Disclaimer: OK, you really should know by now that nothing but Bryn belongs to me.
Chapter 17 - A Clue At Last: After they came back from Hogsmeade, Harry, Hermione, and Bryn sat together in the common room, chatting idly. Ron had disappeared with Lavender, much to the relief of Harry and Bryn. The three were talking about an article in that day's Daily Prophet when Harry gasped. "What?" Hermione asked.
"I've just remembered!" he said.
"Remembered what, Harry?" Bryn wanted to know.
"About your mum, Bryn. I know where I've seen her before!" And with that, he took off for his dormitory. Bryn and Hermione exchanged bemused looks.
A minute later, Harry was back, clutching a black leather book. "It's a photo album that Hagrid gave me years ago," he explained. "There's pictures of my mum and dad in here, from all their old friends... hold on. Here it is!"
And he handed Bryn the book. She glanced at the picture and felt as though she'd been sucker-punched. She'd seen this before. She'd caught her mother looking at it once, before Julia had slipped it into the small box that Bryn now had but couldn't open. It was locked and had no key.
She turned her mind away from that box and studied the photo. Six teens, four boys and two girls. Her mother was standing next to a redheaded girl and a black-haired, gray-eyed boy. "Oh, my God," she whispered.
"Those are my parents," Harry said, pointing to the redhead and the bespectacled boy to her left, who looked quite a bit like Harry, Bryn noted.
"So this means," Hermione said slowly, "that your mum knew Harry's parents, and most likely, so did your father. If that's your mum, that is, Bryn."
"It is," Bryn replied. "I saw this photo once before. Plus, the girl here has a cat." She pointed to the black cat at her teenaged mother's feet. "Mom loved cats. She always had one." She noticed that one of the boys looked like Lupin. "Hey, that's not Mr. Lupin, is it?"
"Yeah, it is," Harry said. "He was a friend of my dad's."
"So he lied to me..." Bryn muttered. At the confused looks of the other two, she explained about her conversation with Lupin at Christmas.
"Maybe not, Bryn," said Hermione. "Maybe he didn't know that your mum changed her name, which I'm guessing now is a definite."
"The only question being why, of course," Bryn said ruefully.
"Who knows?" Harry said quietly. "But it's something, Bryn. And maybe someone will know who she is."
"Maybe Hagrid knows," Hermione pointed out. "He gave you the album, Harry, so he might know who she is."
"Maybe," Bryn said, "but we can't go now, not with the new security measures they've got on us."
"We could go tomorrow," Harry suggested. Bryn nodded, fingering her mother's necklace. Julia wore the Celtic knot pendant in the photo, she noticed, which proved her identity beyond a shadow of a doubt as far as Bryn was concerned.
A/N: And so, we may find out Julia's true identity next time, or maybe we won't. I'm not sure. I may drag it out, just to drive you all insane, or maybe I'll be nice. I haven't decided yet.