Chapter Fifteen: Secrets Revealed
The next morning dawned bright and sunny. Maura knew, because she was awake to see it. She'd been up for ages, going over her notes, and even churning out another article, which she emailed to Stephen Lewis at six-thirty.
At seven, she made her way to the kitchen, hoping that Molly was up and had coffee ready, but ready to make it herself if she wasn't. She found not only Molly there, but Arthur and Ginny, as well.
"Good morning, Maura," greeted Molly.
"Morning, Molly. Ginny, Arthur."
"You're up early," Ginny commented.
"You have no idea," Maura laughed. "I think I need a break. I've been up working since four."
"Good," said Ginny. "You can come with the girls and I, then."
"And where are you and the girls going?" Maura sipped at the coffee that Molly had placed in front of her.
"Diagon Alley. They all need new dress robes... I thought I'd take them shopping this morning before I take them back to school tonight."
"Sounds like fun," Maura said with a smile. "If you don't mind my tagging along?"
"Not at all," Ginny said. "I'd be glad of the company. The girls want to look at wedding robes." She blushed.
"Ah," Maura nodded. "So some adult opinion might be in order, then?"
"Exactly," Ginny said with relief.
It wasn't yet nine when they flooed to the Leaky Cauldron. Maura arrived, coughing, completely understanding Harry's dislike of this form of travel, and wishing she knew how to apparate. Ginny and the girls had arrived spotless, of course. Maura was not impressed.
They spent the morning shopping for new dress robes for the girls. Mary had tried on one set, declared that it would do, and that she wasn't trying on another thing, and promptly parked herself in a chair with a Quidditch book. Meg and Maddy were much more fun. Maddy ended up in a set of deep blue robes that made her hair and skin glow. Maura noticed tears in Ginny's eyes when she saw her baby in dress robes.
Meg tried on several robes before exiting the change room in a set of emerald green that made both Maura and Ginny gasp.
Under the baggy sweatshirts and muggle jeans that Meg normally wore, or her equally baggy school uniform, Meg had a figure to die for. She was as slim as her mother, but there the similarity ended. She was taller than Ginny, and had curves where Ginny hadn't acquired them until after three pregnancies.
Maura glanced at Ginny, "Well, I think we've found the robes for Meg."
"Oh, I think so," Ginny agreed quickly. "Honey, you're beautiful."
Meg blushed, then turned to look at herself in the mirror. She plucked absently at the neckline of the dress, and looked worried.
"Mum, you don't think it's too... well..."
"Meg, it's perfectly beautiful. Those robes could have been made for you."
"I like it, a lot," Meg whispered.
"We'll take them. All three." Ginny told the sales witch.
"Mum, they're awfully expensive," Meg said quietly. Maura could see the pending disappointment in the girls eyes. She'd obviously been told often that money was tight.
"I don't care," said Ginny, causing her daughter's eyes to snap up to hers in surprise. "They're yours."
Meg, biting her lip with worry, still couldn't help looking pleased. "Thanks, mum."
"Not a problem, honey. I can remember..." Ginny trailed off, taking a breath and busying herself with her purse. Maura had a sudden image of Ginny dressed in pink robes that did absolutely nothing for her.
"Remember what, Mum?" Maddy asked.
"I can remember not getting pretty things because money was tight. Once in a while, you just have to say, 'too bad'."
Meg smiled happily.
Maura hadn't really considered before what life was like for Ginny as a single mum. It couldn't be easy to raise three girls, send them to an exclusive school, and provide the necessities for them on a single salary.
But now, she has Harry, Maura thought.
"Ginny, I'm very happy for you." She said suddenly, not even thinking about it.
Ginny looked at her and blushed. It wasn't easy for a redhead to hide their feelings. "I wondered."
Maura looked confused for a moment, then flushed slightly herself. "Ah... well..."
"You know, you really threw him off balance at first."
"Well..."
"You were attracted to him, Maura. Admit it."
"Well, yes...but like I told you, Gin', it wasn't like any kind of attraction I've ever known. I can't explain it to you, it's just... I've never felt anything like that before. I don't know what it is, but it's not that. I know that now."
