The Phoenix Prophecy

Chapter Seventeen: The Return

Monday – Late Evening - July 21^st

Martha: 11:45 PM

Even though in my heart I knew that Albus was doing the right thing, it didn’t make it any easier to watch him take Harry and Hermione back to the island. The facts were agonizingly simple. Three lives balanced against all the living creatures in Realm. The few must die so that the many could live. Of course, that was fine for everyone but the three who must sacrifice themselves. I could not grieve for Albus in the same way as I did for Harry and Hermione. He had lived a long life. Harry and Hermione on the other hand, had just barely started theirs.

Nor were they the first souls that sacrificed themselves for the greater good, and I was sure they would not be the last. Life always went on, even when the individual did not. Fairness and justice had little to do with the way events sometimes unfolded. A lesson that was hard for most adults to accept, let alone our children.

The new life that I was holding in my arms interrupted my melancholy thoughts when she began to squirm and fuss shortly after the time travelers had departed. Looking down at this innocent child that was totally unaware of the heartbreak those around her were going through, I hoped that her future would not have such agonizing times in store for her.

Waking Gretchen and Ron to introduce them to their new daughter was going to be a heart-warming experience—something I sorely needed at this particular moment. Breaking the news to them, as well as my own brood, about what had happened to Harry and Hermione was going to be most distressing, for one and all.

“Walt, we need to get back inside. This baby needs to be fed. I don’t think she is going to wait much longer. Besides, I am starting to shiver from the cold.”

“Sure thing, Martha. There really isn’t any reason to stand out here any more…other that to put off a very unpleasant task,” Walt replied, his voice trailing off at the thought of what was ahead of us. “What we have to do next sure isn’t going to be easy. Even our own kids have become quite attached to Harry and Hermione. For that matter, so have I.”

“Madelyn and I should be the ones to tell Ron and Gretchen,” Sirius said as we slowly walked towards the door set in the tree.

“As much as I would just as soon leave this job to you and Martha, I have to agree with Sirius,” Madelyn added. “It is in fact our responsibility.”

“Why don’t we just tell all of the kids about Harry and Hermione at the same time?” I suggested. “It won’t make it much easier on any of us, but on the other hand it can’t make it any harder.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Sirius replied as we reached the door in the tree.

“If Gretchen is too upset to nurse her baby I will feed it for her. It’s the least I can do after all that she has done for the twins.”

“Maybe we should wake Ron and Gretchen first, so they can meet their baby—if it is indeed their baby—before we tell them about Harry and Hermione,” Madelyn suggested.

“That sounds like a good idea to me,” I replied. I was not anxious to tell Gretchen about Harry and Hermione while introducing her to this baby. We would have to do something to hide the fact that Harry and Hermione are gone.

“I’ll cover some pillows with the comforter Harry and Hermione were using to make it look like they are asleep,” Madelyn added, evidently reading my mind.

Walt opened the door, I stepped through quickly, and the others followed close on my heels. All of the kids were exactly where they had been when we went outside. I don’t think any of them had stirred in the slightest. Right now, all was peaceful and serene. I knew that was not going to last. The longer we put off telling the kids what had happened, the harder it was going to be. Even if it weren’t for the baby I was holding in my arms, waiting until morning to tell them would have been fruitless, as none of us would have slept a wink all night.

“Why don’t you ladies take a seat by the fire while Walt and I rouse Ron and Gretchen,” Sirius said after he shut the door once we were all inside.

Madelyn helped Minerva to one of the benches after covering several pillows to make it look like Harry and Hermione were asleep. She also snatched up one of the comforters lying unused on the bed and handed it to Minerva, who looked completely drained. I would not have been surprised if she had collapsed at any moment.

I knew from long experience that if I sat down, then this child was going to start squawking for food. As long as I kept moving, she was content to drift in and out of sleep while I held her. I wanted to tell Walt and Sirius to be quick about rousing Ron and Gretchen, but I knew that they would be groggy from the sleeping spell. They had not slept long enough to awaken refreshed and alert.

Sirius gently shook Ron’s shoulder while Walt tried to wake Gretchen after Sirius had performed the counter spell that would release them from the sleeping spell. I stood a few feet away and watched as their eyes fluttered open and shut several times. With considerably less prodding than I thought it would take, Ron and Gretchen managed to keep their eyes open and raise themselves to sitting positions.

“What time is it? It can’t be morning already,” Ron said as he rubbed his eyes.

