Authors Note's: Rotten Writer here again with a quick start to year three of our little adventure.
This is mostly some prep work, setting up the beginning of what's going to be happening in the upcoming year and showing where things are going sideways in a few areas. Next chapter should be considerably longer as well because I'll have a lot more to go over and secrets start to come unraveled.
I've been listening to you guys, honestly I have. I originally planned for Harry to discover the scars, accidentally, in fourth year, somewhere between the first task of the Tournament and the Yule Ball. There was a reason for that because of the particular way the scene played out in my head, I needed them to be older for it. Well, I'm not going to make Rowlings' mistake of sticking to my original plan even though it's clear that plan is no longer viable.
So, here's hoping everyone enjoys this little beginning peak into third year. I don't want to drag the summer months on needlessly so I'm going to try to knock everything together in the next two or three chapters, at most. *fingers crossed* They'll probably end up being pretty long chapters because of that but I doubt any of you guys will be complaining too much.
Disclaimer: I still own nothing Harry Potter. Thank you.
Here we go with Chapter 29 of Soul Scars!
Soul Scars Part Three
The Greengrass Problem
by,
Rtnwriter
"No! For the last time there is no way that I am going to let you incite a panic with these ridiculous, and baseless, accusations. If I hear even a whisper that you're trying anything, I'll have you bounced out of here so fast that your head'll spin! Now get out of my office!"
The door slammed shut behind her as Amelia Bones left the office of the Minister of Magic, growling angrily and muttering a constant litany of violent threats under her breath. As she passed through the Auror bullpen, Junior, Senior, and Master Aurors alike hurried to clear a path for her, each of them making damn sure that they didn't make eye contact with her on her way by.
In the three years since she'd taken over as Director of the DMLE, the Aurors under her command had only seen her so furious a handful of times, and each time it had been because someone was interfering with her actually doing her job.
When she stormed into the outer office she barked at her secretary without slowing down as she passed. "Carol, if anyone tried to interrupt me someone had better be dead or they'll find their arse stuck with a six month tour of guard duty at Azkaban," she snapped irritably and stormed into her office, slamming the door shut behind her.
She dropped heavily into the chair behind her desk and set her elbows down on the wooden surface, her head coming to rest in her upturned palms while she resisted the urge to yank at her own hair in frustration.
"Siruis Orion Black," she muttered, her mind casting back to the night a week and a half ago when Harry came into her study with a simple, and impossibly complex, question.
"What can you tell me about Sirius Black?"
#####
Amelia reeled back in her chair, her eyes widening to nearly comical level as her mind processed, probably, the last question she expected him to ask. Well… maybe not the last question, she thought. If he's got his mothers journals, the name would have come up more than a few times, I'd imagine.
"Sirius… Sirius was one of your fathers best friends while they were at school. Them and two other boys."
"Lupin and Pettigrew?" Harry prompted, leaning forward eagerly in his seat and she nodded, a sad smile on her lips.
"Yes. I was two years ahead of them and in Hufflepuff while they were all Gryffindors. I didn't know them, really, not until after they graduated and the war was at its height…" She shrugged somewhat at a loss. "I'm not exactly sure what it is you want to know," she admitted. "Sirius… he was charming, and handsome, and always seemed more like a big kid in a newly grownup mans body than anything else."
"Sounds like the Weasley twins."
"From what I saw of them last summer, yes, the twins do seem to be taking after your father and his friends," she muttered.
Harry frowned, staring at the journal and the letters on the desk.
"From what I read, my parents went into hiding with me," he muttered, as if trying to muzzle out the answer to a mystery. "The vanished, sometime in July or August of that year and on Halloween night Black supposedly lead Voldemort to their house, giving him the Secret to the cottage's location in Godric's Hollow. Then a few days later he used a single curse on a busy street in the middle of London that caused an explosion, killing twelve muggles and their other friend, Pettigrew," he continued.