"But you..."
"Look, Ginny, Harry is a very attractive man. It would be hard to look at him and not feel something. But it's just not... even when I was feeling it, and reacting to it, it wasn't comfortable, you know? I don't know why I feel this way about him, but it's nothing... permanent, or serious. It's a bit of chemistry with something else I don't recognize... but that is all it is. I thought it was something more, at first, but only because I didn't recognize it, and I thought... well, it isn't."
"So you're okay with this? Us? Me and him?"
"I am very okay with this," Maura smiled. "It's... it just feels like it's the way things are supposed to be."
"When you go back..." Ginny hesitated. "You will keep in touch with us, after?"
Maura paused. It was a good question, the kind that brought up other questions.
"Ginny, I don't know if I want to go back at all. I'm... I feel like I'm home here, for some reason."
"That's what I wanted to hear," her friend said softly. "There's more for you here, I think."
"Huh?"
"Never mind, you'll figure it out. Now, let's go and get some lunch and look at wedding robes!"
They had lunch at a cafe in Diagon Alley, then made their way to a shop that specialized in wedding robes. At the girls urging, Ginny parked herself in a change room, and allowed them to bring her robes to try on.
Maddy and Mary came up with some spectacularly horrible ones, but Meg and Maura were looking seriously. Maura explained to Meg what would look best on Ginny's small, slim figure, and why.
"What about these?" Meg pulled out a robe, looking at it on the hanger. "No, too plain."
"Wait a minute," Maura took it from her before she could put it back.
It was ivory silk, and deceptively simple. The square neckline would be snug, but the dress swept out into long flowing sleeves and skirt.
"Get her to try this," Maura nodded.
"Really?" Meg looked at the dress doubtfully.
"Really. You'll see."
Ten minutes later, they all stood, stunned, staring at Ginny. Even the sales witch was struck speechless.
"What?" Ginny wailed, looking frantically around for a mirror. "Is it that horrible?"
"Mum..." Meg began.
"You look like a princess," Maddy said quietly.
"Oh, Mama!" Mary said, "It's beautiful!"
The sales witch turned Ginny by the shoulders so she was looking in the direction of a mirror. Ginny's mouth hung open in shock.
"Holy Merlin!" she said. "That's not me!"
"Oh, but it is," Maura smiled, her eyes tearing up. "Oh, Ginny! You are beautiful."
"I'll take it," Ginny told the sales witch. "The length will have to be adjusted..."
"We can have it ready in two days."
Ginny nodded.
When she'd changed, and paid the sales witch, they began walking back to the Leaky Cauldron to floo home.
"The robes I wore for my wedding to Dean were... very different." she said quietly to Maura. The girls were several steps ahead of them, and she obviously didn't want them to hear.
"How so?" Maura asked.
"Oh, you know. Frills. Lace."
"Ah..."
"Mum insisted, and I didn't care."
"Oh, Ginny..." Maura could feel the tears in her own eyes.
"Maura, do you think I was wrong to accept Dean?"
"I think that you did what you felt you needed to do at the time. No one can second guess or question that, Ginny."
"But when we settle for less than we need, less than we are..."
"Look at what you got from it, Gin'," Maura indicated the three girls walking ahead of them. "Would you trade that?"
"No way," Ginny smiled.
"Darned right. So don't worry about it any..."
At that moment, a scream was heard ahead of them, and Maura and Ginny both rushed instinctively in front of the girls, pulling them down to the ground.
"Stay down!" Maura yelled as Meg shot to her feet, her wand out and ready. "For Merlin's sake, Meg, stay down!"
She dropped the bags she had been carrying, and instinctively pulled out the wand that Harry had given her just as there was a loud pop in front of her.
Ten feet away from them stood the most horrible thing that Maura thought she'd ever seen. Everything good in her life seemed to disappear, and she felt so very, very cold...
"Expecto Patronum!" she screamed, remembering all the good she'd found. Ginny and Harry laughing... Bill and Janie smiling into each other's eyes... the look on Arthur Weasley's face when he was surrounded by his children...
Ron.
