"Mum, Dad, can I have a few minutes?" she asked with a tinge of fear in her voice.
"Of course, you know you can always talk to us," Harry replied.
Hermione simply nodded and the three left the Transfiguration classroom. Annie managed to take her father's hand and felt comfort at his touch. She felt that same comfort and sense of security earlier in Jerry's arms, but for the moment, that feeling had been lost with her mother.
Annie led them down the corridor to another dark, isolated classroom. The short walk of a few dozen yards seemed to be a life-long trek into the unknown. Annie had known that the day would come when she would have to face her fears.
"Dad, can I have a moment with Mum alone?"
"Of course, I'll wait outside."
"Thanks, Dad. I love you," she replied and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.
Annie opened the door, and the lamps in the classroom ignited as they entered, illuminating the furnishings of a typical room designed for study. Hermione walked to a table where they could sit together and stood at the nearest seat. She waited for Annie to select one before mother and daughter sat in silence.
The two sat alone, the crackle of the flames echoing through the darkness of the void that separated them. Mother remained like a stone, rigid and unbending. Daughter sat with arms crossed and fidgeted. Annie tried to tell herself that this was necessary and important, but she was terrified that anything she said would deepen the rift of the past two years.
Annie's reserves of courage were nearly depleted; these past twenty-four hours weighted heavily on her mind, but they were inconsequential compared to what she knew she had to do. She looked down to the floor and tried to bring herself to say the words. She lifted her eyes and saw her mother sitting, arms folded, as if braced for a major confrontation.
"I'm sorry. I know I've said it before, but I am truly sorry," she said, a tear leaking from the corner of an eye as she addressed her mother.
"For what? For tonight?" Hermione asked. She slowly unfolded her arms, exposing a crack in her armor.
"That, yes, but I've done something I'm not proud of," she said softly. "I don't want to keep on like this. I hate what we have become," Annie said, raising her head and leaning forward.
"Annie, you are and you will always be my daughter. That will never change. If you are in some difficulty that your father and I can assist with, I hope you know you can come to us," Hermione said. Her voice began to soften and her shields began to drop.
"I found some old letters, and I've kept them."
"What letters?" Hermione asked sternly, but without raising her shields again.
"I found a bundle of letters and books - letters you wrote to Dad and I think your diaries," Annie said as she backed away in her seat.
"And you kept them without my permission?" Hermione asked. Her voice softened and almost cracked at the announcement of Annie's discovery.
"Yes," Annie replied sheepishly.
Hermione waited for her daughter to continue. Annie appeared to be bracing for a major explosion.
"Mum?" Annie began with a note of hesitation in her voice.
"Yes?" Hermione waited for an explanation.
"Did you really want to leave Daddy?" Annie asked. Tears welled up at the corners of the girl's eyes as she stared straight into her mother's eyes. Annie quickly looked away and pulled her hands back into her lap.
Hermione sat back a bit and thought about each detail of the issue before answering. "I should have burned those," she said under her breath. She looked up at her daughter, who met her eyes. "Yes, at one time I was ready to leave him and this life, and I hoped he would never find me," she managed to say.
"I'm confused. Why did you want to leave? You two are so happy together," Annie said, leaning forward once more. She felt she needed to know all the details; she needed to know why her mother once considered a different life.
Hermione looked down at her hands. "It was the end of the war and something happened. I was weak and didn't have the strength to hold on at the time. I thought it would be easier to simply leave, but he did something so kind and so understanding that I couldn't bear the thought of leaving him. I hoped to wait a while, and I was going to leave. But he loved me so strongly that I couldn't break his heart."
"Why did you want to leave him? What did he do to make you want to leave him?" she asked as she pulled her chair a little closer. She could see the tears as they ran down her mother's cheeks.
"He loved me, but I couldn't give him the thing that I knew deep down in my heart that he wanted," Hermione replied, still not meeting her daughter's eyes. She brushed her hand across her cheek as she remembered.
"I don't understand? If you loved him, why were you willing to leave?" Annie was confused and she expected another answer.
"You've read my diaries, haven't you?" Hermione asked, meeting her daughter's eyes again.
