Albus Dumbledore straightened his black velvet robes mechanically as he stood before the full-length mirror in his private chamber.
"Not a happy day, Minister," the mirror said solemnly.
"No," Dumbledore said in a voice that seemed to bear all the weight of his advanced years. "It is not."
Turning his back on the mirror, Dumbledore opened the polished oak door of his chamber an inch or so and surveyed the Hall of Judgment. The gallery was filling with witches and wizards, their faces burning with excitement and morbid curiosity. They were come to learn the fate of the greatest hero in the wizarding world -- now a fallen hero. In his triumphant confrontation with Voldemort less than a decade past, Harry Potter had shown a strength and courage about which books would be written for a thousand years. But none of that would help him this day. The Tribunal, headed by Minister of Magic Albus Dumbledore in his dual capacity as head of the Wizengamot, would be assembling in a few short minutes. In their hands, and theirs alone, lay the fate of "The Boy Who Killed."
Dumbledore inched his wand forward and sent a narrow beam of energy into the hall. It nudged the back of Arthur Weasley like the gentle prod of a finger, and the tall, flame-haired wizard turned about searchingly. Peering into a shadowed arch which the capering torchlight seemed to obfuscate rather than define, he spied the narrow strip of light at the edge of the door upon which the words MINISTER OF MAGIC shone in letters of buffed gold. A long, bony finger beckoned, and Arthur rose from his chair and entered the chamber, closing the door behind him.
"The Tribunal will be convening in ten minutes, Arthur," Dumbledore said, his eyes flickering toward the face of the antique grandfather clock standing by the doorway. "Will you kindly pop over to St. Mungo's and fetch Harry?"
Before Arthur could reply, a door slammed on the opposite side of Dumbledore's chamber, its handle still gripped by the white-knuckled hand of a thoroughly astonished Cornelius Fudge. He was dressed in the somber black robes of a member of the Tribunal. The lime-green bowler in his hand seemed quite absurd by contrast.
"Did I hear correctly, Albus? Harry Potter is not in his cell? What in Merlin's name are you thinking?"
"He is at his wife's bedside," Dumbledore said quietly. He nodded at Arthur, who edged past the former Minister of Magic and departed through the back door without a word.
His fingers caressing the rim of his bowler as a military man might fondle a riding crop, Fudge said stiffly, "I trust he is under guard, at least?"
"No," Dumbledore replied evenly. "He is not."
"Are you mad?" Fudge spat. "What's to stop him from escaping?"
With a deep sadness in his eyes, Dumbledore said, "Where can he go?"
Sitting in his chair by his beloved Hermione's bedside, Harry lay with his head on his wife's bosom, listening to her faint, almost non-existent breathing. Without that reassurance, he could not have told that she was still alive at all. The all but imperceptible rise and fall of her chest gave only the meagerest of comfort to a soul long since emptied of all such feeling. But it was the only thing he had to cling to. He had not left her side for three days, not eaten, not truly slept. Some believed he was endeavoring to pour his own strength into her body, or perhaps to magically siphon out the demons infesting her soul and absorb them into himself, thus freeing her from the unendurable horrors from which her mind must lock itself away or be destroyed forever.
As his head lay upon her breast, Harry's right hand gently stroked her bushy brown hair, which was spread out on her pillow like a chocolate waterfall. His left hand was making slow, almost reverent circles upon her abdomen. A footfall sounded behind him, and Harry quickly withdrew his hand from his wife's midsection and sought out her own hand, catching it up and caressing it with apparent adoration.
"I know, Harry," came a soft, sad voice from behind him.
Ginny Weasley pulled up a chair and sat beside Harry. She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaning in to press her cheek against his arm.
"She told me," Ginny went on, her hand rubbing Harry's shoulder and neck comfortingly. "The last time I saw her."
Fresh tears flowed over the dry tracks on Harry's cheeks. His hand released Hermione's and lay once more upon her abdomen. Ginny's arm tightened around Harry's neck.
It was common knowledge among their friends that the Potters had elected to postpone starting a family upon their marriage five years ago. Each had a career to nurture, and it was agreed that a few years of added maturity, not to say a few extra Galleons in their vault, should precede any plans to add to their household. With the practiced skill by which she had earned her reputation as the smartest witch at Hogwarts, Hermione had performed a Contraceptive Charm on herself the day before their wedding. This was no secret, and had, in fact, become the subject of much discussion and speculation as to when the Potters would finally "come with child."
