"Deo Gratias" means "Thanks Be To God"
Chapter 20: Truth Shall Set You Free
Draco was right. Whatever he had written had compelled Mary to meet him.
And now, after that meeting, Mary Ludlow, Hermione's long-time nurse, entered her Lady Granger's private rooms nervously. She was thankful that Lord Granger was out inspecting his lands, for she bore very dangerous news from someone out of his favour. Mary fingered the small piece of parchment in her pocket nervously.
"M'Lady?"
Lady Granger looked up from her book. She was wan and pale- Mary didn't know who looked worse lately, mother or daughter.
"Yes Mary?"
Mary nervously shut the heavy oak door behind her and latched it. Lady Granger looked surprised.
"I bring distressing news." Mary's eyes were dark and frightened.
Lady Granger sighed. "Speak on. There seems to be nothing but bad news lately."
Mary Ludlow cleared her throat nervously. "I- Forgive me- but I have just met the lad Hermione was caught with that night."
Lady Granger shut her eyes. Mary thought she would ask her to leave or to stop talking but Lady Granger merely nodded.
"H-He gave strange tidings…"
Lady Granger opened her eyes. "Quickly Mary, get to the point."
"H-He knows. I don't know how, but he knows about Lady Hermione. I swear I did not tell anyone, I have kept silent since I came into your service."
"What does he know?"
"He said that if we forced her to marry against her will, that the future of the Grangers was doomed. He said it could never be."
Lady Granger gasped.
Mary was wringing her hands now as she continued, "He said there were f-f-fay folk at work, that he and Lady Hermione didn't belong here…see, this is what he wrote when he asked to meet me."
Lady Ganger took the piece of parchment from Mary with shaking hands. It read:
I know you believe in the fay, Mary.
I can't explain but they are at work.
I need to speak to you about Hermione.
Lady Granger threw the parchment aside and put her head in her hands.
"It is true! Mary – it is true."
Mary stood nervously by the side of the distressed lady.
Lady Granger poured out what had happened the previous day, "Hermione herself said she did not belong here, she said that she wanted to go. She said she would cause the death of this whole family and that it was the child in my womb that was the rightful one to continue this line. Then…I went to Father Lorenzo and we did to her what we dared not do for over eighteen years…we touched her with holy water…"
Mary held her breath. Lady Granger smiled sadly.
"Do you know what happened Mary?"
Mary shook her head sadly, "I have heard the tales, whispered rumours, but I could never truly believe them."
"Oh they were true indeed! Eighteen years ago, we tried to baptize Lady Hermione, b-but when the holy water touched her – …it was terrible…in front of all those people gathered in the church…We thought her scars would never heal…"
Mary Ludlow crossed herself. "So 'tis true?"
Lady Katherine Granger nodded tearfully. "But after last night, when I saw the way she looked at that lad, and how this morning she begged me to let her go because she did not belong, I decided to try again…"
Mary Culdon waited while her mistress searched for the right words.
"She did not burn, Mary. I watched her hand held in the bowl for a full minute – it did not burn!"
"Deo Gratias" murmured Mary.
"Do you know what that means, Mary?"
Mary nodded slightly. "Yes…it means that what my friend Mary Culdon told you…"
"…was the truth. She has the Eye. And it also means, Mary, that we cannot let my husband force Lady Hermione into a loveless marriage!"
"You believe that?"
"Both my husband and I believed that old crone's words for eighteen years. That is why we always let our daughter choose. But five nights ago, my husband was so angry at her behaviour he turned against superstition and prophesy and swore to marry her off to Baron Burnel. I didn't know what to believe, until I saw with my own eyes that- she did not burn."
"Through the learning of love, she has become flesh- a holy child of God, as Mary Culdon said it would be." said Mary quietly.
Lady Katherine's eyes had a desperate look, "Eighteen years ago, when Father Gresham told me my baby was dead, I made a terrible wish. I prayed not only to god but to every spirit in the earth to restore my daughter to me. Yes, even the fay…" She gave a wild laugh and gripped Mary's hand tightly, "That is why we dismissed Father Gresham and banished Mary Culdon, my midwife. They saw what my wish produced…they saw what happened that night…"
"M'Lady! Calm yourself! You never meant it to be the way it was, you only wished what any mother would do in your position. 'Twas the fay played a trick on you in your weakness!" Mary Ludlow put her arms around her ladyship.