He fell silent for a minute, still staring at the items he'd placed on her desk before he finally blew out a breath and looked to her, an almost plaintive expression on his face.
"But that doesn't make sense," he complained.
"Harry, sometimes people aren't who we think they are."
"No," he shook his head. "No there's got to be more to it than that. In everything they ever wrote there was so much about how they trusted Sirius. How loyal he was and how faithfully he stood with them through everything. They wrote concerns about Remus Lupin and they were worried sometimes about Pettigrew, always described him as weak and cowardly, never understood how he got into Gryffindor."
Amelia schooled her expression as well as she could, trying to keep the pain she felt in her chest off her face. "He fooled everyone. The House of Black were just as dark as their namesake and everyone thought that he was different from the rest of his family. Narcissa Black married Lucius Malfoy, and Bellatrix Black became Bellatrix Lestrange," she told him. "Regulus Black was a Death Eater in his own right as well but he vanished not too long before the end of the war, no one knows what happened to him but it was rumored that Voldemort himself killed him. Sirius always acted as if he hated his family and everything they stood for, but it turned out to all be a lie, a role he was playing."
"I guess," he said with a sigh. "I just can't understand how he would have gotten past the Oaths."
He started to stand, reaching for the book and the letters when Amelia's hand landed on top of them, stopping him and he looked up at her, startled to see an intense, scrutinizing look in her gaze.
"What Oaths?" she demanded.
Harry leaned back away from her, a little uncomfortable with her penetrating gaze leveled at him but dutifully answered the question anyway. "The Godfather Oaths." He tugged the letters out from under her hand and flipped the folded stack open, shuffling through the half dozen pages until he found the one he was looking for which he held out to her. "In one of the last letters they left before going into hiding my dad wrote that they'd asked Sirius to be my Godfather and said something about Oaths that he'd need to swear on his life and magic…" He trailed off and shrugged. "I don't really know what it all means but it's all been bugging me for while now, ever since I read the letters.
"I would have asked sooner but… well there were other things going on that were on my mind."
Amelia didn't even crack a smirk at that, her eyes fixed on the parchment in her hands, gaze flitting back and forth rapidly as she read over the neat, elegant script that covered the page.
"The sworn Oaths of a Godparent are a magically binding contract, of a sort. The Godparent couldn't ever intentionally do anything to harm you and swears to care for and raise their godchild in the even that anything happens to the parents," she muttered, almost distracted as she continued reading. "Usually these things are registered with the Ministry but it's not required… If they did swear the Oaths, then there's no way that Sirius could have betrayed the Potters. He'd have been dead before he could have finished telling Voldemort the Secret…"
"Then he might be innocent?" Harry asked but his sudden excitement fell away at the pensive frown that still marred her features.
"I don't know, Harry. We can't say that for sure."
"But they said-"
"I understand what your parents wrote to you, but that isn't evidence." An investigators mind is trained to be observant, to notice details and make connections that others might miss and at that moment Amelia's mind had become a whirlwind of thoughts and memories as she looked at everything she could remember from those days through the filter of this new information.
"It's not that simple, I'm afraid," she finally admitted. "We don't know for sure that they ever took the Oaths. If they didn't he could have still been the one to betray them."
"Yeah, but-"
"If they did," she continued, talking over him, "then he probably didn't betray your parents, but there is still the matter of the murder of Pettigrew and those twelve muggles."
Harry sagged in his seat at that, and she tried to give him a reassuring look.
"Harry, let me borrow these for a bit, okay?" she asked, placing her hand back on the journal and the letters. "I'll look through what I can and see what I can kick loose, sound good?"
"Okay," he muttered, looking less than pleased about the whole thing.
She considered him for a moment, absently pinching her lower lip between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, a habit she knew her niece had learned from her, as she thought.
"Harry, what were you hoping to achieve here?" she asked and he blinked a few times in surprise before he thought about the question.
"I don't know, really," he admitted. "Just, what I was reading didn't seem to match the official story. I guess… I guess I just wanted answers."
