Frank stared at the library and smiled. Three days awake and he'd found his way to peace. It was organized and well dusted. The warm, welcoming scent of lemon oil filled the air. He'd never had the Longbottom flair for plants. The greenhouses, moist and beautiful, had flourished with things that intimidated him as young lad. The library was his sanctuary as a child.

It was good to be home.

His wife and mother were off shopping with the girls. The gaggle of feminine danger had passed through like a storm with Alice securely linked arm in arm with their daughter. If the group hadn't terrified him witless, he would have been jealous of their time together.

"Hermione will be quite angry that she missed sharing this with you." Neville leaned against the door jamb. "She organized it and sorted it all out after the war. Never met a book she wouldn't devour."

"Magic does provide." Frank grinned. "If one has faith."

"Gran called you her beloved cookoo. Said you didn't care for the greenhouses as a lad." Neville looked around the room. "I could barely stay in these rooms, and only partly because Uncle Algie was always stalking me, trying to scare my magic into showing."

"That's normal for our family, son." Frank smiled. "Plants and plants and plants. We grow rich with the land and the dirt under our nails."

"A statement oft repeated." Neville stepped fully into the room. "I've done my best to make you proud."

"All you ever had to do was be to make me proud." Frank pulled his son into his arms. "I've missed so much. I wish I'd been here for you."

"You are now." Neville squeezed his father tight and stepped back. "Did you come in here to commune with the books or did you have a purpose?"

"I was hoping to find out a bit about muggle weddings." Frank shifted from one foot to the next and blushed. "I don't want to be caught flat footed with you lot."

"There's nothing in here." Neville shrugged. "Hermione burned our muggle studies books in the fireplace and toasted marshmallows over them. She found them to be sadly lacking in sense and reality. After a forty minute lecture on anthropological studies, she deemed them unfit even for amusement, but I bought some things when I was out with Hannah on the muggle side."

Neville accioed the group of magazines and the two men settled at the table to study a variety of bridal magazines.


Hermione smiled at her mother. Alice had dragged her out of the store to grab a cup while the rest of their group continued helping Millie sort out a trousseau. Why anyone needed a new wardrobe just to be married was beyond her. It all seemed rather Victorian to her.

"I imagine this feeling of kinship between us is difficult for you." Alice didn't look up from her cup. "You had a mother, and I don't want to pretend she didn't exist."

"It isn't difficult. It feels natural and right." Hermione looked out the window and watched the crowds passing by. "My biological parents would have loved that I have you and Frank. They wouldn't want me to be without the love we already share. Is that strange? I worry that you must feel like you were pressed into service as my parents. You didn't choose this or me."

"Magic provides." Alice smiled and patted Hermione's hand. "We wanted a sibling for Neville, maybe more than one. We were unable to do it the usual way, but we couldn't be happier to have you."

Hermione relaxed and sipped her tea, basking in her mother's affection. She still missed her muggle family. She always would, but she knew they would understand. She imaginedher mother's wide, wonderful smile.

"My first parents were dentists." Hermione smiled at Alice's blank look. "Healers for teeth. They liked helping people and believed that making the world a better place is a sacred duty."

"They raised you to be independent and strong."

"Yes." Hermione smiled. "When I moved in with Neville and Gran, I never thought it would lead to this."

"So, how did you wind up with the young Malfoy?"

"I was angry at the world, and there was drinking." Hermione shrugged one shoulder and traced a finger along the edge of her teacup's saucer. "He was angry about the future, and there was drinking."

"So, there was drinking." Alice smirked.

"Quite a lot of it." Hermione nodded. "And then there was magic."

"I have a feeling there's a bit more to the story." Alice plucked up a biscuit. "Don't make me interrogate you."

"But isn't that what mothers do?" Hermione grinned.

"I suppose it is." Alice leaned back in her chair and assessed her daughter through narrowed eyes.

"We put our faith in the magic." Hermione grinned. She could hear the others making their boisterous way toward them. Luna always knew when the time was right. "Isn't that all you really need to know?


Lucius stared at the stones from a distance. They were stark and beautiful, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd truly seen them, if he'd ever truly seen them. His father had turned away from the magic in his blood to follow another path. It had been his grandfather, already aged beyond most wizards, that had brought him here and taught him how to access them.

He touched the sundial that was masked from muggle eyes. It allowed him proper access to the stones where Malfoys worshipped when they could find it within themselves to be true. He waited as it worked, waited for the moment when he could fall to his knees.

He wondered at the ancestor that had allowed this place to be seen and claimed by muggles. Which one of his illustrious antecedents had failed so spectacularly? Were all their achievements mere whisks of illusory word play?

The dial turned, and he stepped forward with purpose.

He passed through the first circle and felt the pressure of magic not his own trying to find purchase in him. Voices, his father's, his gransfather's, Voldemort's, they taunted him. Their insults grew louder as he stepped to the altar stone, but so did other voices.

His mother.

His wife.

His son.

He could hear them faintly, but they did not jeer.

They believed.

He pulled the small obsidian blade from his pocket and stared at the altar stone. He sliced one palm and then the next. He called forth the images and thoughts of those he longed to protect. He let the blood well in the palms of his hand.

He felt the sun warm his hair and scalp.

It was time.

He pressed his hands to the stone and felt the power surge through him.

Faith. Ephemeral and real. Love. Divine and bestial.

His heart beat loudly and drowned out all the voices save his own.

"Help me to help them."

He dropped to his knees, dragging his slick, bloody hands across the stone. He did not break contact.

"Help me to help them."

Finally, he felt it. His magic slid out from him and returned stronger. He had reformed the broken bond. The magic of this place was no longer foreign to him.

His hands slipped from the rock and dropped to the grass. He bowed his head to the ground.

"Magic will provide." It was a prayer from penitent man.