"I sinned greatly and now I am paying…" Lady Katherine began to cry.
"M'Lady…please calm yourself." Mary Ludlow patted and stroked the distressed woman. "You are to be a mother again, and this time, nothing will go wrong."
"I do not know what to do, Mary!"
"Why don't you pray about it?"
"I have prayed for eighteen years and God has been silent – till now. Till I saw that she had become holy flesh."
"The lad has a possible answer."
"What?"
Mary Ludlow lowered her voice. "It is what I came about in the first place…he said to me to let your daughter go free. He will look after her. He says if you don't, he knows for certain great woe will befall this family because she does not belong here. He said the fay are still at work."
Lady Katherine Granger sat perfectly still.
"If I defy my husband and Baron Burnel, I will bring great shame to this family."
Lady Katherine sat in silence and Mary Ludlow let her think about it. She dried her tears and took a sip of water.
"Bring me some ink and parchment," Lady Granger said at last, "I need to write to this peasant boy- there is something I must ask him. It is amazing he can read and write, but nothing surprises me anymore. Perhaps my daughter taught him."
After Mary Ludlow had pocketed her mistress' letter with instructions to hand it to Draco, she curtseyed her way out of the room. She wished she knew what it said, but Lady Granger had sealed it before she could peek.
After the old nursemaid had gone, Lady Granger stood up and hesitated for a moment before crossing the floor to a small writing desk at the side of the room. Her fingers pressed a wood panel on the side of the desk and a panel on the opposite side slid open to reveal a yellowed and tattered piece of parchment slipped behind it.
As Lady Granger took out the piece of parchment, her fingers were tremmbling. But the time she had read it through once, her hands were steady and her expression was determined.
**************************************
The next morning, at the exact moment Draco received Lady Granger's letter through Mary and began writing his reply, Hermione was having an interview with her father.
"When Baron Burnel arrives tomorrow, you will show him courtesy and respect worthy of your future husband."
Hermione said nothing.
"I see you have chosen to be sullen and ungracious about this marriage. It makes no difference, in two weeks, you will be wed and Baron Burnel is the one who will have to deal with your childish willfulness."
Lord Granger looked at his daughter for signs of panic or misery. But he saw nothing. She was completely expressionless. He had been told by the servants that she had not eaten for three days. Now, her skin was even whiter and more transparent than he recalled, one could almost see the delicate network of veins under their milk-white transparency. He suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling that she wasn't really there, that suddenly she would turn as into mist and vanish.
"If you do anything to ruin this marriage" he said to her, "You will no longer be considered a daughter of this house. Do you understand my meaning?"
He jumped as Hermione gave a short laugh. "You are making a terrible mistake father." She said calmly. "This marriage to Baron Burnel can never be. It never took place."
"What do you mean it never took place? It hasn't even come to be yet!" her father glared at her.
Hermione's expression was odd. "I don't know how or why, father. I just know that I will never marry Baron Burnel."
"Are you threatening to take your own life?! Because I will have you bound in chains if you are!"
Hermione couldn't understand it. She just knew that marrying Baron Burnel was not part of her destiny, if she did so, she would change the course of history. She was from the future, and she found that if she thought hard enough about it, she knew this was never going to take place. But the moment she tried to get her mind around that thought, it slipped away like a fish from broken net.
"I will not take my own life" said Hermione quietly. "That I can assure you."
Lord Granger felt his head beginning to swirl. The girl was too self-assured for comfort.
"You had better not," he said. "Baron Burnel arrives tomorrow. Remember what I have told you."
Calmly and emotionlessly, Hermione curtseyed to her father and left the room. She shut the door gently behind her. Hermione felt her legs carry her up the stairs to her room. Servants did not meet her eyes as they bowed to her along the way. She was sure they all knew she was in disgrace.
Letting herself into her room, she lowered herself onto her bed as gingerly as if she were made of glass. She felt that any sudden movement, or any loud sound might shatter her into a thousand pieces. She knew she was surviving only on the barest edge of emotional control – her calm exterior belied a storm of fear and unhappiness within her.
