do not respect our customs, all because you and the man whose name I refuse to speak had to go tripping off to England in search of adventure.  So the next time you think to cut me down to size with a hopelessly rustic folk proverb, Linda, recall that ‘finger nebber say ‘look here’, him say ‘look there’.   One only has to look at the mess you’ve made of your own life from not listening to my wise counsel.”
 
Fred was fed up.  He thinks my mum is sweeter than a Sugar Quill and hates the way my grandmother treats her.  He took Malinda away from my mother, excused himself more politely than the situation deserved, and quit the room before he spoke his mind. 
 
The other women in the room tittered, casting derisive looks in my mother’s direction.  Diane was torn between being angry at the reminder that her husband was not Society and pleasure at my obvious consternation. 
 
My mother was silently weeping.  
 
One of Grandmother Lavinia’s many perverse pleasures is making Mum suffer.  Yet once she loved her granddaughter.  Perhaps that is why she had such a hard time forgiving her.
 
Linda Ifetayo Johnson is full-blooded Society.  When my mother sprouts her wings, she looks exactly like a guardian angel.  Hers are all golden with black tips... they match her golden skin and eyes and the black hair that surrounds her head like a halo.  Olivia looks exactly like her, down to the last wingtip.
 
My Mum was raised as a veritable princess.  Grandmother Lavinia has been the Society’s Grand Worthy Matron for the past sixty years, and between her wealth and prestige Linda Wigglesworth lacked for nothing.  She became the darling of the Academy upon her arrival at age eleven.  While the Academy is not exclusively or even predominately Society, most New World African witches and wizards defer to the Society’s supposed birthright to rule and dominate.
 
She would have been Matron by now, without Grandmother having to pass on first, if Dad hadn’t entered into the picture.
 
Marcus Aurelius Johnson had no idea that he was a wizard until he was nearly sixteen years old.  The Academy’s admission procedure isn’t nearly as streamlined as the one McGonagall set up at Hogwarts... of course, the Academy is only two hundred and fifty years old, so Hogwarts has had a longer time to figure out how to detect magical children.
 
Dad grew up in New York City with his family who were second-generation Jamaican immigrants.  Muggles.  He enjoyed his upbringing thoroughly.  Thanks to his roguish personality and the characteristic blink-free nature of New Yorkers, the obvious signs that he had supernatural powers didn’t bother anyone.  Before he was discovered by a group of Academy-educated wizards, he enjoyed throwing snowballs at girls without the use of his hands, talking a poltergeist into wreaking havoc in a drug pusher’s home, everything.  Mark Johnson was popular, well-liked, and extremely happy.  He dreamed of being a pro baseball player, or failing that, a cop.
 
His entire life changed when he arrived at the Academy.  All of a sudden, no one cared if Mark Johnson was the life of the party.  He was a first year student who was nearly five years older than everyone in his class... and he wasn’t a member of the untouchable Society caste.  That made him the brunt of many jokes.  The Dunce Who Was Held Back.
 
The only person in the entire school who sought out his friendship at first was twelve year old Linda.  She had a hidden streak of laughter as well that Lavinia had discouraged.  The princess and the clown had a lot to learn from one another.  Linda had grown up a witch and was a year ahead of Mark, so she helped him adapt.  Mark knew all about the Muggle world and shared his stories and fun with her.
 
They were married a year after Dad’s Academy graduation.  He was twenty-two and had just completed Auror training with the West Indian Magical Authority.  They say that witches all over the Caribbean were mad about my father, including many Society damsels and debutantes.  But Dad’s memory was long.  He couldn’t forget what his first years in the magical world were like. 
 
The only witch he wanted was Linda.  And that feeling was mutual.
 
When they came back from their honeymoon to face the music, Lavinia Wigglesworth disowned her granddaughter on the spot.  “It would be bad enough if he was simply not Society,” she remarked then and still says now.  “But for Linda to have eloped with a Mudblood from the States is unconscionable.”
 
Neither Mum nor Dad cared much about her at the time.  They moved to Kingston.  Mum   began a owl-order business from home.   Mark quickly rose through the ranks of the West Indian Magical Authority as an Auror.  His supervisors noticed that he was a natural at negotiating with lunatics... Mum joked it was because he was a bit loony himself.   He was considered far and wide as one of the best Negotiators in the world.
 
The British Ministry offered Mark a deal he couldn’t refuse in 1970.  Rumbles of the First Voldemort War were approaching, and the MoM were recruiting the best of the best from around the globe.  Dad packed up Mum, who was pregnant with Diane at the time, and headed to England without another thought.
 
Too bad no one knew that Voldemort and his minions couldn’t be negotiated with.
 
Dad was killed on Christmas Day 1980... less than a year before the Potter murders and Harry’s first defeat of the Dark Lord.  Mum was inconsolable.  Pregnant with Olivia at the time, she refused the advice of her Academy friends who’d emigrated to aid the war cause.  She had learned pride from my father, a pride much stronger than the pureblooded snobbery she’d grown up with.  She would never return to her grandmother and beg forgiveness.
 
Until VW2 popped up.
 
When Olivia and I came home for the summer holidays in 1995 and reported what Dumbledore said about Cedric’s death, Mum didn’t walk, she ran back to Jamaica.  We usually spent summers on the island with Dad’s cousins, and once in a blue moon even visited our Muggle grandparents in New York.  Mum rarely mentioned her family.  We knew she’d been born into the Society, but didn’t know much or care much about it growing up.
 
All of a sudden, reclaiming her family was of tantamount importance to Mum.  Two things were uppermost in her mind.  The first was that her Muggle-born husband walked into a trap set by persons who cherished purity of magical blood.  The second was that not a single Society member--sons and daughters of one of the oldest magical lineages on the planet--died in the first war.
 