#####
Amelia sat up at her desk, calmer after her trip fown memory lane, and pulled two single sheets of parchment from a magically locked drawer in her desk. Setting both sheets on the top of the desk she lifted her wand and tapped her badge, once.
"Carol? Please send Senior Auror Shacklebolt and Auror Cadet Tonks into my office, won't you?"
She tapped the badge a second time without waiting for a response and then started working her way through the ever present 'In-box' on her desk while she waited. Ten minutes later, she set aside her work when a knock came at her door and she called out, "Come."
The door was pulled open and Shack led the way in, still as impressive a figure as ever with his tall stature and broad frame, his gold hoop earing glimmer in the light where it hung from his left ear. Behind him came Tonks, shorter and far more slender by a large margin than her training partner, she had shocking electric blue hair spiked up on her head that morning. Silently, the two stood at attention in front of her desk and waited for her to acknowledge them.
"I have come across a… mystery," she said after five minutes of silence ticked by them. "I need the two of you to help me solve it, but before I can tell you anything about it I am going to need a magical oath of silence on the matter." She ignored how both of them started in surprise at that and kept talking. "If either of you aren't interested, you are welcome to leave with no penalties, no concerns, and I won't think less of either one of you. I'm asking for quite a leap of faith here and I understand that may not be something you're comfortable doing."
"Just tell me what you want the Oath to state, Amy," Shack growled out in a low tone. "I know you well enough that this has gotta be big so let's get on with it."
"Not gonna scare me off that easy, Boss," Tonks piped up with a grin spreading across her lips.
Without a word Amelia took a scrap of parchment in hand and held it out to them, letting go once Shack had a grip of it and he stepped back beside Tonks so they could both read over the Oath for themselves. Drawing their wands, almost in unison they both spoke the Oath and twin flares of light flashed out as it took effect.
"Take a seat you two… and, thank you," Amelia said as she pointed to the chairs in front of her desk. Once the two were seated she handed over the two sheets of parchment she'd earlier pulled from her desk, one to each of them and waited while they read through the information she'd transcribed from both Lily Potter's journal and the letters written by her and her husband.
"Fudge has got to be having kneazles over this," Kingsley muttered after he finished reading.
"Blimey…"
A tone in Tonks' voice caught Amelia's attention and she looked over to see the Cadet's eyes had widened to truly inhuman levels as a result of her Metamorphmagus abilities and she looked as pale as a ghost on top of it.
"Cadet? Is there a problem?"
"N-no, Ma'am, no problem, really. Just… Sirius is my cousin, Boss. Are you sure you want me involved with this?"
"That is precisely why I requested you," Amelia assured the younger woman. "Well, that and your abilities should be really useful for some of what I want you two to do."
The two of them sat up straighter in their seats and focused their attention on her as Tonks corrected her appearance with a brief application of focus and will.
"We need as much information as we can get for this. The problem is, Fudge has expressly forbidden me from looking into the case. Even a hint gets back to him that someone, anyone, is looking into Sirius Black and it'll be my arse in a sling, do you understand me?"
They both nodded and she leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desk in front of her with her hands clasped together as she switched her gaze back and forth from one to the other.
"This is your last chance to back out, either of you. Your Oath will prevent you from speaking about it, but if you continue after this you can't decide later that you don't want to be involved anymore."
"I already said you're not going to get rid of me that easily, Boss," Tonks told her in an even tone, her face set in a hard expression. "Sirius was my favorite relative when I was growing up. I still remember him and my parents and I have never believed he betrayed the Potters. If there's something hinky going on, I want to know about it."
Amelia looked to Kingsley who merely arched a brow at her, saying nothing and giving nothing away. She smirked, acknowledging the silent message with a nod.
"All right, here's what I need you two to do…"
#####
"How long has he been like this?"
"At least… two hours? Off and on?"
"And there's been…"
"Not that I've seen."
"What's he even trying to do?"
