Trouble in Paradise: Chapter Eight

Trouble In Paradise Chapter 8 – Sorrow’s Kitchen

--a *Harry Potter* fanfic by AngieJ (also known as Ebony Elizabeth)

"I’m crying everyone’s tears!

I have already paid for all my future sins!

There’s nothing anyone can say to take this away...

It’s just another day

And nothing’s any good..."
--Sade

It was my last day as Daily Prophet sports editor. Returning from the luncheon the sports staff had thrown in my honor, who should I see sitting in my desk chair but my sister Diane. She was filing her claw-like nails, and copious amounts of the powdery talc were starting to coat my blotter.

She looked up and into my death glare. Her lips curved into a smile. Neither of us spoke.

Finally she cooed, "I forgive you, Angelina."

My lips stayed clenched. Slowly, a red haze began to form in front of my eyes.

Diane crossed her legs, long and slender as my own, and arched her dinosaur neck in the queenly fashion that I so hated. She was waiting for me to speak, but I absolutely couldn’t... for at that moment, I was struck with a new emotion regarding my sister.

In the past, she’d aroused in me anger, annoyance, disgust, inferiority, even embarrassment, usually all at once. With that one comment, she’d ripped the scab from some old long-forgotten emotional wound deep inside, and I was seething.

When I’d calmed down a few seconds later, something remained other than loathing.

I wasn’t expecting to feel sorry for her.

I’d always admired my sister’s looks. Where I was coarse and strong, she was fine-boned and delicate; where I was gangly, she had the grace of a gazelle. She was a tinge darker than I, the exact shade of Lindt chocolate, and had almond-shaped, serious espresso eyes. Her hair wasn’t charm-braided like Liv’s or a riot of curls like mine, either... thanks to liberal amounts of Sleekeasy’s Best Relaxer Potion, it flowed to the small of her back in long, ebony waves.

It’s common knowledge that witches are at their most beautiful between the ages of forty and sixty. I was floored when I attended a seminar on the Muggle press and learned that non-magic women wish to forever look like teenagers... all their models resemble human clothes hangers, rather than real women. No witch with good sense wants to appear too young to Apparate, or to look as thin as her wand, either. Besides, witches are much more into holistic aesthetics... the most admired magical women are by far adept at their craft, happy with their choice of vocation, healthy within and without... and whole.

Diane would be forty in a year.

What a waste.

"I suppose this forgiveness," I began, "has something to do with January, and Jamaica. Did Grandmother Lavinia disown you entirely?"

She sniffed. "She did not. And thanks to a great deal of fast talking on my part, I was able to smooth things over on your behalf. You may thank me." When I didn’t say anything for several long moments, she tried to prompt me. "Well?"

"Oh... you were actually expecting a reaction? So sorry to disappoint."

"Angelina, it is never wise to flout Grandmother’s authority. Our own mother learned that the hard way. Lavinia Wigglesworth is a woman with a long memory... it is only now that Mum’s name has been reinstated in the Charter as the heir to the Matronship. And after her..."

"No, Diane. After her, the succession will be decided by democratic vote. You know that the three of us are ineligible. Don’t set your sights on the impossible."

"I am winged," Diane said. "That makes me Society. I even have the Makurian gold in my feathers... it is rumored that our matrilineal line is directly descended from the Candakes, and..."

"The Society will never accept a half-blood as Matron," I said quietly. "Get that out of your mind, Diane, for good."

"Of course you’re against it," she drawled. "As neutral as little Liv tries to be, her husband is pureblooded Society, a son of the powerful Shaw-Kunjufu family. You, on the other hand... well, Angelina, say what you will about the Society, but there is a difference. Perhaps if you’d been winged like the rest of us you would have some semblance of pride about yourself..."

I slapped her with all my might. Dark as she was, the red print was visible. Tears welled up in her eyes. Her slender fingers rose to touch the side of her face.

"Angelina, I..."

"Get out."

"Angelina! I only... I... I had hoped..."

"You hoped to get under my skin as always. Well, you’ve got what you came here for, Diane. There is no more salt to rub into that wound, trust me. Go away."

She stood up abruptly and gripped my shoulders, roughly. We are both the same height, five feet eleven inches. Thanks to high heels, she towered over me by a full three inches. I tried to look away from her blotched, teary face, but...

"I cannot ‘go away’," she said. "Believe me, I have considered it. But Angelina, when you see your own sister in the line of fire, you have to... I tried to tell you in Jamaica, but... I’m not supposed to even know and... Angelina, your husband’s family is in trouble."

The last bit she whispered right next to my ear. I was torn between laughter and disdain at first... but something in the set of her jaw made me want to hear more.

I led Diane through the newsroom and into the Potter Files vault. It locks on the inside... many a reporter writing yet another article on Harry has spent many a day in the disarray, leafing through clips and notes and documents derived from every corner of the globe. I’d only been in the room a few times and briefly over the years... Harry was never my beat. Thank God he didn’t decide to play Quidditch after the war.

Once we were settled on two circa-1920s typist’s chairs that desperately wanted oiling, Diane continued.

"There was a secret meeting shortly before Convention, in Egypt. Grandmother invited me to attend with her in Mum’s stead. Delegates from every wizarding nation and culture of the world... more than one hundred wizards and witches... you would have had to see it to believe it. Angelina, everyone is celebrating the Pax Dumbledorica, but they are celebrating far too soon..."

I’d learned early in life to trust Diane no further than I could throw her. "What does this have to do with the Weasleys?"

"I don’t know. All I know is that there are lists of names. The tables were covered with them, in every conceivable human language and a few others as well. Thousands of names. And... there are test operations in place. Not just physical tests... psychological tests, Angelina. Initial case study reports were given... and... and..." The air was gone from behind her voice, and she mouthed, "Ron and Hermione are the second test... in progress."

"The second test?"

"Anya Parker was the first."

I thought of the haggard, wraith-like woman at the Quidditch World Cup... who bore little resemblance to the mousy girl I’d known from Hogwarts school days. Then I thought of Ron and Hermione, and all of their recent trouble.

"War?"

"No. That much is certain."

"Then what?"

"If I knew all the details, I’d tell you."

"Would you? The crest of Salazar Slytherin is still emblazoned on your Hogwarts badge. Perhaps you shouldn’t be fraternizing with the enemy, Diane."

Her hand went over mine and squeezed. With her rings, it was painful... Diane didn’t know much about the subtle language of touch... but I knew enough about my sister to interpret the clench as a gesture of reassurance.

"You will never be my enemy, Angelina. I know that we see life very differently. Our values are different, and so are our dreams. But you are my sister. There is something coming, something so terrible that none of us can even begin to fathom it. It may not come for a while yet, but it is coming. And when it comes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you and your family."

I turned away from her. "Pride of blood. It always comes down to that with you, doesn’t it?"

"Almost always. Not this time. I may not agree with your life choices, Angelina, but I’ve loved you since the day you came home from Paracelsus in Mum’s arms."

She shrugged her cloak off, revealing jeans and a peach camisole with a low-slung back. Without any noticeable exertion on her part, her seraphic wings burst free from their hiding place behind her shoulderblades. Feathers every shade of the rainbow, slightly glossy, like a cloak of many colors. Wingtips of purest gold.

"Show-off," I muttered.

"More of a practical thing," she shrugged, flapping them a bit so that papers stirred and my curls rustled. "They have to be aired daily, you know, or it gets painful. I can’t do it in public here in England for obvious reasons, and... well, it gives Brian the willies."

So the lap dog had opinions? "‘Did I marry a woman or a bird? Or didn’t you understand the full disclosure clause of our prenuptial agreement?’" I mocked Brian’s querulous, phlegmy voice.

"You sound just like him!" she exclaimed, trying to stifle a laugh but not quite succeeding. "Oh, Angelina, you always could put a smile on my face. Even when we were children, you had that effect on people. I could no more understand it than I could fathom baby Olivia’s inner peace. What is your secret?"

I smiled at her. She had everything, and didn’t even know it.

"It’s simple, really. Since I’ve got to be here, I’m going to live in the fullest sense of the word. I don’t have many regrets in my thirty-one years, and I don’t plan to start cultivating them at this late date. And when I die, hopefully a hundred or more years from now, I want people to laugh at my funeral. I want them to dance on my grave."

"That sounds extremely undignified. I wouldn’t like that. What sort of epitaph would your heirs write for you?" Diane asked, confused and more than a little concerned.

"A very apt one. ‘She gorged on the fruit of the Tree of Life. She died empty, owing the world absolutely nothing.’"

**************

As I bade my sister good-bye and returned to my office, I had to wonder. Had I been completely truthful? Was I really living my life, completely free of regret, care, and worry? Did I really owe the world nothing? Or was I only lying to myself?

As I re-entered my office, I paused in the doorway. My eyes slowly roamed over the active pictures on my wall and the framed newspaper clippings, various pieces I had taken a special shine to or won an award for. The color of my office was a warm beige that reminded me of my home... or rather, the other way around since this had been my office long before we’d purchased the Hertfordshire house. It was no surprise that I could hardly concentrate on writing an article anywhere else; this place had been the most stable feature of my adult life.

I crossed the tiny room soundlessly and circled around to the back of my desk. I pulled my chair back and, with its characteristic squeak, it scraped quietly across the linoleum. I settled myself into the chair.

It was hard to believe that after so many years, I was leaving this place. Not for good, but things would never be the same. I would no longer have my office, my safe haven when I needed time for myself. With a sigh, I heaved myself from my chair and bent to pick up the cardboard box beside my desk. I lifted it onto my desktop and glared at it with venom. Really... as if it was the box’s fault that I had to leave my job.

But you don’t have to leave, Angelina, a tiny voice taunted in the back of my mind.

Of course I have to, the rational part of me argued back. Fred and Malinda need me far more than some newspaper.

Be honest. The Prophet is more than just some newspaper. Didn’t you used to sit in this very office and dream of being editor-in-chief some day?

So what? Wouldn’t be the first dream in my life that didn’t come true...

I opened my top drawer and winced at the mess. I should have been ashamed of myself for pestering Malinda to keep her room clean and then having a drawer in such a cluttered state. Then again, all parents have hypocritical tendencies... it’s part of our job description, I suppose.

I pulled out several rolls of crumpled parchment, pausing to smile slightly at a note from Fred to pick up some formula on the way home. It had been for Malinda’s bottle... the note was over four years old. I set the parchment at the bottom of the box carefully and went back to the drawer.

Cringing in one corner was a set of Parchment Clips, shaking terribly. After ten minutes of gently coaxing and enlisting the help of several quills, I was able to scoop them into my hands and dump them quickly into the box.

I pulled out a few other odds and ends, reminiscing for a moment before dumping each item into the box. It was amazing... so many years, so many memories, fit so very easily into an ordinary cardboard box. I reached far down and swept my hand along the clean bottom, searching for any loose articles I had missed. I had just about finished with the top drawer when I felt a brittle curl of papyrus.

I pulled gently at the papyrus (which, of course, was stuck at the back) and was finally able to pull it free without tearing it. The papyrus was old--possibly the oldest document in my possession other than Fred’s unsentimental-yet-always-hilarious notes to me from the war years and my father’s love letters to my mum. She’d seen me going through them when I was quite young and told me to keep them.

"I have the memories," Mum had said softly. "So does Diane. Olivia never knew him. But you... you are my only baby with Mark’s eyes. You deserve something of him."

I unrolled the worn papyrus carefully. I noticed that there were markings on both sides. On the side facing me was an old logo for the Leaky Cauldron. It had a bubbling-over cauldron in the center creating a mess on the floor with several joyous wizards and witches circling the border, mugs of butterbeer raised high.

With shaking hands, I flipped over the yellowed document and my eyes misted over when I recognized the faded sketching. The lines were discolored and smudged, but not completely beyond recognition. I could tell that the drawing had been, at one time, the inside doorway of the Leaky Cauldron. I gulped hard when I saw tiny initials in the bottom corner: KJB.

When it happened, it happened fast. It might have been the depression of leaving a place I was so comfortable in combined with the rediscovery of a drawing I had thought long lost. The lines before my eyes quickly filled in and became darker. Colors splashed across the page and the people in the photo popped out at me.

As tears trickled down my face, the memory unfolded.

"There--that one over there. He looks cross-eyed," I said, leaning across the table. I poked a spot on the drawing with one long fingernail, and then looked up at the man standing near the doorway. "Oh, well, I suppose you’ve drawn him right then." We dissolved into giggles and pretended to ignore the annoyed stares of the other dibers.

Katie put down her charcoal, glancing at her watch. It was the one Muggle thing she owned. Like the Weasleys, many families had clocks that were completely useless for telling accurate time. Katie, ever obsessed with punctuality, had purchased her antique timepiece at a junk shop just outside Diagon Alley.

"Spinnet’s late... again," she murmured, looking over her shoulder in the general direction of the doorway.

"Oh, you know Alicia. Late for every Quidditch practice, just past the bell for each class..." I shrugged. "I always thought she’d grow out of it... perhaps it’s a serious disorder. To be sure, I’ve never heard of a witch choosing to be a snail Animagus, but you never know," I suggested, trying to keep the corners of my mouth from turning upwards.

"Paging Dr. Johnson!" Katie said into her cupped palm, utilizing it as a megaphone. "We’ve got a Flesh-Eating Slug going by the alias of Alicia Spinnet in ward two." We collapsed into laughter again and didn’t regain composure until Alicia joined our table, looking quite confused.

"I hope you didn’t start having fun before I got here," she said slowly, dropping her purse from her shoulder and sliding in the booth beside me. "Because you know that’s against the Rules."

We all laughed at this. During our days at Hogwarts... was it second year? Third year? I couldn’t remember... we’d come up with three parchment rolls full of ridiculous rules. Like Tuesday was Meatless Day, Wednesday was Ponytail Day, and Thursday was Wear Your Quidditch Robes to Class Even If McGonagall Screeched About It Day. We invented our own version of sign language to communicate with, and one of the rules was to never reveal its translation... until the twins and Lee Jordan figured it out during the winter of our fifth year.

"I can’t believe we were so young and stupid once," Alicia sighed, giving the impression that she was in her dotage and not sprightly eighteen.

"If I recall correctly, the Rules were your idea, Spinnet," Katie accused. "I only went along with them because you two did."

Alicia smirked at me. "But Angelina was the ringleader..."

"I was not!" I said hotly. "You were, Alicia, just ask anyone who was there. Anything you wanted to do, we did. Anyone you wanted to tease, we did."

"We didn’t tease people that much," Alicia said, turning suddenly serious. At that moment, a loud crash sounded from the front door and we all turned to see what had happened. Anya Parker, the other girl who had been in our dorm at Hogwarts, had come in and crashed into another customer who was heading towards the table with a drink in each hand. The drinks spilled all over the departing customer and dripped down the front of his otherwise spotless robes.

Anya brought a hand to her mouth, before hurriedly apologizing and trying to clean off the man’s robes. Finally, he burst out angrily at her and stormed furiously out of the small establishment. She stood in the doorway, deeply embarrassed and turning bright red.

Alicia rolled her eyes at me, and changed the subject to a blow-by-blow of the Cannons behind the scenes. Katie listened, going back to her sketch. Neither of them liked Anya. At all. Never mind that we saw her all the time, as she was Fred and George’s one employee. Never mind that she had no friends to speak of and we could have easily let her into our circle. The fact remained that Anya was not one of us. She didn’t play Quidditch. She didn’t relish a good practical joke or a good party. We couldn’t relate to her... so we did our very best to ignore her.

She and Hermione had been friends of a sort during our younger years... as much as Hermione could be said to be friends with someone whose last name was not Weasley or Potter. They both were rather bookish and square, they both preferred the company of boys, and so on. But once Hermione began to date Krum in our sixth year, her spare time that was not otherwise occupied by Ron and Harry dwindled to nothing. And once Hermione began dating Ron, she underwent a metamorphosis that mousy Anya couldn’t understand... for in the end, Hermione wasn’t that much like her, either.

As for me, I pitied Anya back in those days, when I bothered to think of her at all.

"Do you know that the Cannons are begging Ron Weasley to sign with them after he leaves Hogwarts next summer?" Alicia said, low, turning my thoughts and my eyes away from Anya and back to our table. "Wouldn’t that be something, Angelina... it’ll be just like old times... the Gryffindor team all over again!"

Katie groaned. "Come now, Spin, we can’t all play for the rest of our lives. Some of us have to work for a living. The twins have realized that. And I think Angelina’s enjoying teaching at Hogwarts far too much to want her deferment to ever end."

"Of course I am not," I said sternly. "The truth is, if Dumbledore hadn’t asked me to fill in when Hooch went missing last summer, there is no way in the world I’d be still in Scotland. I am green with envy, Alicia."

