Chapter summary: The aftermath.

Word count: About 3100.

Author's note: That might have been longer. Could have been longer but considering how long it had been I decided to erect the spine of abashment and post what I have without further delays. And yes, that's where I've been for most of the time, playing Elder Scrolls Online and trying not to think about the cluster of f… my life and work had become. Better to beat monsters instead of people. Although to be fair I do want to beat something after doing the same quests over and over because I cannot settle for an alternative character and stick with it. I've been there, enough times to know what a NPC is going to say next.

But back to writing from my high fantasy frolicking. I'm not abandoning this story. It's just when your head isn't really in it… and some people keep stepping on your toes… I'm a retail worker, I have an infinite level of patience and experience with dealing with idiots but there are certain days when delving into other people's psyche in order to consistently write characters is the last thing I want to do. So I don't, except when I do… and then there's the newcomer which had me sitting on his character for quite a while. Not someone of great importance, to the story, people would have disagreed but I wasn't sure which way I should approach him. So that was another reason for the delay. And the ever present writer's block and playing out various outcomes of the last chapter.

Going to end it here because soon the note will be longer than the chapter itself.

Dedicated to all of my readers who stuck with me for so long in spite of my shortcomings. Thank You, I hope that You will find this story enjoyable. I adore seeing your reactions because not only they're thought provoking but also can be so inspiring that I will go out of my way to write a nearly 100k words spin-off. Not that I'm seeking validation but I do enjoy dialogue.

Beta read by nexandvinny.


Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes they win.

Stephen King

Secrets & Keepers – Entropy

Chapter eighteen: What a Man Does

Hermione Granger, 21st August 1993, The Black Manor, Derbyshire

Mum was lying on a bed, unconscious. She would have looked as if she was sleeping if it wasn't for the slowly receding giant bruise on the left side of her face and the stark white bandages wrapped around her head. Her right arm was ensconced in a thin spidery cast, and seemingly that was all the damage Hermione could see. She knew there was more. But, of course, there was more. Broken ribs were slowly mending, as was punctured liver that only just recently stopped bleeding. Not that was the biggest issue. That was potential brain damage.

Hermione tore her gaze from her Mum's face only for a moment to locate Hecate. She found her seated in an armchair on Mum's right side, leaning against the back of the chair and sipping from a cup of tea. To any other observer, it might seem that the healer had done her part, but deep inside, Hermione knew better. Hecate might be sitting and seemingly taking a break, but while her back was relaxed, her face was not. She still had her wand pointed at Mum and was watching her with a hawk-like expression, ready to abandon her tea and her temperary perch the moment one of the readings would alarm her that something wasn't mending as it should.

They were alone in the room. Louise, Arcturus's healer house-elf, vacated the room just a couple of minutes ago to prepare a batch of potions from the list of which Hecate gave her. Eleanor departed with her, promising to return within a couple of minutes.

Hermione knew that she was just outside giving a report to the peanut gallery outside. She couldn't hear any arguments, but up until very recently, she was on the other side of the door, and she knew what was going on.

Arcturus and Larry most likely were still arguing over whether they should involve Muggle authorities, with Damocles, Hyperion and Alexander seemingly not choosing any sides aside from urging that whatever needed to be done fast.

And something needed to be done. Hermione knew that even though she wasn't ready to decide what should happen for herself as much as for her mother. They couldn't return home. That much was evident if what awaited them back there was what happened to Mum.

Dad was what happened to Mum. After thirty-odd years of marriage, a house and dental clinic and a child they raised together, he decided to take out his frustration over things not going his way on Mum. With his fists and a frying pan.

Fists alone would have been wrong. They would have been inexcusable anyway, but it was the frying pan that caused the most damage. Well, not that that thing was to blame for anything that a man wielding it did. No, that was on Dad and Dad alone because he had an option of not being violent, and he has simply chosen not to take it.

If what happened depended on Hermione alone, she would have marched to Arcturus straight away and demanded having the man locked away for life. Not that this outcome wasn't entirely off the table, brain damage might not heal…

Best not to go that way. It was going to heal. It simply had to.