“It is just a few minutes before midnight,” Sirius replied.

“Midnight? You can’t be serious,” Ron and Gretchen both moaned in unison and started to lie back down.

“Don’t go back to sleep. We need to talk,” Walt said as he helped Gretchen to sit back up while Sirius did the same for Ron.

“What do we need to talk about, Walt?” Gretchen asked, suddenly becoming more alert.

“I suggest that you and Ron come over and sit by the fire,” Walt replied as he helped Gretchen move to the edge of the bed and stand up on a pair of unsteady legs.

While Walt was carefully helping Gretchen make her way to one of the benches beside the fire, Sirius did the same for Ron. Madelyn was waiting with some cold juice for them to drink as soon as they sat down. For the moment, I stood behind them so that Gretchen could not get a good look at the baby I was holding.

“Do either of you remember anything that happened to you after the elves transported you back here?” Sirius asked once they had taken a few sips of the juice.

Ron and Gretchen exchanged inquiring looks with each other before Ron replied, “Not much really. Just that when I awoke in the elves healing room, I felt as if I had been asleep and dreaming for a very long time.”

“That’s about all I remember too. Why do you ask? Has something happened? Is something the matter?” Gretchen asked, her questions coming in a rush while Sirius and Walt just looked thoughtfully at each other.

“You don’t remember anything specific from the time you arrived here until the time you woke up with your wounds completely healed,” Sirius asked again. His question was more of a statement than an actual question.

“No, Sirius, I don’t,” Ron replied, a worried look crossing his face as he placed his arm around Gretchen’s shoulder. “Is there something we should have remembered?”

“I’m not sure,” Sirius replied after he knelt down in front of them so that their eyes were on the same level. “What we know is this. Mystie told us that after examining you both, she and the other elves felt that you were probably going to die from your injuries. However, before they could do anything for you, you both suddenly vanished. Then shortly after that you both reappeared, your health fully restored.”

For several seconds Ron and Gretchen just stared at each other and then at Sirius.

“Are you saying that the elves did not fetch us around?” Ron asked hesitantly as Gretchen leaned closer to him.

“Yes, that is what I am saying,” Sirius replied.

“Well, if the elves didn’t heal us, then who did?” Gretchen asked with a trace of nervousness in her voice.

“That is what we are trying to figure out,” Sirius answered and stood up.

“There is one more thing,” Walt said after I caught his eye and nodded at the baby I was holding. “When you two reappeared, Gretchen was holding a baby in her arms.”

“A what!” Gretchen and Ron both exclaimed, almost jumping off the bench they were sitting on. The volume of their outburst caught me by surprise and I involuntarily jumped back a step, startling the baby.

“A baby, in fact, this baby,” I said as I quickly came around the front of the bench so that they could both see me and the baby I was holding.

I positioned the infant so that Gretchen could get a good look at her. For several seconds Gretchen, and Ron, both stared with their mouths hanging open at the child I was holding as if they had never seen a baby before. Just when I was starting to panic because I thought Gretchen was going to reject this child, huge tears started streaming down her cheeks. The look on Gretchen’s face changed from bewilderment to astonishment and then to a mother’s love as she reached hesitantly for the child. She cradled the child tenderly against her chest and just stared in awe and wonder at the baby she was holding while Ron looked back and forth between her and the child. To say that Ron looked completely bewildered would have been an understatement. Fortunately, his confusion quickly passed as he too was struck by the realization of what was happening.

“Ron, this is my baby. This is our child,” Gretchen said, her voice wavering unsteadily, almost of the verge of cracking, when she looked up at Ron. “I know it in my heart to be true. I didn’t tell you this before, because I thought it didn’t mean anything, but I remember dreaming about a baby.”

“What exactly do you remember about this baby?” Sirius asked Gretchen a little too sharply. Gretchen quickly tightened her protective grip on the baby and moved closer to Ron.

“Don’t be frightened,” Madelyn quickly added when she noticed Gretchen’s protective reaction. “No one wants to take this baby from you. We are just trying to learn as much as we can about what happened to you two and how you came by this baby.”

“I just dreamed that a voice mentioned something about a baby,” Gretchen answered as she relaxed a little, but still stood very close to Ron. “I do not remember actually seeing or holding a baby. It was really more of a feeling than anything else.”

“Okay, Gretchen,” Sirius replied warmly as he smiled at her and the baby. “I was just hoping that you would know something that might help us. I am sorry for being so uptight and abrupt.”