"No need to be," Alicia reassured me. "Renard Chatsworth is proving to be quite unsatisfactory in your slot... no need of fearing management reneging on the terms of your contract. I can’t wait until you begin practicing with us in August. And I’m rather surprised there’s no talk of anyone signing Potter."

Both Katie and I stared at her incredulously. Katie spoke for both of us. "Alicia, Quidditch has got to be the furthest thing from Harry’s mind these days. Ange says he’s not even playing this year."

"I know, I know," replied Alicia. "It’s just a shame that the poor kid has to put off doing something he really enjoyed and take all the weight of the world on his shoulders. When you think about it, how fair is that to him?"

"Might be unfair, but he just may be the only hope we have. The Scourge’s over, but..."

Katie trailed off as our smiles faded. The Second Voldemort War had been like the first in one aspect: it had been just as unmentionable. One spoke of it in hushed tones and using ambiguous terms, if one dared speak about it at all.

"Ever since March, there’s been scores reported dead from dementia-induced suicide all over the world," Katie continued in a low voice. "The daily body count, over the past week, is peaking into the triple digits... and no one knows the cause."

"Well, doesn’t have much to do with us, does it? No one I know has suffered so much as a nose bleed," Alicia said with the detachment of someone who is observing events far removed from her.

Alicia, in those days, never liked to think about anything unpleasant. She never allowed us to talk of the events of the Scourge in her presence... and her tone of voice that day let us know that the Freezing epidemic would soon be another taboo subject with her.

I said nothing. I couldn’t help but remember the owl I’d got from my mother in Jamaica, which hinted at... which hinted at a possible cause for the murders.

"It’s funny, if you think about it," I said. "There’s been a war going on for almost two years... the entire country, no, the whole Continent is filled with You-Know-Who’s sympathizers... and yet everyone pretends as if nothing is the matter."

"Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt," Katie said, tapping her papyrus significantly. "People have the mentality that they always do in perilous times—‘let us eat, drink, and make merry, for tomorrow we die!’ Well, I feel that the past few months have been the calm before the storm. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and you know what, girls? I’m not afraid of death any more."

Alicia choked on her butterbeer. "Wait a minute, Kate... who’s talking death, here?"

"You haven’t seen the victims of the Freeze, as we’re calling it at the Prophet." In grave tones, she explained to us the horror of the mysterious Freeze. "And no one knows what it is or how to avoid it... not our scholars, not our doctors, not our military strategists... no one."

"Well," I said, lowering my tone to a whisper, "as I’ve said, there are Dark sympathizers everywhere. Perhaps we know nothing about this because those with power do not wish for us to know."

"At any rate," she continued, "I’m doing what I can at the paper to help the right people get to the bottom of this."

I sat there in the small office, barely aware of the passage of time, still lost in the memories of twelve years ago. For that day, the day on which the drawing was created was the last day I ever flew on my own... and it was the last day of Katie’s life.

Years later, I wish I could remember every single detail of my last flight. But what bird takes care to remember something that comes as natural to her as breathing? Alicia, Katie, and I took our brooms, and avoiding the most populous Muggle areas (since there was no ABFN back in those days), we soared towards Katie’s home in the Welsh foothills, where her mother had promised to put us up for the weekend.

I imagine that flight was much like ours always were, full of loop-the-loops and sudden turns and wild formations that must have been a sight to see on the ground below. And most of all, laughter. Carefree, girlish chortles, punctuated from time to time with shouts and admonitions. We were three marvelous fliers, doing what we were best at and what we enjoyed most.

Oh, I lied to Diane... I have loads of regrets. I regret that I don’t remember much about that flight. And I regret even more that all too soon, it came to an end.

We came to a stop right outside of Katie’s hometown... it was always a treat to walk the cobblestone streets of the village, which predated Norman times. As we walked towards her home, we chattered again, this time about more frivolous subjects.

"I think I’m going to start going out with Lee after all," Alicia said. "He’s worn me down."

This was momentous news. Katie and I started to squeal, but Alicia stopped us with her bored look.

"It’s extremely cliched, I think," she said. "The three Chasers dating the Terrible Three. Katie, you’re all but engaged to George and Ange, you and Fred have been off and on for ages... why not make everyone gag and have a triple wedding?"

"Gag is right," I said. "I like Fred a lot, and he’s fun, but he barely makes a decent boyfriend. I can’t imagine him as a husband. We’d end up killing each other. Now, George is the more settled of the twins... perhaps, when the war is over, he and Kate can..."

Katie blushed. "Actually... Tweedledum’s proposed already. In a joking sort of way, mind you, but when I told him to go and get a ring, and try again, he got this look in his eyes..."

More momentous news, and here we were turning onto Katie’s street. But we chattered some more... in after years, I never could remember what we said as we approached Katie’s home. I believe my recollection of those events was forever altered by what came immediately after.

We saw the Dark Mark from more than two streets away. The normal instinct for normal young witches would have been to run in the opposite direction... but then again, we’d lived through the Scourge. Besides, Katie’s mum was somewhere in close proximity to that Mark... Katie’s laughing, singing, effervescent mum.

We knew it was her house the minute it came into view. The street was oddly empty, although it was only four in the afternoon. Surely everyone wasn’t at tea?

A choked cry escaped from between Katie’s lips. "I’ve got to... got to see what’s happened..." and she raced up ahead.

"Katie, no!" Alicia screamed. "You don’t know who’s in there! You don’t know who..."

Katie turned around quickly, and called something out to us. Afterwards, neither Alicia nor I could recall what she said. It could have been something from the heart: "Tell George that I love him. Always and forever." Or something brave and naive: "Perhaps if I hurry, I can protect my mother." Or something hopeful: "Don’t worry... I’ll be back in a minute, after I check things out." Whatever it was, we either heard it and didn’t remember it, or perhaps a strange gust of wind came up and blew her words away.

We couldn’t have been more than thirty feet behind her. She was fumbling for her door-key, and had the door open, and was walking into the doorway...

She never turned around.

The evil in the air that afternoon was tangible. It was an assault on the senses. I knew something was wrong. Badly wrong. Not just with what Katie was seeing as she stood transfixed on the threshold of her home. No. There was something wrong with Katie herself.

"Katie... Katie... KATIE!" Alicia screeched, now a few feet behind me.

I didn’t say a word. Instead I felt my resolve as a magnet which drew me towards my frozen friend as I climbed the two short steps and reached out a hand to place on her shoulder.

Every Sponge survivor gets asked the question, What is it like? The wizarding world now knows exactly how the traps work, but no one save those of us who experienced them firsthand knows how they actually feel. I am unsure that mere words can convey the terror of the experience.

The first sensation I had was an all-encompassing sense of coldness. I’ve heard some survivors claim that they felt as if their body had suddenly fallen away from them. Well, I wasn’t numb at all... I wasn’t that lucky. I was quite conscious of the cold seeping through my robes and circling every single skin cell from head to toe.

Seconds later, it felt as if a million microscopic syringes had pierced me everywhere. I’m not sure if I was in pain... I know that if there was any physical response that corresponded to the magical, it was shock. Each minuscule "syringe" was like an icicle. So the first thing I tell inquirers is this: "The cold pierced me." Most can never know that I mean that quite literally.

Then—even twelve years later, I still have nightmares about this part--I felt those icicles do three things at once. The icicles sucked all the warmth out of me. I now know that the spell’s first function was to probe, to find which magical traits I was genetically gifted in. Once it found them, it began to suction them out of my body first, greedy for every ounce of my power. Altering every source of magic, perhaps even my very genes.

At the same time, the icicles injected a substance into me that was like quicksilver. It was more viscous than blood. My body, physiological and magical, instinctively knew that the liquid was poisonous and tried to reject it. But slowly but surely, the poison was winning... deadening nerves and synapses and muscles so that I was locked into place.

And yet at the same time, those icicles pressed into me, like some sort of collapsible spiked chamber from one of Fred’s Muggle suspense novels. They pressed deeper and deeper, until the pressure became absolutely everything to me. There was nothing in the world but the icicles, their freezing cold, their pressure, their relentless suction and injection...

I was only in the Sponge for forty-five seconds. Hermione and Neville’s postwar research has shown that after the first minute, emotional imbalances are inevitable. Most who were Sponged for over thirty seconds suffered a least a mild nervous breakdown.

Sometimes, I wished I had suffered the breakdown. As it was, I was rescued and immediately blacked out into blessed unconsciousness. So when I came to, I was fully lucid... and fully able to comprehend what had happened.

My eyes opened in the Hogwarts infirmary. How on earth had I got all the way from Wales to Scotland? What was my mother doing there, all the way from Jamaica? And... why was she crying?

The second face I registered was Dumbledore’s. At the time, he only had a few months to live... he knew this, but none of the rest of us did. Instantly I felt safe in a way that only my faint memories of my father could make me feel. When you saw the Headmaster’s twinkling blue eyes, whether grave or merry, you knew somehow that everything would be all right.

I tried to sit up, and felt a hand on either side of me press me back down to the cot.

"That’s quite all right, Mr. Longbottom, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said quietly. "Now that she is awake, she may move freely."

"But Professor, we can’t be sure what damage has been done," Hermione protested, placing a strangely soothing hand on my forehead. "You know that the reports from the wizarding hospitals are all fabricated these days...

"It’s important that we do a full examination, Professor Dumbledore," said Neville¸ clutching a notebook with oddly-shaped papers sticking out of it. Ever since his heroism during the Scourge, he hadn’t been the same and never would be again. He was someone whose opinion counted... who was respected all over the school and whose name would soon be known all over the world. "We’ll be careful."

"Would that Poppy was here," he said solemnly. "What I wouldn’t give to have her here with us right now, bustling all ‘unnecessary visitors’ out of the hospital wing... but there, it doesn’t do to wish for the impossible. And we are grateful for your commitment to solving the mystery of this freezing phenomenon, Miss Granger, Mr. Longbottom."

Somehow I found my voice. "Professor, what has happened to me? Where is Alicia?" I gulped. "Is Katie all right?"

Before he could answer, Alicia, Fred, and about a half dozen other people burst into the hospital wing. And if Dumbledore had wanted me handled with care, he was out of luck. Alicia fell about my neck, sobbing. Fred covered my face with kisses... I’d never known him to be affectionate in public before that and was quite embarrassed.

"Oh, Angelina, we were so worried that you’d never wake up."

"Well, I did... Fred, geroff!" I said, pushing him away so that I could breathe. "What happened back there? Is Katie all right?"

"You were frozen into place just like her," Alicia explained. "I started to run up and touch you..."

"It’s a good thing that she didn’t," Hermione interjected. "We don’t know much about this phenomenon yet, but from all accounts it is not a very good idea to touch anyone who is Frozen. Seems to lead to inevitable freezing yourself."

"Yeah, of course," Alicia said impatiently. "Anyway, I was trying to think fast... trying to think of what I could use as a hook to grab you... and suddenly, I remembered I had my wand. It took a bit of concentration, actually enough to give me a headache, but in less time than it takes to tell, I’d Transfigured it into a rope with a loop on the end. I threw it over you, and pulled you out and onto the street, where you sort of collapsed. Then I threw it over Katie... it was harder to pull her for some reason, but I got her out too.

"I screamed for help, and I don’t know who called for them, but the stretcher-bearers came. They were going to take you both to St. Mungo’s... but somehow, I had a bad feeling about that and asked them to transport you all the way to Hogwarts. Then I Apparated to Hosgmeade to tell the twins... and here I am now."

"Here you are now," I repeated, grateful for Alicia’s impulsive nature. "How long was I out? Mum, you couldn’t have just got here overnight, could you?"

"Five days," Neville said.

"Five days?" I asked.

"Yes," Dumbledore replied. "With bouts of semi-consciousness in which you were delirious. Your mother arrived only two days ago, and has never left your side. Miss Granger and Mr. Longbottom have been here between their classes, and I daresay half the student body has looked in on their Quidditch referee and flying teacher, primarily your beloved first years. And Miss Spinnet and Mr. Weasley have been quite devoted as well. You have made many friends here, Miss Johnson."

"This is one of my favorite places in the world," I said, and it was the truth. "Do you see now, Mum, why I didn’t want to go to Jamaica and the Academy?"

My mother nodded silently.

"But where is Katie? She’s not in any of these beds. Was she taken to St. Mungo’s anyway?"

"Don’t you want to know what’s happened to you, Angelina?" Alicia asked curiously.

I shrugged weakly. "Not really. I’m coherent, and there’s not much that a stay in this infirmary can’t cure, right?" I asked, and my question was followed by silence. "...Right?"

"I’m afraid that this unknown trap that is increasingly being used by the Death Eaters is not as benign as it might seem, Miss Johnson. We still do not have the tests developed to gauge this sort of thing accurately, but... it seems as if being Frozen leads to some loss of magical ability."

"What?" I didn’t get it.

Then I heard my mother’s voice. Soft, sweet, silken.

"The trap, Professor Dumbledore, takes magical ability away. I know a bit about it, and I’d be willing to tell you what I know later, especially now that one of these traps has harmed my daughter. It takes away magical ability from the top down... that is, from your strengths to your weaknesses."

She walked over to stroke my hair.

"My Angelina is half Society, and we have been known as the Winged People since the beginning of time. If she was really in this trap for forty-five seconds, it stands to reason that she can fly no more."

What in the world was Mum talking about? Me... not being able to fly? I was on a broomstick before I could walk. But before I could tell my mother exactly how ridiculous she sounded, Dumbledore nodded and spoke again.

"It is what I had suspected, but could not confirm until this moment. This evening, I’d like you to dine with us at the staff table, Mrs. Johnson, and afterwards I will call a special meeting. There are many people who need to hear your tale."

Now I sat bolt upright. "Wait a minute. What do you mean, ‘it stands to reason I can’t fly’? That’s ridiculous, Mum. I have classes to teach. I have a Quidditch House Cup playoff series to arrange..."

Fred sat down on the bed next to me. "Angel, it’s not the end of the world..."

"Like hell it isn’t! I have a bloody five-year contract with the Cannons! I have to show up for training in August! I gave up my dreams in order to help you fight this war, Professor... do you mean to tell me I have to give up who I am?"

"You’re so much more than just a Quidditch player, Ange," Alicia said quietly. "There are a lot of other things you can do with your life."

"What things? I’m a witch, Alicia! A sodding witch! And witches fly... damn it, even Muggles portray us zooming around on our broomsticks... that’s the one thing about us they actually get right in their legends! What, does this mean that Kate can’t fly either?"

Dead silence.

"So tell me. Where is Katie? Alicia says she pulled her out too. Why isn’t she here?"

It was Dumbledore who told me. There was no twinkle in his eye. At all.

"I am afraid, Miss Johnson, that Miss Bell has gone on to the next great adventure."

With those words, something inside me died--something hopeful and youthful and innocent. There had been ten students killed at Hogwarts during the time of the Scourge, and I’d thought I’d known pain then. Little did I know that I was grief’s novice. My lessons in suffering commenced right then.

From somewhere far away, I heard Dumbledore going on. "She is a martyr and a heroine who sacrificed her life for the Order... her name will be remembered always."

"For the Order?" I asked moments later when my wails had subsided somewhat.

"Angelina," Alicia said quietly, "the Prophet has been crawling with Death Eater staffers since Rita Skeeter took over last year. Katie was more than a sports reporter... she was a mole."

That was how I came to work for the Prophet. During my first year there, I was technically a sports reporter. My work consisted mainly of fabricating accounts of games that never took place... the Ministry of Magical Games and Sports was defunct by the summer after Katie’s death. The Prophet was transformed into a full-fledged propagandistic vehicle... and I was one of its cogs.

I was much more protected than Alicia had been. Not only was I pureblooded (the European Death Eaters weren’t as particular about what kind of magical blood you had, so long as you weren’t the progeny of two Muggles), I was the granddaughter of one of Voldemort’s foreign financiers and sympathizers. That made me One of Them... a prodigal daughter who, having temporarily sojourned amongst the misguided Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers, had returned to her true home at long last.

I could only see Fred, Alicia, and the rest of my friends in secret, and not very often at that. But whenever I did, I had information I could slip to them... a list of names, specific dates, locations. They saw that it got to the right people.

I can’t say that there was anything glamorous about my brief stint as a spy. The twelve months between Katie’s death in May 1997 and the Missing Week in May 1998 made up the most horrific year of my life... of all our lives.

The death lists were never printed in the Prophet--indeed, the wartime, Dark-controlled Prophet denied the very existence of the Sponge. Nevertheless, the deaths were getting to be commonplace enough that they could be no longer ignored.

