Sacrifice

The King came home that year, in time for Remembrance Day, a week before. Narcissa was there, of course, to greet him at Heathrow in a carefully planned beginning to a week of pageantry, both solemn and delightful. The Coronation was being actively planned for spring, on the one year anniversary of the landing of the Coalition forces in Scotland.

Hermione, watching on television from an antechamber at Westminster, couldn't help but wonder, and reflect that this man owed his throne in Britain to Narcissa, but if he had not regained it, would have cemented another in Oceania by his own efforts and courage. Growing up, she'd heard it said sometimes that New Zealand and Australia would soon become Republics. Now that would never happen—the Federation of Oceania was Charles' grand design. Canada, and many other Commonwealth countries, had been lost to the Crown forever, but they had regained something else, a new direction, a new creation for the 21st century.

The Royal Air Force provided the salute, both a flypast and a gun salute, at Heathrow. The Naval salutes, from the cruiser Belfast in the Pool of London, would come when His Majesty crossed the Thames. The Army salutes would be delivered when the procession shifted from a motorcade to a carriage at the Tower. Then he would, at length, arrive at Buckingham Palace, where, in a televised ceremony, Narcissa would hand back her authority as Regent.

And at some point in the next year, Bellatrix as a Lady of the Wizengamot in her own right would repeat the oath of fealty for the House of Black at the coronation, that she had already given before, at the receipt of her Royal Pardon. The King would be formally crowned.

Narcissa would at last be only the Prime Minister. 'Only'. His Majesty had gained much power in Oceania, rallying the people after the nuclear attacks, to resist the Morsmordre. Here in Britain, the situation was and would remain different. Hermione didn't know exactly what kind of agreement that Narcissa and King Charles had come to, but it was clearly something that they had both felt workable. All real enduring political events were in the end founded in compromise, and Narcissa was the Queen of Compromise. She had found a way to preserve what was really important to her, and taught herself to accept the passing of the rest.

Daphne Greengrass came up, in uniform. "General," she offered affably, looking up at the screens. "It's hard for me to believe that the world has really come to this. The magical and technological worlds will never separate again. We're all one nation, now." She twirled, uneasily. "I admit, if it weren't for the dead, it all seems like a dream. Here we all are, and we'll greet His Majesty with our wands in honour of his rightful and royal power, as it was in the most ancient of days."

Except for all the dead people… Hermione shoved her hands in her pockets. Smiled wryly. She had the grace to accept that Daphne was trying to find a way to process it all, just like she was. "We needed it. Looking back, every rationalisation I ever heard for the Statute was a stupid one."

"You're likely right, but it didn't seem that way to those of us who grew up inside the curtain. I think you have an advantage now, in being muggleborn. Conversant in both societies." Daphne tipped a little salute. "I should like to be friends, if you don't mind. We are both in the same place at the end, and there are so few of our generation left."

She's a Slytherin. Probably looking to strengthen her connections to the House of Black.

And you want to be a politician. Are one already, arguably, with the Commission.

Hermione smiled. "I'd like that very much."

The two women turned, and watched the King's procession, once more.

Quietly, Hermione wondered to herself if Waugh would be just as trenchant about Narcissa and Bellatrix as he was about the Sword of Stalingrad.

Then she closed her eyes. Such a musing would be history's choice to judge. She had made her choice, and it had served her well. If some elements of the world made her upset, well, she could just as well be dead.

And in the end, she had plenty to live for.

And, perhaps Waugh wouldn't be nearly so trenchant about them, after all. Perhaps the situation was perfectly reasonable. Perhaps it was a new Golden Age of Magic, for Merlin's Isle of Gramarye.

Perhaps Golden Ages always came in sin, always were midwifed by the kind of compromises she'd made.

And perhaps she damned well didn't care, and she was too happy to worry.

The King enjoyed His own, again.

Hermione was in her office in the Main Building of the Ministry of Defence, at Whitehall. Fortunately, she'd only had two meetings in the morning; the rest of the day had been spent reviewing satellite images as she continued the tangled process of finalising the broad thrust that would be conducted by the final on-the-ground Boundary Commission between the British Government and the All-Afrika Federation, which was roughly how the name of the wizard-organised government of Sub-Saharan Africa translated.

