Sorry it took so long guys, I had major writers block there for a while on this story. Here is chapter ten hope it clears up a few things, if not mail me questions I am more than happy to answer them. Enjoy and let me know how I am doing, if you want to! :)
{"FRED" he let her go and called out to everyone in the house. All the memories she hadn't had before flooded into her head. My my how things had changed, but did everyone else know how much.}
She heard the thunder of footsteps from up the stairs and both her mothers appear at the top, Hermione burst into tears and rushed down the stairs. Minerva was not far behind; the two of them threw their arms around her "Young lady, you have some explaining to do! Everybody has been worried sick about you. What happened? Do you know how worried you had us? " Hermione shot question after question at her daughter.
"Hermione, darling let the girl catch her breath." Minerva laughed as everyone else gathered in the foyer. Then her sisters appeared the five women came flying around and wrapped their arms around her; she looked at each of them, Melinda, Olivia, Claudia, Violette and Astra so happy to see them. The Weasley's followed suit and Molly stood in tears, "We are so happy you are home, safe, it has been three months after all."
Penelope stood stunned she had all these memories, more than any normal person, and the second set contradicted the first. "Are you ok, sweetheart?" just as Hermione spoke to her everything went black. It was just too much, nothing was as it had been and she was the only one who knew.
She woke up a few minutes later once again surrounded by people but this time she was laid up on the sofa. "Penelope, what happened?" she blinked several times as her eyes adjusted to the light. "Nothing, I am just tired, the spell that sent me back here, it took a lot of my energy to sustain it till I reached the right year."
"I think I should lie down for a while, I know I am only back but I am exhausted, would you mind?" she rose from the sofa and Minerva placed a loving arm around her, "Of course not sweetheart you take all the time you need." She smiled softly at everyone and left the room heading to her bedroom.
Once in the room she pushed the issue of her new reality to the back of her mind and closed her eyes. She fell asleep a short time after and she woke a few hours later to her mother gently shaking her awake. Minerva sat on the edge of the bed gazing down at her daughter, "Sorry, for waking you sweetheart but you have been asleep for four hours and your mother was beginning to worry."
She smiled her younger mother had always been a worry, "do you want something to eat or drink, maybe a cup of tea?" she asked as she brushed a stray hair behind her daughters ear.
"No, I am not really all that hungry, Mother don't you..." She stopped mid-sentence, her mother clearly didn't remember her visit as Angela Merriwether. "What is it, dear?" She stared blankly at her daughter. "Do you remember Angela Merriwether?"
Minerva recognised her name and the cogs in her brain began to turn, her memory wasn't quite what it used to be. The realisation hit her eventually; she turned to her daughter wide-eyed, "You..You're...it was you all along, Oh My God. What happ...things have changed haven't they?" she sat staring at her mother not quite knowing where to begin.
"Yes they have, and it seems I am the only one who remembers it, as it was before I...well left." Minerva had begun to pace up and down in the room. "Well, I don't want to know anything, I have no need to any and neither does anyone else. What is done is done!" Minerva had sat herself back down on the bed and was looking sternly at Penelope.
"Well, that is fine by me, but I do have one question. Would you happen to know the whereabouts of Nacissa Black?" her mother cocked her eyebrow at the odd but understandable question, given the circumstances, she had posed, "Narcissa Snape, you mean, well I suppose soon to be Black once again. She has been teaching potions at Hogwarts for about thirty years, don't you remember Professor Snape, her husband Severus works at the ministry. " Penelope mouth fell open in shock, "She married Snape, Severus Snape. She is Professor Snape not Severus?...What about Bella?"
"Well, actually she has just signed on to be the new charms teacher this year; she has been working as an Auror ever since she left Hogwarts. She is a fine witch, brightest of her time...but you know that. And in case you are wondering Andromeda married Ted Tonks, she also teaches at Hogwarts, Arithmancy and they have a daughter called Nymphadora..." she interrupted her mother, "yes, yes that I know...Wait are they alive?"
"Why of course they are! Why wouldn't they...Oh" Minerva realised that this was one of the things that had changed, "Nymphadora married Remus Lupin and they have two boys now, Leo and Phoenix. Leo is of course dating Theodore Longbottem and Phoenix..." Penelope once again cut her mother off, "Is engaged to..." She glanced down at her ring finger and noticed that the tan line around it, would suggest she was missing something, "Me! OH NO!" She jumped from the bed in a panic, what had she done?
"Well that is not exactly true either; you broke it off about two days ago, claiming that there was someone else. Who we have neither seen nor heard of! Hence the reason you ring is missing, I believe you threw it at his head." It was all starting to come back to her, the engagement, the fight, the break up everything, it had been so messy. Her mind raced, it was once again becoming too much to handle, she felt quite faint so she sat back down on the edge of the bed.
They had got into a fight because he felt she was pulling away from him and she had been, as she grew closer to Narcissa in the past, she had altered her future. If her memory served her correctly, it would appear she got engaged at the end of her sixth year at Hogwarts, and she had been in love. However, her bond with the Black sisters had altered the future right down to the smallest of details.
Saving the girls from their father had prevented the deaths of many good people, including Tonks, Remus, Fred, Sirius and her Uncle Neville's parents. The deatheaters had no Belletrix Le Strange to hide behind, although it would appear Voldemort still managed to plague her Uncle Harry's life without her assistance. The battle had been different without Belletrix there; Fred lived, as did Tonks and Remus and from what she remember from her mother's stories Voldemort had not been as strong as before in her previous memories.
She raised her head to look at her mothers' worried stricken face, "Dumbledore is still dead..." her mother raised her hand to brush a stray piece of hair from her face, "Yes, well he was nearing 150 in muggle years and 100 in wizarding years and even for a powerful wizard like Dumbledore that is very old...it is a good thing our appearance is controlled by our wizarding age, because at 150, I can't imagine he would have been a pretty sight." She chuckled as she remembered her friend fondly.