Unless one has ever lived through genocide, there is no accurate way of describing the surreal, alien landscape of it. Wagonloads of bodies... whole families tossed into mass graves... no funerals, for there is no one left to mourn... no music, for there are no songs left to sing. Those endangered terrified to the point of insanity; those protected in denial to the point of inhumanity.

Looking back, I wonder if Dumbledore cast some spell of protection over his students that were attending Hogwarts during the year of the Scourge. Of the nearly five hundred students who attended Hogwarts during the 1995-1996 school year, from first to seventh years, only fifteen died in the War. The only Gryffindor amongst them was Katie.

Dumbledore himself lasted until the winter of 1998. It was said to have been a fantastic battle--he and Voldemort dueling in the Great Hall of Hogwarts as the students and staff hid from the Death Eaters. Ginny tells about the experience of cowering with McGonagall and the other students in the Gryffindor common room, believing that you were living through the Last Night of the World—Hermione wearing a hole in the russet carpet nearest the portrait hole—Harry and Ron conspicuously missing.

The great professor had already weakened a good deal--which is how Voldemort gained access to the maximum security castle in the first place. But before he died, Dumbledore protected the students one last time—for with his dying breath, he muttered a spell that killed every single Death Eater within the school walls and forcibly transported the undead Voldemort far away from the school.

And all over the castle, they say that phoenix song echoed from the ancient stones, an elegy for its greatest Headmaster.

Over the next few months, Professor Snape served as Interim Headmaster, which is exactly what the Death Eaters wanted. Those who had suffered in his dungeons had understandable doubts, and of course he was no Albus Dumbledore, but he was an excellent leader of the school. He was fair, if a bit more aloof than his personable predecessor.

But Snape was martyred as well, after foiling the horrendous May Day Massacre at Hogwarts.

The Death Eaters had ordered Snape to round up all students of Muggle parentage and assemble them on the Quidditch field on the first of May. The other students were to watch the subsequent bloodbath from the stands. Similar instructions had been given to Death Eating magical school heads all over the world. The wholesale slaughter of thousands of Muggle-born wizards and witches in training was to be the prelude to the second phase of the war.

Professor Snape received notice of the required May Day Celebration (as it was ironically called) from Voldemort only a day and a half before the event was to take place. His hands were tied. There was no way of notifying the Muggle-born students about what was to take place, as Hogwarts after Dumbledore’s death was yet another Dark-controlled satellite. Spies were everywhere. Dementors were posted in the corridors.

The communication was very clear: if any designated Headmaster failed to comply with the Dark Lord’s instructions to the letter, or gave any warning to his or her Muggle-born students, that Headmaster would be murdered, along with his staff. And then... the ‘Mudbloods’ would be killed anyway.

Snape wasted no time. He immediately took Head Boy Draco Malfoy, who was functioning in a junior version of Snape’s double agent role, into his confidence. Apparently, there is a potion on the Restricted list that turns the wizard or witch who ingests it into a human chameleon... completely blending into his or her surroundings. Unfortunately, it had to be prepared by a Potions adept, because the substance could be extremely harmful when ingested if not prepared carefully. The new Potions professor was a Dark sympathizer and would not be willing to take the risk.

It is a little-known piece of war trivia, but Draco Malfoy wasn’t Snape’s pet for nothing. He had a genuine knack for Potions, even surpassing Hermione’s skill at it. Not only did he brew that potion in the Headmaster’s chambers, watching it overnight, he improvised by changing its relatively pleasant taste to that of cod liver oil. I’m sure all the Muggle-borns really licked their lips as they ingested it, ever so grateful to be the butt of Draco’s nasty little private joke.

That elixir of life was served to all Muggle-born students at breakfast that day. How did they manage to get it into the pumpkin juice of only the Muggle-borns? How were they were convinced that Snape wasn’t trying for a mass poisoning? How did they make sure that every student drank? No one knows save Draco... and he has never disclosed details about Professor Snape’s last night, even in his biography. Which is strange, as the bestselling volume is dedicated to his "mentor and friend."

The Chameleon Potion was a twenty-four hour, delayed released sort of potion. After Snape made the announcement of a special May Day Celebration to be held on the Quidditch pitch, being careful to instruct all Muggle-born students to stand on the green, morning classes went on as scheduled. The students didn’t begin to "disappear" until the student body filed out of the castle shortly before noon.

Whenever the story is told, it’s always said that Hermione hadn’t eaten or drunk at all at breakfast for some reason... both she and Ron didn’t show up until the very end of the meal. Snape had called a special meeting right after the announcement about the May Day festivities. The prefects, Head Boy, Head Girl, and all staff members save the new Potions instructor (who’d been drugged the night before so that he slept late) were in attendance. As Head Girl, Hermione had to attend the meeting... and rushed out of the Great Hall without ingesting a thing.

It is said that Draco saved her by his foresight, for he’d kept a vial of the Chameleon Potion in his robes. Students had barely begun to fade away in the cool sunshine before Draco had stepped between her and Ron. That must have been an interesting moment.

Of course, the usual version of the story has Hermione walking out to the stands to the green, in full view of the Death Eaters, and with a wand pointed at her before she took the potion... but the tale-spinners always like to embellish the accomplishments of their favorite heroes and heroines.

It’s also been speculated that Harry was behind the McGonagall-Dumbledore Miracle that occurred that day... although he was spirited away from the castle the day before Dumbledore died, and insists he wasn’t anywhere near Hogwarts at the time.

"I was hidden," he says. And he says no more about it.

Needless to say, the Death Eaters were not thrilled by the sight of the "pureblooded" students sitting in scattered groups around the stands... and the Quidditch green empty, save the tall, sallow figure of Snape standing right in the middle of it, with his teachers forming a semi-circle around him.

Lucius Malfoy was the appointed spokesman of the hour, or so I heard long afterward. "There seems to be a slight problem. I don’t see any students here."

"Perhaps they’re late," Snape said. "They often take their sweet time getting to our classes."

"Indeed," Lucius snarled. With a flick of his wand, he disarmed all the Hogwarts teachers. Apparently some of his master’s dark power had been transferred to him, as the faculty seemed powerless to stop their wands from dissolving into spaghetti, and then utter nothingness.

Then a sword of enchanted obsidian appeared in his hand, and he passed it to his lieutenant. The strong-armed henchman ran Snape through. The other Death Eaters dismembered the body viciously with knives of the same primitive magical substance, daring the students with their shrill shouts to try and stop them... for they’d suffer the same.

It is not known which student first began singing the Hogwarts anthem. The tales mainly attribute it to Ginny Weasley, since she was a sister of one of the heroes and epics generally tend that way. But I have it on good authority that the first singer was none other than pretty Eleanor Branstone. She made Hogwarts history... for the slow, mournful dirge Nell selected as a tune was adhered to by all of the students for the first time in the school’s history.

This seemed to enrage the Death Eaters even more. One by one, they impaled the teachers on their swords. Little Professor Flitwick. Stout Professor Sprout. Sexless Professor Sinistra. They killed, they dismembered, they reveled in the shedding of blood, needing no remission for their sins. They say that those Death Eaters butchered the bodies as if they were making reverent obeisance to Kali, Huitzilopochtli, or some other ancient idol that hungered for the taste of human blood.

Dumbledore’s staff had been traitors all, in their eyes. They deserved to die.

Then something amazing happened.

The last teacher alive was Professor McGonagall. It took the Death Eaters three tries before they realized that their obsidian was not so much as giving her a scratch. After a while, they gave up in frustration and attempted the Killing Curse. One by one, it rebounded upon them... and three Death Eaters ended up, well, dead.

"What is this?" Lucius shouted with rage.

But now McGonagall was glowing. Brighter and brighter, until the entire field seemed to be filled with her brilliance. Suddenly she was bright as a supernova, and the brightness was such that it could not be beheld with human eyes. And when the brightness subsided, McGonagall had disappeared.

In her place stood the ghost of Albus Dumbledore. Much as I would have liked to have seen our beloved old Headmaster again, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Those present said that it opened wounds... even the "hidden" Muggle-born students cried, tears falling from the rocks and the grass and the trees.

"On this day, Malfoy, you have lost your war," the ghost of Dumbledore said solemnly. "The blood of the innocent cries out from the ground, demanding vengeance. The love of these teachers for their students caused them to place themselves in harms’ way... and it is this purest love, Malfoy, that will defeat you and yours. For you do not understand it, you are the antithesis of it, and it will sound your death knell in the end."

Lucius, in reply, reached down into Snape’s hacked-up torso and extracted his heart, still faintly beating. He held it high... rivulets of blood flowed down his arm. Bloodlust burned in his eyes.

"You lie, Dumbledore, and you are a fool in death as you were in life. There is no love... only power. There is no innocence, either. The filth you allowed into this school during your tenure as Headmaster will someday be the death of our kind. When there are no more witches and wizards left in the world, no one will be left to praise your works or deify your name."

Dumbledore smiled his old smile. Suddenly, there was no more carnage. Lucius’ gruesome trophy, the hacked-up bodies, the pooling blood—all had disappeared.

"Lucius, it was not so many years ago that I taught you here at this very school, just as I taught your undead master. There is one lesson that neither of you learned from me, and it will be your undoing."

There was a pause. Where the teachers had been slain, blood-red poppies appeared in the emerald grass.

From April to October, the old Hogwarts Quidditch pitch has been filled with the same red poppies every year since then. It is a perennial memorial to the teachers who died so that their Muggle-born students might live. As there was a new field built after the war, no games are played there anymore. None of the flowers are ever picked. No sound louder than a reverent murmur is allowed. The wind seems to blow more gently there, somehow, rustling the grass so that it seems to whisper with long-vanished yet familiar voices... and though rain may pour in torrents elsewhere, the memorial field is merely touched by a mist of dew.

In the middle of the field, in the exact spot where Dumbledore’s phantom stood, there is a statue of a phoenix, perched atop an obelisk surrounded at the base by an eternal flame. And in front of the monument is a stone table, upon which the names of the Hogwarts professors who died in the war—all save one on that first of May—are inscribed.

On that long-ago day, Dumbledore continued in the spot where he would be deified.

"There was magic in the world long before there were witches and wizards, and there will be magic long after we are gone. It is not we who make the magic, but the magic which makes us. Because of this, we must always walk worthy of our gifts, and respectful of the power inherent in our very nature. But when we lose sight of who we are and why we call ourselves magical folk... well, as I’ve said, there will be magic long after we are gone."

And a thousand shimmering fairies appeared, touching their tiny hands to the petals of the poppies and making their edges shimmer with dewy light. Thus the fairies tend the memorial still, every May Day, Midsummer’s Eve, and at Lammastide.

"Right now you and your master are the most feared wizards in the world. You and you minions kill hundreds of thousands, steal magical ability, drive the best minds insane, and have transformed our whole world into a prison. But on the day when your grip falters, and the tables are turned, who will speak for your cause then? And that day will come, Lucius, make no mistake about it. And when it does, the young people witnessing these atrocities will make one demand with one voice: ‘Never again.’"

The day for Lucius came a bit afterwards, but his master had less than a month more to live. In the last breath of May 1998, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger disappeared without a trace.

Our historians call it the Missing Week. From Saturday to Saturday more than three hundred thousand wizards and witches worldwide perished... one-tenth of the casualties from the entire three years of war!

There was rioting on the streets of the major wizarding business districts from Calgary to Calcutta. Hogwarts was stormed by Dark sympathizers, and the House standards were torn from the Great Hall before the walls were burned with unnatural fire. Homes all over England were burgled and ransacked. It was a hellish period of unparalleled anarchy. Even the Muggles took some note of the strange occurrences, for we weren’t doing a very good job of cloaking our activities.

I spent that entire week at the Burrow, for it was Fred who found me on that first Saturday and told me his brother had gone missing. Arthur cast a Shield Charm over his home, took all his remaining sons with him, and headed away. I was trapped inside with Molly, Liz, Penelope (who had one-year old P.J. with her), Ginny, and Alicia. There was no news from the outside. Not an owl. Nothing to do but sit and wait for the worst... wait for our own inevitable deaths.

What else is there to do on the brink of Armageddon?

On Friday at midnight, Molly lit a candle.

"When this candle burns down, my baby boy will have been missing for a week, and along with him the only wizard in our world who has a prayer of putting all this to an end. If Arthur has not returned by the time this candle is gone, then we will go outside and try to find them. If we perish doing so, then so be it. We can’t stay in this house forever."

None of us slept that night save P.J. None of us said a word. We just watched that candle burn, wax spilling over the sides, flame flickering. Shadows lengthened... the full moon traced its path across the midnight sky... outside there were screams of terror, loud exploding noises, and wailing.

Around three in the morning—what my father told my mother in his letters had to be the proverbial ‘darkest hour’ in every night—the earth beneath our feet shook. We trembled and held each other, and waited for the end.

But it never came. The ground calmed. And outside, we heard a new sound, one that we’d almost forgotten.

Silence.

We were silent, too. For the next three hours we watched that candle burn. It flickered out at dawn’s first light... Molly stood up, with inexpressible sorrow and steely determination on her face.

But then the front door burst open, and there were footsteps and... laughter, and... Ron was dancing his mother around the living room, then sweeping her up into a grateful hug. And then Harry was there, and Molly’s feet never touched the ground, as Ron handed his mother directly into the waiting arms of his best friend.

The rest is history. You can’t live through a time like that without being changed so much until you barely recognize the person who you were before it all occurred. I know the war made me more patient and more kind. It helped me to acknowledge both my strengths and my weaknesses. It aged us all far beyond our years, so that we didn’t waste the best years of our lives trying to find ourselves. Adversity has a way of making you know yourself in a way that nothing else can. My peers thus altered the postwar face of our world to such a degree that the chroniclers are calling those of us who came of age at the turn of the millennium the Greatest Generation.

We remembered Dumbledore’s words: Never again. Never again in our world would a group of children grow up the way we did. Thanks to our Headmaster and our teachers, who died so that we might live, precious few of us were slaughtered in the Second Voldemort War... it always gives me pause when I realize that two-thirds of the student body at Beauxbatons was slain on that selfsame May Day in 1998. Ginny’s roommate during her internship in Paris was one of the survivors, and she visited the Burrow once. Madeleine told her story haltingly... of French and Italian Death Eaters hunting children for sport, leaping from around corners in Beauxbatons palace, running trembling seventh-year witches to the ground and...

"How can you talk about it?" Penelope had demanded of her at the time.

"How can I not talk about it?" Madeleine replied in heavily accented yet perfect English. "I was a girl of sixteen when the Death Eaters stole my innocence and left me for dead, all because my parents were not magical. If I do not talk about it, such things may happen again. And they must not. Never again."

Never again.

There is something coming, something so terrible that none of us can even begin to fathom it. It may not come for a while yet, but it is coming. And when it comes, I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect you and your family.

Tuning out Diane’s words, I placed Katie’s papyrus drawing on top of the box. Looking around at the empty, sterile office, prepared for Mwalimu’s coming. Hoping beyond hope that my sister was a liar... or at least, prone to exaggeration.

We paid a terrible price for happily ever after. It wasn’t as if the checks were returned by Gringotts, stamped "insufficient funds", either. The way I saw it, Cedric and Katie lost their lives, Harry lost his entire childhood, and so many others had given up that which was most precious to them so that all children who came after us would only know fear through the dusty pages of their History of Magic tomes.

Never again.

I picked up the cardboard box, weighted down with all my memories. With some effort, I carried it out of the door.

And who should I run into but Orla Quirke, standing at my door in the all-but-deserted newsroom. What a way to leave the realm of Memory and be transported back into the real world.

"What are you doing here?" I demanded.

"Getting the inside scoop," she said dryly. "Stealing inkwells. What do you think?"

"I think you are asking for trouble," I said tersely.

She tossed her blonde hair and rippled her fantastic long legs. "I love trouble," she hissed.

"My advice, then, is not to bite off more of it than you can chew. I’ve no idea what Ron, Hermione, and Maureen did to step on your toes, but you can take your fabricated baby along with the rest of your lies and be gone."

"And if I don’t?"

"Orla, you don’t know who you are trying to frame. If she wanted to, Hermione Granger could squash you with a look. Ron, I’m sure, could just squash you. And for some strange reason, I get the feeling that Maureen Ludlam isn’t chopped liver, either. Best to pick on those your own size."

There was nothing weepy about Orla that day. Her fawn-like eyes were not very fawn-like just then. They were unnatural... instead of a round circle, the pupils were slits.

"You know nothing about me, Angelina Weasley. You know nothing of my purposes. You are foolish, and meddlesome, and are getting to be quite a nuisance. My advice to you is to stay beneath my notice. Else when the ‘squashing’ begins, you will be first on my list."

