19. Purging Guilt

The moment Tracey entered the dormitory, she was bombarded with questions: "Where'd you go?" "What happened to you?" "Are you all right?"

Lynne asked the last question and it stopped the other girls in their tracks. Tracey looked questioningly at her friend. "What do you mean, Lynne?"

"You look like you've been through a windstorm," Lynne explained calmly. "Your eyes are red, too, as if you've been crying."

Tracey smiled faintly. Lynne was the quietest of the four, and the most observant, so Tracey wasn't surprised that she was the one to notice the little things. "I'm fine, Lynne. Don't worry about me."

"Are you sure?" Lynne looked concerned and Tracey didn't doubt that the concern was genuine.

Tracey nodded, trying to convince not only Lynne, but Ann and Natalie as well. "Yes, I am."

"Where'd you go?" Ann asked, staring at Tracey. "You were already asleep when we went to bed, but you were gone when we got up this morning."

Tracey thought quickly, trying to come up with a plausible lie. "I, uh, woke up really early and went down to the common room so I wouldn't disturb you three."

"We checked the common room when we saw that your bed was empty," Natalie replied as the other two shook their heads. "You weren't there, either."

Damn. Tracey thought a little more. "That's because Professor McGonagall found me there and took me to her office to talk."

The other girls seemed to accept this and left Tracey to get dressed. She breathed a sigh of relief and did just that, recalling a line from something she'd watched over the holidays. The Monty Python boys are right: nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. Grinning to herself, she left the dormitory to join her friends for breakfast.

Tracey didn't take in that much that day. She was busy dreading the 'discussion' she'd be having with her father. She just knew he would ask why she'd been so badly shaken last night and she wasn't looking forward to telling him. Most of the students were distracted anyway, so none of the teachers commented on Tracey's.

She picked at her food at dinner, her normally prodigious appetite having disappeared sometime during the day. Her friends noticed, but none of them said anything, although Tracey noticed more than one concerned look was sent her way.

When Albus rose and left the Great Hall, Tracey took it as her cue to leave, muttering something about needing to go to the library so her friends wouldn't worry. She plodded her way up to the Headmaster's office and raised a hand to knock on the door. The door itself opened before she had chance to do anything else and Tracey slipped inside. Her father was waiting for her. "This way, Tracey."

"Yes, Father." Tracey followed him across the office to an almost-unnoticeable door tucked into the corner.

He opened the door and she preceded him into his private study. She'd only been in here once before, but it was just as warm and cozy as she'd remembered. Before she could appreciate the room fully, a familiar voice called, "Tracey!"

"Mom!" The girl pelted across the room and into her mother's arms, burying her face in Sandra's blouse.

As she hugged her mother, another pair of arms enveloped mother and daughter. "Hi, Tracey."

"Hi, Dad." She raised her head to smile at her stepfather.

After a few moments, Albus cleared his throat and Tracey found herself sprawled between Sandra and Ryan on the hearthrug between the couch and the fire, with Albus and Minerva seated on the couch. Sandra gently stroked Tracey's hair as she fired questions at her first husband. "What's going on, Albus? Why did you ask us to come up here?"

"I am afraid that something happened last night that rather upset Tracey," Albus told them, his voice grave.

Tracey closed her eyes and listened without comment as Albus described the events of the previous evening. When he fell silent, Sandra turned Tracey's head to her, but the girl determinedly kept her eyes closed. "Tracey, look at me." Reluctantly, Tracey opened her eyes and met her mother's sympathetic hazel ones. "Cedric's body brought back memories, didn't it?"

"Yes." Tracey's voice was little more than a whisper and filled with so much pain that Sandra pulled her into her lap while Albus and Minerva joined them on the floor, conjuring up pillows so the five of them would be more comfortable. Touches on the girl's shoulders and back told her that the other three were there for her.

Ryan rubbed Tracey's back soothingly while Sandra gently rocked her back and forth. Albus sounded concerned as he asked, "What memories, Tracey? What happened to you?"

"Mom? Could you please tell them?" Tracey requested, fighting back tears as memories threatened to swamp her.

Sandra nodded and kissed her daughter's forehead before beginning, her voice strained. "When Tracey was about eight years old, the two of us were walking home from the nearby playground. Dusk was falling and we hadn't meant to stay so late, but we kept getting delayed for some reason or another." Tracey flinched, remembering that a couple of the delays were because she'd been a bit of a brat. "We were walking home and I'd just picked up Tracey because she was getting tired when someone grabbed me and dragged me into an alley." Tracey whimpered, pressing closer to her mother. "I didn't have time to let Tracey go, so she was dragged into the alley, too."

"Why? What happened in the alley?" Minerva asked when Sandra paused to soothe Tracey, who'd begun to tremble.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out on a shaky sigh, Tracey answered the question. "He wanted Mom's money and maybe have a little 'fun' with both of us."

"An eight-year-old girl?" Albus sounded incredulous, although his hand remained on Tracey's shoulder.

Tracey felt her mother shift and looked around to see that she'd put a hand on Albus' shoulder. "It's not age, beauty, or sometimes even sex that matters to men like that. All they care about is power, power over someone weaker than they are."