"I could only find the first five years worth. I assumed you stopped keeping one after that. The last was from the summer before your sixth year. You wrote an awful lot about Uncle Ron," Annie said.
"Your Aunt Ginny suggested a better method of 'concealment' when one was almost discovered by a professor," Hermione said with a light chuckle. "She suggested hiding them as text books. I assume you haven't bothered to look through any of those?"
"Well, no. I did find it odd that a few old text books were in the attic while all your other ones were in the library. So what happened?"
Hermione sat forward. "I spent that summer at the Burrow. We all were concerned about your father because he'd lost the closest thing he had to a father a month earlier, and we lost contact with him. It took the entire year for him to recover. I knew he would be better after we talked through the night we spent on the Astronomy Tower ."
"Did you love him then?" Annie asked, eager for the answer.
Hermione nodded. "Yes, I knew that Christmas how special he was to me, but I couldn't tell him. I didn't have the courage. He needed me as a friend more then as a girlfriend then. He was so unsure of his abilities," Hermione said.
"But you must have finally told him, didn't you?"
"No, a dear friend helped push us together. He fooled me into believing that I had to help him fall in love with someone." Hermione gave a soft smile and shook her head at her own naiveté.
"Who was it?" Annie asked, nudging her chair closer.
Hermione looked directly at Annie. "His name was Albus Dumbledore. He was our Headmaster and your father's mentor. His little scheme left us together. In only a few days, we realized how much we needed each other. Your father had the courage to say what I was afraid to tell him."
"Why were you afraid to tell him? You did love him, didn't you?" Annie asked, persistent.
"Yes, but those were dark times. I was afraid to push him away, and I always thought he still would get back together with Ginny," Hermione said delicately.
"Ginny? Aunt Ginny? They were together?" Annie said with a surprised tone.
"In our sixth year. The details are in the concealed diaries you must have missed. Your father was in a lot of emotional pain during the beginning of that year. He shut us all out, except for Ginny. It turns out it was because she was the only other person to know how it felt to have their thoughts controlled by another."
Annie tucked aside the last comment for more careful consideration and proceeded in her questioning. "But they broke up. Were you afraid to push them back together?"
"Not exactly. He was afraid anyone close to him would be in danger. And he was correct."
"So that was why Albus Dumbledore tricked you into staying with Dad? He must have known sooner or later you would tell him."
Hermione leaned forward and put her hands on the table, one on top of the other. "Yes, your father and I did eventually confess to each other how we felt. But Voldemort wanted your father dead, and he also wanted him to suffer. He tried to hurt those people your father cared about, and your father knew I would be the first one they tried to hurt, if they knew we were in love," said Hermione, her eyes full of the pain of the past.
"So no one knew? That must have been difficult to hide," Annie said, reaching across the table to take her mother's hand.
"Albus put a special charm on us that helped to hide our relationship from Voldemort. We spent our first summer together with Eileen and Jake, and it was your father who really brought them together. When we came back for our last year, Albus helped us stay together and still appear to be 'just friends' until the worst happened." Hermione's eyes swelled with tears. She started to pull back, but Annie held her hand fast.
"Mum, what happened to make you want to leave him?" Annie stared at her mother, desperately wanting to understand what had happened.
Hermione looked back up at Annie, her eyes shining, "We were so very much in love. We are still in love with each other, only now it's far more solid and deeper. I wanted him so badly then, but he wanted to wait until we were married. We were only a couple years older than you and Jerry, but we were facing the possibility of dying."
Annie's eyes widened at that revelation, but she sat silent and reached her other hand across the table, feeling the reassuring warmth from her mother's touch for the first time in nearly two years.
"In the last moments of the last battle of the war, an evil man set a curse on me." Hermione glanced down towards her abdomen before returning her eyes to those of her daughter.
"A few weeks before the last battle with the evil your father had been destined to face, I vowed to myself to let his legacy survive. We made love that night for the first time, and I made sure that I would have his child." Hermione's head dropped and a few tears began to fall. "The following morning, my mother and father were murdered by those who were trying to find me. I had collapsed from the pain I felt when my mother died. I felt every second of her pain."
