Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything you can recognise from any books or TV series or movies. I do however take liberties with the plots or mentions provided by JKR or other writers. The only profit I'm getting out of it is improving my English.

Title: Secrets & Keepers – Entropy

Rating/Warnings: R/M [AU; Manipulative Dumbledore (therefore not Dumbledore friendly); profanity; canon typical violence; frank discussion of past child abuse (Harry but not only) and of past child abuse of sexual nature (not Harry); not very detailed descriptions of torture (not Harry); Black family feels; identity crisis; pureblood politics; good Slytherins]

Characters and pairings: Harry Potter, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Bathsheda Babbling. As well as Hermione Granger, Arcturus Black, Larry Lawrence (OC) and Josephine Turner (OC). The rest of characters will appear as the story progresses.

All adults are more or less paternal towards Harry or grandfatherly towards Hermione as well as generally friendly or at the very least civil towards each other once they sort out their differences.

References to past and present relationship of sexual nature between Snape and Babbling. Occasional mentions of one sided Sirius/James, not one sided Sirius/OFC (the woman of many names). Contains mentions of Remus/Tonks, eventual allusions to Larry/Josephine and background Arcturus/Melania. No Harry or Hermione pairings because they have a lot on their plates and won't have time for teenage nonsenses for a longer while (at the very least through PoA timeline).

Spoilers: All seven books with occasional, brief references to ground work for HP & CC main plot as well as Secrets & Keepers – Collision Course and Secrets & Keepers – Supernova.

Summary: Harry & Hermione learn that as weird as everything become in the aftermath of learning devastating news is that the life actually goes on. There's a Dark Lord to destroy, a manipulative Headmaster to overthrow, family bonds and new friendships to establish and old ones to maintain. Direct sequel to S&K - Collision Course and S&K - Supernova.

Chapter summary: The Greengrasses.

Word count: About 3900.

Author's note: It's short but necessary chapter and with the end of it I will be done with changing pov that aren't Hermione or Harry and his entourage. That doesn't mean that we aren't going to see the girls anytime soon. Should everything stay on schedule (and I hope that it does) they're going to meet Hermione in chapter 14.

Next chapter will be posted when it will be ready.

Beta read by Regnbuen (Nitraz).

I hope that You will find this story enjoyable. I would be the most grateful for constructive criticism.


Having a place to go - is a home.

Having someone to love - is a family.

Having both - is a blessing.

~Donna Hedges

Secrets & Keepers – Entropy

Chapter eleven: Friends and Family

Daphne Greengrass, 12th August 1993, Greengrass Manor

Their family situation had been far from ideal ever since the healers confirmed that Astoria appeared to suffer from the very same malediction that killed their mother. Although to be fair, it was the undiagnosed disease coupled with the effort of a difficult birth and puerperal sepsis that killed her. Not that delivering a stillborn, and a son on that, had helped.

Mum was very weak and bereft with grief and her death left both Dad and Astoria in a stupor that quite frankly was scary. Not that Daphne didn't grieve the loss of her mother or baby brother. No, she cried herself to sleep, even for weeks afterwards, but between Dad doing his best imitation of an inferius and Astoria refusing not only to leave her bed, but also meals, and to the utmost horror of distressed house-elves also tea, milk or 'even plain water Ms Daphne', it was highest time to call in the reinforcements.

Aunt Ellie, a new mother herself, and of a bouncing and absurdly healthy (blessedly) baby boy named Apollo, wasn't a part of the cavalry that arrived after Daphne's summoning, but her uncles, other aunts and grandfather came through to shift through the wreckage of her family life. Grandpa and uncles helped with the funeral and drawing Dad out of his fugue state while Aunties Cate, Cora and Mia got the house and the girls into some semblance of control.

It was also Aunt Cate, a paediatric healer with a clinic of her own who realised that there was something not physically right about Astoria's state. The news of the malediction, unspecified at the moment, but like all maledictions most likely a deadly one had taken everyone by surprise. They were the Greengrasses, they passed illnesses and aliments at ages when even the deadliest of them were minor inconveniences and hardly any dangerous sicknesses.