In the last three days, her mind had gone round and round in circles. She could not marry this Baron Burnel. She had to get back to the future. Her mother had been acting so strangely around her – being in turn reproachful and indulgent, weeping and laughing for no reason at all. And that strange incident with Father Lorenzo and the holy water…
As had always worked for her during the time since everything had started going wrong, her mind sought comfort in thought of Harry and Ron in the future. Ron and her going to Hogsmeade…Harry and Ron being silly after drinking too much butterbeer… but even as she tried to escape into those happy memories, they faded from her like waking dreams and left her cold.
Instead, Hermione found her mind constantly turning to images of silver-blonde hair and grey eyes. Of a streak of green above a quidditch pitch. Of shared glances in class. Of long, summer evenings in Flinders wood. And then, happily, of wildflowers, blue hair-ribbons and tender kisses. These were the thoughts that now kept her comforted and happy, each special moment etched in her memory like a bright light in her gloom.
Where are you?
There came a knock at her door. Hermione didn't bother to answer it, whoever it was would come in anyway.
Sure enough, Mary Ludlow entered the room and shut the door behind her. There was something odd about Mary's expression, Hermione thought. She looked excited and pink.
"M'lady…get up please. Your mother wishes to see you."
Hermione slowly got up from the bed. She swayed a little from hunger and weakness but eventually steadied herself. Mary shook her head. "You must eat something soon or I swear you will catch the fever."
Hermione said nothing as she followed Mary out of her room and towards her mother's rooms.
Mary knocked on the door and Hermione heard her mother's voice say, "Enter."
As soon she entered her mother's rooms, Hermione felt a change in the air. Since the incident four days ago, the atmosphere around Mary and her mother had been tense, emotional and reproachful. But now, there was something different. Hermione didn't know what it was. Lady Granger sat in a chair by the window and indicated that Hermione should take the one facing her.
Hermione sat down and Mary stood behind her.
As Lady Granger began to speak, Hermione finally identified what was different about mother. Lady Katherine Granger sounded and looked stronger than she ever had before.
Hermione's eyes grew wide at her mother's words, but before she could ask any questions, her mother pressed a tattered, aged piece of parchment into her hands and indicated that she should read it. Feeling like she had finally matched a lost key to a lock, Hermione eagerly read the faded writing on the parchment. It was in Latin and the hand was long and loopy…
In spiritu humilitatis, et in animo contrito suscipiamur, admoneo verbum sapienti sat est…
With humbleness and contrition I do advise you with a word…
Nothing good can come of keeping the child.
She is not flesh of this world, she is an abomination to all Christian things.
You may banish me, but in all my days I shall not forget the truth of my eyes which saw
the dead body of your true, Christian, child snatched from the cradle by an unholy
force and the abomination that was placed in its stead.
You know and I know that this creature was grown from a rose
a rose that was placed in the cradle and through the work of the devil,
rapidly sprouted arms, legs, and head in an unholy parody of God's work!
Do not deceive yourself.
The girl is no child of god.
Her skin is but the petal of a rose, her limbs the green shoot of the flower,
her blood mere sap of the plant. You will get no happiness in keeping her.
She does not belong with us.
You will experience nothing but unhappiness from this changeling.
This unholy creature will never learn love, and you know that only by love
can things be of God. You can have other children.
God forgive me, but I beg you to drown this foul creature at once.
I set this down in a record so that even if you are weak and do not
Immediately listen to the will of God, you will read this one day and be reminded
of the unhappy events enough to change your mind.
Veritas nunquam perit, veritas vos liberabit.
Patri Gresham
" Truth never dies, truth will set you free….Father Gresham." Hermione finished the letter.
So that was how she had managed to inhabit the body of Lady Hermione Granger five hundred years ago without anyone noticing anything different!
There had been no real Lady Hermione Granger.
There had never been.
The real daughter of the family had died at birth. Magic had provided a changeling and somehow, when she got thrown back in time, the changeling must have left and she took its place! This was some bizarre magical joke…and she had the bad luck to be at the centre of it all! Why? Why? Why?
But the problem was, they all still thought she was…
"…a changeling, brought by the fay." said her mother. "I watched you grow throughout the years and you have never given me anything but happiness. And I never had another child, so you were my whole world."