"Or one who appears to be weaker," Minerva added before looking at Tracey. "Did he succeed?"

Tracey shook her head as Sandra answered the question verbally, "No, he didn't. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I'd set Tracey on her feet so she could run for help as soon as she had the chance and he was threatening me if I didn't give him what money I had. When I refused, he pulled the trigger of the gun he'd pointed at me." Minerva drew in a sharp breath of surprise and Tracey felt Albus' hand tighten on her shoulder. "Somehow, as he pulled the trigger, it turned in his hand and the bullet hit him, not me."

"I killed him." Tracey's quiet statement startled all four adults. Tracey had a pretty good idea why. Sandra had suspected it, even at the time of the incident. Ryan had never even considered that Tracey was responsible. Albus and Minerva didn't even know that the would-be mugger had died.

After a long pause--during which, Tracey was sure, the adults were exchanging looks--Ryan asked, "How could you have killed him, Tracey?"

"Magic, Ryan," Sandra told her husband. "I told you that there had been incidents that made me suspect she was a witch, even before she got her letter."

Sounding confused, Ryan asked, "What does the guy shooting himself have to do with Tracey being a witch?"

"Everything, Mr. Cooper," Minerva answered quietly. "She used her magic to turn gun in his hand so your wife would not be killed."

Tracey was unprepared for Albus to pull from Sandra's lap and into his own. "Oh, my daughter, you had no choice. If you had not acted, your mother would have died."

"I could have done something else to stop him," Tracey whispered in an anguished voice, glad her father understood what tormented most. "He didn't have to die."

Albus rocked her as she fought back the tears that threatened to swamp her. "You did not have the luxury of time. You did what you could and it resulted in his death."

"I killed someone." Tracey's magic became palpable, creating a breeze that tugged at hair and clothes. "I'm a murderer."

"No more than I am for having killed Grindelwald." Tracey could hear the pain in her father's voice. "It was the mugger or your mother. Would you rather she had died?"

Tracey winced and tried to pull away, but he refused to let her go. After a short, futile struggle, she subsided and admitted. "No."

"It is only murder when you kill in cold blood, Lass." Minerva's Scottish burr broke the silence that had fallen over the room as the breeze Tracey's magic had created died down.

Those words, quietly spoken, broke the dam and Tracey began to cry, sobbing into her father's beard for the second time that day. The others gathered around father and daughter, offering their silent comfort. Surrounded by the four adults, Tracey let go of the guilt that had been festering inside her for almost four years.

"Professor?" Minerva looked up from the assignments she was marking to see one of her young lions peeking around the door of her office.

She set her quill down as she bade him enter, "Come in, Mr. Creevey." The small boy slipped into the room and timidly walked over to her desk. "What can I do for you?"

"I, er, haven't seen Tracey since dinner last night," Dennis explained, looking rather small. "I was wondering if you know where she is."

Minerva knew exactly where Tracey was. She'd cried herself to sleep in her father's arms the previous evening and Minerva really couldn't blame her. Between exploding at Albus and telling the story about the almost-mugging, she'd had an emotionally-draining day. Sandra had insisted that Tracey sleep with her mother and stepfather and Minerva hadn't seen any of them at breakfast. Albus had been there, however, and assured Minerva that Tracey was fine, if a still a little tired. Turning her attention to the boy in front of her, Minerva chose her words carefully to explain as honestly as she could without giving anything away: "Miss Cooper is with her mother and stepfather right now. Professor Dumbledore felt she would benefit from seeing her parents right away."

"Why?" Dennis asked, looking confused. "Everyone saw Cedric's body, why would Tracey be any different?"

Minerva sighed silently. "I cannot explain without Miss Cooper's permission. I would remind you, however, to remember that each of your peers has grown up differently. Each of you has a unique perspective on what is taking place around you, shaped by your upbringing and culture."

"I'm not sure I understand, Professor." Dennis looked confused.

Minerva thought for a moment. "Coming from a Muggle family, you find the wizarding world to be fantastic and strange, correct?" Dennis nodded. "I, on the other hand, grew up in the wizarding world. What you find fantastic and strange, I find ordinary and usual. Do you understand now?"

"I think so," Dennis answered thoughtfully. "So you're saying that the Third Task affected Tracey more than me because she's from America?"

Minerva considered that for a moment. "Partially, yes, but also because of something she experienced when she was younger."

"Cool!" Dennis brightened. "I wonder what it was!"

"Mr. Creevey." Minerva's voice kept the boy from darting off in search of Tracey. "Do not badger Miss Cooper about it. Let her choose to tell you in her own time. If you press her, you will lose her friendship."

He considered that for a long moment. "Thank you, Professor. May I go now?"

"Yes, you may." She watched him dash out of the office and sighed. To have the energy of youth once more.

A/N: I wrote most of this chapter in one evening and I'm rather proud of it. A friend commented that I use rape as a dramatic device too often in my stories, so I deliberately avoided it this time around, aside from hinting that he might've tried it. The line about the Monty Python boys is dedicated to Thestral Dea in thanks for introducing me to the incomparable John Hannah.