She’d do anything to save her children.  Even humiliate herself to the very dust.
 
Diane, although engaged to Ministry bigwig Brian Riordan at the time, went with to Jamaica without protest.  Olivia, who was a third year Ravenclaw at Hogwarts, also went.  Mum figured Liv could get just as good of an education at the Academy, which in the years since she and Dad had matriculated through had made the decision to refuse admission to Muggle-borns.  Hence, it was safe.
 
My middle name should have been Stubborn.  I stood my ground.
 
“I’ve spent the past six years of my life at Hogwarts!” I shouted.  “I have friends there that I don’t want to leave.  I’m of age already, so I’ll do just as I please.  Jamaica and our nasty, bigoted grandmother can do very well without me.”
 
Mum went back without me.  After much pleading and begging, she was let back into Grandmother Lavinia’s good graces.  It took me many more years to achieve even a shred of acceptance.
 
I couldn’t have cared less.
 
More than ten years later, I still have no respect for the woman.  So as I watched my mother weep in silence and Grandmother Lavinia continue the conversation as if nothing at all happened, I couldn’t bite my tongue.
 
“Do you really know why we were late, Grandmother?” I said, cutting into the dialogue as if no one else was speaking.  “Here’s a rustic proverb for you.  ‘Cockroach never in the right before the fowl.’  Perhaps my mother and sisters are willing to be your marionettes, but I am not!”
 
Having spoken my mind, I whirled around on my heel and walked out.
 
Diane followed me.  She clamped one of her bony hands on my shoulder.  I jerked away and faced her.
 
“Get back in there, Angelina!  You can’t just say anything you damn well please to her.  Do you know what kind of influence she has?”
 
“Oh, so the little table napkin has aspirations to become the tablecloth?  That doesn’t surprise me.  Tell you what.  When she disowns me like she did Mum, have her sign over my portion of the inheritance to you.”
 
Diane’s eyes glittered dangerously.  “I swear, if you weren’t my sister, I’d...”
 
“You’d what?” I sneered.
 
“Angelina, everyone knows that you have no sense of ujamaa.  That, not our wings, is what separates us from the rest of the wizarding world.  Ujamaa, as Grandmother always says, means that we in the Society have a collective responsibility to one another.  In case you haven’t realized it, every time you have one of these temper tantrums you remind Lavinia Wigglesworth of the fact that all three of us are Mark Johnson’s children.”
 
“You say it like it’s something to be ashamed of!”
 
“Shame doesn’t enter into the picture.  Blood does.  Purity of blood is everything to the Society, and it has been for thousands of years.  There’s no right or wrong involved.  That’s simply the way things are!  Lavinia Wigglesworth sees us as half-Mudblood and little better than bastards.  We’re in her will for the time being, and Mum will be Matron when she dies.  Most Society witches and wizards conveniently forget that we’re not fully like them.  But all that we’ve worked so hard for could be destroyed because of your jealousy!”
 
“My jealousy, Diane?  People always say that about the middle child, I suppose.  Or at least you always have.”
 
She was getting visibly upset that her nastiness was only serving to cool my temper off.  The veins in her giraffe neck began to work.
 
“Perhaps you don’t think you’ll ever need me.  But let me remind you of something.  After Convention is over, we’ll both be returning home to England.  Despite the press party your husband’s family threw, my Brian and his watchdogs weren’t thrown off the scent... or shall I say, the stench of Ronald Weasley’s illegal activities.  His audit is coming up in a few weeks.  Whether they look closely or merely skim is entirely up to Brian.”  She paused for effect.  “Which means that it is entirely up to me.”
 
She had a point.  My sister had whipped Brian Riordan into submission long before he even thought of becoming Deputy Minister.  While I wouldn’t want a arse-kissing lap dog for a mate myself, that type suits the Diamond Dinosaur well.
 
“If Ron can’t stand the heat from your sniveling husband without my pretending that I really agree with everything my grandmother and this convention stands for, he’s in a world of trouble.  Dear sister, I’ve wasted enough of my time speaking with you.  I think I’ll go look for my daughter... Malinda’s overdue for her nap.”
 
I left her standing there with her mouth hanging half-open.  She looked like a complete idiot.  If I’d had a camera, I would have snapped her like that.  Diane always liked to be on the society pages of the Prophet... why shouldn’t I oblige?
 
**************
 
By the time I arrived at Elysian after Olivia finished with my hair, dinner was well underway.  I rushed to change, then joined Fred and Malinda in the ballroom of the Grand Hotel. 
 
Malinda, blissfully unaware of the undercurrents that existed between her parents and the other adults present, was awestruck by the dinner.  She’s been around wealth and privilege for most of her little life, but rarely in a tropical setting.  Grandmother’s House-Elves and other servants had transformed the ballroom into a scene that reminded me of the garden dome that crowned the Malfosoft Mediwizarding Research Institute.
 
“Actually, it’s rather like the Muggles’ Rainforest Cafe,” Draco said as we first arrived.  Other than Fred and Brian, he was the only English wizard in the vicinity.   Their formal, tailored black silk dress robes provided a stark contrast to the colorful kente prints and brightly colored solids surrounding us.  “Only the birds and the animals and the flora are real.  I don’t envy whoever was enlisted to clean up this mess.”  He turned to Fred.  “How is she?”
 
“Shouldn’t you know?” Fred asked, trying his best to remain cordial. 
 
Draco shrugged.  “She’s not returning my owls.”
 
“Then why don’t you leave her alone, Malfoy?”
 
“Easier said than done.”
 
“My brothers and I can make it a lot easier for you.  And we will if you keep sniffing after her, then dropping her like a hot potato.”
 
