Chapter Twenty-Two

Minerva had internally debated the issue, argued with Harry, and even had a hypothetical conversation with Robert which had left her brother looking very concerned and unconvinced that it was hypothetical at all. The only thing she hadn't done was bring the issue up with the referee of the Duel-Off. She knew what Mister Franklin would say. He'd suspend Hermione without so much as having a conversation with her. At this point, the only realistic route was to have a conversation with Hermione, and so that was what was going to happen.

The younger witch looked at her, baffled, when she woke Thursday morning to find Minerva already awake and dressed with tea in hand. The fact of the matter was that she'd never gone to sleep the night before. Between too much on her mind and the absolute need to have this conversation with Hermione before they stepped into the arena together in another twenty-four hours or so, she hadn't seen much of a point. "You're up early," Hermione commented. "Are you alright?"

"We need to talk, Hermione."

The younger witch frowned, and quickly sat up in bed, grabbed her robe, and put it on. "You know, those particular words never bode well. What's going on?" she asked as she moved to make herself a cup of tea from the setting Minerva had left out.

"I need to ask you a question about the duel with James and I need you to be completely honest with me," Minerva requested softly.

Hermione paused her stirring, and Minerva could see her shoulders stiffen. After a moment, the younger woman sighed. "Go ahead," she prompted, back still turned.

"There at the end of it, were you having flashbacks?"

There. No beating around the bush. She'd point blank just asked the hardest damn question she had ever asked someone she loved. At this particular moment Minerva thought she'd rather be subjected to the Cruciatus curse than another moment of Hermione's silence.

Hermione still said nothing as she finished preparing her tea with her back turned. It wasn't until she finally moved to join Minerva at the table that the older witch realized that her lover was barely holding together. Her hands were shaking, tears were falling down her cheeks, and as Hermione tripped and dropped the tea cup and began gasping, Minerva realized she was having a full-blown anxiety attack. "Oh, bloody hell," she whispered. "Love, I am so sorry."

She flicked her wand and sent a Patronus to Harry, asking him to bring a Calming Draught, knowing damn well he never went anywhere without a stock. Such was the nature of a Defense Professor in a post-war environment. He was no stranger to seeing anxiety attacks in his students. It happened less and less these days, but in the first fifteen years after the war, it had been common. While she waited for his arrival, she pulled Hermione close to her, rubbing her back as she tried to calm the other woman down manually. "It's alright. You're safe. Nobody is going to hurt you. Gods, I am so sorry we didn't see how badly you were still hurting before now. Why did you hide it?"

Hermione looked at her sadly and, despite her struggle to breathe, squared her shoulders before trying to reply, words coming out between gasps. "My... boys. My…. kids. My... job. I was always… the one who took… the lead. Never learned… to follow."

Minerva nodded. "Never learned how to let others help you?"

The younger woman shrugged. "Was never… anyone's job… to help me."

"Your parents?" She didn't even bother suggesting she or Albus had taken care of her. Merlin knew how badly they'd failed in that regard. Both of them had put too much pressure on Harry and his friends during the war.

That resulted in a labored laugh. "Yeah… right."

The door to their room swung open at that moment. "What the hell happened?" Harry demanded as he immediately helped Hermione drink the Calming Draught. "That'll kick in in just a minute, love. You'll be a little sleepy, but given the adrenaline from the attack, it shouldn't knock you out."

"I asked her about the duel," Minerva explained.

"Oh," Harry replied. "Yeah, that does need to be talked about."

"Wonderful, you told that worrywart too?" Hermione drawled, looking annoyed.

"I didn't really want to make an issue out of it if I was wrong, so I confided in someone we both trust for the sake of making sure I wasn't being paranoid," Minerva explained calmly. "Given what just happened, Hermione, am I to take it that the answer to my question was yes?"

Hermione sighed and miserably nodded in confirmation. "I wasn't all gone. I knew it wasn't real, I knew it was just a memory. It was like being in a Pensieve, really."

"Pardon me for being blunt, my dear, but you really should end that sentence with 'that time.' Next time you may completely lose sight of reality," Minerva pointed out.

Hermione shook her head. "As soon as I realized what was happening, I employed Occlumency. The flashbacks stopped immediately. I think if I go into the arena tomorrow using Occlumency from start to finish, I should be able to maintain."

"That's a theory, but we really don't have time to test it, do we?" Harry remarked.

"Not really," Minerva replied. "What choice do we have, though? Neither of us can back out without giving a reason. If we give the real reason, Hermione's situation is the front page of the Prophet before you can blink, which none of us wants. I can't think of a false reason to give that we could fabricate proof of in a day, and if we just leave without giving any reason, that opens up a lawsuit."

"I don't like the idea of putting you at risk any more than you like the idea of being at risk, Min," Hermione said softly. "But I think I can hold it together, and if I can't, I trust you to take me down without hurting me."