However, the ensuing years found their situation much improved from the day of their marriage. With a larger flat and a fuller vault, they had finally decided that the time was right. In a jest of cosmic proportions, Hermione had negated the Contraceptive Charm and substituted a Fertility Charm only a week ago. The couple were to dine that evening at the best restaurant in Muggle London, dance the night away, and return to their flat for, in Harry's words, "a night to set the heavens ablaze." But on that very morning, Hermione was walking along an avenue in Hogsmeade when an elderly witch stumbled and fell, dropping her sack of groceries. A melon rolled into an alley, and Hermione, having first seen that the old witch was unhurt, went to fetch it. According to witnesses, she vanished the moment she touched the melon. The elderly witch disappeared a moment later, emitting, by one account, a drawling, malignant laugh that turned the listener's blood to ice.
Harry lifted his head and looked into Ginny's eyes, which were filling with tears forming a sad harmony with his own. She leaned in and hugged him, and he clung to her with what little strength was left to him.
"My wife...is carrying...Malfoy's...baby..." Harry choked. For there was no doubt in his mind that the Fertiity Charm, like every spell Hermione cast, had been successful. "Sh-she's -- "
Harry cried onto Ginny's shoulder until her robes were sodden. It took all of Ginny's resolve not to fall to pieces. She needed to be strong, for Harry.
"It doesn't have to be," Ginny said reassuringly. "There are -- potions -- Hermione doesn't -- "
"No," Harry said immediately, disengaging himself from Ginny's arms and jerking a sleeve across his eyes. "No. That's not an option. I'll not kill an innocent baby. The sins of the father will not be visited upon the child.
"But no one else can know," he said desperately. "It would get back to Narcissa."
Harry's throat tightened painfully, choking off further speech. But Ginny needed no elaboration. Deprived of both her husband and her son (and blaming Harry for the loss of both), Narcissa would defy Hell itself to claim Hermione's child -- her grandchild and only heir -- as her own. And her claim would be all too valid when Harry was sentenced and Hermione, for all intents and purposes, became a ward of the magical community. No longer the naive child, Ginny knew how the world worked, whether wizard or Muggle. Gold was the key that ultimately opened any door, the battering ram before which the most steadfast wall crumbled. Regardless of Harry's thoroughness in providing some sort of legal guardianship for Hermione in his absence, Ginny was certain that Narcissa would circumvent every barrier standing between her and her goal and win through in the end. She must not learn the truth! None save Ginny knew that the Contraceptive Charm had been supplanted. And she made a silent vow, on price of her life, that the secret would never pass her lips.
"Not even the Healers will suspect anything," Harry said numbly. "In this state, Hermione's body is virtually inert. The Stunner allows the body to generate just enough energy to keep it hovering on the razor's edge between life and death. The baby won't start developing until -- until she's -- "
Ginny felt Harry tremble violently under her touch. Only her determination to remain strong for his sake prevented her own body from shivering in like fashion. In her mind's eye, she could see Narcissa striding into the hospital with a signed order compelling the Healers to awaken Hermione, wipe her mind, and keep her body alive just long enough to bring the baby to full term. Once the child had been turned over to its grandmother, the shell of flesh that had once been the most brilliant witch of her generation would then be assigned a bed in the same ward as the Longbottoms, there to live out her existence in a state hardly above that of a Mimbulus Mimbletonia. That was assuming Narcissa did not find some way to elminiate her altogether, completing her triumph over Harry with horripilous finality. Fresh tears began to stream from her eyes, burning her freckled cheeks like acid.
"Is there no hope?" Ginny asked desperately. "With all the dozens of Memory Charms, isn't there one that will help Hermione?"
"Do you remember what they told us at Hogwarts about Memory Charms?" Harry said as he rubbed the corners of his eyes. His eyes burned from lack of sleep. It was hard to focus without his glasses. But it was easier for him to look on his wife without the clarity they brought. He could feel their weight in a pocket of his robes, where they had reposed for four days now.