She tried hard not to imagine that outcome. Still, despair and fear were poisonous leeches that conjured the images of Hecate claiming that Mum wouldn't make it or which was probably even worse, claiming that the damage wouldn't heal and that Mum would stay like that until her body would give up.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed since entering the room until she felt a hand on her shoulder. Slowly she looked up, fully expecting Arcturus or Hecate or Eleanor, but she found herself staring at neither of them.

The man standing by her chair bore a striking resemblance to Greengrass men and, like them, was tall and lean inbuilt, but unlike the rest of them, aside from Damocles, he was more grey-haired than blonde, and unlike them, he was wearing a beard.

"Would you like a cup of tea?" he asked softly.

"Hecate?" asked Hermione in a slightly raspy voice instead of answering.

"Stepped outside to read the riot act to the lawyers," the man replied. "They've been making the wrong kind of noises for her liking."

"What sort of noises?" asked Hermione sceptically.

"From what I managed to gather, and I'm majorly out of the loop on all fronts, it was about sorting it out before some unspecified someone gets involved. I'm hazarding a guess that no one whose attention they wish to attract," the man answered.

"Headmaster," replied Hermione with a heavy sigh.

"Ahh," exhaled the man in recognition. "Never thought that I would see the day when that title would become an insult."

Hermione snorted softly.

"Then again, I never thought that I would live to see many things," said the man slowly and sighed heavily.

"Tough day?" offered Hermione, more out of courtesy than the actual interest.

"Long, in the 'I can't really remember when was the last time I properly slept' manner," the man replied. "Transcontinental travel between England and Australia isn't exactly easy on travellers on its best days, and right now it's not."

"Not even with Floo Network and Apparation?" asked Hermione, mildly curious.

"Australian's Department of Magical Transportation is run by…" the man hesitated briefly. "Someone either mad or stupid or prejudiced or all of above. The Apparation of non-Australian citizens is very closely regulated, almost to the point of being banned, especially in territories surrounding national parks and reserves. Floo Network workers are on strike, and the waiting list of international hubs had been narrowed pretty much to Indonesian Archipelago and New Zealand and is at the moment miles long," he paused briefly. "Not that I blame them. They get their biggest revenue from international travel, but…" he huffed.

"So, how did you got here?" asked Hermione.

"Muggle way, trains, buses and plane with all of the accompanying horrors and headaches. I spent almost a day on the plane, and my body feels like it's still in Australia. I should have come back with the elf," he sighed.

Suddenly the door to the room opened, and Hermione turned towards it just in time to see Hecate striding towards the bed, followed by rather sheepish looking Arcturus, Damocles and Hyperion.

"I'm sorry to disturb you and your mother's recuperation Hermione," said Arcturus as he stopped by her chair. "But there's a certain issue which we need to address…."

"Not necessarily right now," said Hecate with a huff. "It can wait."

"That's debatable," muttered Hyperion. "And that exactly wasn't the question that was asked, sister mine."

"They want to wake your mother from the coma," clarified Hecate with a disgruntled huff.

"Is it safe?" asked Hermione cautiously.

"They know that I would be trying to wake her up anyway to assess her condition," replied Hecate briskly. "The difference is that I would be doing a neurological check-up while these three knobheads want to dive in the right into potentially triggering questioning, which might be counterproductive to the healing process."

Hermione hesitated. Strictly speaking, petrification wasn't really a coma, at the very least not entirely. The awaking was sudden and decidedly unpleasant with how jarring it was. For a brief moment, she was completely unaware of where she was and what was happening, still enthralled by seeing the mythical beast in the reflection of the mirror.

That most likely wouldn't be the case with Mum. The coma was potion-induced, that much she knew, and the awaking shouldn't be as jarring as hers was but…

"Can we play it by ear?" she asked quietly. "I mean, you have to check for brain damage and neurological functions first, but if she's…" she stopped abruptly.

"Very well," sighed Hecate before she turned around and glared at her father, brother and Arcturus. "Only one of you asks questions, and at the first sign of distress, you will cease questioning."

The waking process took time, as Hermione suspected it would have. Hecate administered a counter-potion, and they had to wait for it to start working.

And finally, Mum opened her eyes. By some sixth instinct, they found Hermione's first and her lips twitched in some weird semblance of a smile before she mouthed out Hermione's name.

"Easy there," said Hecate softly. "Take your time, Helen."

Mum took a breath, flinched and grimaced.

"Is he…" she started in a raspy whisper.