Draco threw back his head and laughed.  “Your diplomatic skills astound me, Weasley.”
 
“Your lack of good intentions when it comes to my baby sister disgusts me.  If you want a mistress, Malfoy, look elsewhere.  Ginny is a nice girl and we’ve had it up to here with you stringing her along.”
 
“She’s a grown woman.  I happen to be in love with her.”
 
Fred wasn’t buying it.  “If you love her, then leave her alone.  Maybe then she’ll stop pining after you and find a wizard worthy of her.”
 
I decided it was time to step in before this escalated.  “Fred, why don’t you and Malinda go on and get seated?  I’m sure Draco wants to get his thoughts together before he has to speak.”
 
Dinner went off without a hitch.  We enjoyed dish after dish spiced with curry and jerk seasoning, beef pasties, rice and peas, several dozen varieties of fruits and vegetables, and fried plantains.  These were all washed down with liberal amounts of butterrum, goat milk, and coconut juice... wizards and witches from the islands aren’t as partial to pumpkins as those of us in England are.
 
The program began soon after the plates were cleared.  I tuned most of it out.  As the mistress of ceremonies introduced Grandmother, I remained seated in protest at the standing ovation.  Fred stood up but did not applaud. 
 
I also refused to recite the Society’s oath.  Written in a total of fifteen different African languages, it lauds the purity of blood and the innate superiority of the Society in every one of them.  Diane placed her hand over her heart and recited it loudest of all.
 
Then the Diamond Dinosaur went up to the dais to introduce Draco.
 
“Though European, the Malfoys can trace their bloodlines as far back as many families bonded together in this Great Society.  They are directly descended from the great English wizard Salazar Slytherin, whose House I was pleased to have been Sorted into during my school days at Hogwarts in Scotland.   Their forebears also include the unparallelled Nordic sorcerer Valhaimonen, and the formidable witch Louhi. 
 
“Draco Malfoy is the last surviving son of this great line.  His noble father Lucius fell in the last war, defending the purity of blood and the threat to our world that the Muggles are posing to his dying day...”
 
My fingernails dug into my clenched palms.  Fred muttered under his breath, “Flying toads... if she’d said that back in England, the Ministry would have her for treason.”
 
“Now, that would ruin Brian’s chances of becoming Minister,” I whispered back.  “Well, no one here will report her to the Ministry or the Confederation.  Not when most of them agree with her.”
 
“I’m sure Malfoy just loves the fact that she’s lauding the father that almost got him thrown into Azkaban for life.  Speaking of which, wonder where he’s got off to?”
 
I looked around.  There was no sign of him.
 
A minute later, Olivia walked up to our table and knelt down.  “Fred, Angelina, Grandmother sent me to look for Draco.  Someone told me you were the last ones seen with him.  Do you have any idea where he might be?”
 
“No.  But we can help you look.”  Leaving Malinda with Kenneth--we wouldn’t trust our daughter with any of the Society people--we split up and conducted a search of the grounds.
 
It wasn’t like Draco to cast responsibility to the wind.  Even if he’d heard something during the Convention proceedings that annoyed him, he wouldn’t have run back to England.  He either was in trouble, or had lost track of time.
 
After about ten minutes of searching, I arrived in the Court of Rainbow Fountains.  The full moon and shining pillars illuminated the many-colored waters and the crystalline walkways.  Here and there, moonstone benches were scattered, a favorite trysting place for the lovers that frequented the resort.  Because of the Convention, they were deserted.  I had almost made up my mind to turn around.  There wasn’t a single sound save the click of my sandaled heels on the walk.
 
Until I heard the voices, that is.
 
“Draco, I’m not supposed to be here!”  Of course, that was Ginny.  And I echoed her sentiment.  Didn’t she resolve to me that she wasn’t going to be at his beck and call?  Didn’t the girl have any willpower?
 
I walked toward the stone bench at the end of the row of fountains, stopping about twenty feet short of it at the base of a magenta spout.  They were sitting together.  Ginny was resplendent in the turquoise robes I’d so admired the week before and wearing her dragon.  Draco was wearing dress robes of black satin, but now they were opened to reveal a dark blue Muggle business suit.  Armani, of course.
 
The thing that was most intriguing was that although they were sitting right next to each other, they weren’t touching.  That was a new one.  Except for when Hermione was around lately, I didn’t think such a feat was possible.
 
He was looking at her with such longing that my heart broke for them both.
 
“Trust me to find a way.”
 
She’d obviously been crying.  “You always do, don’t you?  Why can’t you let me move on?”
 
“What can I say?  I can’t seem to do without you.  You’re like this fire in my blood, sweetheart.”
 
“Fire in your blood, you say?” She wiped her eyes.  “Sounds like a particularly nasty sort of disease.  Perhaps Hermione will discover a cure for that as well.”
 
He let out a deep breath.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard Draco Malfoy sigh before. 
 
“I doubt that I’d respond to Hermione Granger’s treatment.”
 
“Oh, you do indeed respond, sir... most pointedly, might I add.”  She turned her back on him, appearing for all the world like some distant medieval damsel being wooed by a recalcitrant knight.

“Virginia, turn around and look at me,” he demanded. 
 
Slowly, she did. 
 
“My response is for you and you alone.”
 
“Don’t!”  Only her upraised fingers shielded her lips from his kiss.

“Why?  It’s what I want.  It’s what you want.”

“That’s right.  I’m too full of wanting you, and if you pull me across the miles to be with you tonight I’ll hate myself tomorrow.  I need to think, Draco.”
 
He chuckled indulgently.  “Why can’t you ‘think’ here in Jamaica?”
 