Knitting the jumbled pieces of her mind as best she could, Ginny said, "I remember they told us that no Memory Charm is foolproof, if that's what you mean. Any Charm that one person can cast, another can negate. But who would want -- ?"
"There's more to it than that," Harry said. "A Memory Charm doesn't erase memory -- except for the Complete Obliviate, of course," he added with a brief shudder. "The Charm erects a wall between the conscious and the unconscious. And as you said, what one wizard can erect, another can tear down. When Professor Lockhart lost his memory in the Chamber of Secrets, it wasn't really gone, just blocked. Dumbledore said he had to 'go and get his memory back.' It took a long time, but he did. And Ministry members have selective Memory Charms placed on themselves so they won't give away important information, even unknowingly. But that didn't prevent Voldemort from breaking through Bertha Jorkins' Memory Charm and learning all about the Triwizard Tournament, and about Barty Crouch, Jr."
Harry rose on stiff legs, and punched his back a couple of times to relieve some of the stiffness he had accumulated over the past 72 hours. He faced Ginny, and the worry on her face was evident, even without his glasses to sharpen it.
"As I said, a Memory Charm is like a wall, and like any wall, it can be knocked down if sufficient force is brought to bear against it. But everyone assumes that that force must necessarily come from without. Very few consider that it can also be knocked down from within."
Ginny's eyes widened with realization.
"The human mind is a dynamo of determination, of free will," Harry said, speaking as though his wife's brain were directing his tongue from behind her motionless eyelids. "It doesn't like being circumscribed. Shackled, it responds by rebelling against its oppressor. Almost from the moment a Memory Charm is put in place, the unconscious mind starts trying to burst through that confining wall to rejoin the conscious. Usually, the spell is stronger than the mind, and the knowledge remains subdued. Usually. But sometimes, a memory is so powerful, it's like a monster beating its fists against a prison wall. Given enough time, that constant assault will knock that wall down. The memory will escape."
Ginny looked completely deflated. "I thought magic could do anything. It can petrify someone, put them into a coma -- " she spared a brief, tortured glance at the Stunned, near-lifeless form of Hermione, " -- even kill. (She pointedly avoided looking at Harry as she mouthed these last words.) Why can't it just put a wall around a horrible memory and lock it up forever?"
"It can," Harry said.
Ginny's head jerked up. "B-but," she stammered, "y-you just said -- "
"Magic," Harry said enigmatically, his eyes hard as the gems whose color they bore. "Magic. It's what separates wizards from Muggles. It's in our blood. At the risk of sounding like Malfoy," Harry laughed a short, bitter laugh, "magical blood does make a difference. Though not in the sense of that pureblood rubbish. Hermione has Muggle parents. But she's a witch. She has magical blood. It courses through her body. Through her brain."
Harry paused, and Ginny sat perfectly still, not knowing if she wanted him to continue or not.
"The Healers told me," Harry resumed, "that there are Memory Charms powerful enough to suppress any memory. Even one as terrible as Hermione's. There are only a few sorcerers with the skill to perform them. One lives just an owl-flight away, in Estonia. The hospital director told me all about him. Old mate of Dumbledore's, I think. He's been performing such Charms for a century. He's never known them to fail. He uses them on Muggles who've seen terrible things, like Death Eater attacks and troll rampages. Not one Muggle has ever broken through the spell. Not in a hundred years."
Ginny saw where Harry was going. "But Hermione isn't a Muggle. She's a witch."
"Magical blood," Harry said, "is like an antibody. It slows aging, allows us to fight off diseases. When the person of a wizard is attacked, either in body or in mind, it reacts like -- like white blood cells."
"Leukocytes," Ginny said automatically. Then, almost apologetically: "Hermione told me."
Harry smiled a genuine smile for a heartbeat. It faded quickly. "They told me that, if even such a Memory Charm as I've described were placed on Hermione, the magic in her blood would attack the barrier holding her memory back. It would be like an invisible war, magic against magic. Hermione's magic would attack the magic of the Charm like acid. Sooner or later, the barrier would dissolve. How soon, none can say. She'd be a walking time bomb. By the Healers' reckoning, when the explosion came, Hermione's mind would consume itself like dry parchment touched by a candle flame. There would be nothing left. Nothing."