A white light shimmered, and then coalesced into a solid form, an owl, that flew directly at the black robed figure. Watching, she saw the horrible thing hesitate, then scream as the white form flew into it, and through it. The black robes disintegrated in front of her. The owl returned, circled her once, then dissipated as Maura whirled around to face a second figure.
This one was no Dementor, and she reacted, again, instinctively.
"Expelliarmis!" After that, the curses flew... she dodged several, but a cutting curse caught her on the upper arm, and just as she turned to throw another, the figure disapparated with a pop. Maura looked around, panicked, but they were gone.
Ginny touched her shoulder, looking at the blood flowing there, and laid her hand on Maura more firmly.
"We need to get you back to the house," she said.
"You need to get the girls to safety. I'll find a floo somewhere..."
"Nonsense," Ginny said. "I can apparate us all, it'll just take some concentration."
Ginny hugged her girls to her, and firmly took Maura's hand in hers, then closed her eyes. It took a moment, and they seemed to move more slowly than Maura remembered it from travelling with Ron and Harry, but a few moments later, they were standing in the kitchen of Potter Manor.
Or rather, the girls were standing. Maura and Ginny collapsed on the floor.
Instantly, Molly was yelling for Harry and Ron... and the sound of footsteps came rushing in.
Ginny felt herself being lifted, and opened her eyes to see Harry holding her, his face worried, his eyes searching her for an injury.
"Take care of Maura, Harry. She's hurt."
"So are you!" Harry cried.
"No," Ginny shook her head. "I apparated us all out of there..."
"You what? Ginny, my God!"
"Had to, Harry... Death Eaters... but you should have seen Maura."
"What?"
"I didn't know she was a witch, Harry..." Ginny said weakly as she passed out in his arms.
Ron had lifted Maura up off the floor,and Molly was hurriedly collecting the first aid supplies as he laid her on the dining table.
"Mum?" he looked at her, worried.
"It's okay, Ron. She'll be fine. She's just lost a lot of blood..."
"Mum!"
"Ron... go call Bill and Charlie. Something has happened, and we need to be on full alert." Molly ordered.
Ron glanced down at Maura, nodded, and then hurried from the room.
Maura was floating. She didn't particularly like the feeling, but somehow she knew that she would like the alternative even less. She heard noises... screams and explosions. There were flashes of green light, and it was very, very dark.
And then she heard Molly's voice, calling her. Then Ron's.
"Ron?" she whispered.
"Maura, you're okay. Everything is going to be okay now."
"You keep telling me that..."
"This time, I swear it's true." Ron's voice was strangled.
"Dementors..."
"It's gone, Maura, it's gone."
"An owl... a beautiful white owl..." she muttered as she slowly fell back asleep.
The next time Maura woke, it was to silence. It was dark, and she thought she was alone. But then, she could hear something. Breathing.
But not her own breathing.
She turned her head and saw Ron, sitting in a chair next to her bed, his head in his hands.
"Ron?" she whispered.
His head snapped up, "Maura?"
"Can I have a drink?"
He helped her to sit up, then held a glass to her lips. She felt a tug in her shoulder, and turned to look down. White bandages were wrapped around her upper arm.
"What happened?"
"That's supposed to be my line," he said. "You and Ginny and the girls went shopping. You came back like this."
"Ginny? The girls? They're okay?"
"Yes. Ginny's passed out. She apparated you all back here."
"Is that difficult?"
"It's bloody impossible. You can apparate with a second, sometimes a third if it's a child, but apparating five people... I don't know of that ever being done before. She's exhausted herself."
"I told her to get the girls to safety... I'd find a floo, but the next thing I knew..."
"That's our Ginny," he said with pride. "Apparently they wouldn't have gotten out of there if it hadn't been for you, Maura."
"Ron... I don't know how I did it."
"Ssh... you need to rest. You're going to be fine, but we'll talk in the morning. Everything will be clearer then."
"Ron?"
"Yes?"
"Will you stay? I don't want to be alone."
"Of course," he smiled, remembering the first time he'd encountered a Dementor. He laid beside her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her. "Sleep. I'll watch over you."
And Maura slept.