She couldn't help but think of Nelson Mandela's vision of peace and reconciliation, and how close it had come to succeeding. Going from a prisoner for twenty-seven years to the President of a post-Apartheid South Africa had been no mean feat, and his effort to build connections and encourage reconciliation had been something she had looked up to, during her year in exile in Europe, before the bombs fell, when she'd had plenty of opportunities to read muggle literature.

Some things never changed. She was wearing a garrison uniform, not fatigues, and was working in an office in London, not fighting in the field. But her tea was black as night, and strong, and bitter, with a hint of smoke to it. With milk still too precious to waste, she stirred in evaporated milk until it was a dirty orange-brown, but given the chance to use fresh milk she thought she might actually prefer this, now.

It was hard to think of how many had died. She was trying to catch up on all of those who had lived and died who had served alongside of her in the war, and it was almost impossible. Active combat continued in Central Europe. Their own forces had launched an amphibious operation against Friesland, to help dislodge the Morsmordre Warlord who was occupying the Netherlands, working their way ashore through the narrow, sandy channels of the magically altered North Sea. It had been unexpected in the winter, and masterfully executed by Blaise's staff (Hermione was not sure if he was a brilliant commander himself, but he was a masterful judge of people, and surrounded himself with a staff like nobody else, and kept them productive with the way he handled them). It was still brutal, to fight ashore through the shifting sand in what was, in mid-November, very much already winter. She had heard that Andromeda's brother in law, Craig Tonks, was commanding the Marines for the expedition.

In the east, Russian Armies had stormed their way through the growing snow and mud to Warsaw. Nazarbayev was not interested in repeating Stalin's abandonment of the city; he had forced the Coalition Armies onwards, and a savage battle, street-to-street, aided by the uprising of the people against the Morsmordre, was raging right at that moment. At the same time, the siege of Durmstrang, held by a powerful cabal of dark wizards aligned with Voldemort who had resisted to the bitter end, had cost the lives of fifty thousand troops, and lasted for five months. The list of the dead might yet grow, since there was still such terrible fighting to be done. Even General Diaz's Junta in Spain had managed to cobble together an Army to invade Sardinia with.

She was guiltily thankful that after Nantes, they had sent Bellatrix home. And here you are, sitting in this office… It's important work, bringing peace to Africa, but….

Ron had volunteered to return to Warsaw, and use his knowledge of the local resistance and the city to help the operations. It was probably sincere, he was too unsubtle for it to be a slight.

Hermione still felt a little ashamed by it.

She took another swig of the tea. The past few months, with Bellatrix enforcing her second attempt to quit smoking cigarettes, had been mildly miserable, but now the only thing she was overdosing on was caffeine, so that was something. Being alive and looking forward to the future was weird.

Hermione turned back to the flimsies filled with satellite photos on her desk, the copious notes she'd taken, the magical assessment of the ley lines and how they should influence the border, the old Royal Ordnance Survey maps. She forced her mind back to work.

There was a knock on the door. A shadow of frustration crossed her mind. Of course, another distraction. "Do come in."

The door opened.

Hermione nearly stumbled, racing to get to her feet. "Your Grace."

Narcissa regarded her with a neutral, frozen composure that was not good, though her words were gentle. "Have a seat, Hermione. Please. This is a personal matter." The Prime Minister quietly closed the door behind her, with a gesture of her wand, rather than do something so gauche as close the door with her hand.

Hermione felt sick in her stomach from the tone Narcissa took with those words. She slumped back down, and reached for her tea. "Bellatrix?" Came almost unbidden from her lips.

"No, nothing to do with her," Narcissa replied, and reached into her robes, pulling out a folio that magically expanded as she put it on the desk. Hermione's first impulse of thinking wonderful, more paperwork faded at Narcissa's expression.

She felt something like a cold, clammy hand grabbing at her heart.

"We have to have a serious conversation about your parents, Hermione."