“Because every time I close my eyes, I see your face.  Because every time I’m near you, I want to touch you. And Draco, whenever we make love, I swear I’m going to shatter.  Not only can’t I think around you, I find myself breathless.  Six months of being in that state is one thing.  Half a decade of it is quite another... it isn’t healthy, and it isn’t fair!  I’ve been mad about you for so long that I can’t even remember what normal is! 
 
“My brothers and sisters-in-law have always said you’re all wrong for me.  I’m starting to think they might be right.  Don’t you enjoy Hermione’s company?  She’s married, to be sure, but she’s more like you than I am.”
 
“Yes, she’s like me in many ways.  Granger has the tendency to challenge the ego of any man who happens to be in close proximity to her.  She’s a genius... her mind is amazing and always has been.  She can talk about almost any subject under the sun with authority.  She’s beautiful, and headstrong, and there’s never a dull moment with her around.  I’ve never met anyone else quite like her.  Ever.” 
 
Ginny looked daggers at him. 
 
“She’s also bossy, and arrogant, and thinks that in every situation she always knows best.  She’s developed an extremely unhealthy perfectionistic complex.  Cross her, cross anything or anyone important to her, and she explodes.  Takes a certain kind of man to deal with her without coming out of it feeling henpecked.  I haven’t the patience.  Granger is definitely one hell of a witch, but she isn’t my witch.  I don’t envy your brother in the slightest.”
 
“Then what is it, Draco?  Why do you just have to have me?
 
“Because you complete me, Gin,” he said softly.  “You opened my eyes to the fact that there are other people in the world... even as I became the center of yours.  I’ve said often that I corrupted you, but you... you saved me.”
 
“I didn’t save you, Draco, I just...”
 
“Listen to me, love.  You know that I was a shell after the war, with neither evil nor goodness inside.  I chose whatever emotion suited the occasion.  I only had one reason for living, and once that was complete, I didn’t care much about what happened to me.  Then you came into my life... and all of a sudden, I realized what I was here for.  Realized that my purpose and destiny was the exact opposite of what my father had always purported it to be.  Realized that I could change our world.
 
“I’ve been a spoiled brat all my life.  Had the best of everything, even while I was hiding out with the Muggles.  There is so much that I hate about myself still... you’ve no idea the number of demons I’ve had to wrestle with.  Seventeen years of living under Lucius Malfoy’s influence can’t be fully erased in eleven years.  Even now, whenever I’m wide awake at some ungodly hour, I hear his voice...
 
“When I look at everything I’ve accomplished since the war, everything I’ve done... hell, everything that I’ve become... all I can think about is that there was one special witch by my side.  You talk about closing your eyes and seeing me, Gin... I don’t even have to close mine to see your eyes, your lips, your hair, even those fourteen freckles scattered over the bridge of your nose.
 
“So that brings me back to your first question.  Why can’t I let you move on?  Simple.  I can’t.  Without you, I’m a dead man.  There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time, and perhaps now’s the time to do it.  Virginia Margaret Weasley, will you...”
 
“Angelina!” Olivia called, voice ringing out from the far end of the fountain court.  “Where are you, girl?”
 
Both Ginny and Draco looked up.  She seemed embarrassed that I’d seen them.  Draco, on the other hand, was highly offended and rightfully so.  Before he could say anything else to her, she touched the dragon pendant at her waist and vanished into thin air.  It was almost as if she’d been an apparition of some sort.
 
“I’m sure you have a perfectly justifiable reason for eavesdropping, Angelina,” he said, rising from the bench slowly.
 
“I’m over here, Liv,” I called back to my sister.  Then I turned back to Draco.  “Of course I do.  You’re late.”
 
“For?”
 
I couldn’t laugh at him, poor man.  My sister-in-law had completely made him forget why he’d come to Jamaica!  Oh, yes... Draco Malfoy was a lost cause.
 
“Um, nothing.  Nothing except for delivering the keynote speech at the Convention.  They’ve only been waiting for an hour.”
 
Olivia reached us.  “There you are, Mr. Malfoy!  We were all worried that you’d gotten cold feet.”
 
His next words were spoken to her, but he looked directly at me.
 
“Anyone who thinks I have cold feet doesn’t know the first thing about me.  I’ll enjoy giving them the shock of their lives.”
 
 
*************
 
And he did.  The Convention was completely outraged by his speech.
 
“Because of your Society’s historic ties with the development of the Sponge, I was asked to speak about it and the progress of the Danae Project which I am financing.  I have told your most worthy Matron in private that Malfosoft policy clearly states that no official updates about Danae can be given without my principal investigator, Dr. Hermione Granger, being present.  As a matter of fact, I suggested that Granger herself would have been a much better choice of speaker.  She and her team have traveled all over the world over the past year, researching the origins of the Sponge.  As you well know, she and her partner Dr. Neville Longbottom pioneered the counter-Sponge project in the last months of the war, and she is far more conversant on the topic than I.  I am simply providing the funding and the facilities.
 
“Since it was made implicitly clear to me that Dr. Granger would not be welcome at this illustrious gathering because she is Muggle-born, it is most unfortunate that I will not be able to speak about Danae at this time.  You, like the rest of the world, will have to wait until it is unveiled.  For in the end, your Society, as ancient and blood-proud as it might be is just like the rest of the world.  Whether magical or Muggle, whether Muggle-born or pureblooded, whether winged or earthbound, the bottom line is that we are all the same. Thank you for your time, and good night.”
 
He came down off the dais and walked down the side aisle.  More than two thousand wizards and witches sat in stunned silence.  Diane quickly went up to the podium in an effort to do damage control.  I’m sure Grandmother was reminded of the fact that Diane was the Convention committee member who’d suggested asking him.
 