"The fay?...But I am most certainly not a changeling!" Hermione said, touching her mother's cheek. The older woman looked calm.
"Thank God, Hermione. I know now you are not! As I told you before, when we tried to baptize you when you were younger, you burned when you touched holy water. But yesterday…you held your hand in it for a full minute and did not burn!"
"So that proves it!" Hermione said. "But mother, did not the whole congregation suspect when I burned?"
Her mother reached out and touched her cheek.
"They thought you were crying from the cold of the water. The only people who saw were Father Lorenzo, our newly appointed priest, and Mary Culdon – my midwife and your old nursemaid."
Mary Culdon…Hermione thought where have I heard that name before?… How in the sweet name of merlin had this whole mess happened? Was it a series of strange coincidences or was some mischievous power at work here? I do not enjoy being a pawn in somebody's fanciful chess game!
"Mother,What had happened to Father Gresham to be replaced by Father Lorenzo?"
"I swore him to secrecy, I begged him with my whole soul. Father Gresham agreed but he said he would never work here again and left as soon as a wandering priest found his way into our estate – Father Lorenzo, by happy coincidence, arrived just at the right time. Father Lorenzo told your father that it was all nonsense – even when he baptized you and saw you scald he put it down to allergy. He was a practical, sensible man and a great comfort to us all at those times. Even now, he can hardly believe the old tales. You were a beautiful baby, anyone who had not actually seen the swap would not have believed it happened."
"Including father?..."
"Including him. He was very skeptical, though I told him what had happened. It was only until the baptism when he began to believe. I confess, your father and I talked about killing you a few times when you were young, but we never brought ourselves to do it. We couldn't take your life though, we loved, no…we still love you dearly. Even your father, Hermione, even though you are hard-pressed to believe it at this moment."
"But I am not a changeling anymore." Hermione said in wonder. "Remember, I can touch holy water now."
Hermione's mother and her nursemaid exchanged looks. "Yes, you appear to be a real Christian child at last. Read Father Gresham's letter again, Hermione, and you will see why."
Hermione did…This unholy creature will never learn love, and you know that only by love can things be of God…
"Father Gresham did tell us that only if you loved with your whole heart could you become real one day. But he said that as long as you were a changeling, that could never happen. Your father and I did not believe it was impossible for you to love, which is why we always let you choose your suitors."
"L-Love? You think I'm love?" Hermione whispered, realization dawning on her.
Her mother continued, "We had more warnings as well…from Mary Culdon your old nursemaid. She told me she had had a dream, on Feill-Sheathain, a year before you were born, of your fate. She said you would find love and become whole, but that coupled with that, you would leave us because you did not belong here. If you stayed, great doom would follow. She told me this in confidence, afraid of being burnt as a witch. I believed her but I was so scared I sent her away and replaced her with Mary Ludlow. I believed everything. I myself had implored the earth spirits to give me a child after my real daughter died. I saw the swap happen… and I had to take the consequences."
"Your real daughter?"
"But Hermione" her mother smiled, "Don't you see? You are my real daughter now." She squeezed Hermione's hand. "It's all come true, as I believed it would. You did find love albeit with the peasant boy, you have become whole, and soon…I believe it will be time for you to leave us. You do not belong here, I have another child on the way."
Hermione couldn't believe her ears. "Y-You mean you're going to help me escape? I don't have to marry Baron Burnel?!" If there was a mischievous power using her them all as pawns, then maybe…Veritas vos liberabit Hermione thought hopefully to herself the truth shall set us all free.
Hermione's mother did not answer straight away. Instead, she fingered something in the folds of her skirt. Hermione heard the rustling of parchment. When Lady Granger looked up, Hermione saw genuine concern in her mother's eyes.
"I will help you escape…on one condition."
At that point, Hermione was willing to consider anything to escape. "Yes, of course, what is it, mother?"
Lady Katherine Granger smiled and took out another piece of parchment from her among her skirts. She placed it on the table in front of Hermione and she immediately recognized Draco's elegant writing. Before she could begin to read the letter properly, Lady Granger grasped her daughter's hands in her own- "The condition is that you prove to me you truly love this boy…you must agree to his proposal of marriage.