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods…

"They have been located." Narcissa did not let the comment linger long enough for Hermione to delude herself into false hope. "Unfortunately, the Ministry of Magic for Oceania has some severe concerns about the conduct that resulted in their current condition. They indeed remember nothing of you. They do not think it is possible to restore their memories."

Hermione sagged in her chair, her tears coming in absolute silence.

"Also, the mind magic used on them is prohibited in Britain against muggles, and severely prohibited against muggles in Australia, where the laws against such conduct are more severe. I have made the necessary arrangements to make sure there is no investigation; there are statute of limitations considerations, anyway, and the Wizarding courts, especially in Australia, are more receptive than the Muggle courts to the defence of Necessity, so I do not think I am shielding you from conviction, only from unwelcome publicity."

"For what it is worth, Hermione, I wish to assure you, on my word—it is hard for me to think of myself," Narcissa's voice cracked in an unusual display of emotion, "with bonds of family and emotion, blood and obligation, to muggles—but I have put myself in your shoes, thinking about this, since I discovered the news, and I am certain I would have done the exact same thing, in an effort to keep my kin safe. The law may be a political matter that I must raise, but personally and morally, I would have done the same that you did, Hermione. Do not hold this against yourself. You did right by them, and I can show you." She began to take out some pictures from the folio.

"Why can't I try to restore their memories?" Hermione at last asked, she listened to everything Narcissa said, but she leaned over the side of her chair, feeling hollow, wishing she could throw up, but her body, long accustomed to the brutal exertions of the field, ignored the nausea. It would have to be much worse yet, to give her the release of vomiting. It wouldn't come. "I must be able to try," she added, her eyes filled with such a wild desperation that Narcissa paused, upon seeing it.

The photos were on the table now, and Hermione could see her parents. She could read the notes, see that they had settled in Geelong, on Corio Bay south of Melbourne. They were older, and dark from the sun in the photos. Dentists, they were valuable people in the war, living in what had been a single-family suburban home which had been converted into a triplex to alleviate the crunch in the housing stock from wartime refugees from the cities which had been nuked. As dentists, they had a fuel ration, and a Holden parked in front.

It wasn't a perfect life, but it was a life that most of the world would kill for, right now. Even Britain had now seen fighting, Liverpool, Glasgow, Bristol and Cardiff were the largest completely untouched cities which had seen essentially no fighting at all, and all had been subjected to a repressive state terror for six years. Melbourne was just as untouched, and had lived free the entire time. A tired, faint smile touched Hermione's lips, as she thought that she had, in fact, succeeded in protecting them.

Then the next photo took her breath away.

"Your adoptive siblings. They were war orphans that your parents chose to adopt."

"Oh Gods, thank… I… Of course they would." Hermione buried her face in her hands, started to cry again, openly now, not just silent tears but real sobbing, as it all came undone. "...What are their names, Narcissa?" She whispered.

"Geoffrey, and … Hermione."

They knew they knew they knew theyknew theyknew theyknewtheyknewtheyknew…. Something was wrong something was missing they tried to put their family back together …

Hermione sank against the table, against the photos, against the maps, sobbing. "I still want to try, damnit, I still want to try!"

Narcissa quietly got up, walked around the table, and wrapped her in a hug. "Hermione, even if you succeeded…"

"I know! I'd make them lose their memories of … Geoff and Hermione! Gods. What have I done, what have I done?"

"You saved their lives. You made a decision in fear and terror and the heat of the moment, and when you did, you saved their lives. Just like you saved my sister's life, Hermione. We all sacrifice, for these things. You may know him as a pompous peacock, but I loved Lucius and I hope someday in the future, when I am dead—well, I am writing a book. I want to tell the world how beautiful our love story actually was, how kind to me he actually was, and in the end how courageous he was, to face down his former Lord. I sacrificed that love story for Draco, for Bella, for Andy. Bella? Well, she sacrificed her pride, her shame. She sacrificed her arm as a blood rite on the day she defected. She sacrificed the sanctity of the magic she created, and turned it into an engine of war. She would have sacrificed much more—certainly, her life—if you hadn't sacrificed your oldest, closest friendships to love her and trust her."