I stopped him as he passed our table.
 
“Thanks,” I said quietly.  “You did more than you know.”
 
Draco managed the slightest of smiles.  “If you really want to thank me, a word of advice might come in handy some day soon.”
 
“What kind of advice?” Fred asked, still skeptical.
 
“Your wife is a member of this Society.  People who can fly.  What I want to know is this.  How do you talk to an angel?  I’ve spent the past six years trying to figure it out.  Seems as if I’m running out of time.”
 
Draco left then.
 
And when Fred’s eyes met mine, he smiled.  It was the first time Draco had ever elicited such a reaction from any of the Weasley brothers.
 
Perhaps there was hope for Ginny after all.
 
 
***************
 
We returned to England on Sunday, a day ahead of schedule.  At breakfast the next morning, Fred declared to Olivia and Ken that he didn’t plan to spend another day under a roof owned by Lavinia Wigglesworth.  I quite agreed with him.
 
On Monday morning, I dropped Malinda off at the Burrow, then headed to the Prophet to clean out my in-box and prepare for the fanfare surrounding the All-Star Quidditch Match.  It would be my last major spread before I stepped down as sports editor, and I wanted it to be good. 
 
The newsroom was strangely deserted, but I welcomed the opportunity to work in peace.  Because of the ever-present chill in the newsroom, I kept my cloak on.  Since Malinda had ruined my everyday one with her mud, it was in the cleaners.  The scarlet one that I’d worn for almost two days had to suffice, and when I removed the fox fur lining, it did quite nicely.
 
Jeralyn Curmudgeon, one of my sportswriters and the section’s AE, came in around eleven-thirty.  She seemed surprised to see me.
 
“Angelina!  What are you doing here?”
 
“Catching up, I thought.  Same as you.  Are you ready for the All-Star Match?  I think Lydia has our accommodations over in the States in working order.”
 
She continued to look at me strangely, and then seemed to remember something monumental. 
 
“That’s right!  I forgot you were in Jamaica this weekend... you must not have looked at your post.”
 
“No, I haven’t.  What’s wrong?”
 
“Cassandra’s shut the newsroom down until this evening.  We’re all supposed to be working at home.  Something about renovators coming in and sealing off these drafts... the Insulator fizzed out over the weekend and it’s freezing in here.”
 
I wasn’t that cold.  Then I remembered that the cleaners don’t usually remove charms from clothing.  The warming spell I’d cast on the MMRI roof was still working, then.
 
“Well, it’s certainly nice to have the day off,” I remarked.  “Fancy joining me for a bite at the Leaky Cauldron, Jeralyn?  It’s nearly lunchtime.”
 
She shook her head.  “Thanks, but no thanks.  I came to grab my team rosters so I can compile the stats page.  Speaking of which, did you hear about the first match of the year?  It occurred Saturday... Liverpool vs. Dover.”
 
“No, we were oblivious over in Jamaica.  What happened?  Was it exciting?”
 
“It was record-breaking.  Do you know how long it took Ron Weasley to catch the Snitch?”
 
My guess, with all that had gone on within the past few weeks, was two days. 
 
“Five minutes.  Can you believe that?  It was awesome.  No sooner were they in the air and the first goal scored than Ron had the gold in his hand.  The score was 160-0, Liverpool.  If you blinked, you missed it.”
 
I chortled.  “Were there legions of fans demanding their money back?”
 
“No!  They mobbed the field.  Your brother-in-law’s stock has shot through the roof.  The Cannons have been known as England’s team for the past decade.  Now everyone’s saying that it’s the Lions’ turn!  I’ve always been one who said that Ron was weak in the Seeker position... he’s more the Bludger or Keeper type.  You’ll never hear me say anything of the kind again!”
 
We walked out together, still talking about the match, then went in separate directions.  Jeralyn headed to the ABFN portal, broomstick in hand.  I was off to the Leaky Cauldron.
 
My favorite table is actually a booth.  It is situated on the Diagon Alley side of the place, is all the way in the back corner, and is located next to a window.  The Leaky Cauldron is one of those watering-holes-in-the-wall where everyone minds their own business.  As sociable as I am most days, in order to write and edit effectively sometimes one needs a little peace.  The three places I frequented the most--home, the Burrow, and the Prophet newsroom--were not locations where I could get serious editing done.
 
Old Tom still owns and runs the place.  He looked down at me with a smile.
 
“What’ll you have, dear?”
 
“A pint of bitter, and oh, I don’t know...”  I mentally reviewed the Cauldron’s menu.  “Bubble and squeak.  That sounds good.”
 
Before I knew it, the good food and atmosphere had caused me to lose track of time.  I finished editing seven stories, and knocked out about two-thirds of my weekly sports editorial column.  When the shadows began to lengthen across my leather-bound notebook, I set my quill down and looked at the time.  Almost five.  Time to head to the Burrow and relieve my mother-in-law of Malinda.
 
Retrieving a compact from my purse, I flipped it open and began to reapply the lipstick that had disappeared with the bubble and squeak.
 
Then I caught a flash of brown in my mirror.  A flash that apart from the wild mane of jet-black curls, was all brown.
 
It took a moment for the fact that I wasn’t standing up, then sliding into the next booth, to register fully.  Yet that was definitely me in the mirror... I could see that when I discreetly tilted it to reflect what was behind me.  Just a small, useful trick that Katie Bell taught me long ago.
 
The only difference was that I was wearing my red cloak, not my brown, and the double didn’t have on my engagement set.  Everything else... my eyes, my nose, the tiny beauty mark just above my left upper lip, my makeup, looked the same.  The mannerisms were perhaps a bit different, but as the only person I ever knew to go about with a mirror was Gilderoy Lockhart, I couldn’t critique the imposter’s acting.
 