A pink flicker at her lips, and she was gone. I was a bit chilled... not by the fact that she’d stuck her tongue out at me, but because that tongue had been forked.

Or were my eyes playing tricks on me?

Cassandra emerged from the hallway. When she saw me, she walked over briskly... to my knowledge, Cassandra Claire does not run. Why exert yourself when you have so many who will play Mercury on your behalf?

"Have you seen Orla Quirke? I just received an urgent fireplace message from the Ministry... she was seen leaving the offices here just a few moments ago."

I nodded. Cassandra let out a breath of frustration.

"Angelina, why didn’t you hold her? Didn’t you see the notice on the bulletin board? The wire’s been posted since yesterday."

I shook my head. Still a bit speechless from trying to figure out if that had been a forked tongue I’d seen... or not.

"Angelina!" Cassandra grasped my shoulders. "Orla is wanted for kidnapping. She is considered armed and dangerous... and she may have recently committed murder."

And thick and fast they came at last,

And more, and more, and more...

***************

When I arrived home much later that evening, Fred was not there. I was more than a little surprised to come upstairs and find Hermione reading a bedtime story to Malinda. From the interesting state of Hermione’s head, I surmised that my daughter had tried to charm-braid her aunt's hair but hadn’t quite succeeded.

"Hi, Mummy," she whispered. "I’m glad you got here before I went to sleep."

"I’m glad too, poppet."

"But I’m really sleepy now," she said. "So I think I’ll go to sleep. Is that okay, Aunt Hermione?"

My sister-in-law stifled a laugh. "Well, far be it from me to stop you."

She smiled drowsily. "Good night, Mummy. Good night, auntie." With that, she buttoned her Linda Johnson eyes, and pursed her Fred Weasley lips, and tucked an Angelina Johnson hand under a dimpled Molly Weasley cheek, and fell immediately off to sleep.

"What’s your secret?" I asked Hermione. "My bedtime stories always seem to have the child bouncing up and down on the bed like a trampoline."

"That’s because you read kid stories. I prefer Austen or Dickens... tonight, it was A Tale of Two Cities. ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ This way, I get entertained, and my charge is guaranteed to be bored to tears. Sleep is seen as a welcome alternative."

I shook my head. "That’s scary."

"Perhaps, but by Merlin, it works. I suppose you’re wondering where your husband is."

"Propriety demands that I must. As long as he’s safe, though..."

She shrugged. "Something or the other with 3W or the Ludlam Agency or... I’m really not sure. All I know is that I was at home, feet propped up, trying to catch up with my journal reading, and Ron and Fred burst into the door with Malinda. Before I knew anything, she was sitting next to me and they were gone. Something told me that you knew nothing of this, and I thought Malinda would be more comfortable in her own bed, so... I just brought her here."

Fred was going to get a piece of my mind. "Thank you."

"It’s nothing," she said with a wave of her hand. "Besides, I told you over a week ago that we needed to have a talk. There’s no time like the present."

So we sat in the living room, me on my favorite chair, Hermione on the ottoman in front of me. With my wand and with my fingers, I patiently worked with the tangles that Malinda had so painstakingly placed in her aunt’s hair.

"I’m sure I’m grateful to have such a notable person reading my baby bedtime stories--even if she is my sister-in-law," I said as soon as we were settled. "You’ve always been a bit of an enigma, Hermione, but lately it’s as if everything about you is a mystery."

She laughed. "I never knew you felt that way, Angelina. You, at least, I thought saw me as I really am--a bleeding-heart, bookish doctor who has this knack for being at the right place at the right time. If I ever do get around to authorizing a biography, the title should be Hermione Granger: Heroine or Opportunist?"

"Is that how you see yourself?" I asked incredulously.

"Always. I’ve just gotten over seeing myself without the rabbit incisors I was cursed with for the first half of my life. If you could only see into me..."

I sighed. "I suppose I’ve been a reporter for too long."

"The media is hilarious. Do you know what the one comment I’ve heard from reporters during every single interview I’ve given since the war is? The one that always gets edited out? ‘You’re so normal.’ Which makes me wonder why we can’t settle for bite-sized heroes and heroines. Why do our champions always have to be larger than life?"

"You are larger than life," I said severely. "Whether or not you want to admit it or not. You and your friends singlehandedly saved our world."

"Oh, we had lots of help," Hermione insisted.

"Helping and doing are two entirely different things."

"You’d be surprised. It was a lot less heroic and romantic than everyone thinks, as we didn’t eat and barely slept for almost seven days. We had absolutely no idea of what we were doing, where we were going, or what we’d be up against once we found what we were looking for.

"To this day, I’m not sure how or why we succeeded... Ron has some guesses, but he doesn’t know any more than I do. I don’t even think Harry knows. Which is why he doesn’t feel as if he can rest. If our peace is built upon chance, then our declaration of total victory is quite premature."

I almost shared my conversation with Diane from earlier that day. I wasn’t sure what was holding me back.

"Don’t you ever tire of the fight, Hermione?"

She shook her head. "That’s why I became a doctor. Once there were no more daemons and Death Eaters to wrestle, I chose to fight sickness and pain and disease. Ever read Sir Thomas More’s Utopia?"

"Never heard of it."

"I’ll lend you a copy sometime. Fascinating ideas. More writes of an ideal society on an imaginary island. He condemns poverty, war, sickness, intolerance... all the evils in his day and in ours. He defines the general principles of morality that should underlie any civilized human society. Then he asks whether a person of learning and privilege should withdraw from the world to avoid its taint and stench, rather than fulfill duty and destiny. That book... well, that book is why Harry came back."

I surmised she was referring to the disappearing act he’d pulled after the war. "Where was he?"

"I can’t remember," she said after a few long moments, in which I tugged at a cobweb of hair and she winced. "I think I may have known once, but I don’t know now. It’s like having had one of those frustrating dreams, when you know you’ve dreamed of someone, some place, something, but upon waking cannot recall a thing. Neither my Muggle nor my wizarding training can explain that phenomenon satisfactorily. The Muggles go on and on about REM sleep and brainwaves, and the mediwizardry courses on dream phenomena all remind me of Trelawney at her best."

"There’s so much I want to ask you," I said, finally finished with undoing Malinda’s work and able to begin charm-braiding in earnest. "I’ve not had the chance to speak with you alone since Boxing Day."

"And so much has occurred since then," she sighed. "So much."

"I gathered that. Since Christmas, I’ve been concerned about you. Even more so than Ron. You’ve gone through so much, Hermione, and from what I’ve seen you’ve handled it with grace."

A dry laugh caught in her throat. "If only you knew. Angelina, I’ve been keeping so much inside of me. I’m at the end of my tether, and there is no one I can talk to. I suppose it’s my own fault that I haven’t cultivated many new friendships... I simply haven’t had the time, and it’s just... well, I’ve never been any good at getting along with women."

"Seeing as your closest friends are all blokes, I took that for granted. Me, I take the opposite tack... get on well with women, declare war on men. I suppose we’re both feminists of a sort, then." I dropped my wand, and she handed it back to me.

"It’s not healthy," she said after a while.

"What’s not healthy?"

"Not having an outlet when there’s trouble at home," she explained. "You see, when I married Ron, he no longer could exclusively be my best friend, not really. There’s not a woman with sense breathing who tells her husband absolutely everything that she’d tell a good friend. Good way to cause hard feelings in a marriage... and I learned that lesson the hard way."

"But shouldn’t your husband also be your best friend?" I asked. "I would say that..."

"Angelina, please. Spare me the trite sentimentalism. Fred is not your best friend in the sense that I mean by any stretch of the imagination. What you have with him is far too solid for that. You share your life with Fred, but that doesn’t mean you tell him absolutely everything. You have many other sounding boards: Alicia from Hogwarts, your sister Olivia, and Tirzah from work. I don’t have that."

"You have Harry. I should think that he would suffice..."

"No, he does not. Harry is wonderful, but Harry also lives by the Universal Male Code. Which means that I get little empathy from him. Harry’s way of mediating a dispute between Ron and me is to side with Ron, then convince me to get over it by placating me. ‘Ron loves you... what the two of you have is special... can’t even remember why you’re angry at him, can you?’ Never encourages us to sit down and talk about anything.

"In retrospect, he’s been a horrid marriage counselor... and truthfully, I have no idea why we listen to anything a confirmed bachelor has to say about it... but who else would we have? Thanks to your journalist colleagues, we can’t exactly pull up Ron’s Meteorite 2010 in front of Sadie Sterling’s Best Solutions for Connubial Bliss or anything like that."

"Ginny is..."

"Ginny did her best to help me by pushing Draco and me together. Worked for a time... I thought we were on to something there. But now, she’s far too preoccupied with her own happiness. No matter how desperate I am, I won’t rain on her parade."

Her hair plaited easily under my fingers. None of the pulling and tugging I had to deal with from Malinda.

"So you came to me."

"I have no idea why. We weren’t confidants at school, nor in all the years since. But somehow, I feel that perhaps you might be able to help me."

How in the world could I help Hermione Granger do anything? She was the epitome of an Independent Woman... never had I met anyone in my life who was so self-sufficient.

"Before I begin, I want to ask a personal question."

I braced myself.

"Has Fred ever cheated on you?"

Silence. Then, "Once. A long time ago."

"How did you know?"

I didn’t even want to go there. "Hermione, I thought you and Ron were fine!"

"You weren’t at the press conference in January. I’m a damned good actress. I’m also smart enough to know when I have a warm body lying next to me, one whose heart and mind is elsewhere... please, answer my question."

"Oh... I just knew. A woman always does, deep down, even if she doesn’t like to admit it. We’d gotten over the first flush of our honeymoon years, and he was terribly preoccupied all the time. And until right before I found out, there was never any solid evidence... or if there was, I purposefully overlooked it and pretended it didn’t exist. There was just a general vagueness, I suppose. I knew I didn’t have his undivided attention anymore."

She let out a deep breath. "That’s the past two and a half years of my marriage in a nutshell."

"Hermione!"

"Angelina, there is something going on with Ron. Until the Christmas holidays, I told myself I was being paranoid and overly sensitive... that this drifting away phenomenon was something that all couples experience from time to time. I told myself I would get over it." She sighed again.

"But since Christmas, my marriage has become a very macabre party that I’m throwing, where everyone is laughing at some running joke that’s going on behind my back. A least a half dozen people are in on something that involves Ron and someone else. I get the sneaking suspicion that Bill and the twins are in on it. And Harry... Harry knows full well what’s going on. Does he really have no idea how much that hurts me? I thought I was just as important to him as Ron is."

"Perhaps he’s keeping it away from you because he doesn’t want to see you hurt," I suggested.

"No, again it’s that Universal Male Code of Silence... and I hate it. If I could figure out one thing, I’d be certain about what to do next. And although I can’t, I know exactly who’s being instrumental in keeping me away from the truth... Maureen Ludlam. Damn, I can’t stand that woman!"

I was alarmed, as I re-shuffled the deck of clues I’d been gathering for more than three months. "Why, has she done something to you?"

"No. And the way I feel is completely irrational and unfair. Maureen has been an asset to Ron’s career and nothing but kind to me. She’s a lot of fun, too... we’ve traveled together a few times to Ron’s games, and even go to the pub together from time to time. I sense that she’d like to be a friend to me, if I’d let her."

"Then why not let her? She’s one hell of a witch... I think you’d be well-matched, much more so than you and Ginny."

"Yes, we would. But I’d constantly be at war with myself. One part of me would want to tell her all my secrets, make her be the sister or the girl friend I never had. The other part would have to tamp down the urge to put her eyes out. She’d always aroused that sort of rage in me, and until the party, I never understood why.

"Now I know what it is. I’m jealous of her, Angelina. I’m jealous because while I am Ron’s wife, she is his friend. I can sense you back there, frowning because you don’t understand... allow me to explain.

"You see, when I became Ron’s girl, then later his wife, something in our friendship changed. It’s not that we were no longer as close... in a way, we became even closer. But I’ve been yearning for my friend for such a long time, for my defender and my secret-keeper and my opponent in matters of opinion. When we married, every time we had one of our rows, there seemed to be more at stake. We couldn’t go off to our respective places and cool down... we had to live together. And by Merlin, that was the best part of our friendship, the spice in it.

"Maureen has the sort of friendship with Ron that I once had. And she knows it. And she is quite ungraciously rubbing it in."

The chess match at Bill’s party combined with this new information to form a sudden thought. "Are you sure, Hermione, that... that there’s nothing between Ron and Maureen save friendship?"

"Very sure. What I do know is that she’s fully involved in the Conspiracy to Hide Everything From Hermione..."

"Excuse me for asking," I interrupted, "but how can you be so sure?"

"All right, I’ll tell you, although it’s not really flattering to me. Ron and Maureen have been client and agent as well as chess opponents since 2005. During the first major argument we had after that, I threw her name into his face... you see, before we were married, Ron... well, I believed that she was one of his old flings."

"Old flings?" Ah, don’t let the fairy-tale prince be tarnished! I thought desperately.

"Ron was unfaithful twice before we were married. I was very angry at the time, but I forgave him for two reasons. The first was that we weren’t married. When he first signed with the Cannons, and I was in my first year at Paracelsus, both of us were so busy that we barely had time to breathe. We tried to make time for each other, but nobody’s perfect."

"Well, did you ever stray, Hermione? Since you seem to be so ready to make excuses for him..."

"No, I didn’t. I’m not sure that it would have occurred to me back then to sleep with anyone else besides Ron. There are loads of wizards and Muggle men who I find attractive, but I can’t recall wanting to jump in bed with any of them."

"Then why are you brushing off what he did?"

Hermione threw up her hands. "Oh, Angelina, you can’t know how hard it was for him back then. With Harry gone, he was the number-one hero of the war... women threw themselves at him in droves. Half his fan mail from witches contained pictures that ranged from ‘scantily clad’ to ‘birthday suit’. He’d arrive in his hotel suite after a game overseas, and there would be three willing witches waiting on him... two in the bed, one in the bathtub. Wearing absolutely nothing. It’s not like Ron had a great deal of experience in that department either... only me. Curiosity was bound to get to him, if nothing else. I’ve never met a witch or Muggle dating or married to a famous man who hasn’t had to exercise the forgiveness policy at sometime or the other.

"That brings me to my second point. It only happened twice. Yes, it hurt like hell. Yes, I wanted to kill him. Yes, I wanted to hurt him as badly as he hurt me. But those witches meant nothing to him. They were just good for a tumble... I was good for a lifetime. He was still the same Ron. And he loved me. So I married him, and tried to leave the past behind."

"Until Mo showed up."

"He’s never slept with her. He told me that much four years ago, when I tossed her name out at him in a towering rage. And he told me at the time in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t interested in her at all. As a matter of fact, when they first met, he was sure she was a lesbian... she and Orla were joined at the hip, and very affectionate. Not kissy-feely or anything like that. Just the impression he got. Now, I never got that idea about Maureen at all, but he spent a lot more time around them than I did.

"If I know Ron, Maureen’s still in the ‘closet lesbian’ category in his mind. Although Bill fancies women who fancy other women, Ron does not. She is not his type. But if I’m wrong and he’s right, it’s no wonder she’s abiding by the Universal Male Code of Silence."

We both laughed. To my credit, I didn’t say that I was willing to wager that Maureen Ludlam was not gay by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, my father had a name for women like her. He would have definitely called Mo a ‘man’s woman’. She might have drawn some Sapphic interest, but the way she reveled in the attention of men was worth noting as well. She knew the right word, the right look, and just the right hint of a touch to tantalize... flirtation was more than a pastime for her, it was a fine art. Even adventurous Bill, if he ended up with her, would have his hands full.

"So the question seems to be this," I said. "What is Mo hiding for Ron? She’s doing him a favor... what kind of favor is it?"

"Well, I’d be willing to wager everything I own that the item behind Door Number One is a mistress," Hermione said frankly. "I don’t know her name, what she looks like, or anything else about her. I only know that she exists." Her hands went up to cover her eyes. "And that she has his heart."

It took a moment before I realized she was crying. Finished with her hair, I set my comb and the wand down, then slipped from the chair to sit on the carpet next to her. Although I’m nearly three years older than Hermione, I’d always looked up to her in a way. Now she needed a friend.

So I let her cry, leaning against my chest, sobbing out all of her frustration and dashed hopes and silent suffering. It wasn’t until the last of her shudders had quieted that I spoke again.

"Hermione, even if you find out the worst, take heart. An affair doesn’t necessarily mean that your marriage is over."