Hermione could see where this was going. She swallowed, and furiously bit her lip, until it bled. "And you mean to say that I sacrificed something, too. I sacrificed my relationship with my parents. The place for me in their heart is taken up with my little adoptive sister I'll never know. That's Hermione Granger. And I'm just Hermione. Hermione Nobody. Hermione the Nameless. I severed my own connection to my family. That was my fucking price for saving their lives."

"And in doing so, you two gave two little orphaned children parents who love them," Narcissa reminded her, and softly shook loose from her, to step back, and regard Hermione, who tiredly pushed herself up and sank back into the chair. "But I am sorry. You can read it yourself. You are correct-even the small and dangerous chance they have of restoring their memories would mean sacrificing all their memories of the past six years. It's a zero-sum game."

"Gods but I am hated! Fucking cursed! You're telling me I have to sacrifice my connection to my family for the sake of my family. Adopted siblings I'll never know. Damn you!"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean," Narcissa answered, composed and not answering the curses. "So, that's that. It is a sacrifice, but a very decent one. You want to be involved in the lives of your family? Set an example for them, Hermione. There's a little girl growing up in part of this great Confederation I am creating with the King, a new and closer Commonwealth than the one before. Her name is Hermione, and she looks rather like you. Accept your sacrifice, my young friend, my sister in law. Stand tall and proud and forge your life at my sister's side. When your little namesake grows up, she will see a woman who shares her name, who looks like her, a woman of great power and prestige in the realms. And you will have a message for her, that she can do anything, and achieve anything. A chance to inspire and guide. You may never meet her, but nonetheless, you will still be her older sister." A thin, wry smile.

"Just like, while Bellatrix may have been born the first, I fear I have grown into the role of being the Older Sister. I have often been consumed by the fear I would lose her, I spent years resigned that she would never leave Azkaban, and I was helpless to succour her. These bonds do not have to be conventional, to be real and just as heartfelt."

You're just telling me this because you don't want me to ruin my own career by creating a scandal, a dark and angry voice inside of her wanted to lash out. Wanted so, so hard to lash out.

But even if that was true, what Narcissa said was also true. The truths wrenched her heart in opposite directions, and she pushed herself hastily up. "I want to be alone, I want to be alone, I very much want to be alone!"

"Go home. You may want to be alone, but be with Bella instead. She's your lover, this is her job."

Bella, I wouldn't be in this fucking position without the Morsmordre, if it didn't exist I wouldn't have ever done this in the first place! Hermione raged to herself.

"Take all the time you need…" Narcissa continued softly, but in a snap, Hermione disapparated away. She needed to talk to someone who would still actually listen to her.

Someone who wasn't part of the House of Black, who wasn't interested in her career or her future.

Someone who hadn't been there at Voldemort's side when she made the decision to rebuild the personalities of her own parents.

She arrived at the Museo Oriental in Valladolid when the sky was dark in a central Spanish winter's evening, a cold wind whipping down the Paseo Filipinos and a light dusting of snow on the ground, with the promise of more to come in the air, her unbuttoned greatcoat flapping around her in the wind, a few dead leaves from the trees still mingled with the snow, to slickly cling to her boots.

Arriving in uniform with her official identification, the footmen at the apartment block which had been converted to hold the residences of the officers and politicians in the Junta (the headquarters was temporarily in the Museo Oriental, Madrid was too heavily damaged to move back into so Valladolid would remain the temporary capital) treated her seriously, assuming she was a special delegate from the British Embassy.

"Tell El Jefe that we were front comrades, at Melitopol," she said, when they first tried to schedule her for a formal visit the next day. She had cleaned herself up, but the bitter, surreal fact that she was seeking emotional comfort and advice from the man who was effectively the Dictator of Spain was not lost on her. You didn't tally all I sacrificed, Narcissa. I sacrificed a lot of my fucking principles, too. But hadn't all that been for her higher duty? What had her family been for? She had sacrificed them to save them...