"Here? Luckily, no. Dead? Unfortunately, also no," replied Arcturus.

"Stop him," said Mum with all the fierceness she could muster. "He…" she started coughing.

"We know, Helen," said Arcturus in a reassuring but swift manner. "We interrupted him and incapacitated him."

"Oh…" Mum breathed out.

"But it isn't exactly a long term solution," Arcturus continued. "Not in his current state of mind. And as much as I hate to bother you and interrupt your recuperation…."

"I don't want to ever see him again, and I don't want him anywhere near my daughter," said Mum fiercely, and that statement seemed to take all of her strength because she closed her eyes and for a couple of minutes was breathing heavily.

"That can be arranged," said Damocles calmly once Mum's breathing calmed down slightly. "The problem is… as old and experienced as we are, we cannot agree on how to handle it."

Mum opened her eyes and stared at him as Hermione looked at Arcturus.

"Mocky believes that your family situation won't matter to the Headmaster enough to get himself involved," said Arcturus with a grimace. "Therefore, he's leaning towards involving Muggle authorities and presenting them with one of the two outcomes. The first is to relay to them the truth of what occurred while removing the magical factor of the situation. The other is a mite spiteful and involves convincing them that a murder has been committed and allowing your husband and father to serve time in jail. It also involves saddling him with the least competent lawyer on the planet to ensure that he won't get away with it."

"Then there's Russ' solution," Damocles continued the explanation. "Which is to do nothing but remove his memory of ever being married and raising anything, let alone a child together. How that's better for everybody, I'm failing to see."

"You're old enough to be familiar with the terms of delayed gratification and delayed punishment," replied Arcturus and huffed.

"I have siblings," said Mum quietly.

"I know," confirmed Arcturus. "And therein lies the crux as well as a possible solution. What I need to know is how close you are."

"As close as middle-aged siblings with jobs and children of their own can get," replied Mum slowly. "Considering that three of my brother live outside of the continent, let alone the country. They are all married with kids, and highly unlikely to visit without warning. My sisters, on the other hand…" she grimaced.

"They call," said Arcturus.

"Occasionally," sighed Mum. "They're both less likely to do so now because one recently moved to Ireland with her family, and the other decided to devote a year to digging up wells somewhere in Africa."

"A noble if not somewhat pointless cause," muttered Hector.

Hermione and her Mum both stared at him.

"Inner politics and civilian wars of Muggle and wizarding tribes," he clarified. "Headache inducing and going back for centuries if not millennia. So the rule of the thumb when it comes to gauging what's going on in African countries is looking at how all of their people are faring. If the country is flourishing, then some sort of compromise had been reached between their Muggle and wizarding authorities, and if not…" he stopped suddenly.

"That's…" started Mum.

"Out of line," said Hector quickly. "I'm sorry, but I didn't sleep for a couple of days, and lack of sleep makes me babble."

"Surprisingly insightful," finished Mum and gave him a small smile.

"Really?" he asked, sounding very surprised. "My…" he started again and once more stopped abruptly. "That doesn't matter. Thank you."

"And how exactly removing his memory is going to make things better?" asked Hermione sceptically as she looked at Arcturus. "That's a get out of jail card," she added and huffed angrily.

"My darling girl," started Arcturus. "Why do you think I would have allowed such a travesty to happen? No, the only memory that I would be taking is his and his alone. I'm not planning to make rounds obliviating your relatives and friends of your parents. That would be downright ridiculous and, quite frankly, Sisyphean work because surely someone would be able to slip by. No, what I want is to take away his credibility, his support circle and then his freedom. Of course, had the relationship between your mother and her siblings was strained or non-existent like Mocky I would have gone with framing your father for your mother's murder from the start, but then there's Dumbledore…."

"You think he has spies on me?" asked Hermione sceptically.

"He would be a fool if after the events of the last year he hadn't," replied Arcturus. "You're a precious ally to your friends, and if it wasn't for you, your friends most likely wouldn't have even the faintest idea what was causing the havoc until you woke up. Not that I'm convinced that whoever he assigned to you is your permanent tail," he continued and stopped briefly. "No, in the grand scheme of things, right now you're too inconsequential to warrant a permanent tail but periodic check-ups? Especially if they're wrapped into the disguise of concern…" he paused again.