She sat up quickly. "Hell, yes it does," she snapped. "I’m no psychiatrist, but I can recognize a behavior pattern. This will make three times that at some moment of weakness, I wasn’t enough for him. And this time is the worst... because he’s gone and fallen in love with her, whoever she is."

"How can you say that? I saw the way Ron nursed you back to health, Hermione. I saw the way he kissed you at the All-Star Match. The look in his eyes..."

"...Is dragonshit," Hermione said. "I’m sure some part of Ron still loves me... he draws upon that whenever he’s called upon to perform. After all, I’m his first love, and I was his best friend to boot. But I’ve figured out what’s going on, and it just confirms my suspicions. Sweet, Devoted Ron is masking Guilty Ron. It’s in everything he does and says."

"But..."

"Even the sex is different... oh, honestly, wipe that shocked look off your face, Angelina! We’re both married adults." She sent a half-smile my way, then immediately became pensive again. "It’s almost as if both of us have a point to prove. He’s saying ‘I’m sorry, you still mean a lot to me, let me make this up to you’, while I’m saying, ‘I’m as good as her, I’m as sexy as she is, I can satisfy you as well as she can.’ It’s not like it used to be at all... we used to make the stars fall out of the sky. Not anymore.

"You know, sex is about the only meaningful chat we have these days. It was like that before Christmas, too... we had nothing to say to one another beyond mundane household things... I thought we were just getting to be an old married couple. Can you believe that? Old at twenty-eight... although Ron’s twenty-nine now."

"Oh, that’s right! It was March first, wasn’t it? How did you celebrate his birthday?"

"Dinner at home by candlelight. Very quiet... I made all his favorite foods, and it’s rare enough that I have the time to cook. We talked the whole time about absolutely nothing. His mind was elsewhere and it was obvious. I cleared away, and he stepped out for a few minutes... no longer than it takes to get the evening paper. Then we made half-hearted love and went to sleep.

"I can’t live like this anymore, Angelina. I’ve tried and tried. But lately, my mind’s been drifting too... my dreams at night are... oh, never mind."

"No, go on, please!"

Hermione blushed a little, then lowered her voice as if someone else besides Malinda was in the house. "You married your school sweetheart as well. Have you ever been with anyone other than Fred?"

"Not very lately, and never seriously since we became, well, serious," I replied. "I was his first. But... he wasn’t my first, and he wasn’t my only. We married young, but it took him a while to get serious. I had a bit of a past... a very tiny past consisting of a fling the first summer of the war, and another shortly before Katie died... which he dredged up when we went through his Cheating Phase years back. But we’ve grown up a bit since then, thank the stars."

"Honestly, you didn’t even feel the slightest curiosity... speculation... hell, even desire for revenge... when you went through your hard times?"

"If I did, all thoughts of it were effectively blocked when I learned I was pregnant with Malinda. Hermione, whatever forbidden fruit is being dangled before your eyes in your dreams, learn the lesson of Eve and leave it be. In situations like this, what’s good for the gander is most emphatically not good for the goose. Women are far more ready to forgive certain things than men..."

"My dreams," she murmured, obviously not listening much at all. "As I said earlier, fascinating subject... Utopia is very dream-like in its conception, and for some reason... you’ll think I’m going nuts, but whenever I read it, I feel as if there actually was a place like that... and I was there."

I shrugged. "Perhaps you were, in some former life. Who knows?"

"Or maybe another version of this life... you know, Draco and I have had some fascinating conversations lately about causality and antimatter, helical time, P- and not-P, splitting universes, and..."

Clearing my throat with a grin, I said, "Hermione. Please translate."

"Well, let me explain it this way. While he was in Washington State, Draco had no idea how long he was going to be hiding out amongst the Muggles. So at night, he enrolled at university over there, taking courses in chemistry and physics... he’s actually quite interested in Muggle science and engineering. So we’ve been talking lately about collaborating on a series of space-time technimagical experiments. It’s an area that we’re both interested in for different reasons.

"Draco wishes to invent some sort of time transport device that will allow Malfosoft to make loads of Galleons in the lucrative tourism industry. After all, why read Hogwarts, A History when you can actually meet the Founders? Why go on safari when you can hunt raptors in the Mesozoic? Now, he has quite a task ahead of him... the only effective time-travel device ever invented was the Time-Turner, and you’d have quite a job rotating it enough to travel a millennium in either direction. The limitations have nothing to do with magic, in my opinion. It’s a matter of quantum mechanics and a slew of troublesome paradoxes... but Draco is determined to have it done right after Danae is a fait accompli, and I have no doubt that he will."

"What is Danae?"

"Something I think you’ll like," she smiled. "I can tell you all my personal secrets, but I’m under contract not to reveal the nature of that particular project until we are ready for trials."

I gave her a look that said it all.

"Well... let me put it this way. The trials will be sometime in early summer, and I want you to be a member of the Alpha group. If it works, you’ll be spared the exorbitant price that Draco will demand from the Ministry of Magical Health for the treatments... what he’s doing will cause a political scandal, and I’ve let him know that I don’t approve at all. Anyhow, there is a risk, so you may want to wait for the Beta group this fall. Although once you know what it is, I don’t think you’ll want to wait."

"Wait for what? Hermione, what is Danae? Some sort of fertility experiment? I’ve already had a child."

"You’ll see," she said. "Suffice it to say that it’s keeping Draco away from the Time-Travel project, so I’ve gotten a chance to borrow all his books on the subject. I’m not nearly as fascinated by the idea of time travel as I am by the notion of parallel dimensions, splitting universes, multiple time tracks..."

I sighed. Hermione, like most highly intelligent people, could be hard to follow once she got excited about a topic. What parallel dimensions had to do with her marriage to Ron, I had no idea.

"I’m lost again, Hermione."

"Oh, it’s like this. At any given moment, all of us are making decisions that are shaping our particular version of the world. But at any given moment, the choices that we do not make are being made by parallel versions of ourselves."

My eyes were glazed over.

"I’ll make it plain. The parallel world theory says that in some other dimension, you never walked into that Sponge behind Katie... and I never married..."

She trailed off.

"Hermione, be careful. You don’t want to live in your dreams. They are wonderful places to visit, but not a great place to stay."

"Why not?" she demanded. "Angelina, you have to consider this. Don’t you realize that there very well could be another you, somewhere in time-space-magic, that still has flight? That’s a professional Quidditch legend? That might even have the wings of your mother’s people? That lives in a time and place where there was no war? Don’t you think that self is happier?"

"No. Because she’s not me, Hermione," I said, teeth slightly clenched. Not with anger, but with firm conviction. "Much as I lament the loss of all those things, those losses, along with every other adversity I’ve ever faced has made me into the woman I am. And I happen to like her.

"If you attempt to live in the past, you will die, Hermione, or worse than that, become a shadow of yourself. Remember what happened to George, first with Katie, then with Anya? But if you put the past behind you and live, I think you’ll find the peace you’re searching for."

Her hands went up to a braid, loosening already into its normal bushy, unmanageable state.

"All my dreams," she said. "Angelina, I've been by Ron's side since we were eleven years old. I know what I know. I know that we're not the same... and I'm frightened. I love him, and I know he loves me. But I'm not so sure that we're in love anymore. And honestly, I’m beginning to wonder what choices I may have made in the past that contributed to that. For somewhere in a place that I can reach but not quite touch, Ron and I are still as much in love as we were on our wedding day. And somewhere else, I..."

Her sentence was split in half by a yawn, and she never finished it.

"Oh, I know you’re right, Angelina. We must play the hand we’ve been dealt. In this version of the world, a war stopped me from building dream castles while I was still a young girl. That was half a lifetime ago for me, and I’ll not start that silliness again at this late date. I was a different person back then. Thank you for bringing me back to reality."

She didn’t say anything more, and neither did I. The hour was well advanced, and we’d both worked that day. I offered her the guest bedroom, she gratefully accepted it, and we trekked back up the stairs.

Just before we bade each other good-night, she said:

"As I’ve said, I must lend you Utopia one of these days. Amazing read. You’ll wish it was real, too..."

That night, Hermione talked in her sleep. I know this because I had to get up and use the lavatory sometime before dawn. As I passed by the guest room, I heard her sleep-laced whisper:

The shadow by my finger cast

Divides the future from the past:

Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,

In darkness, and beyond thy power:

Behind its unreturning line,

The vanished hour, no longer thine:

One hour alone is in thy hands,

The now on which the shadow stands.

And then... in a pleading, drowsy voice, she murmured a name. She also said something else after, but that was too low for me to ear. Sighing, I continued to walk down the hallway towards the bathroom.

Somehow, I didn’t think I’d find that chilling chant anywhere in More’s Utopia...

Nor the name.

************

You can tell a great deal about a person by the type of breakfast cereal they opt for.

Cold morning meals were almost unheard of in wizarding England until the final year of VW2, when the escalation of the war changed even our eating habits. For some months, it was believed that livestock and poultry were in part responsible for the twin poisoning phenomena that followed the wake of the Sponge—the Clamp and the Inferno. Neither were fatal, but both were highly contagious. Not to mention uncomfortable.

Eating Clamp-tainted foodstuffs almost invariably led to one’s having a case of something that resembled lockjaw. Except that the teeth in a Clamp sufferer are melded together, forming an airtight enclosure. The only antidote is for a mediwizard who specializes in dentistry to blast away the solid tooth-bone... and while Skele-Gro can regrow internal bones, nothing discovered thus far can replace permanent adult teeth. While fewer in number than the Sponged masses, there are many war victims who must either wear dentures or live with their bald gums.

The Inferno had fewer cosmetic effects, but was just as inconvenient. All humans, magical or not, suffer from the same gastrointestinal ailments. However, the Inferno is the truest form of heartburn known to man... the sufferer actually burns. From palate to colon, the entire digestive tract in sufferers is afflicted with a strange chemical fire that feeds on the mucous membranes, but does not consume them. The symptom of dragon breath is as literal as it is figurative... one of the quickest ways of spotting an Inferno suffer is to note the smoke that constantly curls from their lips.

As with the Clamp, there was no cure until very recently, when apothecaries Pansy Parkinson and Stafford Locke of Higginbotham Potions stumbled upon the Parkinson-Locke De-Icer for Inferno Sufferers... and made a cool mint in the process.

During the last months of the war, we all became virtual vegetarians. The American wizarding government was officially neutral, but an underground of sympathizers mobilized in the Dakotas and sent hundreds of thousands of boxes of cereal to the Continent and the British Isles. Although we’ve mostly returned to our old unhealthy eating habits, cereal is still an early morning staple.

I pulled out several boxes of cereal from the pantry, and set them on the table.

"Ooh! Piggy Puffs!" Malinda exclaimed, grabbing for an oinking pink carton with a curly tail.

"Not so fast, young lady," I admonished. "I’m sorry I don’t have any eggs or bacon or pastries, Hermione. I simply haven’t had time to do any re-stocking."

"That’s quite all right," Hermione said, yawning as she reached for the box of Bran Boingers. Her hair had come out of the braids overnight, but instead of its usual bushiness, it was nice and wavy. "One bowl of this, and I won’t have to eat for days."

It was not an exaggeration. Bran Boingers, a cereal that tasted rather like small twigs and dried leaves, was so ultrafortified that it contained all the essential vitamins, minerals, and herbals that the human body needed, and some that were good for optimizing magical momentum, such as unobtainium. The cereal was popular with health freaks and couch potatoes (who then felt justified in bingeing on fats, sweets, and salt) alike.

Now Hermione was saying, "Usually I just eat a Bran Boingers Breakfast Bar on my way to the clinic. Once in a while, it’s my only meal of the day. It’s so rare that I have the time in the mornings to sit and have a leisurely breakfast of any sort... so rest assured, this is a treat."

"I wish Fred felt the same way," I said. "I bought it for him. He took a half bite, spat it out, and then swore I was trying to kill him."

"Daddy says Boingers are for bunny rabbits," Malinda giggled.

"Perhaps, but those bunny rabbits are far healthier than Daddy is," I said. "And I’d daresay leaner as well."

"And far healthier than you’re going to be eating that, darling," Hermione said, eyes widening with horror as I poured milk into Malinda’s mountain Piggy Puffs. The minute they were wet, they began to oink, flail, and swim around the bowl... my daughter giggled and reached for her spoon.

"Piggy Puffs are pure sugar," Hermione protested. "My parents had a fit when I showed them a bowl... it’s like eating cotton candy every morning! Even stains your teeth and lips and gums the same way."

Malinda crunched a puffy pig in her teeth, and it squealed. "I like my oinky cereal, Aunt Hermione."

Hermione appealed to me. "That stuff is horrible for children, Angelina. Surely you know that."

I shrugged. "I agree. But Fred lets her have it. You learn to pick and choose your battles in this household."

"Ever the diplomatic one. I should be taking notes, I’m sure, on How To Be A Dutiful Wife... what’ll you be having?"

"Only tea," I said. "My stomach’s been feeling a bit queasy lately."

The Daily Prophet arrived, and after accepting Knuts for payment, the courier owl flew off. I closed the window, grinning with pleasure. It was still early yet in the year, but I was heady from the first whiff of impending spring.

I threw the folded newspaper on the table and went back to the counter for my cup of morning tea.

Hermione choked.

I turned around, alarmed. Malinda had dropped her spoon into the bowl, sending great globs of sugar pigs and milk all over the place, exclaiming, "Auntie, what’s the matter with you?" Hermione managed, between her hacking, to indicate that she was fine. I sent Malinda out of the kitchen, telling her to go play... for once, she didn’t argue or pout or throw a tantrum.

When I pressed a glass of water into Hermione’s hand, she drained it dry. After another coughing spell and much wiping of her lips, she was able to rasp that she was fine.

Then she pointed at the paper.

The Daily Prophet was not the daily news at all. At least, it wasn’t the daily news from that day. The date on the newspaper that had just arrived read Sunday, April 1, 2009... two weeks and a day from that morning.

That newspaper was either a hoax... or was an actual document from the near future. Both alternatives were equally abhorrent.

"Did you get a look at that owl?" Hermione asked, as composed as possible under the circumstances.

I shook my head. "It was just the regular owl that comes every day. We have Punch, but we don’t bother him with the Prophet deliveries since he’s often flying off to New York or Jamaica for me, or all over the world for Fred."

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Look at the headline."

I did. And though my mouth was empty, I nearly choked too.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER ENDS

Weasley and Granger Separate After 6 Years of Marriage

The article was accompanied by two pictures. The first was of Ron and Hermione in a courtroom, standing in front of the bewigged justice, facing each other with folded arms and grim faces. The other was a picture of Ron, Orla, and... the same baby that had appeared on the front page of the infamous New Year’s article.

Ron and Orla were dressed to the nines... in wedding attire.

The article was long, longer than anything I’d ever known the Prophet to publish in all my years there. Most of the text was garbled, as if it were written in some strange script.

There was one line in plain English, near the end. I wondered if Hermione was a glutton for punishment, for she read it aloud. "‘All I ever wanted was for him to acknowledge the existence of our son,’ said Quirke-Weasley. ‘Getting his heart in the bargain is sweet indeed.’"

"Sweet, is it?" snarled Hermione. "Whatever else can be said about my husband, he has far better taste than that. That witch has gone too far!"

I had to agree. I also hadn’t forgotten the slitted eyes and the forked tongue, but I hadn’t told Hermione about my last encounter with Orla during our talk the night before. I did so then, sparing no detail, embellishing nothing.

"Hmm. That is odd. If she were an Animagus, you wouldn’t have seen the reptilian features until she was fully transformed. There are some other possibilities... but I do know one thing. I am going to get to the bottom of this, immediately."

Quickly, I debated on whether or not to tell Hermione about Diane’s warning. I’d had no qualms about keeping my mouth shut the night before for a reason. If Diane was just being overly paranoid, then I’d be responsible for meddling... and perhaps starting something sinister that would get my sister caught in the crossfire. After all, Diane had been correct in one regard... we were sisters.

After seeing the article from the future, I had a change of heart. At least some of Diane’s suspicions had proven correct. It did seem as if someone was playing a series of elaborate mind-games on Ron and Hermione and perhaps others. She needed to be aware of what was happening.

"Hermione," I began slowly, "before I ran into Orla, Diane came to visit me. She went to some sort of international meeting a few months ago..." I filled Hermione in quickly.

She nodded, lips set but eyes wide. "That... sounds like the Cabalistica," she said.

"The what? Diane didn’t use that word."

"That’s because, if the little I know about it is correct, she’s under oath not to reveal more. I know so little about it, though..." here she trailed off, obviously in consternation that there was actually a topic that she did not know several volumes’ worth of information about.