She was quickly taken up to Jorge Diaz's apartment, mercifully quickly, to avoid any further chance for rumination in the cold. The widower, in a show of incorruptible modesty, did not have a substantial residence, though it was comfortably appointed.

"General Granger…" A smile flashed on his face. "I suspected, when I heard Melitopol. Bellatrix would have said something else."

Hermione winced, hearing her surname. "Please, Jorge, if I may; it's just Hermione right now."

"Of course." He stepped back, and showed her to where he had two comfortable, plush and high-backed chairs sitting with a table in the middle. Hermione moved to sigh. She had put real effort into looking 'normal' to get this far, and now she almost immediately started to cry again.

Jorge saw it immediately, and went for his liquor, returning with two glasses and one of those familiar bottles of Patxaran. "You need a drink," he observed simply, and poured them out.

Hermione took it in her hand, staring down at the walnut surface of the table, the patterns of wood that had once been alive, her hand clutched on the glass, the light refracting through the liquid, and jerkily nodded. "Jorge, I have no family left. They found my parents alive, but… They can't reverse the erasure of their memories that I did to protect them from the Morsmordre… It might cause brain damage if they did," her words stumbled out in a stream as she drank hard from the glass. "brain damage and… Even if it worked, they'd forget … Oh gods, they'd forget their new children. They adopted two children and they'd be strangers to them after years of raising them, war orphans, if we went ahead and tried and it actually succeeded and gods I want them so badly but … I can't do that. Not to two children who've already lost their own birth families. I can't, I won't." The liquor burned neatly as it went down, and down. Shook her stomach like the Admiral Ushakov had shook in the teeth of the 'Three Sisters'.

Good.

Jorge sipped his own. Let her have a few minutes as the alcohol started to surge through her veins and take hold of her.

"Well," he said at last. "That's a damned tough bullet to chew, isn't it?"

She nodded, wordlessly, and watched as at last he refilled her glass.

This time, she was composed enough to take her time. "What should I do, Jorge?"

"Hermione—you already made up your mind. You already know," he smiled gently. "I could tell from the way you explained it all."

A soft groan tore from her lips and she stared up at the grand battle-painting on the wall she was facing, it was some scene from the Napoleonic Wars certainly, but it was just a jumble to her there and then. "Am I so predictable?"

"You are, my friend—but that's not a bad thing. Bellatrix is as constant as the Pole Star, and I'd be sitting her as her friend if she came to me like this, too, even though that one would be much more of a political irritant to explain away the next day."

Hermione smiled in spite of herself, and then shook her head again. "Damnit, Jorge! I want a family!"

"And, my friend, you made choices which got you one. I know why you came to me tonight, or at least I think I have a very good idea why. But, once you feel up to it—take a day or two in Valladolid as you like, if it would help, by all means—you must go back to Ancient House. You know you must."

Hermione looked down at her hands and at the glass and nodded jerkily through fresh tears. "One thing, Jorge," she said, and quietly admitted her defeat. Accepted it.

"Yes?"

"It's never General Granger again, please… I own it. It's General Black." She quietly decided, in that moment, that it had never been in doubt, and no matter how much she made to prevaricate, she didn't want it any other way.

He smiled. "I know Narcissa made some quiet arrangements in the British laws—I don't give a damn, myself. They can say whatever they like about me in the papers, but I don't care that you're to marry another woman, personally. So. Will you make it official?"

Hermione mustered her Gryffindor's courage. "Yes—and I have a request."

Notes:

Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy is a poignant look at the decline of the traditional rural Tory way of life, brought on in that telling as much by an internal moral decline in the spirit and essence of the people as by any outside factor. He uses as an example or a touchstone the "Sword of Stalingrad", the titular Sword of Honour, which was given by King George VI to Stalin and the people of Stalingrad in honour of their victory in the siege thereof. The sword is representative of the moral decline as a form of celebration of the atheist Stalin, at the expense of the slavery of the peoples of Eastern Europe to his Communist regime. Coming from a Military émigré family, but raised mostly to speak the English language, I found them intensely meaningful books. Whether or not Narcissa's regime is a sign of moral rejuvenation or moral decay is a matter of speculation I leave to the reader.