"Mother, what did you mean when you said Narcissa was soon to be Black again?" she snapped out of her trance, as she remembered her promise to the fifteen year old Narcissa that she would find her. "Well, it was always said that she and Severus only married out of convenience and they were very close friends but their jobs keep them apart too much. It just stopped working even as a friendship, so Narcissa filed for a divorce. They both deserve to find the happiness that should come from marriage and they had not found it in each other. They never had any children, why?"
"No reason...out of curiosity who is supervising the holidays at Hogwarts this year?" her mother gave her a rather funny look, she felt bad about lying but she was not ready to tell her everything just yet. "I believe it is, the three Black sisters themselves, Penelope you are acting awfully strange!"
Penelope stood from the bed, she walked over to the window and then looked back at her mother, "Sorry, I know I am but it is so strange, why do I remember everything from before?" her mother walked over to her now tearful daughter and wrapped her arms around her, "Sweetheart, when you change things in the past, everything in the future stays the until you return to your rightful time, but I have never heard of a case where the person remembers the future that they left in the first place!"
"Thing have changed so much and for the better but there is one thing that remains unfinished," she muttered to herself as she pulled away from her mother, "Penelope, what are you rambling about?" Penelope raced over and grabbed her wand from the bedside table, "Sorry but I have unfinished business to attend to, don't tell mother and I will be back as soon as possible." Before Minerva had time to say anything, Penelope had apparated to Hogwarts, it would appear since Voldemorts defeat the extra precautions had been lifted from the ground of Hogwarts.
She wandered inside and saw familiar faces, Patricia Patil and her twin sister Piper, Padma Patils two girls waved at her and she waved back. She quickened her pace as nerves kicked in, what if Narcissa hadn't forgiven her, what if it was all spur of the moment and her feelings had changed. She walked quicker, practically ran so as the nerves couldn't make her turn and go home.
All of a sudden she collided with something or someone, "No, running in the corridors," she recognised the voice and when she looked up it was Andromeda, too engrossed in a book to notice who she had bumped into. "Andromeda," she whispered quietly and smiled, "It would do you well to remember who I ..." she had raised head from the book and looked straight at Penelope, "Sorry, Miss McGonagall, you reminded me of someone there for a second, but I would appreciate if even the Headmistresses daughter called me by the appropriate title. That is Mrs Tonks to you," she went back to reading her book and moved on past Penny.
"Do I remind you of Angela?" she asked boldly and watched as the woman stopped dead in her tracks, she spun on her heel faced Penny square on, "How do you...that is...where did you..." she splutter not quite forming proper sentences. "It is me, Andy! Angela...well Penelope, Narcissa did explain didn't she?" Andy looked at her, her eyebrow nearly meeting her hairline in confusion. "You can't be," she reached forward and caressed Penny's face, "you haven't aged at all, you look exactly the same." Penelope sighed; Narcissa obviously had not told them the truth. "It is me Andy, I have a lot of explaining to do but it is me, I swear!" she took Andy's hand in hers. "No...this couldn't...prove it."
"Fine, you kissed Remus Lupin in second year at Hogwarts and swore him to secrecy, funny now he is married to your daughter. At least he kept..." She was cut off by Andy as she engulfed her in a hug, the older woman had started to cry, and "I never told anyone but you that, it really is you." She spluttered through tears as Penny tried to soothe her. "But you are right; you have a lot of explaining to do, why did you leave, without even saying goodbye?"
Penelope pulled back from the hug and wiped a tear from the older witch's cheek with her thumb, "I promise I will explain everything but first I have to find Narcissa, where is she?" Andromeda was now smiling through the tears, "She is in her classroom grading papers, I will show you where it is."
"No, that won't be necessary, I know where it is! Please find Belletrix and I will meet you two in the teacher's common room, after I speak with Narcissa, and I promise I will explain everything." Andy nodded silently and Penelope took off down the corridor once again, in the direction of the potions classroom. She paused outside the door and took a deep breath; she twisted the handle and let herself in.
Narcissa was indeed grading papers and she hadn't look up from them since Penelope entered. "May I help," she called consumed by the paper she was marking, after a few moments silence she finally looked up. "AH Miss McGonagall, I was under the impression, that you had gone home for the holidays, what can I do for you!" she had a strange déjà vu feeling when she looked up at Penelope, she looked like someone she had once known and sometimes it scared her.
"If I asked you to remember me would you?" Penelope stared right at the blonde witch, "Miss McGonagall, what exactly are you talking about?" she edged from around the desk and walked towards the student, her behaviour was worrying her.
"Stand on the floor where it's marked X. I am standing by your side marked Y. I'm so close you can almost smell the perfume; I am so close I could kiss you. If I step away from you, there could be a garden between us, or a table and some chairs. If I continue walking away from you, tramping through walls and hovering above water, in 80,150,320 steps I will bump into you. Will you remember me? Distance brings us closer..." Penelope stopped as tears welled up in her eyes, Narcissa had frozen to the spot, she also felt the burn of tears, she whispered to Penelope "There is no distance."
She ran towards the young girl and flung her arms around her, "You came back to me." She sniffled through cascading tears, "I promised I would do, and I don't break promises," and with that Penelope pulled back from the hug, placed her hand on the back of Narcissa neck and pulled her into a searing kiss.
They both felt a shot of electricity shoot through their bodies as they deepened the kiss, Penelope had waited about six hours for this, Narcissa had waited 49 years, although her appearance would never give it away. They broke the kiss and Narcissa rested her head on Penelope's shoulder and nuzzled her neck, "I can't believe I have you in my arms once again. Please don't ever leave!"
WELL...