"Do you think a visit to the Prophet files room might help? I can arrange it."

She laughed at my naivete. "Angelina! Do you honestly think that the Prophet has ever printed anything about the Cabalistica? There are only a handful of wizards on the planet who even know of its existence... and I can assure you that few of them would be willing to even sit in the same room as me, much less share their bags of crisps.

"But I’ve come to a decision. I refuse to sit back and watch my marriage fall apart without at least getting some answers. I intend to find out why the hell the Cabalistica is cooking up some diabolically stupid scheme to use Ron and me as their laboratory rats, if indeed that is the case. And while I’m at it, I plan to go hunting for a certain woman who speaks with forked tongue."

I shook my head. "Going to track down Orla? There’s a warrant out for her arrest... I’m sure she won’t be easy to find."

"Perhaps not, but I suspect that your husband and mine are attempting to do exactly that. My first mind was to follow them last night... they knew that, which is why they left Malinda with me. They knew there was no way I’d drag her along."

"I almost think you should have," I said. "Malinda has a knack for making sure she gets taken care of no matter what. Or you could have just brought her along to the Prophet."

"I know... but we also needed to have our conversation... I needed to have that conversation," she said. "I’m not worried at all about their trail growing cold. If they are tracking Orla, I know exactly where they went first. And we’re going there."

We? "Where?"

Hermione again sent a look of studied patience my way.

"To Harry and Sirius, of course, in Scotland. The Black and Potter Foundation."

*************

Hermione utilized our family Bluebottle to fly the three of us to the Narcissus Tower. As it was early Saturday morning, both traffic and surveillance on the ABFN was fairly light. But Hermione was a conservative flier... she adhered to the posted speed limits with a minimum of aerial acrobatics.

We alighted inside of the tower roof’s Air Station. No one was around, as it was the weekend. I was going to tap the familiar glass panel with my wand, but impatient Hermione tapped her foot and it dissolved. We were slurped up by the suction and into the Octagonal Transport Room, with its walls of emerald and the green honeycombed broomstick dock.

I’d always known that there were eight doors in the Octagonal Transport Room. One door led to the Emerald City; another to the rest of the Narcissus Tower.

It had never occurred to me to consider where the other six doors might lead. Only the Emerald City and Narcissus Tower doors have handles. The others do not.

Hermione walked up to one of these mysterious doors. She didn’t pull any more of her uberwitch stunts.

She simply knocked.

The door swung open. Out stepped a young witch who couldn’t have been much more than twenty. She had a plump, pleasant face, with dimpled cheeks and a ruddy complexion. She was also quite short.

"Hello, Dr. Granger! The Professor’s been expecting you. He told me to tell you he’s finishing up a seminar, which is why he did not come himself."

"Oh, excellent to hear that he’s getting my messages for a change," said Hermione tersely. "Is it all right if my sister-in-law and niece come along? I asked him about that too."

"Of course. The passage’s already been informed to let them through." She turned to me. "Hello, I’m Janet MacCullough... you must be Angelina. And who is this darling little girl?"

Malinda showed dimples of her own as she introduced herself. "I can write my name, too."

"Can you? You’ll be sure to let me see, then, once we get where we’re going?"

"I’m not so sure that we’ll have much time for fun and games, Janet," Hermione said. "I’ll see you in the stables."

She stepped through the open door... and after a whoosh! she vanished from sight.

Janet turned to me. "If you like, I can hold the little one..."

"I’m a big girl," Malinda protested. "I can go all by myself."

Then she did something that would have earned me a good spanking as a child. She ran straight into that portal... and screamed.

Janet and I, as if with one mind, jumped in after her... and immediately tumbled down a downward, forward-leaning tunnel. Somewhere ahead, I heard Malinda still screaming... but as it was almost completely dark, I couldn’t see her. My stomach did a number of somersaults... I believed I was going to be absolutely, positively ill... and suddenly, it was all over.

We’d landed on something soft and cushiony. Looking down revealed that they were cushions, a large pile of them situated on the floor of what definitely had been used as a stable at one time, although there were no animals in sight. The place was also odor-free and devoid of both hay and manure. I looked up... there was no evidence of where we’d just come from.

Hermione was talking to Malinda sternly, who seemed no worse from the wear but whose eyes were smarting over tears from her aunt’s talking-to. Magical children have to learn from an early age to look before they leap.

Janet was dusting off her robes. "Well, that wasn’t so bad, now was it, little one?" she said to Malinda.

Malinda sniffled in reply, first eyeing Hermione, then meeting my disapproving stare.

"I don’t think I feel like writing my name anymore."

"Stop that nonsense, of course you will," Hermione said. "Just you wait until we go outside. You’ll forget all about those tears."

***************

And she did. There is no way possible that anyone could cry in the place we found ourselves in.

It’s often said that the Hogwarts area is the most breathtaking magical place in the United Kingdom, with its forests and lakes and moors, along with the highlands which ringed the entire area. But if the place we’d found ourselves in was indeed in the British Isles, it easily put Hogwarts in the shade. It appeared as if we’d stepped into the midst of a Claude Monet painting.

The rolling grass was greener than green... it was a shade I don’t think I’ve ever seen before... mixed with blue? I couldn’t be sure. The cloudless sky was the deep azure of late morning, and the sun was golden and warm (in March?) in the sky. There were tree-covered hills in the distance... and I could smell the salty tang of the sea, almost even taste it in the air.

Behind us, there was a stately manor home, which perhaps dated from the early 1500s, with newer outbuildings. The front of the mansion boasted a vast courtyard criss-crossed by several cobblestone walks. Behind the building, the waves of the sea beat relentlessly against the breakers.

"Where are we?"

"Sirius’ birthplace," Hermione said, bending down to pluck one of the wildflowers that grew near the stone step of the bathhouse. "Ayr Island."

"But I thought Sirius was from Scotland," I said.

"He is. This island is due east of Aberdeen, about fifteen minutes by ferry."

I stared at her. Surely this place couldn’t be in the middle of the North Sea. "Seventy degrees and Mayflowers in the middle of March? It isn’t even spring yet!"

"Ah, we have spring here when we’re ready for spring," Janet replied, apparently amused. "Come, the Professor will be waiting."

"That is precisely why we ought to take our time," said Hermione. "He knew this was not a social call."

"If the professor had known the good doctor was in her scary ‘impatient snob’ mood, then he would have stayed with his class," a rough voice said from behind us.

Hermione and I spun quickly to see Harry standing behind us with crossed arms. She had the grace to look embarrassed for a brief moment before relaxing back into a mask of indifference.

"Well, I told you this matter was of the utmost importance, Harry," she said crisply. "Angelina's shared some critical information with me that I think you should..."

He turned away from her, winked at Janet, then greeted Malinda and me.

"Is that great big house all yours, Uncle Harry?" she asked him, wide eyes staring at the imposing mansion.

"Well, yes and no. I do live here sometimes, but it’s not all mine. I share it with a lot of other people. Would you like to meet some of them?"

"Would I? Tana’s titties, yes!"

I nearly fainted at my almost-five year old's use of explicit language. Fred and George were really too much sometimes... I’ve told them time and again that they need to watch what they say around the child. Janet appeared a little shocked at first, then began to titter nervously.

Hermione's brows were drawn together tightly. "Harry, we really don't have time to..."

"Well, I'm sorry if it cuts into your sightseeing time, Dr. Granger, but Miss Weasley here would like a tour of the facilities," Harry said. Malinda pulled on his hand, yanking him forward.

"Facilities! I'm going to see facilities, Mum!" she shouted over her shoulder at me as she skipped off, swinging Harry’s hand.

"Yes, I know, darling," I said. Malinda simply loves words that are at least twice as big as she is.

Hermione was torn between being amused at my daughter and being hacked off at Harry’s nonchalance.

"Harry, we really ought to talk about--" she began, but Harry was already a number of yards ahead, my daughter taking three steps to his every one. "That man had better never become a father," she scowled and jogged to catch up. The minute Hermione reached them, Malinda grabbed her aunt’s hand with her free one and began to swing between the two of them happily.

I sighed and brushed the hair out of my eyes.

"What a handful," Janet laughed. "I hope Dr. Granger didn't mean what she said about the Professor never being a father. He has a knack for young people."

"Does he now?" I said distractedly and couldn't help feeling a sharp tinge of nervousness as I saw Harry toss my daughter in the air and catch her.

"Oh, yes. He’s so patient with them. Understanding... warm... charming..." Janet said dreamily. She caught my look at her and coughed into her fist. "Well, then... shall we catch up then?" she asked, a slight flush on her round cheeks. I tried to keep the smirk off my face. Yet another young damsel had fallen for the irresistible charm of the Boy Who Lived--long since evolved into the Man Who Broke Hearts.

"Malinda is quite the handful," Janet repeated as we quickened our pace.

"Well spotted," I replied with a laugh. "My husband and I can hardly keep track of her. You wouldn’t want the permanent company of a four year old, would you? I’ll sell her to you at a bargain rate."

Janet blushed again and smiled. "As adorable as that one is, I was never much for little children. I like teaching the older ones a whole lot better."

"Teaching?" I frowned. I had been under the impression that the Black and Potter Foundation was a charity and Janet was an employee.

Janet stared at me as if I’d grown a third head. "Surely you must know about the Black and Potter Foundation’s educational function... the Albus Dumbledore School for the Gifted? I thought everyone who was allowed security clearance knew at least that much.... but no, you don’t know."

I shook my head, dumbfounded. Hogwarts had been in existence for over a thousand years... why was there a need for another such institution in the same region?

"Because while Hogwarts is a wonderful place, the last war proved its limitations," Janet said. "Even time-proven models of magical education have to be improved upon or expanded sometimes."

My eyes nearly popped out of my skull.

"Oh, I’m sorry!" Janet seemed genuinely alarmed. "I wasn’t trying to invade your privacy, really... I was trying to ignore what you were saying, but..."

"You can hear my thoughts," I said incredulously.

She sighed. "Yours and everyone else’s within an approximately twenty-foot radius with a minimum of concentration. I’m a heteroglossic telepath... I also have some empathic abilities, which I am trying to develop more fully."

"How long have you been telepathic?" I asked. Even in magical populations, truly telepathic individuals are so rare that a worldwide registry of them could fit on a single parchment.

"I was born with it," she said. "I had no idea that everyone didn’t hear thoughts like I did until I was school age, and I didn’t know how much trouble my gift could cause until my father beat me and threw me out of the house. I’d made the mistake of telling my mother the truth about our financial woes... that Dad was a compulsive gambler and womanizer. He’d managed to hide the truth of his full wage earnings from her until I blew his cover. I was about ten, I think..."

"How horrible!"

"Yes, it was. I had no money, and I was small for my age. Fortunately, I had my gift. It kept me out of trouble, fed me, helped me find shelter and friendly faces. I was on my own for three years... and then I met Remus Lupin in Liverpool. He brought me here. I was thirteen then and I’m nineteen now... these have been the best six years of my life."

We were now at the entrance of the manor house. Harry, Hermione, and Malinda had already disappeared through the double hickory doors. "I had no idea any of this even existed until today," I told Janet.

"We don’t take out advertisements on the WWN, now," she laughed. "The school portion of the Foundation is actually only six years old. I was a member of Dumbledore’s First Class."

On the surface, the statement was ludicrous. Not only was this slip of a girl certainly not anywhere close to having been one of the first students the late Headmaster had taught, she’d come here long after his death. But somehow, I believed her.

The entrance led into a large hall with polished wooden floors and walls that were covered with various abstract tapestries that were most likely far older than the house. And the tapestries were alive, alive as the unnatural springtime outside, alive with color and light and sound and motion.

"Mood regulating," she explained. "Relaxes the body, stimulates the mind. Puts one in just the right humor for learning. The plants do the same."

And indeed, there were plants everywhere. Although I’d been an excellent all-around student at Hogwarts, I was never much good in Herbology, always borrowing Katie’s notes to supplement my own scribblings. I wished I’d paid more attention... I didn’t recognize any of the alien yet pleasant looking greenery.

"Ayr Island plants are unique indeed," Janet said. "Many of them are imported... don’t ask me where they come from, either. That’s Professor Stanford’s department. Actually, it’s not her department, not really... come on, you’ll see what I mean."

There was an arched doorway beyond the foyer, and voices. Janet headed in that direction, leading me into a long hall with many doorways, most of them open.

"This is the heart of the School," Janet explained. "Come have a look, we’re in the middle of a History of Magic lesson."

I peeked into the first room. A small, pretty brunette witch was lecturing in front of a chalkboard covered with dates... and her sentences were punctuated with her students’ laughter! All of the students, who seemed to come from the four corners of the globe, were captivated by their teacher’s animated talk. One even turned every color of the spectrum as she giggled—even ultraviolet and infrared, I suppose, because every so often she disappeared.

"Professor Penny Linsenmayer," Janet said. "She and her husband Bryce run the Department of Magical Foundations. They teach the foundation courses such as Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, and several others. Their task is formidable—they have four years of coursework to cover in half the usual time, since students are selected to come here after their third year at Hogwarts or international equivalent, and they spend their last two years in the specialized seminar courses."

"How can they possibly get the same depth and breadth?"

"Rest assured that they do. For one, the classes are much smaller... Professor Black caps the sections at a maximum of twelve students each. For another, students attend classes five and a half days a week. And Penny and Bryce were perhaps two of the brightest students to have ever attended Hatrack River... you’ve heard of the American schools of magic?"

"Hatrack River, Salem-Hutchinson, Manitou, and Marie Laveau are the better ones that I know of... they sprout up like mushrooms over there in the States, don’t they? There must be two dozen of them. All of them are for profit, and none of them are boarding schools like ours."

"Yes, but that doesn’t make them any less worthwhile, Angelina. Everyone knows Hatrack River is one of the best worldwide... it’s right up there with Hogwarts. My boyfriend Archie attended for three years before their principal, Alvin Maker, wrote to Professor Black. Professor Penny and Professor Bryce are great at teaching just about any basic magical subject you could think of. They’ve edited a ton of textbooks as well."

"How long had they been teaching in America before coming here?"

"That’s just the thing... they weren’t teachers at all. They were lawyers, working for their ministry’s Department of Investigations. Professor Black is of the opinion that some of the best teachers are witches and wizards who have excelled in other fields."

We moved on. Penny’s husband Bryce was teaching a Transfiguration class in the next classroom, checking upon students who were transforming large blocks of ice into wireless receivers. Here and there he corrected a student—"no, the parts are still all crystal clear, there’s no way it can receive a transmission", and "cheer up, you’ve got it... only reason it’s not louder is because the speakers are half melted."

At the helm of the next classroom was a newly familiar face. Carole Stanford was narrating a holographic presentation as a group of older teenagers’ heads bobbed up and down, taking notes.

"Professor Stanford is the newly appointed head of the Department of Magical Cultures and Creatures. That was formerly the Headmaster’s domain, but he’s been busy fundraising lately, and developing the other arms of the Foundation... he’s not even here today, you see. She’s just as capable as he is, though. As a young witch, she worked under Bartemius Crouch... she’s fluent in seven dozen languages and fairly conversant in three hundred others."

So she was more than a pretty face to Sirius. It was about time he’d found someone with substance. Idly, I wondered how serious he was about her.

The display now switched to a lifelike holograph of a Polynesian-appearing male fairy, dressed head to foot in brilliant green.

"Much like the leprechauns of Ireland, Hawaii’s menehune are small in size and have astonishing telesthetic ability. They are second only to goblins as master rock-cutters." A slender blonde raised her hand. "Yes, Liesl?"

Liesl’s English was heavily accented. "Do these menehune make deals with humans like the leprechauns do, Professor Stanford? If so, what sort of payment do they demand?"

"Fish," Carole told her student. "And lots of them. The older, the better."

"Urgh! Yuck!"

Carole calmed her class down with a smile. "Yes, what is it, Ramon?"

"Professor Stanford, what is done with the fish? And are they asked about it first? They have rights, you know."

"Showing off, aren’t you, Bubblemouth?" drawled a boy in the back row with carroty red hair. "Not all of us can stick our heads in the ocean and have a chat with the sealife, you know."

My head whipped back towards Janet as Carole reprimanded Carrot Top. "Do fish talk?"

She shrugged. "Apparently. But I hear none but the dolphins have much worthwhile to say... shall we move on?"

We moved on to the opposite side of the hall, where Remus Lupin was orchestrating something that looked very much like an overchoreographed dance.

"I know him!" I said excitedly. "I haven’t seen Professor Lupin in ages... he was one of the best!"