"I never knew! You never told me how they died. You always cried when we visited their graves. Thank you for being honest with me." Tears were welling up in Annie's eyes, as well.
Hermione gazed straight at Annie again. "Darling, I never wanted to deceive you or Ben. I just couldn't bear to burden you with this knowledge."
"You said you 'made sure that you would have his child,' but that was ten years before I was born? Do I have another brother or a sister?" Annie asked excitedly.
"No. Your father and I were too weak from our wounds in the battle. I nearly died, but your father helped me hold on to that precious thread of life. A dark wizard, Lucius Malfoy, took advantage of us in our weakened state. He murdered the baby I carried and then cursed me to never have another," replied Hermione.
Annie gasped, "Malfoy? Please tell me he's not related to Arty."
"Lucius Malfoy was Arty's grandfather. Draco avenged the act by taking his father's life." Hermione grasped Annie's hands tightly. "Now do you understand why we never told you what happened? We were far too young to have to deal with that evil, but we survived. It was a horrible time with horrible acts on both sides."
"Your father refused to leave me, but I convinced him I would be safe. I wrote that first letter a few days later while I was still grieving. I wanted him to have what was taken from him as a child, a family to love," Hermione continued, pulling one hand away to wipe her cheeks. "He told me it didn't matter to him as long as I was with him, and you know, he was right. I spent years trying to give him that family until there was an incident that was very costly; your Aunt Ginny was badly hurt. I resigned myself to being his only family as we watched our friends have children of their own." Hermione replaced her hand in her daughter's.
"I was angry ever since I found the letters. I thought you didn't want a family, and I thought you never wanted me. I'm so sorry I hated you for that. I was wrong. I really do love you now that I know you've always loved Daddy."
"No, we should have been honest with you when you were old enough to fully understand. Maybe one day I'll tell you the rest of the story and how you broke that curse. Now, I think we've left your dad alone long enough," Hermione said as she stood to leave. Annie stood and threw her arms around the woman she had alienated; the embrace was reciprocated with equal enthusiasm. They stood there for a moment, enjoying their renewed closeness.
Annie looked up at her mother, with her arms still around her. "Mum, I need your help. I can't tell you much. But I have a huge problem."
"Then you must tell your father as well," Hermione said as she let go and went to open the door.
Annie stopped her with a touch. "No, I can't risk it. There might be too many questions. Please, I need someone I can trust."
Placing a hand on Annie's shoulder, Hermione said, "Then I'm certain you'll tell one of us when you are ready."
Annie slept soundly for the first time in the past couple years, as if a weight had been removed from her shoulders the moment she opened her feelings to her mother. The lateness of the hour and a nostalgic desire had led Harry to request accommodations for the night, a request that was heartily granted by the Headmistress.
Annie woke that Tuesday morning after her birthday in a calmer frame of mind. She was in Slytherin for a reason, and she resolved to discover that reason. She began her routine as she normally did to prepare for the day's classes. She realized the day would be different once she entered the Great Hall. Halfway to the table where she usually sat, she noticed it was occupied.
"Jerry?" she called, "you're not with your other friends?" she asked as she sat next to him. A warm smile from him in reply was all she needed to know.
"I wanted to let you know I meant what I said last night. I don't care what others think," he replied. Oblivious to any other student's opinion, he kissed her gently on the cheek.
She heard whispers and giggles from the onlookers, but this time she didn't care. Slytherin or not, she was the daughter of the two most famous people in their world. She was determined to live up to their standards and simply be who she was - not what others thought she should've been.
"Jerry, I don't care anymore what others think; I'm only concerned with those people I care about. And I'm so happy last night wasn't a mean joke."
"Good morning, Annie, mind if we join you two?" a voice asked from behind.
"Mum, Dad? You stayed over night?" she asked surprised, and threw her arms around her mother first.
"Well, it was late, and neither of us has pressing business to tend to today, so we decided to extend the visit," Harry replied for them both, as his wife was otherwise engaged.
"Mum, I have a few free periods today, and I would love to spend them with you and Dad."
"Of course," Harry replied as he speared a sausage from the serving plate on the table.
