Disclaimer: Don't sue me. I don't claim to own any of the characters and plots that are rightly Rowling's. It's all hers.

Watch out for minor angst this chapter.

"Why did they send you, Incomius? Why not a trained Muggle liaison wizard from the Ministry? They do this for a living. I fear you've entirely botched the job. Look at this. The girl's sister doesn't even speak to her anymore!"

"If you'd care to watch a little longer, Filius, you'll find out."

"This is too ingenious a device. I can hardly bear to stop watching, if only to figure out how it works."

Elsie had dinner with the Coles the following Sunday. She and Melanie played with the newest Cole, baby Zachary. He was gurgly and bright-eyed as a baby could be. Elsie and Melanie built tower after tower out of blocks so he could push them over. After the seventh resounding crash, a block hit Melanie's wall clock. She looked up at it and said, "Hey look, it's eight o'clock already! It feels like only six!"

It was then that Elsie realized that a week had passed. A week without Susie. A week of silent treatment from Imogene. A week when her father seemed much older than he ought to look. A week of her mother wringing her hands and feeding her husband chicken broth. "I gotta go home, Melanie. Can your parents drive me?" She was already looking forward to the day when she could just disappear home, like Mr. Bard did.

"Okay," said Melanie. "I had a lot of fun with you! You've got to come over and play with Zach again sometime."

"You bet." Mrs. Cole drove Elsie home in her old 2010 Prius. She said goodbye to Melanie's mother, leapt out of the car, and rang the doorbell. To her great surprise, her father answered it.

"Come on in, sweetie," he said. Mr. McKinnon was no less bedraggled than he had been all week. His favorite chair in the living room was covered in blankets and pillows, as he had been practically living in it lately. He sat in it and motioned for Elsie to take her preferred spot on the couch. "Audrey? Imogene? I need you down here!"

There was a long pause, the Mrs. McKinnon came downstairs, leading her sullen daughter by the hand. Imogene let her mother half-drag her to the couch in grim silence.

Mrs. McKinnon reached over and laid a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Are you quite sure you're ready, darling?"

"I don't think I ever want to speak of this again," he croaked, "but I have no choice. I promised Elsie. You deserve to know." Mrs. McKinnon squeezed his shoulder. Imogene kept her face carefully blank, her posture stiff and straight. Elsie leaned in eagerly, but worry and a dash of fear were etched across her face too. Sisuat came over, seemingly out of nowhere, and laid her head on Elsie's lap.

"When that man - Mr. Bard - left, he put that wand of his up to my head, and there was this weird silvery stuff on it, and, and..." Mr. McKinnon gulped. "I think it was one of his thoughts or memories or something, because it was like I knew what he knew or, or saw what he saw. I can't really describe it properly. It was as if these things had happened to me, but they were really his recollections." He let out a shaky breath.

"Go on, darling," said his wife, giving his shoulder another squeeze. Imogene was watching Elsie absently pat Sisuat's head, and a single crease began to furrow her brow.

"I'll put it into words as best I can, I s'pose. Well, ah.." He bit his lip. "My, my mother..." A single tear rolled down his cheek, silently. Elsie had never seen her father cry like this before. It was disconcerting.

"We know you miss her dearly, Gary," said Mrs. McKinnon. Elsie did not know her grandmother. Gran had died long before she was born.

"Audrey, I don't know how to explain this to you, but Francine...my mother...she isn't dead. She was...captured...by some very bad people...long ago, when your dad was only a little boy. We, I mean, I had always thought she was dead...gone..." His wife passed him a handkerchief, and he wept into it quietly for a little while. Then he continued.

"I don't really understand who these people were, but they were evil. They treated her like an animal. Something less than human." He blew his nose loudly into the handkerchief. "What I do know is that these people were wizards. Terrible wizards. I will not speak of what they did to her, but...they tortured her so bad and left her in the wilderness where all these...magical creatures lived. They thought those things would eat her straightaway, but a wizard who happened to be flying overhead found her and rescued her. God, is she lucky to be alive. He brought her to a nearby wizard village, Hogsmeade I think it was called. The wizard took her in. Discovered she was pregnant. Because of her tormentors."

Mrs. McKinnon alternately gasped and chewed her fingernails. Elsie was hugging Sisuat as if the feline were her only link to reality. Imogene's expression was grim, her lips pressed into a tight line.

Mr. McKinnon screwed his eyes up tight, trying to make sense of Mr. Bard's thoughts. "I think there was a whole debate in the village, about what to do with her. They didn't want a - a Muggle living among them, some said. She couldn't remember anything from her old life, her life with me and my dad, they tortured her so bad. The wizard who saved her said that she had no place else to go, and that there was no better place to raise a young wizard than Hogsmeade. They almost kicked her out anyway."

He cast aside the sodden handkerchief and sat hunched over, speaking in a clipped monotone. "Then an old wizard came, looked like the brother of the wizard who saved Francine. He told them some really good news, can't really make sense of what it was. Everyone was celebrating. The old wizard told them to let Francine live there with the child, and when he told them, everyone listened. Once they gave her a chance, they got to like her. She didn't remember anything but her first name, so she got used to...to wizard life pretty quickly, even though she herself wasn't one. Her neighbors liked her, especially her pretty singing voice." His eyes closed. "I remember it. The way she sang. They gave her a new last name: Bard. And she had a boy, a boy named..."