“Don’t fret over it. With all that has happened to us today, I’m a little uptight myself,” Gretchen replied as she returned her attention to the baby in her arms. “Ron, you do agree with me that this is our baby…don’t you?”

“Yes I do, Gretchen. Don’t ask me how I know or how to explain it, but I know that this is our baby,” Ron replied as several tears escaped from his eyes. “Is our baby a boy or a girl?”

“She’s a girl, silly,” Gretchen replied and kissed his cheek before I could answer Ron’s question.

“Oh, that’s nice,” was all that Ron replied.

“Say hello to your daddy,” Gretchen said to the baby and pointed to Ron who swelled with a typical new father’s pride.

“Well, I don’t think there is any doubt about this child belonging to Ron and Gretchen,” Walt said to Sirius as he smiled at me and I felt my heart sigh. “Just because it is utterly impossible to grow a child in a single day doesn’t seem to matter as we have proof to the contrary. In time, maybe we will come to understand how this has happened. For now all we can do is help Gretchen and Ron to love and nurture their baby.”

“Speaking of nurturing, Gretchen, your little one was starting to get hungry a little while ago,” I said. “One of us is going to need to feed her, and soon.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Gretchen replied, a big smile crossing her face.

“If you gentlemen will excuse us, we will see to this baby’s needs,” I said and motioned for Gretchen to come and sit on the bench beside me.

Gretchen looked as if she didn’t want to leave Ron’s side, but quickly decided that it would be okay and sat down beside me.

“Gretchen, if you were my daughter and this were your first child I would offer you more motherly advice than you would need…or want,” I said before she started to nurse her new baby. “As it is, I know that you have had more than a little experience already so I will just sit here with you. That is, if you don’t mind?”

“No, of course I don’t. I wonder if I will be able to nurse her,” Gretchen said, a frown suddenly clouding her face.

“There is only one way to find out,” I replied, smiling warmly at her in an effort to try to get her to relax.

Within a few seconds of placing the baby to her breast, Gretchen looked up at me, smiled and said. “Looks as though I won’t be having any difficulties feeding my daughter.”

“It would seem that your body thinks it has given birth to a child recently. One more reason, and a most convincing one, to conclude that this is indeed your baby.”

“Martha, I am so happy that I could cry,” Gretchen said and did so with big tears that dripped from her chin onto the baby who didn’t seem to mind in the least.

Ron: 11:55 PM

From the time Sirius had forced me to wake up, until the moment Walt mentioned the word ‘baby’, I was pretty much in a daze. When Walt mentioned that Gretchen and I had reappeared—from wherever we had disappeared to—with a baby in Gretchen’s arms, I felt as if I had come instantly and totally awake. A bucket of ice water in my face could not have done a more thorough job of washing away my grogginess than the mention of a baby did. I was still more than a little unnerved over the fact that we had no idea who had healed us, or where we had been taken when we disappeared through no doing of our own. Hopefully, we would eventually learn what had happened to us. If not, then I was sure that I would endure more than one sleepless night over who, or what, was behind our miraculous recovery.

The sight of Gretchen holding a baby, our baby, was more than enough to push my darker thoughts to the back of my mind—at least for the time being. It was going to take some time to get used to the idea that I was a father. Not that I minded being a father. Actually, I rather felt right at home with the idea. That may have had something to do with the fact that two days ago, Gretchen and I had agreed to adopt the Martha and Walt’s twins as our own. Mum and Dad were going to be shocked beyond words—well at least dad would be, mum was never at a loss for words—when we returned home with a brand new baby that this time around was actually ours.

I was very glad for Gretchen’s sake that I didn’t freak out when we were introduced to our new baby girl. If I had shown the slightest displeasure or reluctance, Gretchen would have been terribly hurt. The very last thing in the world that I wanted to do was put Gretchen through any more than we had endured in the past twenty-four hours. Right this moment, she looked as if she were floating on top of the clouds. If the truth be known, I felt exactly the same way.

After Gretchen and Martha sat down to feed the baby, I returned my attention to Sirius and Walt. One look at their faces told me that something was going on that they were not telling us about. I glanced over at Madelyn who had taken a seat beside Professor McGonagall. She looked just as distraught as Sirius and Walt did. If they had some bad news that they were afraid to tell us, now would be a good time for me to find out what was wrong. With luck, I could get them to tell me without Gretchen overhearing. I wanted her to remain happy for as long as possible. Somehow, it didn’t seem fair that anything should spoil this moment for her.

