Disclaimer: Think about it. If I really owned HP, would I be putting anything on a site with the word fan in the name?
A/N
I wrote this a long time ago, back in the summer of '09, and I'm just now getting around to typing it up. I rather like this one, actually. It's really...calm, and tame, compared to my other fics.
"Mummy?" Rose asked, stepping out of the tent where her brother and father were sleeping.
"Can't sleep, either?" Hermione asked her daughter, looking up from the fire. It had been fifteen years, and she still had trouble sleeping in a tent if there was nobody guarding the door. She moved over on the log she was sitting on. "Come here, Sweetheart."
Rose sat down next to her mother.
"Is there something bothering you?" Hermione asked, wrapping her arm around her daughter.
"No," Rose said, her voice a bit higher than usual.
"Are you sure?" Hermione asked, noticing her daughter's obvious lie.
"Why can't you sleep?" Rose asked, her voice returning to normal.
"I'm just not tired," she lied.
"You have dark circles under your eyes," Rose pointed out.
"You caught me," she said, laughing. "I suppose you'd like me to tell you the real reason now, right?"
"Mm-hm," Rose answered.
"Well," Hermione said brightly, "it's a secret, so before I can tell you, I need you to promise that you won't tell anyone one else. Can you do that?"
"Yes."
"Well, a long time ago, long before you were born, Uncle Harry, your father, and I…went on a very long camping trip, and while we were on that camping trip, we had to make sure nobody found us—"
"Were you on the run from the law?" Rose asked excitedly.
Why did she have to be so smart? Hermione thought.
"I guess you could call it that," she said. "But we hadn't done anything wrong. You see, around that time, a very evil wizard was trying to take over the world, and he very nearly succeeded. He managed to take over the Ministry of Magic. He was so evil that only a few people were brave enough to say his name, Lord Voldemort. Now, Lord Voldemort, he didn't like Muggles or Muggleborns. He called us bad names and took our wands away—"
"So is that why you went into hiding?" Rose interrupted. "So you could keep your wand?"
"That was part of the reason," she said, and then she paused, trying to figure out the best way to explain everything that had happened to a six year-old. "But it was mostly because of Uncle Harry."
"I thought Uncle Harry was a half-blood."
"He is….You see, when Uncle Harry was born, a powerful Seer made a prophesy, and that prophesy said that someone born on Harry's birthday would defeat the Dark Lord, which is what Lord Voldemort liked to be called. When he took over the Ministry, he put Uncle Harry all over the Daily Prophet, calling him 'Undesirable No. 1,' so we had to hide."
"What happened to Lord Voldemort?" Rose asked, sounding frightened.
"Well, Rosie, I'll just say that the prophesy came true," Hermione said.
"Is that why people are always staring at Uncle Harry?"
"Yes."
There was a pause in which they both stared at the fire.
"You never answered my question, though," Rose realized. "Why can't you sleep?"
"While we were hiding, one of us always had to guard the door of our tent, so that if we were found, the one keeping watch could wake the other two of us, and we could run. Even though there's no danger here and now, I did that for so long that it still makes me nervous to sleep in the woods without a guard outside."
Rose nodded. There was another pause.
"Why was Lord Voldemort so evil?"
"Well, Rosie, he was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"Dying."
"But—I'm afraid of dying!" Rose seemed terrified.
"Not like he was, Rosie. He was so afraid that he was willing to hurt other people so he would live longer. He wanted to be immortal."
"He didn't want to die…ever?" the thought seemed crazy, even to a six year-old child.
"Nope," Hermione said. "And, in a way, I guess he sort of succeeded—"
"Is he still alive?" Rose interrupted.
"No."
"Did Uncle Harry kill him?"
"No."
"Then how did he die?"
"I'll tell you when you're thirteen."
"But—"
"No arguing," she said firmly.
"If he's dead, then how is he immortal?"
"He'll never be forgotten," she said. "A thousand years from now, long after we're all gone, every witch and wizard who ever paid attention in History of Magic class will know his name. Everyone will still know him as one of the most evil wizards who ever lived. He should have realized that he could have done that by doing something good, too."
"Is Uncle Harry immortal, like that, too?" Rose asked eagerly.
Hermione flinched internally at the way her daughter had worded the question.
"I guess you could say that," she said. "He's definitely going to be one of the key figures in History of Magic."
He'll also be in every Defense Against the Dark Arts book and he'll be mentioned in most charms and transfiguration textbooks for a long time. And Chocolate Frog Cards, or the equivalent, she thought.
"Are you?" Rose asked.
"I might be mentioned," she said thoughtfully. "But I don't think many people will know my name unless I do something else important."
"Could I be immortal like that?" Rose asked eagerly.
"If you try hard enough, I'm sure you could," Hermione said. "All you have to do is change the world."
"That's a big job," Rose said, frowning.
"It's not that big," she said. "All you have to do is make sure your generation isn't forgotten. Make sure you do something important. You're smart, you can do it. Nothing is out of your reach."
Rose yawned.
"Do you think you can sleep, now?" Hermione asked.
Rose nodded.
"Goodnight, Rosie," she said, pulling her arm back.
"G'night, Mummy," Rose said tiredly as she stood up and walked back to the tent.
'Reach for the stars,' she thought. 'Make the vast ocean your looking glass.' That's what Mum always told me. Nothing is too large to conquer.
A/N
I realized I pretty much destroyed the whole 'show, don't tell' rule. I don't really care. I think it's better that way, since it's based around a child, and that rule is pretty incomprehensible to children. That's my excuse for it, anyway.
Don't forget to review and tell me if you liked it. Or if you hated it. I don't care if it's positive or negative, as long as it's a review.