Not-Angelina was followed into the booth by Colin Creevey and Tirzah Levin, who I could tell wasn’t acting normal, slid on the other side.  I wondered if they were in trouble... and debated on whether or not to signal Tom for help.
 
I decided against it when I saw Cassandra Claire walk up next and sit down next to Tirzah.  Not only was Cassandra definitely herself, she clearly had the situation under control.  She most likely thought Not-Angelina was me.  For some perverse reason, I decided to listen in.  I believed it would prove interesting.  Cassandra had never met with her section editors outside of the Prophet offices before.
 
With a quick, casual motion, I flipped my red riding hood over my distinctive black hair and kept the compact mirror in play.
 
All at the table were silent until Tom came and took their orders.  I thought he’d say something about my twin, but I suppose in all his years of running the Cauldron, he’s seen much curiouser sights.  When Not-Angelina ordered a glass of tomato juice, I was almost offended.  I hate tomato juice.  In fact, I don’t really care for tomatoes.
 
Tirzah and Colin ordered beverages that were even stranger.  I’ve been to the Cauldron hundreds of times with each of them separately and together.  Never has Tirzah ordered an alcoholic beverage in her life, and if she did, I doubt that Courvoisier would be her drink of choice.  Her tastes are a bit more plebeian than that.
 
Colin, on the other hand, always orders a drink.  The stronger, the better.  He doesn’t ask for two bottles of warm butterbeer... but this one did.
 
My new hypothesis, then, was that Not-Tirzah and Not-Colin had joined Not-Angelina for Happy Hour.  Great.  I wondered if Cassandra realized that she was seated at a table full of imposters.  She didn’t miss much.
 
“We’ll wait until Simon arrives with his guest to begin,” Cassandra said.  “You might want to top up your drinks once they arrive.  As important as this meeting is, I have a paper to run.  Not to mention the fact that those work wizards are notoriously lazy... the last time I checked this afternoon, three of them were snoring on my conference table instead of fixing the roof.”
 
“We understand that, Cass, and we thank you.”  That was Not-Angelina.  The voice was mine.  The inflection was a bit too clipped and precise for me.
 
“Then I’ll pop down the street and check on things.  Be back in a bit.”  With a pop, she Apparated out.
 
Not-Tirzah, who I couldn’t see, sounded extremely bored.  “Remind me again why this couldn’t have taken place at my office... or hers... or any place but the Leaky Cauldron.  Surely this would have prevented me from masquerading as a Jewish girl from New Jersey... even one with great breasts.  Years ago, I had this huge crush on Levin, but she snubbed me every time.”
 
“Hmm,” said Not-Angelina caustically.  “I wonder why.”
 
“Come now, Levin, this summit may go down in the history books.  Where’s your sense of adventure?”  That was Not-Colin.  The real Colin never calls Tirzah by her surname.
 
“Unlike you, Creevey, I wasn’t Sorted into the Adventure House... or should I say the Animal Planet.  Adventures are for wizards who can’t hold down a respectable nine-to-five.”
 
“Whatever are you trying to say?”
 
“If the shoe fits...”
 
“Stop that bickering, both of you, and keep those voices down,” snapped Not-Angelina.  “We have a lot of work left to do, and the last thing I need is for your stupid displays of machismo to blow our cover.”
 
“Must be the testosterone,” Not-Colin said.
 
“I haven’t any testosterone, remember?”  Not-Tirzah said through clenched teeth.  “That’s another thing.  Why I was selected to be the one in drag is far beyond me.  Don’t you think, Weasley, that he was the most suitable candidate?”  Through my compact mirror, I saw a painted Not-Tirzah fingernail point straight at Not-Colin.
 
Not-Angelina shrugged.  “He drew the longer broom-straw.  Suitability didn’t enter into the equation.  And don’t tell me that I altered the straws in his favor, either.  You’ll just have to bear it until meeting’s end.  I must say that I’m having fun myself.  I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to be nearly six feet tall.”
 
“Angelina’s not as tall as Colin is short,” Not-Colin said, idly.  “Wonder where the rest of me went?”
 
“And to think that I’ve spent the past eighteen years trying to figure out the exact same thing...” 
 
Of course that was Not-Tirzah again.  It didn’t take two guesses to know what her real identity was behind the mask.  There are certain witches and wizards with distinct personalities.  Not-Tirzah was one of them. 
 
“Levin, always remember that it’s not what you do that counts, it’s the attitude and the enthusiasm with which you engage the task that matters.”
 
“Spare us the nuggets of wisdom, Creevey,” said Not-Tirzah.  “Albus Dumbledore you are most emphatically not.”
 
Tom arrived with their drinks.  The minute he left, out came a flask from Not-Colin’s cloak and a stoppered bottle from Not-Angelina’s.  From the popping noise that came from just behind me, I supposed Not-Tirzah had removed a similar container from her things.
 
Polyjuice Potion.
 
No sooner had they taken their first sip when Simon Branford appeared, carrying a huge leather portfolio.  A great black dog trotted along beside him.
 
“Afternoon!  And how are my favorite journalists?” he said, pulling up a chair to sit on the booth’s end.  I closed my compact mirror and stuck my nose in my notebook... from this angle, he might be able to detect me spying.
 
“Thought you hated journalists, Simon,” laughed Not-Angelina.  Of course, it wasn’t my laugh.  But the minute I heard it, I knew exactly who my impersonator was.
 
“Well, now, you aren’t exactly reporters, are you, madam?  I’m seated in the presence of greatness, true and marked greatness.  Your hard work, your dedication and your passion to right wrongs have led us to this historic moment.  For generations to come, our descendants will rise up in the gates and call you blessed.  Your names will never be erased from our collective memory... indeed, as long as there are witches and wizards, you will be remembered fondly.  To you, sirs and madam!” 
 