Elsie gasped.

"Incomius." He began to cry in earnest now. "My own brother...I screamed at him...wanted to kick him out of the house..."

Mrs. McKinnon drew her husband to her bosom and let him cry into her dress. Elsie had her face buried in Sisuat's fur. But Imogene was blazing from within. Her cheeks were flushed and bright. "How do you know he was telling the truth?" she blurted.

Her father stared at her with puffy red eyes. "A man knows his brother, Imogene. When he, when he left, he looked right at me, eye to eye, and his were the same color as mine exactly." Elsie's jaw slackened. She hadn't been able to tell his eye color under those eyebrows of his.

"Maybe he...bewitched them or something, to make them look like yours. Maybe it was all a trick!" cried Imogene. "Maybe Hogwarts is a bad place, and he's trying to trick you into sending Elsie there!"

Elsie was furious, and set Sisuat on the ground so she could get to her feet in anger. The feline seemed passive and disinterested, and began to lick a paw. But Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon were staring at their older daughter as if they had never seen her before. Mr. McKinnon looked as though he had swallowed something very unpleasant. "Impossible. The memories he gave me...so real..." But he seemed to doubt himself. He gripped the side of his chair as if for dear life. Mrs. McKinnon looked about to cry.

But Elsie was in a blind rage. Her posture was hunched forward, her arms out front like a predator's claws preparing to strike. "I hate you, Imogene!" she shrieked. "You might look like me but you're not my sister!"

Mrs. McKinnon gasped and covered her mouth; Imogene looked ready to leap at Elsie; then there was a tap, the sound of something hard and sharp against glass.

There was an owl at the window.

Imogene screamed. Elsie threw open the window. The spectacled owl was unruffled by the emotional chaos and landed nonchalantly on the coffee table. At close range, they could see that the owl's letter was a golden scroll. They all stared. Mrs. McKinnon let out a strangled wheeze. Then the owl opened its beak and let the scroll fall onto the table. It opened up neatly to reveal a set of lips drawn on it. The lips opened and sang.

The voice was soft and dark, a little quavering perhaps. It was richly feminine and expressive, and Elsie had a feeling that she knew what it meant, even though she could not understand the words themselves, or even recongize what language it was in.She knew that it was about how there was a world of strife outside, but it was safe here, because she was among family. She couldn't help but reach out and hold her mother's hand.

The song's effect on Mr. McKinnon was dramatic and instantaneous. He was curled fetally in his chair, rocking rhythmically and trembling. Its effect on Imogene was gradual but no less noticeable: her expression was no longer defiant, but ashamed. She took Elsie by the hand. Mrs. McKinnon linked up with her husband, so that they were one family, united. The song ended, and the voice concluded, "Love, Francine." Then the lips faded from the golden paper, and the spectacled owl flew away.

"That was her voice," whispered Mr. McKinnon. "I remember."

"Incomius, I...don't know what to say! Why did I never hear of all this?"

"Do you think I want it put about that I'm a Death Eater's son? Aberforth never told the village how Francine came to be pregnant, and neither did she! I'm showing this to you in strict confidence because I trust you, Filius. You were my favorite professor and you're still my closest friend among the Hogwarts staff."

"Aberforth and Albus did your mother a great service. But are you sure it was a good idea to show all this to the Muggles? You have permission to do all of this, correct?"

"Of course. Minerva cleared it with the Ministry. And I do believe it was necessary. Do you not see how this was tearing the family apart? Especially Imogene."

"I must say, you did an excellent job with the letter. Was it the charmed quill I gave you last Christmas?"

"None other. The honor's all yours, Filius, only you could have charmed a quill like that. Once I told Francine that the secret was out to Gary, she was all to eager to send him that much-needed communique, even though she has no memory of him. She dictated, so to speak, and that marvelous quill did the rest."

"It must have been terrible, to meet your brother for the first time and face only his hatred."

"I'm afraid I expected no less. When I pick her up to take her to Diagon Alley, I hope to have a fonder reunion with Gary."

"I wish you the best of luck. I have about a dozen more questions for you, I'm afraid, not least among them how you put together this remarkable invention of yours."

"That's a bit too long a story to tell right now, Filius. One story at a time, that's what I like to say to the students. Don't want to overload their dear little heads. Ha ha, you know I'm joking. Would you care to see the thoughts I gave Gary for yourself? Feel free to use my Pensieve at your leisure. Mis pensamientos son sus pensamientos."

"Hmm?"

"It's a saying from the Spanish wizard who invented the Pensieve. You know, Don Sebastián de Santos. 'My thoughts are your thoughts'. There's a book about him in the library, actually, by that title."

"At the rate you're going with your invention, you'll be the next de Santos, Incomius. Have some firewhisky ready for me when I'm out of the memories."

"Firewhisky? You never drink firewhisky!"

"Judging from what you've shown me so far, I'm going to need it after these memories."

"Point taken."