Minerva sighed. "Hermione, darling, I don't think you understand the situation fully. In fact, I'm not sure you comprehend your talent. If surrender was an actual option in this bloody event I'd be going with that for simplicity's sake, with or without this little monkey wrench, because after what I witnessed, I have no doubt that I am incapable of beating you."

Hermione narrowed her eyes, and said nothing for a moment. "Bullshite," she finally decided.

"Albus couldn't have beaten you," Harry whispered. "Hermione, Albus Dumbledore wouldn't have stood a chance. I kind of wish old Voldy had waited to show up until now, because you'd have laid him out flat without breaking a sweat. What we're saying here is that if you have a flashback during that duel tomorrow and you think Minerva is a threat that you should use lethal force against, you're going to kill her."

Completely and utterly sick of both Minerva and Harry's mothering, Hermione had opted to take a walk and go find Al Potter. She'd promised Rose she'd speak to Harry's middle child, and for as much as it seemed like a little thing in a big world right now, she felt like perhaps helping solve a smaller problem would make her feel less overwhelmed about her looming, larger one.

"Albus!" she called, seeing the mop of dark hair that so clearly marked him as a Potter.

He looked up from where he was sitting in the corner booth of the dining hall. "Hey Aunt Hermione. What's up?"

"Stuff. Things. Heard you might need to talk about something," she said.

It was odd, really. Much as Rose had never connected well to her father and Harry had filled that role for her, Albus had found difficulty connecting with his mother after being sorted to Slytherin House, and Hermione had filled that role for him. Again it struck Hermione how, despite never really being a couple, she and Harry had managed to have mutual children somehow. Albus was her boy, just as much as Hugo was so far as she was concerned, so if something was wrong, she wanted to help.

"Who narced?" he wanted to know. "Mum?"

"I hardly ever talk to your mother," Hermione reminded him.

"Dad?"

"No, but I know he's concerned as well."

"Rose then," he concluded with a note of certainty.

"Sort of," Hermione replied. "Rose asked Minerva to talk to me about talking to you. As such, technically it was Minerva."

"So you and McGonagall, that's true, huh?" he asked.

Hermione huffed. "Guilty as charged."

"Love looks good on you, Aunt Hermione," he said with a smile.

"Thank you Albus," she replied, appreciating his sentiment. "That said, back to you. I hear you've had a row with your mother?"

He growled. "If you could call it that. She did something, and I don't think I can forgive her for it. It was stupid and selfish and I hate her for it."

The anger in the boy's voice was strange to hear. He was just not that sort of kid. Albus was kind and forgiving and understanding almost to a fault. What could Ginny have possibly done that such a sweet young man could find unforgivable?

One possible answer hit her like a ton of bricks, and she swallowed hard. "Are your siblings aware of whatever this is?" she inquired softly.

He looked up at her quizzically. Albus wasn't stupid. "Not yet, but I'm seriously considering telling... them."

Hermione rubbed her temples. The pause in his speech told her everything she needed to know. So much for solving a simple problem. This couldn't be further from simple. "Albus, do you understand that your father doesn't know?"

His head snapped up and he looked at her desperately. "Are we talking about the same thing, Aunt Hermione?" he whispered, voice rough.

She reached out and took her nephew's hand. "I'm his godmother, Albus. I'm one of the few who knows he's your brother. Tanner doesn't know either, at your mother's request."

Albus looked miserable. "Yeah, that's the bit I find unforgivable. What the hell kind of person has a baby, leaves him, then fucks off and starts another family just because it looks better on paper? I mean, Mum and Mister Hagrid, gross, yeah, but, it happened. From what she told me they were both drunk off their gourds and don't remember a bloody thing about the actual deed. They just remember waking up together, and then she found out she was pregnant."

"I've heard Rubeus' side of this, so I do know the situation," Hermione pointed out.

"What about Tanner?" Albus wanted to know. "Does he wonder about her?"

She laughed. "I had a conversation with him just before he left the Duel-Off about this. He doesn't so much as wonder about her as he wonders about the idea of you. He realizes that whoever his mother is, it's reasonable to think that she may have gone on to marry and have other children, and that while she clearly wants nothing to do with him and he's learned to accept that, he wonders if his hypothetical sibling or siblings would reject him as well, or be open to knowing their half-brother."

"I know I would be open to it," Albus claimed. "I never got to know him well at Hogwarts, given he was a few years older, but since he was your godson, I at least had him in my sights. We'd cross paths at family gatherings now and then, but I can't say I know the guy, and I'd really like to."