Harry's voice choked off, but Ginny needed no further clarification. There was no Memory Charm so potent but that Hermione's powerful magical blood could shatter it to dust, releasing the memory of that terrible night -- which memory, the personnel of St. Mungo's agreed as one, would render Hermione irrevokably insane. Ginny's thoughts drifted back to the time when they had visited St. Mungo's after her father was attacked at the Ministry and left for dead. Following that visit, they had encountered first Gilderoy Lockhart, still addled from the Memory Charm that had backfired on him years earlier -- and Neville's parents, Frank and Alice Longbottom, their minds shattered from the ordeal they had endured at the hand of Bellatrix Lestrange.
Ginny felt a sudden chill. She had visited the Longbottoms any number of times since then, always in the company of Neville, with whom she had been dancing a sort of tentative "courtship tango" since her graduation from Hogwarts. Her innate compassion had always made it easy for her to sympathize with Neville over his parents' tragic state -- but until this moment, she had never quite experienced the same level of horror and despair that had been Neville's burden for more than two decades now. With the suddenness of an arrow piercing her heart, she understood at last the full measure of the haunted look that was always just below the surface of his bright, laughing eyes. She choked back a bitter laugh. How many times had she endeavored to comfort Neville with the reminder that it could be worse, that at least his parents were still alive? Her hand clutching tremblingly at the neck of her robes, Ginny knew now with a chill, dogmatic certitude that there were, in truth, fates far worse than mere death.
Ginny jumped at the unexpected sound of a light rapping on the door. She turned to see her father enter the hospital room, his face controlled beneath his high, balding forehead.
"It's time, Harry," Arthur said.
Harry nodded once. "Have the papers been filed, Arthur?"
"Yes," Arthur said. "Everything is in order. Just as you specified."
At Ginny's questioning look, Harry walked over and took her hand. "When I go to Azkaban," he said with icy calm, "your parents will become Hermione's guardians."
"But," Ginny said weakly, "the Grangers -- "
"No," Harry said. "They'd never understand. They'd call in Muggle doctors, waste thousands of pounds -- and more, waste countless years hoping -- hoping for something that -- " Harry broke off, releasing Ginny's hand to cover his face for a moment. "Besides," he said with a forced smile as his hand dropped heavily to his side, "maybe a miracle will happen. Who knows? If anyone can do it, it's -- Hermione -- she can do -- " Harry stifled a sob with a long, deep breath. His eyes embraced Ginny's pleadingly. "Take care of her," he said, and Ginny read in his eyes the addendum: "Both of them." Remembering Arthur's presence, Harry turned and said, "You -- all of you -- you're -- like the family I never had. There's no one else I'd trust to -- "
Ginny leaped up and fell upon Harry. As they clung to each other, Ginny sobbed, "Oh, Harry! I'm so afraid for you, going to that -- that horrible place!"
But when Harry pulled back, Ginny saw a strange calm pervading the emerald eyes that regarded her from a face at once youthful and tragically aged.
"I'm not afraid," he said as he saw Arthur beckoning with the open door upon which his hand rested with a sort of melancholy denouement. "What can they do to me? Dementors steal hope and happiness from people. The joke's on them, isn't it?" Harry's voice became a dry, hollow rasp. "I have none to give."
Author's Note: This story is now being posted exclusively at Portkey. FanFiction.Net saw fit to remove the story and place me on suspension. If that's the way they feel, I'm not going back. For all I care, they can take a niffler and stick where the sun don't shine. I guess we know now where Slytherin Squibs find work in the Muggle world, don't we?
Not that I don't acknowledge that this IS a powerful story, as witness the exodus of a few first-chapter reviewers. Still, I knew what I was letting myself in for. And this chapter doesn't seem to help matters, does it? What more can I possibly do to Harry? Anyone would think I'm a R/Hr shipper the way I'm torturing The Boy Who Killed -- er, Lived. But there IS a method to my madness, and I won't keep the readership waiting until the last chapter before the road takes a sharp turn toward sunnier skies. There's more than one surprise in store, allowing me to dole them out early and still leave the capper for the end.
Thanks to all who are enduring the misery. I promise not to twist the knife much longer. See you next week.