Without asking, he raised Not-Colin’s untouched but opened butterbeer upwards in a toast, then drank half of the bottle in one gulp.  Three very painful, gasping minutes later, during which Not-Tirzah and Not-Angelina did their very best to hide what was happening, sitting at the end of the booth was Not-Colin-Two.
 
“Oh, my...” Simon-as-Not-Colin-Two murmured to himself, looking down at his now-baggy clothing.  “Oh, my.”
 
“Oh, my is right, damn you,” Not-Tirzah snarled.  “Drop the portfolio and get the hell out of here until you change back.”
 
“But... but...” Simon-as-Not-Colin-Two sputtered.  “But you need me to explain everything to Ms. Claire!”
 
“I’ll explain it all, Simon,” said Not-Angelina kindly.  “I’ve overseen all of the procedures myself, and I’m sure I can decipher your notes easily.  Thanks for all your help.”
 
“But doctor...”
 
“Sir, I’d advise you to Disapparate before Claire gets back and sees that you are compromising her confidentiality.  And before you’re checking the Help Wanted ads in her paper,” Not-Tirzah added.
 
With a sputter, Simon-as-Not-Colin-Two took his leave.  A few heartbeats later, Cassandra returned, looking flushed.
 
“I am so furious that I don’t know what to do!  I told that roofing company that I also needed a new Insulator.  They thought I wanted an Incubator.  Thank the stars paper doesn’t burn easily... but everything plastic is half melted!
 
“I’ve a do-it-yourself repair spellbook that I’ll lend you, Cass,” said Not-Angelina.  “The Diagon Alley lending library and Flourish and Botts contain loads of other building improvement tomes.  Never trust contractors when you can do the job yourself.”
 
“Or when one of my subsidiaries can do the job for you,” said Not-Tirzah.
 
Not-Colin didn’t seem to appreciate the sales plug.  “Must you make a Galleon off everything, Mal... Levin?”
 
“What can I say?  Some of us were born with the golden touch.  Isn’t that right, Mrs. Weasley?”
 
Not-Angelina scoffed.  “I’m sure I have absolutely no idea of what you’re talking about, Levin.  Let’s return to the subject at hand... speaking of which, where is Snuffles?”
 
“Security,” said Not-Colin.  “As usual.  Now, why don’t we get started?”
 
As curious as I was, I had other concerns.  My eyes flickered to the side and down.  Sure enough, the great black canine had disappeared.
 
When I looked up, someone was seated across from me.  The dark brown eyes of an enigmatic wizard was staring at me from the depths of a black woolen cloak.  The face was surrounded by long, straight black hair, and the strong jaw boasted a sinister five o’ clock shadow.
 
“Sirius Black?” I whispered.  “What on earth...”
 
He shushed me and shook his head.  He motioned for a quill and parchment.  I obliged, wondering what he had to say.
 
Keep your head down and don’t speak, he wrote.  Then he passed the paper and quill back to me.
 
Under the circumstances, that goes without saying.  My period was an angry jab.
 
I’m sure you have a thousand questions and no answers, he wrote.
 
Between Fred’s family and my line of work, it seems to go with the territory.
 
He drew a smile on the parchment.  I supposed that indicated a chuckle.
 
You know she wouldn’t impersonate you unless there was a good reason.
 
Well, what can I say?  When the most famous witch in the world chooses your skin to be in, a woman should be flattered, shouldn’t she?
 
Definitely Fred Weasley’s girl, aren’t you?  Another quill-ink smile.
 
Always.  So, Mr. Black, how much can you tell me?
 
How much do you want to know?
 
Don’t you realize it’s impolite to answer a question with another question?
 
Is that why you just did it, Angelina?
 
This time, the smiley face was from me.  I can see that my journalist’s rhetoric might not work properly on you.
 
Nope.  You’re no match for me, little girl.
 
Such arrogant words.  I’d hate to see you eat them.
 
Gladly and with relish if they aren’t true.  But as it turns out, they are.
 
How can you be so sure?
 
Because I’ve succeeded in doing what I set out to do, Angelina.
 
Which is?
 
Is?  It’s accomplished now.
 
All right, then, Mr. Black!  Which was?
 
My friends call me Sirius.  And while you’re at it, use that compact mirror of yours to look behind you.
 
I did so, snapping it back open and pointing it behind me again.
 
Cassandra Claire and Not-Tirzah had disappeared without a trace.  The portfolio was gone as well.  Not-Angelina and Not-Colin remained behind, conversing in low tones.  Whatever they were talking about, I couldn’t hear it. 
 
Sirius’ note-passing had been a distraction to stop me from eavesdropping on the Polyjuice Conference. 
 
I closed the compact with a snap and looked up. 
 
Sirius Black--both his wizard and dog forms--had disappeared.  I quickly decided to vent my frustrations later.  For Not-Angelina and Not-Colin yet remained, and I was determined that I was going to overhear something of import. 
 
Whipping my wand out of my purse, I deftly did two things.  I enchanted myself dim.  When one doesn’t have an invisibility cloak handy, it’s the next best thing.  Then I whispered a handy Eavesdropping Charm I’d learned long ago... again, a Katie Bell trick.  All the conversations in the restaurant were magnified.  Muttering a few extra strategic incantations zeroed in on the one I most wanted to overhear.
 
I opened my compact one last time to watch as well as listen.
 
“...regret the way I’ve been acting,” Not-Angelina was saying.  “I’ve been flying off the handle with astonishing regularity, and you’ve been your usual wonderful self.”
 
