Conspiracies

Chapter 1: The Secret.

"I wish you didn't have to do this." She sighed.

"I know love, but its better this way. Just think it's the last one. And at least this way we can be there together." Her husband replied. She took out her wand and transfigured his facial features so he was unrecognisable. They had decided this would be better than using polyjuice potion because the person he was impersonating might get wise and go to the press. When she was finished, they pulled on their jackets. She was dressed in a stunning red dress and he was in a tuxedo. They would have preferred to be in dress-robes but the setting would not allow it. They couldn't afford to draw attention to themselves, the Ministry would never forgive them.

Two hours later, they were walking down the red carpet at the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two. As they walked down the carpet she waved to the fans. There was a stage set up in front of the cinema and the actors were all standing in front of it. As she looked at them, she was startled to notice how much they looked like their characters. The announcer walked up to address the crowd. He spoke for a little while about the phenomenon that was the Harry Potter series. Then he signalled to her.

"Before we watch see the premiere we shall hear from the author herself. Put your hands together for Joanne Rowling."

As she walked up the stairs of the stage, the crowd was screaming and cheering. She spoke about how proud of the cast she was and how much she loved the way the fans had embraced the series. As she looked out at the crowd, among all the cosplaying fans, she smiled as she realised Harry, Ginny and Neville were standing in the crowd. They had dressed in robes knowing that people would think of them as cosplayers. She looked directly at them as she finished.

"Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home."

After the premiere, they went to the Leaky Cauldron to celebrate. Since the series had come out, The Leaky Cauldron had had to put a special muggle repelling charm on the sign outside. It had caused a great uproar in the wizarding world when the books were published. The Ministry had, originally, tried to have them removed. But Joanne had convinced them that the muggles would think of it as fiction and, while there would be passionate fans, even those would believe that it was. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister at the time, agreed to allow it. Joanne was right. While many fans around the world were obsessive in their enjoyment of the series, they ultimately believed it to be nothing more than a good book series. But this didn't stop some from trying to get onto Platform 9¾ or into Diagon Alley. Of course, most who tried didn't really expect to get in and this is exactly what Joanne was counting on.

In the Leaky Cauldron, she didn't have to keep up the alias.

"I want to propose a toast," said her husband, his face transfigured back to its original features. "To my wife, Hermione, for writing an interesting take on the wizarding war and presenting it to the muggles as a children's fantasy series! To Hermione!" Ron grinned, for of course he was Ron Weasley.

"To Hermione!" the room cried, most of them laughing.

Joanne, otherwise known as Hermione Weasley, blushed.
"Ron! You know I didn't trick them on purpose." She objected. Ron laughed heartily and shrugged.

"I know but it's still amusing." Hermione frowned and sat at a table over in the corner as everyone celebrated around her. She felt bad for taking advantage of the muggles being unaware but the series had needed writing. Most of the wizarding world was already aware of the story so she knew it wouldn't have sold very well unless she sold it in the muggle world. The few times she had appeared in the muggle public with her family they had had to be disguised. Rosie and Hugo had thoroughly enjoyed it. On some of the more recent occasions their cousin Lucy had been with them and the muggle press had mistaken her for a third child in their family. Not that anyone in the family complained. Lucy was technically family. But it meant yet another secret and another person to have around in certain situations. Hermione watched as yet more revellers showed up to join the celebrations. When the books had been published, Flourish and Blotts had agreed to sell them as well. When family and friends had read the later books, some had been originally insulted to find they had been killed off.

While Sirius, Fred, Remus, Tonks, Mad-Eye and Dobby had enjoyed reading the series they couldn't understand why Hermione would break with historical events and kill them off. But once Hermione explained the reasoning behind their deaths, most were less insulted and more impressed at the allegorical abilities Hermione possessed. Harry had also been surprised by the deaths being added but had been impressed at Hermione showing what war could really be capable of. He had come to her after reading The Deathly Hallows. Tears in his eyes, he questioned why she had killed Hedwig. His beautiful snowy owl, while getting old, was still very much alive. Hermione told him that to her, Hedwig represented Harry's childhood and innocence and that with her death Harry became a lot more grown up because he had to lose his innocence in order to face what was to come. While Harry accepted this, he let the tears fall.
"But its Hedwig…you know what she means to me. Why would you break my heart like this?" He had sobbed. Hermione smiled inwardly. Harry had become the biggest fan of the books. Not because he was the title character but because he was amazed at how well Hermione had captured his personality and told the books from his perspective.

"And Dobby. Why? Why would you kill Dobby? You know he enjoys working at our house. Helping Ginny and me with the housework. Why would you kill him?" Harry was inconsolable. Hermione explained that most of the deaths were to signify that even though Harry would've rather died himself than let them be hurt or killed, the war had other ideas. And those that had died, had done so trying to make the world a better place. She quoted the line Remus had said in the movie; "[Teddy] will know what his parents died for." This caused a wave of fresh tears from Harry.

"It's bad enough that my parents were dead but then you kill of two of the best father figures I could have had. And you made Teddy an orphan, I'm guessing as a hint back to my childhood. But still it broke my heart." Hermione hugged her friend and rubbed his back as he sobbed.

"I'm sorry but it wouldn't have had the same effect in book form if the good guys had come away from the war with no major losses. I'm still surprised that we did." She said as she comforted him. It had broken her heart to write those chapters too. She had cried as she wrote every Order death into being.

A few years later…

The Harry Potter Fandom was once again in hysteria. A new movie had been announced, set long before the books. Then came the news of a play being written. Hermione had consulted with the family at length before deciding to pursue these. They had told her to go with her heart and have no regrets.

For a good reason, their address had never been made public. For the usual reasons of not wanting to be bombarded by fans or paparazzi but also because everyone would have had to stay in disguises just in case. But there was a shock to come.

In the weeks before the new movie was to premiere, the publishing house that had published the series was broken into. When the secretaries went through everything to find if anything was missing they didn't see anything out of place. What they didn't know was that the man who had broken in hadn't taken anything physical with him but had written down an address.

For weeks he hid in the bushes around the house and filmed everything he could, zooming in on certain faces like Harry's and Ron's. At first he thought that Joanne was cheating on her husband but then he started to realise there was a bigger story there. His children were fans of the series and he had read it himself. He put two and two together and realised that Joanne was actually Hermione. This would be the biggest story to break. EVER.

When it broke, part of Hermione was glad the secret was out. But the Ministry was furious. With Social media and the internet, the story spread around the world before they could stop it. Usually in these sort of incidents the Ministry would simply memory-wipe those involved and everything would be fine but this had spread too far too quickly. In the days following, the Ministry expected to have muggle governments around the world pestering them for magical cures and fixes for things but instead the fans rejoiced, and the governments immediately drafted policies to help the wizarding and muggle worlds combine without too much difficulty. International treaties were drafted limiting what magic could be used for in the muggle world. Medically, it was limited to healing injuries but Healers and muggle medical researchers joined forces to find a way to possibly cure some of the rarest diseases in the world. The medical researchers were made aware that there was a very good chance that magic may not be able to help and could possibly make things worse but the Healers were willing to try. As the pandemonium that had developed died down a little and the world settled into a blissful harmony, the Ministry relaxed a little. Hermione smiled to herself.

All was well.