"He'd appreciate that, but you need to seriously consider how to approach that relationship," Hermione reasoned. "While there is a side of me, Al, that absolutely wants to split this thing wide open and force your Mum to own up to abandoning Tanner all those years ago, on the other hand I have to consider how the publicity would impact your brother, how this knowledge would shake your parents' marriage, how while you may be accepting of Tanner, how James and Lily may feel, and if either of them feel as your mother does, how another rejection would make Tanner feel. You also have to consider how your grandparents would react, both to the knowledge that their daughter abandoned her son, and to the fact that a man they very much trusted took drunken advantage of their daughter. There are so many potential villains in this story, Albus. That was part of what your mother was so scared of, I think, and why she made the choice she did. She may never have intended to have a child with Rubeus, but she did care about him immensely and once she was pregnant, she was not the sort who would ever have considered abortion, and being open about who the father of her child was could have resulted in Rubeus going back to Azkaban."

"I'm not sure I can buy her wanting to protect him like that," Albus argued.

Hermione groaned. "Okay, hypothetically, let's say that you and I had been stuck at Hogwarts for a whole year during a war. We were each doing our parts to organize the resistance, and that meant we were working together a lot. We were already fond of one another because of family connections and so forth, but this situation meant spending a lot of time together, just the two of us. Got it?"

"I get that you're painting a history of what happened between my mother and Mister Hagrid," Albus grumped, "and I'm keeping an open mind."

"Fine then," Hermione said. "So now the war is over. There have been losses, and one night, we both end up at a pub, and both end up completely sloshed. We gravitate toward each other the drunker we get because our instinct as we become more and more vulnerable is to seek safety, and we have represented safety to each other time and time again over the years. Meanwhile, on top of being sloshed, we're emotional, and one thing leads to another. We end up in bed together. When we wake up the next morning, we immediately realize it was a big mistake and that it should never, ever happen again. In fact, we agree to not even talk about it."

"That much makes sense. Still following," Albus agreed.

Hermione thanked every god there was for the fifty thousand times she'd listed to Rubeus recount the Ginny saga. If she had any chance of talking Albus into at the very least treading carefully with what he'd learned, he needed to approach this situation with a frame of mind which included sympathy and understanding, rather than the anger he was filled with right now. He needed to be his mother's advocate, not her enemy.

"Then, I find out that I'm pregnant," Hermione went on, mentally stepping into Ginny's shoes. "I wouldn't even dream of getting an abortion, and immediately make plans to disappear for a year, during which I can carry, deliver, and give the baby up for adoption. Then I consider how much family means to you, and how wrong of me it would be to make the choice to give this baby away without at least talking to you first, so I tell you I'm pregnant. To my surprise, you beg me to let you raise your child. You tell me you don't expect me to be responsible for the baby, just so long as I don't give it away. My first thought is that this will mean I'll have to face the reactions of everyone when people want to know who the mum is. I almost tell you no, and then you make me an offer. You tell me that you'll keep my identity a secret, and that in reality, nothing good could come from people finding out, anyway. My boyfriend is a friend of yours, and you don't want to hurt him. My parents might have you thrown in Azkaban."

Albus sighed. "Okay, fine, I can see it now. You sold me when you reminded me that Dad and Mister Hagrid were super close. He'd have done pretty much anything to avoid hurting Dad. Damn, I was really enjoying that righteous fury. Is that what it's like to be a Gryffindor?"

Hermione snorted. "Ask your father. I didn't get that particular Gryffindor trait. So, what are you going to do, Albus?"

He shrugged. "For now, get a favor out of you."

"What do you need?"

"Well, I was already planning to move out of the Manor," Albus said. "Now, it seems even more prudent, as while I'm going to process and try not to genuinely loathe my mother, it will be a while before I'm interested in seeing her. Dad's just going to have to deal with no answer as to why for the time being. I somehow doubt she's about to tell him what we rowed about."

"Unlikely," Hermione agreed.

"So while I'm not quite ready to blow the whistle on my mother, I do want to get to know my brother," the young man continued. "Any chance you could arrange for Tanner to be interested in a flatmate at the same time I was looking for a flatmate and then suggest to him that I might make a good flatmate?"

She considered for a moment. "I could probably arrange that without completely arousing suspicion. That's very Slytherin of you, I must say."

"If the shoe fits," he smirked.

A/N A few of you, I believe, correctly guessed the identity of Tanner's mother. I mused over this one for a while because it really is an odd concept. It's not something I'd "ship" as it were, and if I do a sequel, in no way will there be sparks flying between Ginny and Rubeus. They have a son together per a grief and whiskey filled coupling that only happened because they had an intense friendship that spanned peer groups because of a war. It was wildly situational, and they made the choices they did in an effort to protect as many people as they could - physically, mentally, and emotionally. Their son may have paid the highest price in that decision, but he was merely a concept in their minds at the time, and you have Rubeus, who isn't exactly known for thinking long term, and Ginny, who was still very young at this point. I felt it was very realistic for both of them. Also, poor Hermione, caught in the damn middle! PLEASE REVIEW!