Chapter 9) Spells and Secrets
Selected Listening: So What- The Mowgli's
Anastasia awoke to the feeling of a gentle hand caressing her hair and Minerva's voice worrying over her, but Anastasia didn't open her eyes.
"I don't understand, Poppy. It doesn't make sense."
"I'm sorry I don't have more answers for you or Albus. You know I've performed a multitude of tests on the girl, and nothing appears to be physically wrong to cause her to faint so often."
Anastasia remembered what happened in flashes. The troll, Hermione's scream, fighting the beast alongside Harry and Ron. She had clung to the Troll's great foot and tried to set it on fire, while Harry stuck a wand up its nose, and Ron dropped its club onto its head. The teachers had come in to punish them, but they ended up earning points instead of losing them.
Minerva's hand dropped abruptly. She stood up off the cot at the sound of new footfalls coming into the hospital wing.
"What happened?" McGonagall gasped. Anastasia opened her eyes a crack to see what was going on. Snape levitated Draco Malfoy onto the cot across from Anastasia. She held her breath to hide her reaction.
"He collapsed when the students reached the common room," Snape explained to Madam Pomfrey and Minerva. "Crabbe said it was the same the last time, started hyperventilating after the troll announcement and there was nothing they could do."
Madam Pomfrey sighed. "This would be so much easier if his parents would simply consent to a muggle treatment. Childhood asthma is treatable, and he could potentially grow out of it if they weren't so—"
"I can't believe Albus still puts that option on the enrollment forms. If we didn't have to tell the parents, it wouldn't even be a problem," Minerva said.
"Well, that is Lucius's fault. He bullies the school board before votes, you know." Severus drawled, and then twiddled his fingers thoughtfully, "let me speak with Narcissa about it. She's usually the more sensible one out of the two."
"I thought she was, being a doctor and all, but when I asked to have access to his St. Mungo's records, she outright refused," Pomfrey said. "I told her, 'Narcissa, this is your child. See reason,' and she hung the floo up on me."
"Such a shame…" Minerva said, "…she was such a bright girl."
"I have a hunch this situation is more complicated than it appears," Snape continued. The women looked to him as if they didn't quite believe what he was saying.
"Merlin-speed to you, Snape," Pomfrey said. "All it would require is an inhaler…if I could have her sign off on a prescription for that, he would be much better off."
Snape nodded, and then turned to Anastasia.
"What about the girl? What's wrong with her?" He asked. She closed her eyes again to ensure they couldn't see she was conscious.
"Chronic fainting spells." Madame Pomfrey said. "It's in her medical records her parents sent. The troll fight must have been too much for her."
Too much for her. Anastasia didn't like the idea of anything being too much for her, especially a situation her other three friends escaped without incident. She wished Madam Pomfrey would find anything wrong with her. A simple medication that could free her from the constant fear that she would faint when she was doing anything the least bit strenuous.
"Mm. Well, as exciting as this day has been, I believe I'll be turning in." Snape said, flicked his cape as he turned, and left. Once his footsteps faded away again, Anastasia felt McGonogall's hand smoothing her hair once more, and her gaze of worry.
Madam Pomfrey spoke out in the silence.
"I've read over that note one thousand times," she said, "the one the midwitch left with her on the doorstep of the castle…I still think there's something she left out, something that would help us put this puzzle together."
"You could be right…but Albus doesn't know who the midwitch was who left her."
In the morning, Malfoy was no more compliant than he had been after his first episode.
"Where am I? What happened?" He demanded as he sat up in bed. His tantrum awoke Anastasia and she also sat up. Sunlight streamed into the infirmary. It was Friday morning.
"The same thing that happened last time, Malfoy," Madam Pomfrey explained, coming around to give both students a glass of water. Anastasia took hers and downed it completely, realizing she hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. "Professor Snape is going to speak with your mother today, and if I have anything to say about it, you'll have a prescription inhaler emergency-owled by tomorrow."
"Inhaler? I don't need any muggle medication, my parents specifically told you—"
"And I am telling you that you require medication, otherwise you may die if this happens again."
This seemed to shut Malfoy up.
"But what's she doing here?" he asked, pointing at Anastasia.
"Green, you collapsed after fighting the troll. Do you remember?" Madame Pomfrey asked. Anastasia nodded. "Very well, at least your condition doesn't induce memory loss. Both of you gather your things and walk together to potions, in case one of you passes out on the way." She gestured to the piles of their messenger bags brought up by the house elves.
The nurse walked away to begin her morning medicine distribution.
"You fought the troll? Are you insane?" Malfoy asked her as he got up off the cot. Anastasia didn't respond to him immediately, her head still swimming with the information she gleaned the night before.
Albus Dumbledore was a perpetual bachelor, meaning he never married or had any children.
Albus doesn't know who the midwitch was who left her.
"Well one tends to fight when one is being attacked." Anastasia finally responded after snapping out of her thoughts.