“Now that you have given us the good news, why don’t you tell me the bad news,” I said quietly to Sirius after I placed my back to Gretchen.

I knew that I was right when Sirius hesitated, looked at Walt, and swallowed hard before answering my question.

“Ron…there have been some…a…unforeseen consequences from the destruction of Marcus’ island,” Sirius began hesitantly, keeping his voice low. “To make a long, tragic story short, Albus was forced to use a time-turner to enable him to return to the island to prevent its destruction.”

“A time what?” I asked, not quite sure what he was talking about.

“A time-turner is a device that allows a person, or persons, to travel backward in time,” Sirius replied, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Harry and Hermione used one to save me and Buckbeak in your third year at Hogwarts. Didn’t they ever tell you about that?”

“Now that you mention it, I do remember them telling me something like that. I must have forgotten.”

“Anyway, Albus used a time-turner so that he could return to a time before the island was destroyed in order to stop the destruction,” Walt added.

“So what’s the problem? Why all the long sad faces?”

“Harry and Hermione…they had to go with him. If they remained here, their spirits would have been trapped on the island, which would…would cause their bodies to die within a day or two,” Sirius finished.

“I don’t understand. If Harry and Hermione’s bodies—and their spirits—were already here, how could their spirits be trapped on the island?” I was really confused at this point.

“Once Albus prevented the island from being destroyed in the past, all the effects of that destruction would suddenly be undone,” Walt explained. “That includes the fact that the spell binding Harry and Hermione’s spirits to the island would still be active. From the instant the past was changed, the future would likewise be altered. It would be as though the destruction never happened. I know it’s confusing, but that is the way it works. If you go back in time and kill your father, then you suddenly cease to exist, and all that sort of thing.”

“Then how are Harry and Hermione going to get free of the island?”

“Ron, I know this is going to be hard to accept, but Albus was not very optimistic about their chances of escaping from the island…or even remaining alive for very long,” Sirius replied after he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“We have to do something. We just can’t abandon them,” I said a little more loudly than I intended. The ramification of what Sirius and Walt were telling me was starting to sink in. Thankfully, Gretchen was completely preoccupied with the baby and did not hear me.

“For us—here in this room—it has been a little less than a half hour since Albus, Harry and Hermione traveled back in time,” Walt began. “A few minutes after they went back in time we saw the orange glow from the volcano disappear—

“What volcano!” I interrupted, wondering what a volcano had to do with Harry and Hermione being trapped on the island.

“When the island was destroyed, a volcano erupted in its place,” Sirius answered. “That is the main reason Albus had to go back and prevent the island’s destruction. The volcano was enormous. It was polluting the air with deadly gases. Lemke felt that all life in the Realm was in jeopardy of being extinguished if the volcano continued spewing its poison into the air unchecked. Something had to be done about it, and quickly.”

“I guess you’re right…I take it there wasn’t any other solution.”

“None that came to mind quickly,” Sirius replied, his voice heavy with fatigue and despair. “The destruction, and subsequent prevention of the destruction, took place about an hour and a half ago. Walt and I were hoping that Albus would find a way to free Harry and Hermione and return them here. We are still hopeful, as Lemke has not returned yet either.”

“How long do you think we should wait before going back to help them?” I asked, looking back and forth between Sirius and Walt.

“Honestly, Ron, I just don’t know how long we should wait,” Sirius answered and the life seemed to drain out of him as he finished talking.

As the three of us just stood there, lost in our own miserable, depressing thoughts, a clock on the far side of the room started to chime midnight. On the third chime, a hooded figure suddenly appeared several feet behind Sirius and Walt. When they noticed my stare, they both turned around to see what I was looking at.

The person—at least I think it was a person, but I could not tell for sure because their face was hidden beneath a hood—was clothed in a stark white robe with intricate designs of gold embroidered on it. The white was so bright that it almost hurt your eyes just to look at it. The outside of the hood was white just like the rest of the robe, but the inside appeared to be a deep crimson red. The hood, being quite large, made it impossible to see the face of whoever was standing before us.

I heard Madelyn gasp, followed immediately by the others as the clock chimed its sixth time. The figure did not move in the slightest until the tenth chime had sounded. At that moment, human hands emerged into view and pulled back the hood exposing the face of our mystery guest.

As impossible as it was to believe, there was no mistaking that face. It was none other than Gawain.