That it was a Cornfoot thing was evident and not something that endeared her Cornfoot relatives into maintaining proper contact with the Greengrasses. Sure Daphne and Astoria still got presents from Grandpa and Grandma Cornfoot, and Dad got an occasional postcard from them, but previously once friendly relations between both families had diminished into nothing in a span of a couple of months.

Also in the span of a couple of months Dad had gone from shocked stupor into a frenzied, maniacal search for the cure. And as long as the search had kept him in England, or at the very least Europe it was fine. Daphne was old enough to run the house with the help of the elves, she listened to them intently and followed their suggestion. With their help she learned how to handle the finances of the household, didn't exceed the budget and looked after Astoria. Not that the other Greengrasses didn't help, because they did, but ultimately they had their own problems and households to take care of and Daphne and Astoria rebelled violently against the idea of leaving the home in which their darling mother once lived.

In retrospect they should have left it once Dad had gone from being gone for a couple days a week to a couple of weeks between visits. It would have been less painful than watching Vere (always Venery for Daphne but never out loud) take over the household once Dad came to the conclusion about four months before Daphne headed to Hogwarts that he needed to remarry.

Daphne wasn't completely opposed to the idea of remarriage, at the very least in theory. Dad was still young and he deserved to find someone that made him happy. Ideally a widow with children of her own, someone capable of understanding that he still loved his deceased wife. A decent woman that could become if not a role model for Daphne and Astoria then at the very least a good friend and confidant, like Grandma Marigold had been to Dad and his older siblings.

But Daphne's hopes for a decent step-mother had been dashed when Dad announced his engagement to Guinevere Goyle. That alone had been insulting and not just to Daphne. While he could marry whomever he bloody pleased, introducing Vere as the woman he was courting was considered the proper thing to do, and he failed to do so before securing her hand. Probably on her insistence as she likely feared that the rest of the family would talk him out of it.

The wedding itself was a tasteless sham filled with clashing themes that gave Aunt Eleanor a migraine. The wedding dress was a travesty and a waste of perfectly good material of a splendid quality, but that Daphne could bear if Vere truly made Dad happy and was decent to Daphne and Astoria.

That she was not proved out straight on the day of the wedding when she saddled Daphne with the company of her cousins. Gregory Goyle alone Daphne could stand, although barely. It had taken her roughly fifteen minutes to find him lacking in all the proper departments in which a young pureblood boy should be educated, especially a supposed heir of the Goyle family. And that was before addressing his problems with personal hygiene. He was happiest at the table with a plate filled with food, so that was where Daphne had left him when she was ordered (yes, ordered) to make friends with Vere's other cousin, Pansy Parkinson.

Upon first seeing her, Daphne decided that Pansy was a pretty girl, even with her quite strong jaw that she appeared to inherit from her father. She would have been far prettier though if she didn't have a permanent scowl etched on her face. Especially when she was convinced that she was talking with someone far beneath her.

It didn't surprise Daphne that Pansy wore that expression around Tracey Davis, Daphne's childhood friend and younger sister of Uncle Tommy, Uncle Percy's long-time partner. Tracey's family situation was peculiar for the lack of a better word and more complicated than the annoying wireless play which Astoria liked to listen to. Mrs Davenport, Tracey's Muggle mother, was a lovely and talented woman, very friendly and adaptive, which amongst the Greengrasses had earned her the status of a dear squib relative. Daphne's Mum loved her like the dearest of friends, so did Aunt Eleanor, and none of Daphne's cousins looked at her with disdain. Not that she wouldn't make a terrific witch if she happened to be born with magic. She was such a dear friend that she had been invited to the wedding along with Uncle Tommy and Tracey.

It hadn't taken Vere or Pansy too long to figure out that she wasn't a cherished squib relative rather than a completely unrelated to the Greengrasses Muggle, that with their help decided to assimilate herself into the wizarding world to ensure that her only daughter received a proper magical upbringing. Vere even went as far as voicing the sentiment that she shouldn't be invited to family gatherings, her daughter too, but luckily for Daphne, Vere wasn't the one who was running the Greengrass family. So she was quite put out when she learned that Mrs Davenport would continue being invited to family functions and that if she didn't like that then maybe she should avoid them.