"You should have run away." Draco said. "Trolls are massive! It could have slaughtered you."
"Why do you care?" Anastasia said. "Besides, it had us cornered, and it's cowardly to run away."
"I don't care." He looked defensive. "All I'm saying is that it's not cowardly to run if you're saving your own life. Its common sense. Who else was with you?"
And as they began the walk to potions, down the main corridors, she recounted the whole thing.
"Potter! Should have known. Locking you in the loo with that monster? He should have been expelled by now," Draco complained.
"It was an accident," said Anastasia. Malfoy scoffed.
"Why is it that only you fainted if all four of you were fighting?" He asked.
Anastasia gave him a wary glance before continuing.
"I um…I've had fainting spells since I was a child. My family doesn't know why."
Anastasia expected him to say something helpful or empathetic, but Draco stopped and let out a sputtering laugh.
"That's hilarious!" Draco did an impression of a very girly faint.
"It's not funny! Besides, you can't laugh at me when you had to be levitated to the infirmary yourself! Twice in the past month from what I heard," Anastasia snapped.
Draco glared and shut up. Anastasia took advantage of his silence to gain the upper hand.
"Madam Pomfrey said all you needed was an inhaler. Why won't your parents let you have one?" Anastasia asked. The two entered the back stairwell and started their slow descent to the dungeons.
"That's a muggle medicine for a muggle disease. Purebloods can't get muggle diseases I told you before—or never mind…I guess that wasn't you," Malfoy corrected himself, remembering their last trip to Florean's before Anastasia had to revise her fake identity. His eyes flickered to the scar on the side of her neck. Anastasia ignored his comment and cleared her throat.
"But that's a lie. Muggles and wizards are both mortal, both human. They can have all the same diseases. It's kind of a tossup on whether there's a better muggle or magic cure for it," she said. There were better wizarding treatments for cancer and dementia, better treatments for broken bones, and the flu, and cold, but wizards had not found good solutions to chronic illnesses at all.
Draco went quiet again. His countenance darkened. He stumbled into a bit of a ramble.
"Whether it's true or not, my father believes it. He's blaming my mother for my illness, saying she lied about her blood purity. Since the doctors at St. Mungo's diagnosed me, he's been searching the Black family tree, trying to find a point where muggle blood entered the family…if she's hiding muggle blood, he'll divorce her and disown me…but it's not her fault. I'm the one who's damaged, not mum."
They stepped off the last step and walked down the hall towards Snape's classroom.
It was Anastasia's turn to go quiet. She couldn't believe what the boy was saying. She didn't know adults could be so coldhearted to their own children over bloodline. She wished she could reach out and hug him, but she was too nervous about how he may react, so she didn't. By the time she thought of something to say, they had reached the classroom door.
"I'm so sorry. That's horrible," she said. Draco came out of his melancholy trance and looked her up and down with a sneer, his hand on the doorknob.
"So what? I don't need your pity, mudblood," he said and went into class.
"That's two times now, Anastasia." Hermione said at the lunch table, finally stating the comment that was on her mind through potions, but she was too afraid to say. Anastasia morosely picked at her cream soup.
"Two times what?" Harry asked. Ron made a noise, but it was muffled by the chicken leg he was tearing into.
"Two times she and Draco Malfoy fainted at nearly the exact same time. The first was the night we went to the trophy room," Hermione said pointedly.
"I don't understand," Harry said. "Why does that mean anything?"
"It doesn't," Anastasia snapped. "It's a coincidence. They were both nights we were stressed. He gets asthma attacks. I faint. I don't have anything to do with him."
"Well of course you don't, why would you?" Ron asked. "You're being mental, Hermione."
Hermione rolled her eyes, and for once, didn't take Ron's comments personally. Harry was too distracted with his own problems to care.
"We still need to figure out what's under the three-headed-dog, and I've got the first quidditch game coming up!" Harry said.
But Anastasia's worries were still too hung up on her lineage to think about the giant dog.
Anastasia knew she would have to ask grandfather about the book entry eventually, and it might as well be their next dinner together. Still, she was incredibly nervous about bringing it up. Why would her grandfather hide the truth from her after all these years? Why wouldn't he be honest about her parents and where she came from? Did he even know where she came from?
Maybe her worst fear was that her guardian was not her family at all.
Anastasia thought it may be easier to bring up the topic if she had the book Hermione mentioned, so she checked it out from the library and found the page about her so-called grandfather. Sure enough, it said exactly what Hermione told her. Albus Dumbledore never married or had children.
When Sunday came, she took the book, dawned her invisibility cloak, and shuffled down the corridors to her secret passageway. She waited until no students were in sight and slipped up the back corridor.
Anastasia found a house elf setting the table with Cornish hen, and her grandfather already sitting there waiting. She pulled her invisibility cloak off and hung it on the armchair, entered the dining nook and took her place at the table, putting the book beside her place setting.
