Harley's feet slammed into the ground and she pitched forward into tall grass. She gingerly made her way to her feet before reaching down to help her grandfather stand up. She paused to take a look around her.
There were tall, snowcapped mountains one very side of her and dark leafed trees surrounding the small meadow they had landed in. a cold wind blew and she quickly conjured large jackets for herself and her grandfather.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"I'm not sure. That portkey was given to me a long time ago, I don't remember where it was supposed to take us." Her grandfather answered, already gathering wood. "We should probably make a camp here so we can figure out what to do next."
"Grandpa what is going on?" the wheels in Harley's mind were working furiously and still nothing about the past few minutes made any sense to her. Her grandfather stopped where he was a sighed deeply.
"Could this wait until camp is made?" he asked quietly.
Harley swallowed the lump in her throat. "No." She conjured a couple of chairs. Her grandfather took a seat in one of them, running his hand through his hair.
"Harley, I should warn you, my memory has been altered. There won't be much I can tell you, but what I remember I will give. It's time you knew the truth." Harley sat quietly, her eyes fixated on the man her world had revolved around for so long, now looking more tired than she had ever seen him. "I knew your mother's family from when I was a boy. It's an old connection from another time. Needless to say I knew your mother from when she was a little girl. She was always so intelligent and strong willed. I never knew the truth about her being a witch. I always thought that she went to a private boarding school."
"Almost twenty years ago, your mother came to me in the middle of the night. She explained to me that she was a witch, that there was a whole wizard world that was hidden away from muggles like me. She said that her husband and herself had fought a war years before and that there was a new war happening. She said that they were being hunted and that she feared for your safety." Her grandfather looked up into Harley's face, there were tears in his eyes. "Your mother begged me to take her newborn daughter in as my own. To raise her as a muggle. She said all the arrangements had already been made……that daughter was you."
The world felt like it was slipping away from Harley. "S-So everything you told me…."
"Harley, please…" his voice broke, "I did what I did because I loved you. I thought the best way to honor your parents' wishes would be for you to live a long and happy life away from the troubles that pursued them."
Harley actually pinched herself, hard, to ensure that none of this was a dream. Her whole life up until now had been a lie. "The wand then?"
"I'm afraid I have said all I know. I remember your mother saying that she would erase certain things from my memory….that there was nothing she could leave to chance. I don't remember her name, why she left the wand, or who it was that was hunting her."
The silence hung thick in the air. Harley could almost feel it part around her as she paced the meadow, transfiguring and conjuring objects until the rudiments of a camp came together. She used her own wand, despite its ineffectiveness, because somehow her mother's wand seemed too sacred to use on something so rudimentary. Her hand seemed to work independently of her mind as she struggled to comprehend everything her grandfather had told her. He hadn't moved from the chair since he had finished talking.
"Harley?" his voice croaked.
"Why didn't you tell me?" she felt her heart swell in anger.
"I told you, I…"
"But it's my life! I should have been able to choose!" she screamed, tears flowing down her face. She reached for her neck and showed her necklace. "I thought that this was all I had left of them. No pictures, no memories….nothing. But all along there was this." She held out her mother's wand. Her heart was pounding her blood furiously through her body. She looked at the old man who had lied to her for so long.
"I'm sorry Harley. You deserve to be angry. I should have told you sooner…." She recoiled at first when he went to grab his hand, only relenting when he tried again. "But you were so young when you first started asking questions. You were all that I had left and I just couldn't bring myself to put such a burden on you."
Harley turned away from him and stomped away into the woods, only stopping when she reached a small steam with a large boulder jutting out above the water. She took a seat on its edge and sobbed, deep heaving sobs that seemed to go from head to foot. It was quite a long time before she finally spent herself. She felt hollowed out, like she had spilled herself into her tears. She drew her knees up to her chest and stared at the water as it drifted lazily by her. It must have been several hours that she sat there, because the sun was much lower in the sky when she heard footsteps approaching behind her. Her grandfather slowly made his way to her and awkwardly took a seat next to her. It was a long time before either one of them said anything.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you." Harley whispered.
"Anyone would be angry if they were in your shoes Harley." He whispered back.
It felt like an eternity before Harley could make her voice work again. "Tell me….what was she like?"
Her grandfather actually smiled. "Your mother was a beautiful woman." He answered softly. "I didn't see her much after she grew up, but I knew her as an extraordinary person who saw value in every person. She was always talking about how she wanted to make the world a better place."
Harley looked at her reflection in the water. She tried like she always did to search the deepest recesses of her brain for any sort of memory of what her mother would have looked like. Like all the other times, all that she could find was a vague feeling of sadness and the warming sensation of the book hanging around her neck.
"Harley, it's up to you now to find out who you really are." Her grandfather put his hand on her shoulder.
She dropped a pebble in the water and watched as her reflection distorted, "But I don't even know where to start."
"I may have an answer for you on that front." Her grandfather's voice warmed and he stumbled as he stood to his feet. He proffered a hand to her and helped her up. "I found a small road while I was looking around earlier and there was a sign. We're not far from Caithness. We're in Scotland."
"Why would the portkey bring us here?"
"Luckily, I remember that part now. One of the last things your mother told me, was that if anything happened I was supposed to take the portkey and find a woman named Minerva."
Something clicked in Harley's brain. "Wait, Minerva McGonagall? She was once the Headmistress at Hogwarts."
"That's right." Her grandfather smiled.
"I remember now, Hogwarts: A History said that she retired to her hometown in Scotland after her uneventful tenure at Hogwarts." Harley's mind was whirling. "She probably knew my mother! She was also a teacher at Hogwarts for decades!"
"Well, what are we waiting for?" her grandfather chuckled, making his way back towards the camp.
"But, it's getting dark." Harley looked at the setting sun.
"I think, given the situation, that darkness could be our ally." Her grandfather suddenly sounded grave, "I also think that you should avoid using your mother's wand. Clearly something about using it attracted those men at the shop."
Harley looked at her mother's wand. No, my wand. It pained her to put it away, but she tucked it into her jacket while deciding to keep her old wand in her front pocket.
"Well, let's begin our pursuit of that cheeky bugger, knowledge." Her grandfather's voice floated through the trees in front of her.