In retribution for that, in late November while Daphne was at Hogwarts, Dad in India and Astoria left for a weekend with her cousins, Vere redecorated the entire house. That redecoration unfortunately included getting rid of every single trace of Mum. She got rid of everything. Mum's paintings, her clothes, her perfumes, even the books on which she put down her name. When Astoria saw the effects of it she burst into hysterics and fled the house. She even refused to return there for as long as she was forced to remain with Vere alone.

The whole situation wasn't easy on Dad, not that it hadn't been on Daphne either. She was pissed off with Vere and hadn't failed to voice her displeasure quite loudly, even going as far as going to retaliate by throwing all of Vere's clothes into the burning fireplace. Meanwhile Dad tried his best to integrate Vere into the family traditions and be understanding of Vere's supposed insecurities.

That they were loads of bollocks Daphne knew. She knew that since she was ordered to befriend Pansy; she knew that the moment when Vere was standing behind Dad with a triumphant look on her face while he was listing her punishment for destroying Vere's clothes while seconds earlier her eyes were filled with tears; she also knew that when Pansy casually mentioned to her that Aunt Guinevere was expecting twins during Easter break.

Guinevere Greengrass de domo Goyle was a mean bitch who just had luck that she found such an easily manipulated man like Dad. Maybe if Dad wasn't so hell-bent on finding the cure for Astoria's malediction on his own, he wouldn't have fallen prey to Vere's manipulations so easily. But as things stood, he was easily distracted and at times so exhausted that he simply conceded to Vere's desires.

So Astoria was allowed to spend the rest of Daphne's school year at the manor. Quite understandable because Aunt Eleanor recently had given birth to Remus, and with the Greengrasses not leaving childrearing to elves, she needed a hand in watching Hermes and Apollo.

But then the summer arrived, and so did Dad, and during his brief stay, Vere managed to wrangle out of him the promise of keeping Astoria at home, because how were they going to get to know each other better if they lived in two households that were miles apart. Dad agreed and once he left after a couple of days, Daphne and Astoria started being subjected to Vere's brand of parenting.

It was horrid, not horrid enough to go to Uncle Perry over it, but Daphne hated every minute of being at home with Vere. Luckily, as manipulative as she was, she was easily accessible to manipulation herself, and Daphne had no problems with convincing her that forbidding her and Astoria from visiting the manor at regular intervals would cause suspicions and therefore an increase of interest about what was going on in the house. Daphne still hated leaving Astoria behind in September.

Daphne wasn't very surprised by the news about the pregnancy, even if she felt offended that she received them from Pansy. After all Vere was a maiden before she married Dad, not exactly an old maiden but at the age when the majority of women had at the very least one child of their own if not two or three. Then it was the matter of male heirs. It wasn't that Dad was obliged to have them at all, Uncle Perry was Grandpa's oldest son and his sons (and he had five of them) stood a chance to inherit the lion share of the family fortune and titles. But maybe it was a matter of male pride.

By the time summer arrived, Daphne reached the conclusion that considering the last time Dad had been in the country then both she and Astoria would avoid being there when the twins would be born. At the minimum by a couple of weeks, provided that Vere would carry the twins to term.

So when that didn't happen, and on the early morning of 3rd August Vere had gone into labor, she was mite alarmed. Less for the sake of the kids, not that she wished them ill or anything, but more about how their premature arrival would affect the rest of the summer for her and Astoria. That Vere herself wouldn't be doing much or trusting the elves she already knew. Then arose the problem of Vere's healer who was unreachable, as was Dad (but Vere already knew that, at least in theory, not that her knowing changed anything).

By noon she had enough of dealing with Vere and her frustrations, and when she stepped outside between contractions so Tia, their cook and the healer of minor injuries, could fix her left wrist, which Vere managed to dislocate a couple contractions ago she told Astoria to summon the cavalry.