"Ah! Anastasia, good evening," Albus said with a smile. "What is it that you've got there?" he asked, peering over the book's cover. "Doing extra reading for Professor Binn's class?"
She made a scrunched face.
"Not really…I um…had something to ask you…but maybe it should wait until after we eat." Anastasia's greatest fear was that he would kick her out of the den as soon as she revealed she found it.
"Isn't now a better time? Eating tends to make one feel better after difficult conversations, don't you think?" He asked gently. She noticed that his wrinkles were almost entirely gone now, except for those around his eyes.
Anastasia bit her lip, and then slid the book over. She opened the book to the correct page with trembling hands and pointed to the paragraph in question.
"Explain this, please," she said.
Albus sighed, but he smiled slightly.
"I suppose I'm lucky you didn't find this sooner. I also suppose Miss Granger hurried you a bit with all the extra reading."
Anastasia looked down at her hands sadly.
"I'm sorry. I told her. She already had it figured out halfway, and it seemed rude to keep stringing her along about it, especially since she's a real muggle born."
Albus nodded.
"I understand." He said solemnly. "I believe Miss Granger is someone we can trust for now, but I must ask you to please not tell anyone else. Or else, I may have to use a memory charm."
Anastasia's mouth hung open. The last thing she wanted after confessing her identity was having her friend's memory completely wiped. She recovered quickly.
"But I don't understand. Does this mean I am not your granddaughter? I don't have a grandmother? The book says you never had any children. Who am I?"
Albus looked pained, but then he smiled sweetly.
"I know for a fact you are your mother, Holly Sinclair's, daughter, because of the shape of your face and your eyes, and your kindness. And I know for a fact you are a Dumbledore, because of that bright ginger hair of yours." He pointed to her pigtails. "And that curl of a smirk that is just like Aria—I mean mine."
Anastasia grinned at his comments, yet it faded quickly.
"But what about Francis Sinclair? You said he died in a death eater raid. Is he not my father? Is he not your son?"
"So many questions all of the sudden." Albus said looking pained again. "Can you not be content with the fact that you are one of my only living family members? And that I love you very much?"
His tone quieted her. It was the same tone he used when he was about to be overwhelmed by whatever he was hiding from her.
"I need to know the answers sometime," she said sadly, picking at her food.
"Maybe one day, but not today," he said resolutely.
"What better day than today?" she asked hopelessly.
"What is the difference between today and yesterday besides the fact that you know a little more? It changes nothing."
She sighed and sunk down into the wooden bench alongside the wall.
"I thought maybe if you gave me those answers, I could piece together why I faint all the time…and then maybe I could find a cure."
"Madam Pomfrey told me," Albus said. "I am proud of you for fighting the troll."
"Thank you," she said, but she wasn't sure if her guardian should be complimenting her for doing things that could get her killed. As the Malfoy boy said, wasn't it common sense to run away? And then she remembered the Malfoy boy's predicament and found even more sadness in the world.
"But you are still worried about these fainting spells?" Albus asked her.
"Yes," she said, "And I was wondering if the fainting is related to another thing—when I was sitting on the sorting hat, something strange happened, and I thought for a moment I felt myself burning."
"Burning?"
"Yes, burning. The hat was rifling through my memories, and all of the sudden my vision went black, but it felt like I was on fire, and I heard a woman screaming."
Albus stared at her through frightened eyes.
"Did you feel like you were going to faint when you had this vision?"
She frowned and shook her head.
"No…no it didn't feel the same."
Albus nodded solemnly.
"I believe the hat found the memory of the night you were born. The room your mother was in was burning. I can think of no other thing it might be."
Anastasia froze. She felt her blood go cold this time with shock.
"Was my mother burned to death?" she asked, tears forming in her eyes and a ball of sobs catching her throat. "Voldemort did that? I heard her scream. She was in so much pain."
Albus looked sad again, and tears came to his eyes.
"I don't know…I don't know exactly what happened…the midwitch never told me."
"But you truly don't know who she was?" Anastasia asked. "The one who delivered me never revealed herself? She could be the only one who knows."
His eyes widened in slight surprise that she asked this question, but he responded.
"No, no she didn't." Albus said.
Anastasia nodded, trusting her guardian, even though he often lied.
"Okay…okay fine…let's eat," she said and stuffed as much food as she could in her mouth and tried to ignore the saltiness of her tears, tried to ignore that she heard her mother's screams as she died, and tried to ignore that she did not know her true lineage, and tried to ignore that one of her friend's pureblood parents wouldn't let him have medication, and tried to ignore her guardian looking magically younger week by week, and tried to ignore the fact there was a three-headed dog guarding a secret item to draw Voldemort out of hiding.
All this ignoring was entirely overwhelming for an eleven-year-old to do.
Albus stared sadly at Anastasia as she ate and wept at the same time, but he had no words of comfort that would change the unfortunate facts of life.