“Oh, I’m not so wonderful,” Not-Colin replied. 
 
“Yes, you are.  Know why?  Because you never change.  You’re boring and predictable, and sometimes that’s just what I need in a friend.  I don’t feel like I have to walk on eggshells around you.”
 
“Do I lose cool points if I’m walking on virtual eggshells whenever you’re around?”
 
“Not at all.  It’s common knowledge that I’m a madwoman.  At least, according to my mother-in-law I am.”  Not-Angelina sighed.  “You’ve known the both of us since the beginning.  Perhaps you could tell me where we went so wrong.”
 
Not-Colin shrugged.  “Surely, it’s not so bad as that.  I’m sure you’ll pull through.  You’ve had your rough times before...”
 
“I could always reach him before.  All the recent developments aside, it’s been a rough year for us.  And then a year before this all began, we had a rough eight months.  I’m not used to failure.  After all I’ve shared with you, and after hearing his version of things, where do you think we can go from here?”
 
With a pudgy hand, Not-Colin brushed some of the wild curls from the side of Not-Angelina’s face.
 
“In the only direction possible.  Go forward.  You both have the world ahead of you.”
 
She looked up at him with my brown eyes. 
 
“I... I don’t want to make you choose between the two of us.  The last thing I ever want to do is make you choose.  He needs you as much as I do.  Even more in a way.” 
 
Not-Colin shook his head slowly.  “It isn’t a question of less or more.  Not in this friendship.  Your marriage aside, all three of us need each other.  I’m sure I couldn’t do without either of you.  And thank the stars the last time I had to choose between the two of you was when we were fourteen...”
 
“I’m sure back then the choice was easy as a wink.  You were so much closer to him back then than you were to me.”  She said this in her usual matter-of-fact manner, without a trace of bitterness.
 
“The choice was harder than you think.  Whatever magic that was used to discern it, I’m sure that it took a while before the decision was made.  Especially seeing as I might have chosen everyone involved save one.  If the rules had allowed more than one, I’d have had not only you two, but Snuffles and a certain gamekeeper treading water as well.”
 
Not-Angelina laughed to herself again in a way that was, in truth, not Angelina.  “Oh, you’ve no idea how much I miss those days sometimes.  Despite the shadow.”
 
Interesting that Not-Angelina had thought of the eve of VW2 in the same way that I, the real Angelina, had.
 
“I do, too.  So many were lost.  Or changed forever.  Sometimes I wondered what my life would have been like if there had been no war.”  He paused.  “I think I might have made some different choices.”
 
She looked at her empty juice glass.  “I can’t even imagine what things would have been like if it hadn’t happened.  Imagination has never been my strong suit...”
 
“Yes, I know.”  They both laughed.  “Brilliant as you are, sometimes you can’t even see what’s two feet in front of your face.  You have everything, my friend.  You have a great husband that loves you.  You’ve just pulled off the latest in a series of astounding feats... a feat that will mean so much to millions.  It’s been the greatest pleasure sitting back and watching you top yourself over the years.  I never know what you’re going to come up with next.”
 
“Sometimes I don’t, either.  The world--and when I say that, I mean the Muggle one we spent our early childhood in as well--needs so much.  That’s why Malfoy... I mean, Tirzah Levin...”
 
“I know exactly who you mean,” Not-Colin replied, eyes twinkling.
 
“That’s what we’ve found that we have in common.  We suffer from a double curse--we  have a social conscience and the power to do something about our headshaking.  I mean, sometimes we can sit and talk for hours about our diabolical plans.  There’s so much I’d do if this world were mine.”
 
“Isn’t it?” he asked.  “It could be.  I can’t think of another woman that comes close to having half of what you do.  Give him another chance, Hermione... oh, damn, I meant Angelina.”
 
Not-Angelina smiled.  “I know exactly who you mean.”
 
“Then try and make it work.  He loves you.  Never would he do anything to intentionally hurt you.  Even if what you suspect is true, it can’t mean that he isn’t worthy of your love anymore.  If anything, he’s going to need it even more.”
 
She sighed.  “You always did take his part when we were children.”
 
“I was a kid then.  Believe me, the man I am now regrets many of the choices I made back then.  I always took you for granted.”  Not-Colin touched Not-Angelina’s cheek.  “I promise never to do that again.  Especially since I’m to be a godfather for the first time in a few short months.  I can’t tell you how pleased I am about that.”
 
She started to say something else.  But then... her eyes fell on the empty tomato juice glass.  With a funny sort of look on her face, she shook it.  Then she flipped it upside down and its final drop fell onto the table with an untomatojuice-like fizz. 
 
As the drop fizzled, her eyes widened.  She began to gasp.  The picture of a woman completely horrified.
 
“What is it?” he asked, more than a little concerned.
 
“Gone.”  Her eyes--my eyes--were filling with tears.  “Gone.”
 
“What’s wrong?  You’re making me nervous... what happened?”
 
“The Polyjuice,” she said, climbing over him and out of the booth, all the while clutching her abdomen and shaking her head.  “Gone.”
 
He stood up too as she doubled over.  “Yeah, but doesn’t that make sense?  We’ve been sitting here nearly an hour, so...”
 
Not-Colin was interrupted by Not-Angelina falling out into a dead faint on the Leaky Cauldron’s stone floor.  Although he tried, Not-Colin was a second too late to break her fall.  Everyone in the vicinity gasped as blood began to seep from under her volumnious cloaks at an alarming rate.
 
And then they gasped again when I threw off the scarlet cloak and made my presence known.  A wiry gentleman at the bar voiced the general sentiment.
 
“Dumbledore’s beard, it’s twins!”
 
Tom didn’t look up from cleaning glasses.  “Yes, I know.”
 

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