The cavalry arrived shortly after the summons under the guise of Aunt Cate, the paediatric healer and Emma Wilcox, her friend and St Mungo's gynaecologist. Within a couple of hours they sorted Vere out, and when she was dosing under the effects of a restorative draught over the cup of tea they talked with Daphne and Astoria about how the birth had went. It didn't take them long to figure out that there was something very wrong about Healer Wilcox's statement that the twins were carried to term. It didn't take a genius to figure out that around the time when the conception took place, Dad hadn't been around, and wasn't even supposed to be around for at least six to eight weeks. That conclusion in turn lead to summoning Grandpa and Uncle Perry who wasted very little time in questioning Astoria about Vere's comings and goings last fall. As it turned out, Vere didn't get out much, something that appeared to annoy her, but she had a lot of visitors, mostly her friends and female cousins, and the only males that Astoria knew that Vere had seen during that time were her older brother and cousins. Upon further examination, performed by Aunt Cate and Healer Wilcox, it turned out that the twins suffered some form of neurological issue that was consisted with signs of inbreeding. Which was yuck.

Grandpa and Uncle Perry immediately decided that the situation needed to be sorted out. Bastards the family honour could stand as they were more common in all pureblood families than people thought. But maintaining the blood purity without inbreeding was something that the Greengrasses always took pride in, and never mind the scandal of an eventual divorce, Vere and her children had to go.

The problem laid with handling the problem in such a way that would keep Vere from manipulating Dad into believing that the twins were his, and removing Daphne and Astoria from the household without raising Vere's suspicions and ensuring that she stayed at home while they left.

So when one morning, after what felt like ages, Grandpa arrived during breakfast and told Daphne and Astoria to pack, they wasted very little time to do so. They had also been very thorough with their packing as it was more than likely that they would not return home before September or Christmas break, or depending how the divorce went, maybe ever.

Not wanting to push their luck they immediately departed via Floo with their trunks that immediately had been picked up by one of the elves, whose name Daphne could never remember as he was named by her cousin Hermes. Once they were relieved from their baggage they headed out to greet their relatives that were just starting on their own breakfast, since their own breakfast was meagre they accepted the invitation to eat with them and Daphne with huge relief realised that Tracey was there too.

So once Astoria was dragged by Hermes to play with him and Apollo, and the adults wandered away from the table to busy themselves with other stuff, Tracey dragged Daphne to their favourite hiding spot in the garden to talk.

They talked for what felt like hours about everything. Daphne wasted very little time in informing Tracey about her supposed brothers and suspicions on how they came to be. Tracey in turn talked about her future step-father and little step-brother, her mother's engagement and the cruise she skipped. She was a little disappointed that she wouldn't see Greece with them, but because it was a long trip, and one that had to be pushed back due to issues with booking, she would already be at Hogwarts by the time they got back. But because her future step-father was an okay guy he promised that next year the whole family would spend a couple of weeks in Greece during the summer.

They slipped into the moments of comfortable silence that happened when they talked out what was on their mind and simply enjoyed the mutual company. Daphne loved that, they weren't possible with Pansy, and with Tracey she didn't need to mind what she was saying like with Pansy. Not that she trusted Pansy with more than what she already knew.

She was about to broach the subject of defence and whom possibly Dumbledore could have hired when she spotted Grandpa approaching them. He was accompanied by Astoria who was talking animatedly. She was smiling broadly, a sight that Daphne hadn't seen in months.

"Should I leave?" asked Tracey.

"No, you're family," replied Daphne. "He knows that I will most likely repeat to you everything he has to say."

"Which is one of the reasons why I'm not sending you away to the house," said Grandpa.

"One?" asked Tracey curiously. "There's another?" she pressed.

"As a matter of fact there is," said Grandpa as he gestured at Astoria to sit with Daphne and Tracey on the bench.

Once Astoria sat next to Daphne and hugged her arm, he conjured a wicker armchair in which he sat down with a small sigh.

"Good to sit down after the morning I just had," he said contently, then he straightened himself slightly before he added. "You aren't going to see Guinevere or her sons ever again."

"Yes," breathed out Daphne in relief.

"I'm unsure whather or not your father will choose to divorce her. He has grounds for uncontested divorce that much is certain. If he will choose not to follow through with it your aunts and uncles unanimously decided that you shouldn't be raised by him for as long as he's going to remain Guinevere Goyle's husband. Should he elect to stay with that strumpet your guardianship will be turned over to Hyperion and Eleanor," explained Grandpa.

"And how likely is that?" asked Daphne.

"I'm hoping that it's in the realm of highly unlikely but I thought the same about his engagement to her and I was wrong," sighed Grandpa. "How do you feel about that?"