"Oh, that he is," Janet agreed. "He and Jocelyn Capulet-Montague head up the Department of Magical Warfare. Don’t be fooled by her gentleness and his kindness. They teach some of the most popular courses here, but both can be virtual drill sergeants at times. Especially when it comes to the Simulation."

I didn’t ask about the Simulation. Instead, I grinned at the sight of Lupin doing what he does best, remembering my own year in his Defense Against the Dark Arts course. Was that what he was teaching now?

Janet heard my thought and shook her head. "The Linsenmayers teach that. Professor Lupin teaches Offense Against the Dark Arts..."

"Offense?"

"...Field Tactics, Stratagems, and Simulation Prep. We’d all love for him to do more, but at the present he’s part time, teaching one course per term. Professor Capulet teaches Hexes, Advanced Binding and Cursing, Sympathies and Antipathies... what else? Oh, yes! She also teaches Systems Maintenance... which is one of the most difficult courses here. It’s interdisciplinary... includes First Aid Spells, Field Nutrition, and loads of other mini-lessons. I’m assisting her with that next term, actually." She turned pink with pleasure.

"Oh, so you’re a trainee?"

"A student teacher, you could say. This semester I’m merely doing my fieldwork... observing, tutoring, assisting the professors with whatever they need done. Next semester I’ll be teaching Sys Maint under Professor Capulet’s supervision."

"How nice for you, Janet! Are you the only former pupil here?" I asked her.

"This term I am... I do believe that Qing Jao from the class of ’06 may be returning in the autum, though, to work for the Foundation. My peers are scattered all over the globe now, developing their gifts, working for either the Foundation or our sister organizations... but I’ll let the Professor tell you about that."

Suddenly there was a tremendous burst of amber light from Lupin’s classroom, and Janet and I were blown away from the door and across the hall. As my hair was standing on end and my skin was tingling, I was quite alarmed.

"Don’t be frightened!" she said. "Happens all the time... simulated lightning spell... doesn’t hurt anything, at least not permanently."

And sure enough, there was Lupin’s gentle yet commanding voice, correcting the student, placing a steady hand over hers and showing her exactly how to combine vocal inflection and hand motion to concentrate the spell on a specific target... a huge turnip that sat in the middle of the room.

"Focus, Celeste... only remember to focus, and you’ll have it."

"All right, Professor Lupin, I’ll try again." Squinting, she tried it again... and produced the same effect. As I stood up once more and brushed my hair back into place, I heard her exclaim, "Oh, it’s no use! I’ll never get this right... why am I even here?"

With those words, she ran out of the room, brushing past us blindly. Lupin sighed, then saw us and immediately came to the door.

"Angelina! I haven’t seen you in..."

"Far too long, Remus," I finished. "Why do you never come to any of Molly’s dinners? We all miss you."

"They’ve all been at the wrong time of the month lately. Besides, I’ve been spending a great deal of time in the Ukraine, near the Carpathian foothills. I’ve an uncle with a farm there who is ailing... and there are a number of things to keep me occupied over there as far as the Foundation is concerned. How is Fred and the baby?"

"He’s excellent, and she isn’t a baby anymore. She’ll be five years old week after next. I brought her here with me today... as soon as I locate her, I’ll bring her back around..."

Another explosion, but this time, none of us were knocked off our feet. Instead, a fried mass of pulp bubbled on the floor where the giant turnip had stood. It was being rained upon by large chunks of plaster.

"Ahmed! You were under express orders to use a wand! Attack magic should never be used for spectacle... you know that. I am disappointed." And Ahmed hung his head... for few students of Lupin’s ever wanted to let the master teacher down.

Lupin turned back to me. "Why don’t I meet with you over lunch?"

I readily agreed, and Janet and I ambled down the hall towards the final classroom.

It was at the end of the hallway, in a large circular classroom. Half of the walls were glass windows that reached from floor to ceiling and boasted velvet-cushioned window seats. The floor was covered with a dark red rug with a deep pile that sprang underfoot, and cushions much like the ones we’d landed upon were scattered upon it.

There were no students in sight.

"I don’t... understand," Janet said. "This is the Professor’s classroom... and his seminar doesn’t end until noon."

I wondered why she kept calling Harry the Professor, without surname, as if he were the only instructor in the entire school. "Perhaps he dismissed class a few minutes early."

"Oh, he’d never do that. Not because he’s a tyrant or anything like that... but because his classes are so... so vital. And I’m not the only one who calls him the Professor, Angelina. Everyone does, even the Headmaster, though I think Professor Black’s joking when he says that. You’ll see why."

"What does Harry teach?"

"He’s Professor of Telesthetics. Only one of the teachers who’s unpartnered... although he has guest lecturers come in every few weeks, and they’re also asked in when he has to be away. He’s responsible for an array of courses. All the "telly" courses, as we nickname them--Telekinetics, Telepathy, Teleportation, and Telelogy, also known as the Ethics of Magic--and loads more advanced courses, depending on the term and year. I took Pseudomorphism as an extra course, and we had the best time."

"Wow," was all I could think of to say. And here I thought all Harry was doing was kissing babies and shaking hands and begging for money. Yet I understood why he’d be drawn to work like this... he was helping others, doing what he did best, and staying out of the public eye. Talk about a dream job for him.

"‘Wow’ isn’t the word. The thing is, the Professor isn’t even like us... that is, he wasn’t born with the ability to read minds or move things without a wand... or at least, not as well as many of us can. But he knows enough to teach us, and then some. And Angelina, he can do anything."

I fought the urge to burst out laughing at her starry-eyed look. "I went to school at the same time as Harry... he’s inspired that sort of confidence in people all his life, I suppose."

"They say that he learned almost everything he knows in the years before the war, while he was still a boy. And a lot of it he didn’t learn, I hear... he just sort of had to use it or perish. They also say that he picked up even more abilities after the war, when he went away. Some even say that he went to a place where he didn’t have to die, ever... but he chose to come back here."

Hermione’s talk of Utopia came to mind. "Do ‘they’ say where he went?"

"No, no one knows. Truthfully, there are so many rumors and legends and lore surrounding the Professor that it’s hard to tell where truth ends and conjecture begins. The only one I believe is about the love he lost in the war... that’s why he’s all alone, I’m sure of it." I thought of Cho, and she said quickly, "He’s had the hearts of many witches, but the one who has his, according to the story, was lost years ago."

"Did she go over to the Dark Side?" I said, now biting my lower lip to contain my mirth.

"Yes! That’s exactly what the story says. The daughter of a Death Eater, she was torn between her love for him and her duty to her master Voldemort, and in the end she chose Voldemort. But the Professor saved her life..."

Of course, I thought.

"...and when she returned, Voldemort killed her. Or she killed herself. Or she disappeared without a trace. Depends on who’s telling the story and what version of it they heard. But he never forgot her."

"Ah."

"The poor Professor," Janet said sadly. "If only he’d let someone into his life... share his pain, bring him some joy. I’m sure he’d never forget his lost love, of course, but life is full of second chances."

"Indeed it is."

A squeal sounded from just outside of the window. With one mind, Janet and I raced to it, drew back the curtains, and looked.

Malinda was the center of attention as usual, squealing with delight as she soared a few meters above the lawn. She was being tossed to and fro like a hot potato by a gangling group of kids who seemed to range in age from early adolescence to their late teens. None of them were using their hands for the toss, or touching her in any way.

Harry stood a bit apart, supervising the lesson. Because of this, I tamped down the instinct to run outside and snatch her up... I had every confidence in Harry’s ability to make sure that my daughter’s brains weren’t dashed out.

Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

"She’d have a fit if she were out there, that Dr. Granger," Janet said. "A lot of the girls didn’t like her much, but of all the guest lecturers we ever had in Telesthetics, she was my favorite."

"Was she, now? I wouldn’t think she had time to teach here... she’s working at three jobs, and then some."

"Oh, she doesn’t anymore, and hasn’t for years. But when I was a student, she and her husband taught special summer courses that were offered at no other time save those two weeks. Oh, we had a fantastic time! Dr. Granger and Professor Weasley always seemed to bring out the best in our Professor... and in the endless summer evenings, there were all sorts of entertainments. Sailing... swimming... barbeques and clambakes... scavenger hunts... and of course, improvised Quidditch."

"That sounds like them," I said with a smile. "What did they teach?"

"Clairvoyance and Empathy," Janet replied. "Professor Weasley had a keen third eye during the war, but somehow he was damaged during the Missing Week and lost a lot of that ability... I don’t think he’s ever said how, though. But he knows exactly how to develop it, and is just about the funniest teacher you’d ever want. ‘You keep walking into trees as if you expect them to split for your benefit, Janet...’"

"Why were you walking into trees?"

"Well, part of the Clairvoyance course involved being blindfolded for seven days, so that your other senses gradually heighten to compensate for your eyes and you can get used to ‘seeing beyond’. We learned to ride a broomstick, engage in a wizard’s duel, and deflect harmful curses seeing with only our mind’s eye. Some of us were much better at it than others... Archie’s quite good, actually. I myself preferred Empathy. Dr. Granger’s a hyperempath, and so..."

Belately, what that meant struck me, and struck me hard.

"Hermione is a hyperempath?"

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh, yes. She has other telesthetic abilities, and those of us from that First Class believe that she’s second only to the Professor in her range of them. She, like her husband and the Professor, wasn’t born with those abilities... she developed them during the war out of necessity. But she thinks, and the staff here thinks, that her hyperempathy may have been inborn... it may have just lay dormant until it was first needed."

"But..." I was shaking my head. "You mean an hyperempath, as in those Muggles who supposedly share sensation with others? Both physical and emotional? By touch, or sometimes even just by being in close quarters?"

"Exactly. When Malinda fell into the tunnel, I felt some of her fright and helplessness. Dr. Granger felt all of it, especially when she slowed down in that tunnel and caught your daughter."

I was still shaking my head. "She can’t... she’s a doctor. I’m sure she’s performed surgery... she touches the sick and ailing every day..."

"Which is why she’s so good at what she does. Because from what I gather, her ability goes beyond regular hyperempathy. She can actually take away certain sensations by transferring them into herself. For instance, once when I walked into one of those trees and nearly split my skull open, she snatched off my blindfold and immediately placed her hands on my head. I saw her grit her teeth, and suddenly I didn’t feel as if my head was a cracked melon.

"Hyperempaths are known to Muggle psychiatrists as ‘sharers’. Dr. Granger is one of only three witches worldwide with that gift... it, like most of the telesthetic gifts, shows up almost exclusively in Muggle children, and all known magical hyperempaths are Muggle-born. Amazing, isn’t it? Can you imagine? She has the ability to feel the pain, the pleasure, the joy and the sorrow of others in full measure... to even take some of it, if she wants to badly enough. Or add to it."

I was silent. In spite of myself, I was faced with the awesome task of reinterpreting everything I knew about Hermione Granger-Weasley in the light of this new information.

"Janet, my sister-in-law is just about the most together woman I’ve ever heard of. Why isn’t she an emotional wreck? Most hyperempaths are... well, emotional wrecks."

"To be quite honest, I don’t know. But I think about the fact that some of the students disliked her, mostly the girls... and I speculate that Dr. Granger is reserved and aloof sometimes because she has to be. Defense mechanism, if you will. Also, because she is a witch, and a powerful one at that, she has resources available to her that a Muggle wouldn’t. Perhaps there is some sort of internal shield she’s learned to put up so that her sharing doesn’t overwhelm her. In fact, I’m sure that’s exactly what she does."

I was still thinking of everything that I’d seen transpire over the past few months. When she slapped Ron on Christmas Day at the dinner table... she’d felt that slap as well. When she’d pounced on him a day later, she would have sustained any damage she’d given him, if Harry hadn’t pulled her off first. When she’d embraced Anya at the All-Star Match, she’d taken the woman’s utter physical and mental shock inside herself... how had she remained lucid?

How had her hyperempathy, combined with stress, Polyjuice, and everything else that had been going on, affected her ill-fated pregnancy? And what did the disagreement between Harry and Sirius over her unconscious, bleeding form have to do with both of them knowing she was a ‘sharer’?

How had her ‘sharing’ affected her marriage?

"You’re thinking of a lot that I don’t think is any of my business," Janet said gently, reminding me that she was there and that to her, even my thoughts were conversation. "But underneath it all, you’re feeling a little sad for her, wishing for her sake that she could live and experience life like a normal woman. Not having to be strong for the whole damn world, even if only for a day... to know that it’s all right to be vulnerable... to know that you’re safe even in the midst of your vulnerability. She’s never had that, not really.

"I told her all that one evening at sunset as we walked along the beach on the far side of the island at sunset and looked for seashells... she told me that she and her mentor, Minerva McGonagall had done that once and she’s never forgotten it.

"Then I told her all about me, and my father, and how I’d learned at the tender age of ten that the world didn’t care if I lived or died. And I asked her if it wouldn’t have been easier not to be special, not to be chosen for some special task... to be just an obscure, ordinary witch. Or even a Muggle. For I thought if the choice was mine to make, I should have chosen to be quite different than I am.

"But Dr. Granger looked at me, with that serious, thoughtful look that she gets. There was a bit of a smile on her face, too... how well I remember that. And she told me something I’ll never forget.

"She told me, ‘I cried because I had no shoes... until I saw the woman who had no feet.’"

We were both silent then, Janet and I, as we watched the children toss Malinda about, stopping every so often at the sound of Harry’s whistle for further instructions. Overhead, a surfeit of seagulls called out to one another as they headed out to sea. Courting thrushes sang madrigals as they flitted from tree to windowsill and back again.

And then it was noon, and the serenity was broken by the sound of the bell signaling the end of class and the beginning of lunch.

**************

There was more to the Black and Potter Foundation than met the eye, something beyond the idyllic island and the school in the manor house.

After lunch in the greenhouse-like cafeteria, a group of the girls begged to keep Malinda with them.

"She’s such fun," they said. "We want to show her everything... we’ll bring her back in one piece, we promise."

I was skeptical, but Janet said she’d tag along with them.

"This will give you and Professor Lupin a chance to talk," she said. "And I don’t think Dr. Granger brought you here for sightseeing, either. If I heard her mind correctly, she wants you to tell the Professor something important. Although the last I saw of her, she was talking with Celeste Vasilova... so best to catch up while you can."

And catch up we did. I filled Lupin in about everything... everything in my life, and when we moved into the privacy of his office, the puzzles that I’d wondered about since Christmas. He was tremendously easy to talk to... always had been.

"I know I sound nosy and prying," I finished. "But circumstance has thrown me into the middle of this, in a strange sort of way. Since I’m here, I’d like to do all I can to help."

Lupin sighed.

"I’m not sure there is anything you can do to help this, Angelina. Sirius was right. Even we can do very little to make the situation better. There is indeed a great deal that has happened already, and much of it is irreversible."

"Does my husband know what’s going on?" I asked.

Lupin was silent.

"So he does know. That means that George knows, too. Isn’t it strange that all of those involved in whatever’s going on are male except for Maureen Ludlam? Hermione’s right. Whatever’s going on, the men are siding with Ron and giving her the shaft..."

"That is simply untrue," Lupin said. "Sympathies are definitely on Hermione’s side, which is why there’s been this futile attempt to keep everything from her. I told them that was a mistake. She’s been with Ron for the better part of two decades and knows him inside out. She’s a hyperempath, and a damned good one, and most likely knew immediately that something was amiss. And then she’s just about the most intelligent person I’ve ever encountered."

I grinned. "She’s smart, but one wonders if it’s innate or the result of an unhealthy obsession with knowing even the most esoteric detail of the most obscure subject."

"The compulsive reading helps her, but it is innate. Her Muggle IQ is somewhere in the middle two hundreds... and that was last tested when she was ten, right before she came to Hogwarts. No telling what it’d be if wizards had some way to measure such things. And she was always a good one for figuring out things... she’s absolutely intrigued by anything she doesn’t know, and must figure it out. She’s been that way ever since I’ve known her."

I had to agree.

"So I told them that they had no business trying to hide it from her... especially seeing as it was something that once hidden, would have to be actively concealed from her forever, and that was asking the impossible. No one agreed with me, of course... the consensus was ‘she mustn’t find out’... and even Harry in the end went along with it."

"Of course I’ve no idea of what you’re talking about, but you must know that she’s hurt by the fact that Harry’s siding with Ron and keeping her in the dark. She’s of the opinion that it’s horribly sexist of him."

Remus shook his head. "No, it was practical of him. She can console herself by the fact that when he first found out everything, he punched Ron in the jaw. Totally unexpected reaction from him... thankfully, Sirius and I were there and were able to hold them off. A few first aid spells mended Ron right back up, but Harry was absolutely furious with him for weeks. The two barely spoke, and Ron was afraid that he’d tell Hermione everything. But in the end, he cast his lot with the Damage Control Crowd, just as I knew he would."