She woke the next morning to see a strange woman lifting the covers over her.
"Hello?"
"Good morning, Miss Kennedy. I'm medi-witch Ferguson. Mr Potter had me come to examine you."
"Why? I thought..."
"Molly did an excellent job patching you up. Mr Potter just wanted to be sure there was nothing else. Mr Potter and the others will be in in a moment."
"Like hell," Maura muttered. "They want to see me, they'll do it downstairs with me fully clothed and on my feet."
"If you prefer," the medi-witch smiled pleasantly. "There is no reason you shouldn't be up."
"Gee, thanks," Maura said, wincing as her arm protested being moved as she got out of bed.
"I'll let them know that you'll be down, shall I?"
"Please do. They've got some explaining to do."
She had pulled on her jeans, and decided to forego a bra and the pain she imagined it would cause her getting into one, and was just raising a tshirt to pull over her head as the door flew open.
"What the hell do you think... Oh..." Ron stopped dead at the sight before him: Maura, arms raised, bare-breasted, looking at him in shock. "Sorry... I..."
"Ronald Weasley, get out!"
Ron spun around, his back to her, but he didn't leave.
"You shouldn't be out of bed. There's no reason why..."
"There damned well is," she said, pulling the tshirt over her head. "If you think I'm going to lay in that bed like a damned invalid while you and Harry decide what to tell me, you, sir, are sadly mistaken!"
With that, she marched past him into the hall and down the stairs. It wasn't until she reached the bottom that she realized that she was barefoot.
"Too bad!" she muttered. "I need some answers. Now."
She found them grouped in Harry's den, even Ginny. Eyeing her quarry, she marched through the room and right up to Harry, who was standing in front of the fireplace, and poked him with her index finger in the chest, her other fist coming to rest on her hip. She was a vision of anger, and Harry's face showed his surprise. Ron had followed her meekly into the room.
Poking him again, she glared at him. "Now, explain."
"Umm...explain what, exactly?" Harry hedged.
Maura's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Harry, you have some secrets, and you'd better start talking before I decide to use one of my new-found talents on you."
"Um..."
"Just..." she marked each word with another poke to his chest, "... who... the... hell... am... I?"
Harry swallowed and sighed. The others in the room gasped.
"Because," she continued. "I am pretty damned sure that the person I think I am is as fictitious as... as those damned books!"
"You're Maura Kennedy," Harry said. "But as to who you used to be..."
Molly cried out, and Ginny gasped. Others in the room had similar reactions as Harry waved his hand over her and she began to shimmer in front of them.
She felt different. But oddly right. Where she had never really been comfortable in her own skin, she felt so now. She wanted to stretch... as though she'd been asleep for a long, long time. As she moved, she noticed her hair, it was... it was growing, and the color was darkening.
Her facial muscles stretched, and then relaxed, and she took a deep breath as her tshirt became noticably tighter. She looked down and her eyes rounded with shock.
Those were new.
"Oh, Merlin..." Ron's voice came from behind her to her left. "Harry, I don't think I ever really believed you, but now... my God..."
"I told you it was her, Ron," Harry said quietly.
"I didn't..." Ron stood, staring at her, tears in his eyes.
"Harry?" she turned back to him. "What's going on? What..."
"Up until seventeen years ago, you were known as Hermione Granger," he stated quietly. "After the final battle, you were... changed. Given a new life, new memories."
"Why?" she cried.
"If I give you that, you can't go back. If you want to, I can change it all right now, all of this. I can wipe your memories of this and you can go back to believing you're Maura Kennedy..."
"I want to know!" she screamed.
Harry nodded, then held his hands up, a foot from her head, but his palms towards her. His eyes closed.
Maura was hit with it all at once, and promptly staggered, trying to keep on her feet. She was grateful as she felt strong arms go around her. The memories washed over her... and she collapsed with the force of it.
The early years... as a child in Southhampton. Her mother, Laura, and her father, David...
The day the letter came from Hogwarts. Her mother crying, not understanding. Her father raving about lunatics. Then Minerva McGonagall arriving and explaining Hermione's gift to them...
Her parent's subsequent joy for her, and support of her decision to go to Hogwarts, and to learn...