"Pardon him," interrupted him, Damocles, "he's been getting mite paranoid since his bout of sickness. One of the feverish dreams got to him, and it freaked him out."

"It's only paranoid if it isn't true," replied Arcturus simply. "Proudclaw is looking into my suggestions, and if there really was nothing to it, he would have come back by now. Like I already told you, that posting requires a sponsorship since it's very coveted by experienced Curse-Breakers. And to get that, you either need a great network of contacts or quite a lot of money to secure it. The lad doesn't have that kind of money. He's talented, and from what I heard, an amicable fellow, but by talent alone, he would have gotten to Greece or Italy at the most. Someone sponsored him to his posting that much I'm certain of. He was ambitious enough to work his way to Head Boy, and he got it, despite the competition and the pockets of their parents. If he was ambitious enough to reach out to all of the renowned Curse-Breakers for sponsorship and one of them had been bribed to accept him…."

"Then Proudclaw would be able to find a trace of such transaction quite easily," concluded Damocles. "Which means that he would be back by now."

"Not if the benefactor had been good at covering his tracks," pointed out Arcturus. "And he would have. His family lacks money but not proper wizarding pride. If the boy is like his father, and considering his position in the family, I'm hazarding a guess that he is, he would have never taken the shortcut himself or would have thought about doing so."

"You don't know his mother as well as I do," replied Damocles. "If it was up to her, their adult sons would be living in the same house with them and some nice girls, most likely raising another brood of children."

"And since when you know comings and goings of that household so well?" asked Arcturus pointedly.

"Since I like to indulge in second-hand bookshops. She buys romance novels in there, in bulk and likes to complain a lot about the distance between her oldest sons and the rest of the family. But, trust me, if she had the idea or money or access to it, she wouldn't have put it towards ensuring that distance, Russ. No, she would most likely buy a nice shack down the road from them and inform her older sons that it's for them to use," answered Damocles.

"That still doesn't rule out the hand of some very concerned party in ensuring that the lad got the best posting available on this side of the world," said Arcturus simply.

"Egypt is in Africa, Russ," pointed out Damocles.

"In a neighbourhood time zone, Mocky," replied Arcturus.

"Do I want to know what you're talking about?" asked Hermione pointedly.

"Nothing of dire consequences or relevant to your situation," replied Hyperion. "And I'm with Father…"

"Of course you are," interrupted him Arcturus.

"That's beside the point," continued Hyperion, pausing only long enough for an eye-roll. "Point is," he added, "something needs to be done about your husband. Preferably before he's set to return to work."

"Does any of you heard about something as mundane as divorce by any chance?" interjected Hector.

"Is that you complaining?" asked Hyperion pointedly.

"Considering the amount of time I had to digest everything?" replied Hector stiffly. "But that's just me, brother mine. I'm quite certain that Helen's situation is much more complicated and much more…."

"Not really," said Mum quietly. "My parents," she started. "It's a no-brainer. Hadn't really been one since he…" she swallowed as she looked at Arcturus. "If it was just me, I would have taken his sorry backside to court, but…" she swallowed again. "No one threatens my daughter and gets away with it."

Arcturus nodded.

"Draw it out," she said fiercely. "Make him question his sanity."

Hermione looked at her, surprised.

"Not the way you would have gone?" Mum asked.

"As long as we don't have to deal with him anymore is fine with me," replied Hermione after a moment.

And just as she said it, she realised that it was true.

"But wouldn't the name change alert Dumbledore?" she asked pensively.

"Only if you will return to Hogwarts under your mother's maiden name," replied Arcturus. "At the very least at the opening of a school year. During the year, it would be much easier to slip it by him."

Hermione scowled.

Not that convincing people to address her by her mother's maiden name would be easy. In particular, a certain potion master would most likely take a sadistic pleasure in continuing to address her as Ms Granger instead of Ms Brooks.

"Now, pardon me, I have some house cleaning to do," said Arcturus. "Take your time, rest and recuperate," he addressed Mum. "Mocky, come along."

TBC


Next: Harry and his merry bunch. Because I have some things to clarify before shipping them off to Hogwarts and a duel to write. Had this one in mind for a while but couldn't write it because of where Sirius had been. Hopefully I will finish it sooner than before Christmas.