"It's not as if Vere was a good role model," muttered Daphne grimly. "And we had been seeing Dad for a couple of weeks a year. And yeah, I know why he's gone and what he's doing but that doesn't mean that he has been much of a father to us since he started looking for the cure."

"Uncle Perry and Aunt Ellie has been very good to us," said Astoria solemnly.

"And they will continue to remain as such," assured them Grandpa. "Your poor mother was a good friend of Ellie's, therefore Ellie will not see you harmed. Neither will the rest of us, of that much you can be certain."

"But not about Dad," said Daphne.

"I'm sorry, my dear. I promise to do my best to get to him before Guinevere does but that's as much as I dare to promise," said Grandpa sympathetically.

"That was one thing," said Daphne briskly. "What about the other?"

Grandpa smirked quickly before he replied, "A good friend of mine recently became a guardian of a girl your age, temporary at the moment but even if that will cease I'm sure that he will continue to remain in her life. She's intelligent, polite, but lacks certain aspects of a magical upbringing," he gestured towards Tracey. "I would very much like for the three of you to meet them. I'm not foolish enough to demand that you befriend each other…"

"But you would like to see that happen," said Tracey dryly.

"Because I'm convinced that all of you could benefit from expanding your circle of friends to other people. And that girl has more sense in her little toe than that cousin of Guinevere has in her brain and in the rest of her usual entourage," replied Grandpa with a small grimace.

"What's her name?" asked Daphne curiously. "Do we know her or is she a transfer from another school?"

"You do know her," replied Grandpa briskly. "I heard you referring to her as an overcompensating beaver."

Overcompensating beaver… surely it couldn't be.

"Hermione Granger?" asked Tracey incredulously. "But she's a Muggleborn, and one that doesn't hide her upbringing."

"My dear, if one wanted to be technical about it, you could have been considered one, and you aren't," Grandpa pointed out.

"I'm not denying that," protested Tracey. "I know that if it wasn't for Tommy's persistence and your help I would most likely be a Muggleborn, Tracey Davenport, and would have received similar upbringing. But you see sir, I looked her up in connection to Dagworth-Granger…"

"The girl was adopted," Grandpa interrupted her.

"The Grangers?" whispered Daphne.

"Are a pair of Muggle healers that raised her as their own. From what little I managed to establish both parents remain unknown, mother by choice, father most likely because he hadn't been known to the mother and considering the year she was born you might guess why," replied Grandpa with a grimace.

"She definitely isn't going to like that," muttered Tracey.

"And how did that friend of yours get himself involved in all of this?" asked Daphne curiously.

"Likely via his almost granddaughter-in-law. Who most certainly isn't her mother," replied Grandpa.

"How can you be so certain?" asked Astoria.

"Because I met the girl, and at the time she would have been heavily pregnant if she was the mother. We collided with each other, and in an attempt to steady her, I grasped her around the waist. And while certain charms and robes can obscure pregnancy from the view of others, increasing size can be felt by touch. The girl was as thin as a reed so it definitely couldn't be her."

"Did she have a family?" asked Tracey curiously.

"Muggle relatives, all dead I'm afraid, but if I'm right, like Tracey she wasn't a complete Muggleborn. The problem is, I can't summon the name of the likely father which I'm certain my friend knew because he vented his spleen on the subject for a couple of days," answered Grandpa.

"Why not?" asked Daphne. "You remember everything."

"Except something that has been deliberately obscured from me," Grandpa pointed out. "There are a couple of spells which can do that, and all of them can remove certain pieces of knowledge from one's mind, especially if it's something you don't consider as important. Most likely the doing of the girl's actual mother, likely a relation of the other."

"So the problem is establishing the relation between your friend's almost granddaughter-in-law and Granger's birth mother," said Daphne slowly.

"It's likely a close one," muttered Tracey. "A half-sister or a cousin."

"Could be a very good friend," Astoria pointed out and when Daphne and Tracey looked at her. "What? You aren't sisters and if one of you got in trouble I'm sure that the other would do anything to help her."

"Point taken," agreed Tracey.

"So, what do you think about sharing your deductions with the most interested party?" asked Grandpa innocently.

TBC


Next: The mystery of Severus's box. And no, it's not smut, just something I've been sitting on for about two years.