"Ben has Potions after lunch, and then we are both done for the day. We usually go flying with Arty," Annie said enthusiastically.
"Mind if I join you?" Jerry asked to Annie's delight.
"If there's enough room, I'd love to have a go with you, but I think your mum would be happy to watch," Harry added. Hermione gave him a grin while Annie nodded happily.
In the span of only one day, Annie's life changed. She now had the attention of the boy she'd fancied for several years and she reconciled her issues with her mother. The whispers of others never bothered her before, and now they seemed even less significant. They enjoyed their breakfast together; every moment of that time spent seemed important to their future, and it also seemed so insignificant.
Annie and Jerry sat next to each other on the bench - noticeably close, Harry thought - and neither seemed interested in actually eating the meal. The only interruption came when Professor Sinistra stopped to chat with Harry and Hermione.
"It's so nice seeing you both here again, but next time, might I suggest a Silencing Charm? The walls may be stone, but the doors aren't ," she said with a grin. Hermione turned beet red at the comment, while Annie started to choke on a mouth full of eggs.
"Annie, I have to run. The Gryffindor team has a special meeting before classes. I'll see you at lunch?" Jerry said, taking that moment to change topics.
"Of course, I'll be waiting," she replied. He kissed her on the top of her head as he left for his meeting.
"You know how happy this is going to make his father?" Harry asked as he scooped some eggs on his fork.
"Dad, he, and I do like each other. I mean, we've known each other since we were kids," Annie said as she sipped a cup of tea.
A muffled snicker from Harry and a raised eyebrow from Hermione added to the conversation as Annie continued. "I mean, I'm not a child anymore. I hope you both realize this."
"Oh, of course," Harry said with a grin as he sipped his tea.
The three members of the Potter family laughed and joked in a fashion they hadn't experienced in several years. The details of the conversation Annie and her mother had seemed, for now, to be between them.
Annie left the Great Hall, leaving her mother and father alone. The morning's classes passed uneventfully, and even lunch that day was the most pleasant time she'd had that year.
"Annie," Ben said as he stuffed another handful of crisps into his mouth, "I need to finish a Potions exercise before class. I don't think anyone's there. Did you finish that list I needed?"
Annie, who had been preoccupied in a nonverbal conversation with Jerry, sighed deeply. "Yes, I listed the ingredients for you and left the list in your book."
"Thanks, I only have an hour to finish this. If I finish it then, maybe I can get away earlier," Ben said as he thumbed through his book, his lunch now forgotten on his plate.
"Then you'd best be off. That potion will take every bit of an hour. And don't forget to pick up the extra items I've circled from the storage room before you start," Annie said as Ben began to gather his books.
"Thanks, Annie. You've really been better since Jerry finally worked up the courage to take you off for a good snoggin'."
"Ben, you little snot!" Annie shouted as he ran off.
"The little prat's right, you know. I do like you much better this way," Jerry said as he tried to pull her closer.
He was greeted with a sharp prod to the stomach. "That's for taking his side," she said, smiling wickedly.
Ben retreated from the Great Hall and glanced over his shoulder to see his sister and her new boyfriend in a play fight that was quickly followed by a cuddle. "Good for her. She needs him," he said to himself as he descended into the dungeons.
There was still an hour before the class, which was just enough time for his work. His first stop was in the storeroom outside the classroom and laboratory. The first shelf held the simple ingredients needed; the daisy roots, rat spleen, and leech juice were common enough. He scooped several measuring spoons full of each into individual jars. The other materials were not as easy to spot. The whole Shrivelfig and jars of live caterpillars were procured from bins on the far wall.
He retrieved his cauldron from a storage bin he shared with a couple housemates from Hufflepuff and placed it over a small open flame on a table in the rear of the room.
He set to work chopping the daisy roots into a consistent size, and then he set to skinning the Shrivelfig. He only needed the outer skin, so he saved the flesh for another assignment. He carefully measured each ingredient and added it to the boiling water in the cauldron. A careful stir, twice clockwise and thrice counterclockwise followed by a simple figure 8, was required between each ingredient. Lastly, he sliced the caterpillars, since it was best to use them while they were still squirming.
Crash.