Meeting Harry and Ron. Their friendship. The joy she'd found with them... the friendless bookworm with two of the most popular boys in the school, caring about her. Her love for them... for Molly and Arthur... for Ginny...
The soft ginger fur of Crookshanks, her devoted cat, whom Ron had hated with a passion...
The incredible pressure of OWLs. Her joy when she experienced her first kiss... Ron grinning and blushing under the mistletoe...
The DA meetings, hours in the library... Quidditch games and Halloween Balls....
Then... seventh year. The attack on her home, being informed of the death of her beloved parents...
NEWTs, graduating, then training hard with Harry and Ron. Day and night. Falling into bed, exhausted, only to get up six hours later and repeat it all, every day, for an entire year...
Buying her cottage, working in the garden... the housewarming party she had had... the Weasleys and Harry... drinking lemonade in her flower garden...
The last night before the attacks that had begun the final battle. Hearing of Percy Weasley's sacrifice of his own life so that Voldemort wouldn't find his mother and sister...
And that final night. Dumbledore coming to her house... telling them of the attacks... returning to Hogwarts by the south road... and finding it blocked by hundreds of Death Eaters...
Curses flying, watching friends fall. Susan Bones and Ernie MacMillan, their lifeless eyes staring at the sky... Draco Malfoy throwing a curse at Harry... jumping in front of it... knowing...
And then, a feeling of lightness. Detachment... and then horror as she realized...
Turning to Dumbledore and trying to fight it... forcing her wand hand down... trying to fight... and when that failed, trying to turn the wand on herself...
Crying uncontrollably as she realized that she couldn't... she couldn't control it... Hearing the words chanting in her brain...
Avada...
No! Ron! Ron, please kill me! Ron! Please....please kill me before...
Avada kedavra.
Dumbledore's eyes. Sad, but still twinkling...
You are forgiven, Hermione Granger. I forgive you. If you remember nothing else, remember that.
The words in her head... how could he forgive her when she could never, ever forgive herself?
And then, the twinkle gone... Dumbledore falling... Ron turning from the prone body of Bellatrix Lestrange laying in front of him, the shock of his own use of an unforgivable mingling with the shock of what he saw before him...
Then Harry's voice...
"Hermione?"
"Oh, God... Merlin, Harry!" she sobbed. "I killed him! Oh, dear Merlin, I killed him..."
She felt other arms around her, sensed other bodies pressing close, but couldn't open her eyes. How could she look these people in the eye now?
"Why didn't you curse me?" she asked weakly. "Why give me a new life? Why didn't you kill me then?"
"Hermione... you were under the Imperious curse. You had no control over your own actions. Malfoy had you under the Imperious... he was controlling you."
"How do you know that for certain?"
"We have proof," Ron said quietly.
"Proof? What proof?"
"His confession. It was the only reason you weren't hunted down."
"Then why give me a new identity? New memories?"
"To let you live with yourself," Harry explained. "Mione, I knew that, regardless of the fact that it wasn't your fault, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself, knowing."
"Colin Creavey knew," she said. "Didn't he?"
She never had understood the look in his eyes... concern and... caring. On so short an acquaintance it had been strange. But it had never made her feel uncomfortable.
"He was the secret-keeper. He took you away and set everything up. So long as he kept your whereabouts a secret, none of us would ever know you."
"But you did. You found me."
"Yes. I was the one who changed you, so I could recognize my own magic. Once I was in the same room with you, there was no doubt. Finding out who you were living as was the hardest part, but not impossible."
She nodded.
"Maura...?"
"Hermione," she whispered. "My name is Hermione."
"Hermione," Harry said. "You were under the Imperious curse. There was no way to fight it."
"But..."
"Dumbledore knew, Mione..." Ron said. "He knew he would fall that night, and he went anyhow."
"But not before he made a prophecy," Harry sighed. "The prophecy that told us that you would be the key... it was Dumbledore who made it."
Hermione began to sob, turning her face into Ron's chest.
"He forgave me. His voice in my head... as I said the curse... he forgave me. But how can I ever forgive myself?"