"Remus, please. What could be so horrible?"

He shook his head. "It’s nothing so bad as the war, or even any of the international situations that the Foundation is monitoring right now. But in our own little circle, once it’s out, it will make waves. That’s because those involved are so damned enchanted with the notion of perfection. There are no perfect marriages or friendships or families, Angelina... only perfect intentions.

"So when you learn all--and I do believe that the cat will be let out of the bag soon--please don’t react with the self-righteous shock that the rest of our world will greet the scandal with. That New Year’s Prophet fiasco was just the warmup... and this time, I doubt very seriously that Hermione will agree to doing any damage control. And if she finds out everything..."

He trailed off, standing up from his desk and going to his office window to look out at the sea.

"Once a month, I am transformed to something outside of myself. And yet when I am in my wolf form, I am as much myself as I am right now."

I waited.

"Hermione doesn’t know herself as well as she thinks she does. She’s not very good at introspective thinking... in fact, she made herself her last priority before she was close to being a woman. She’s spent her life living for others."

"She said something of the kind a while back," I said, remembering the conversation I’d had with her and Ginny on New Year’s Day.

"But soon she may have an incentive to live not for Ron, nor for Harry, nor for her parents or her patients or all of humanity. She’ll want to make some decisions that are based upon nothing save her own volition. And when that day comes, I’ll applaud..."

There was a buzzing overhead. Remus snapped his fingers.

"Yes, Stacy? What is it?"

"Mr. Black is downstairs in the transmissions center. Urgent fireplace message for you... returning your owl from earlier... will you take it?"

"Certainly, I’ll be there in a minute." He looked at me. "Angelina, will you stay here? Feel free to browse my bookshelves if you like. I’ll be gone fifteen minutes at the most."

I nodded. The door closed behind him.

For a few minutes, I did scan the book titles. Some were common enough, others were more obscure. Deiciery For Fun and Profit. The Akasha Principle. Covenstead Atlas. Basic Macrocosmics and Microcosmics. Oneiromancy. Ben Beltane’s Best Almanac for Wizards, Witches, and Werepeople. Nothing that seemed very interesting to me.

After a while, I returned to my seat in front of Lupin’s desk. Trying to think of something mundane to occupy my time... a grocery list. I needed to do some shopping whenever I got back home.

I found a scrap of parchment in my purse, but much to my surprise, nothing to write with. Well, Lupin wouldn’t mind terribly if I borrowed his quill. I reached over the desk and got the inkwell first, but as I went for the quill itself I lost my balance and fell on the blotter, hard. I was glad that Lupin wasn’t a packrat like me... the desk was cleared of paperwork, paperweights, and all other things my clumsiness would have sent flying.

The blotter itself seemed to be most strangely affected. It went into the desk, as if it were an overlarge button, then slid aside.

A panel of marked buttons was revealed. All of them seemed to be for various classrooms. I supposed that this was some sort of intercom system, handy for a school... of course, there was a keyhole that was marked "To Subterranian Levels (Foundation)", but neither my fingernail, nor a hairpin, nor a parchment clip caused it to budge.

Idly, I depressed the various classroom buttons. All of them seemed to be empty save two... students and faculty alike were of course taking advantage of the gorgeous day. In one room, Carole was tutoring a student in the making of talismans. I eavesdropped for a while, but grew a bit restless and moved on.

The last and largest button was for the circular classroom Janet and I had conversed in before lunch.

And the conversation inside was much more interesting than talisman making.

"...Muskoka, as in Canada? What are they doing in the wilderness, Harry? Hiking? Camping? Hunting?"

"You could say that it’s a combination of the three," he replied grimly.

Hermione didn’t sound too happy, either. "Sounds like fun. Tell me again why I wasn’t invited."

"Not sure it was that kind of party. Don’t take it too personally... you see I didn’t exactly RSVP either."

"At least you had the choice! Why, Harry? Why are you doing this to me? Not only do I feel as if I’m losing my husband, I feel as if I’ve lost my other best friend as well. What have I done to deserve this?"

"Nothing, Hermione. You deserve nothing but happiness."

"Then ‘get me the manager’, for I haven’t been happy for a long time." She changed the subject. "Let me get this straight. There was a problem with the Ludlam Agency, and with Orla, and the Ministry is acting like the bureaucratic, corrupt slug that it is, so now Ron and a slew of others--Bill, Fred, Sirius, and that annoying Ludlam woman--have gone to play detective.

"So much still doesn’t make sense... not the charge of kidnapping, not the Cabalistica’s involvement in this, nothing," Hermione went on, exasperated. "Why do you like leaving me in the dark, Harry? It's like the beginning of my first year at Hogwarts all over again!"

Harry made a noise of utter consternation. I pictured him taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes as if they itched. It was an odd thing he did when he was frustrated, but it made the person watching him feel uneasy. I felt better listening from Lupin's office than in the room itself.

"Hermione, try and understand..." Harry began.

"That’s just the point I’m trying to make. Harry James Potter, I haven’t understood you for years. Do you remember the night before I married Ron? Remember how nervous I was, and what you said to calm me down? You told me that you wanted me to happy and you saw that I was happy with Ron... not that I am now, mind you... oh, that’s besides the point. You also told me that you were uneasy, too... uneasy because everything was changing, and I reassured you then that you’d never feel shut out... that nothing would ever change... do you remember?

"It's what you're doing to me now, Harry. Don't shut me out." I could just see her, standing in front of him, perhaps with her hands placed gently on his upper arms, looking up at him with pleading brown eyes. She only let herself look vulnerable when she was with Ron or Harry.

"I'm not shutting you out," Harry said wearily. "There are just things--"

"What things? You always side with Ron. When 'Scabbers, the loyal rat' was supposedly eaten by my poor, maligned Crookshanks, you believed him and not me! Kneazles are excellent judges of character, and..."

"You're throwing that in my face again? First of all, that happened so many years ago that I can barely remember it! Second of all, there was blood on the sheets of Ron's bed and Scabbers was missing. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

Oh, I could just picture Hermione shaking with fury at this point.

"Who was the only one who believed you when you said you didn't put your name in the Goblet of Fire? Who was the one who almost burst into tears when she thought the Hungarian Horntail was going to burn you to ashes? It's always been Ron first and me second with you, Harry. Always. Your 'Wheezy' was the most important thing to you in fourth year and he is now. Too bad you didn’t marry him instead of me... I wonder how condescending you’d be if the tables were turned!"

I heard a sharp intake of breath... that was Harry.

"Hermione, you were never second. Never."

I could almost feel the heat of Hermione's glare all the way through the intercom system. There was a pause, and then:

"You think I don't know your thoughts just because I'm not telepathic? All I had to do is read those Rowling books to get the real story confirmed, didn’t I?"

This time, the reaction was instant from Harry. "Oh, really, Hermione! You believe that rubbish? For Merlin’s sake, you were there!"

"Bestselling 'rubbish.' And don't you for a minute pretend that her accounts of what happened are falsified. She's got every word, every event, every emotion spot on!"

"Real life is much more complicated than books. There is no way that even a writer like Rowling could capture every single word, event, or emotion. No one can," Harry said. "There’s a lot that is inexplicable... not all mysteries are meant to be solved. Not all questions have answers."

"Oh, I can’t believe that," said Hermione. "There’s an answer for everything, if you’re willing to search long and hard enough and pay the price involved."

"Too good to be true," muttered Harry. "Perhaps there are answers out there, Hermione, but I’m a bit tired of seeking them. We have all this power, but for what? Even the best of us lives for only a brief time in the grand scheme of things. Like mayflies. Like my parents. Like candles, we can be snuffed out in two shakes. That’s why when opportunity comes our way, we think the thing to do is to seize it... to taste the forbidden fruit that’s just beyond our grasp, thinking nothing of the consequences."

"Well, why not? If you’re trying to say that seeking knowledge is like partaking of the forbidden, you’re not the first and you won’t be the last."

Harry’s voice was low-pitched, almost hoarse. "But the trouble with opportunity is that we get involved with people along the way. We fall in love, Hermione... we... we make friends. We make covenants with people. And we can’t just cast them aside just because something better happens along. Because when we lay those first obligations down, they tend to... stick.

"Love binds. So do the friendships. The covenants. You know, up until the moment we break them, we take them for granted. But when we break those bonds..."

"Harry, whatever in the world are you talking about?"

"Are you absolutely sure you don’t know?"

Neither of them spoke for the longest while.

Hermione broke the silence first. "Are you trying to say that because of who Ron is to both of us, I’m somehow obligated to stay in a marriage that’s dying?"

"That is not what I’m saying, Hermione. All I’m saying is that you might want to consider all of your options."

She laughed to herself. "I did that, once long ago. You know, when I was a little girl, my father gave me a book of poetry. I still have it. Mostly British poets, but there were a few Americans... have you ever heard of Robert Frost?"

"Er... perhaps, but I can't place him at the moment. Why?"

"He's one of my favorites. I can fit all of his poems into my life. ‘Mending Wall’ reminds me of the barrier between the Slytherins and us during our school days. ‘Fire and Ice’ is definitely Draco and Ginny." They both laughed. "And lately... ‘The Road Not Taken’ is making me think of the three of us. Ron. You... and me."

Back in Lupin’s office, I tried to place the poem and failed. Lupin’s collection seemed to be devoid of Muggle writers, so I was grateful when Harry said that he’d never heard of it. So Hermione recited it for his benefit.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth...

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

"You speak a lot about choices and regrets, Harry. Do you ever wonder what life would have been like if..."

There was a long, ambiguous silence. I sighed, hoping the intercom wouldn’t pick it up. All that talking last night, and I’d just been wasting my breath. I toyed with the idea of leaving Lupin’s office and interrupting them, but decided it was not my place to interfere. Besides, Harry would know her sentiment for what it was--a desire to lash out in revenge--and stop it before it got out of hand.

"Living in the land of ‘might have been’ is a good way to go mad, Hermione. You have enough to deal with as it is."

"Am I? Perhaps I am. My mind has been working overtime lately... and no matter what I try, I can’t seem to clear certain thoughts away."

"About the Project?"

"No. About you."

"Er..."

He said no more at the moment, as the rest of his statement was muffled by what sounded very much like a kiss. And, judging from the sound and duration of it, it wasn't a little peck on the cheek, either. I'm sure Harry nearly died from shock.

Meanwhile, I’d fallen out of the chair in Lupin’s office. I rushed over to the door... but it was locked. Unlike the MMRI office doors, it locked within and without. Which effectively stopped me from performing my duty as a volunteer member of the Adultery Prevention Squad and saving the day.

By the time I’d run back to Lupin’s desk, staring at the intercom with wild eyes, Harry had recovered from the shock.

"Look, Hermione, you really ought to..."

Again silence, muffled and moist, a bit longer in duration. Its end was marked by the tiniest whimper on her part, a pant on his.

"Do you even want to hear what I have to say about all this?" Harry asked, an incredulous laugh in his voice despite a general breathlessness.

"Funny. A minute ago, I wanted nothing more than for you to talk," she said. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Because I don’t know if that kiss was about me, or about getting back at Ron."

"I wasn’t thinking about him at all! I was thinking about me for a change. You know, I always told myself I was going to kiss you before I died... always been a bit curious about what kissing you might be like. I wondered if your lips were as soft and smooth as they looked. I wanted to know what you tasted like. So instead of taking an opinion poll beforehand, I did. Curiosity satisfied. I’m sorry if it was confusing for you, because I didn’t mean for it to be. We can just forget about it, because it will never happen again..."

And he proved her a liar right then and there, because this time it sounded as if he kissed her. It was impossible to tell who ended it from sound only, but she spoke again first.

"Your hands are so... I’ve always wanted to do that to your scar," she said. Again, I nearly fell out of the chair. As if in response to my thoughts, she said, "You must think I’m pretty horrible."

"No, only pretty. And pretty isn’t nearly adequate enough to describe you... you’re beautiful. Nothing horrible about you at all. You just needed to know that, didn’t you? I think I understand. You needed affirmation... and you trust me, so..."

"Harry, this has nothing to do with Ron!"

"Hermione, it has everything to do with him. There is nothing I want more than to see the two of you back together and happy again."

"And I want nothing more than to live half my life over again. We can’t always have what we want, can we?"

Pause. "No, Hermione. I don’t think we ever stop wanting as long as we’re alive."

"That’s true. I’ve been wanting to do this for so long, and I want to again," she said slowly. "I know you never saw me in that way, so I suppose I should be thanking you for not laughing at me or sending a look of utter contempt my way."

"Hermione, when we were children together, there was a..."

"Honestly, I blame myself. I should have never let this distance form between us," she said, apparently not even hearing what he said. "I think I must have known you’d play a large part in my life from the first moment I met you, Harry. How many times since then have you come to my rescue, even risked your life for me? If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive now. Whenever I’m with you, I feel nothing but safe."

"Hermione..."

She kept talking. "I know what you’re feeling. It was in that first kiss. Shock, fear of getting caught, a bit of guilt... and perhaps even a little pleasure as well? No need to blush, my dear friend. You’re only human. And we all get lonely sometimes."

"Some of us more than others," he replied absently.

"Harry, I rarely ask favors of you. But I am asking you, no, pleading with you for either one of two things. Either tell me everything that’s going on, leaving nothing out. Or..." She trailed off, then plunged ahead. "In my dreams, I’ve made love to you a thousand times, and whenever I wake up I’m so happy... so refreshed... so whole."

He made some sort of unintelligible sound.

"One night, Harry. Just one night. No one has to know. I can be discreet, and it’s not like you’d go tell the world about it, either. And my request isn’t about Ron or our friends or my work or your work or saving the world, either. It’s about you and me. I’m under no sentimental illusions... it won’t change anything between the two of us, I promise." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Please say yes."

My mouth was completely dry. Lupin had now been gone for exactly fourteen minutes. But I was transfixed. I knew I had no business listening in what for all intents and purposes should have been an absolutely private conversation. But I couldn’t help myself. Like Hermione, I was on tenterhooks, waiting for Harry’s response. Because he couldn’t... could he?

He was quiet until Hermione prompted him for an answer.

"Well, don’t just look at me, Harry. Say something."

He cleared his throat. "Er, um... Hermione, I... I don’t know what to say."

"A simple yes or no would suffice."

Harry cleared his throat again. "There’s nothing simple about either request, Hermione. You do realize that? Either way, I’d be betraying Ron, who is just as much my best friend as you are."

"I thought you said I didn’t come second," she said, voice soft and sad. "Harry, I need you to come clean with me, because if you don’t, no one else will. And... I think I just... I think I need you."

He sighed then, loud and long.

"Hermione, you wanted me to be honest with you, and so I will be. There isn’t a woman breathing who means more to me than you do. You are the compass that points me in the right direction, the earth that grounds me, and the one whose faith in me inspires me to do the impossible.

"But... you’re my best friend, and my best friend’s wife. Remember what I said about breaking covenants? You and Ron are having a hard time of it. I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem."

"One night won’t make much difference in that situation..."

"That one night could open a can of flobberworms. I’m thinking of Pandora’s box... the myth, not the lingerie... and I think we should leave well enough alone."

"You don’t want me." Never had I heard her sound so vulnerable... so utterly dejected. "I feel so foolish."

"Don’t. The grin is not because I’m laughing at you, Hermione, it’s because I’m flattered. So flattered, in fact, that I think I can actually comply with your other request. Give me a week or two at the most... you’ll know everything. And rest assured that the decision to keep it from you was not mine to make. Nor is it one I would have made."

"That means more to me than you know. I took your silence rather personally, Harry. As children, the three of us grew to share everything. I suppose I’ve been a bit jealous that I was no longer included."

"Well, you and Ron are married, and that has nothing to do with me. You and I have worked together often since the war... Ron’s not nearly as interested in the Foundation as you are, and now we’re both working on the Danae Project alongside Malfoy. We’re all three friends, but we’re all in this for different reasons. And..."

"We have this afternoon, you and I," she finished. "I’m sure Angelina and Lupin will be done talking in a moment, and I really want you to hear about the Cabalistica and Orla directly from her. But before they find us, and before I gain my good sense back... hold me, and kiss me at least one more time."

"At least," he rasped.

They said no more just then, and my heart sank. Whatever might or might not be true about Ron, two wrongs couldn’t possibly make a right. And what they were doing was wrong... even if it was just kissing.

"As wrong as your snooping, Angelina?"

I whirled around, embarrassed at having been caught, feeling violated by the intrusion of my private thoughts.

There stood Lupin, Sirius, Carole, and Janet at the open door.

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