"I have no idea, honestly."
"You do know I can hear you three, right?" Harry growled irritably, lowering his arm and turning to face the girls were they were sitting on the low wall that ran around the back patio at Bones Manor.
"Yes, we know, Harry," Daphne said, smiling brightly at him while Susan gave him a jaunty little wave with one hand and Hermione simply grinned silently.
"Harry, maybe you should try something different?" Hermione offered. "I mean, two hours trying to glare a target to death hasn't produced any results, it might be time to switch things up."
Harry sighed and walked over to sit on the grass with his back against the wall between Susan and Daphne. "It's just frustrating," he grumbled. "I know I should be able to do these spells but I just can't figure it out. Just saying the incantation isn't helping and wand movements don't do me any good without a wand. It's been over a month and a half now." He gave out a frustrated growl and crossed his arms over his chest, his legs stretched out in front of him as he glared at the target he'd set up in the back yard.
"The goblins keep telling me that magic is all about will and intent. The incantation and the wand movements really aren't necessary in the end for most magic."
"Incantless casting?" Daphne asked. "We don't start learning that until sixth year."
"Right, but it highlights the point the goblins were making. We don't have to use incantations to cast spells. It's not required, but it's the easiest way to learn, so that's why we start out with that. The spell movement and the incantation are really more to focus our will and our intent. I should be able to just push with my magic and if my focus is strong enough and my intent clear then the magic will do the rest, but so far I haven't been able to get that to work. I can do a few small charms with the incantation, but not much."
"I was looking ahead through the curriculum. Post NEWTs has people learning point casting where people minimize or even do away with wand movements entirely. Silent casting is three years beyond were we are right now too. Maybe you should stop worrying about doing both at once?"
Harry tilted his head back and glanced at Hermione who was sitting on Daphne's other side with one eyebrow arched in her direction.
"Well you're trying to do both silent and point casting at the same time here, technically, right? For the last hour it seems like you've given up even trying to use the incantation."
Harry blinked in surprise at that. He hadn't realized he'd stopped vocalizing the spells.
"Point casting is supposed to be even harder than silent casting but you don't really have a choice in the matter with that, you have to point cast. So why not focus on trying with the incantation, at least, until you get the hang of doing magic without a wand?" she said defending her position.
Harry thought carefully about that, idly twirling a blade of grass between the scarred fingers of his right hand as his mind worked over the problem, adding Hermione's observations to what he already knew. Her emphasis on focus reverberated in his mind as well and he found himself thinking, repeatedly, Focus, will, intent.
Five times he had been to see the goblins over the last two and a half weeks since school let out and they returned home for the summer. Five times he had spent no less than six hours working with a goblin teacher, Gorbage, to try to learn how to use his magic without a wand to focus it.
The problem was, goblins utilized their magic in a way that was completely different from how humans used magic. Yes, technically goblins didn't need a wand, but their method did not translate into something that he could use.
He dropped the piece of grass that he was holding and lifted his arm with his palm pointed toward the target. Focusing his thoughts on what he wanted to do, he calmly intoned, "Diffindo."
Nothing happened, but that time he'd been paying closer attention than he had during his previous, more frustrated efforts. He'd felt a tug at the well of power that he always drew from and suddenly had a near overwhelming urge to slap himself silly for missing the obvious.
"That's okay, Harry," Hermione tried to reassure him as he slowly rose to his feet and stepped closer to the human shaped target. "I'm sure if you just keep practicing you'll-"
"Diffindo!" he barked out and almost immediately fell back on his arse when a foot wide, blue, translucent scythe of energy erupted erupted from his hand and arced through the air with a sizzling hiss. It struck the target at what would have been waist height on a person and a loud crack sounded as the top half of the dummy flew off and fell to the ground with a soft thump.
Somewhere in the background, a chime sounded through the house, but none of them moved, all four staring in open shock at what he'd just done.
"Morning, guys," Neville's voice came from the doorway leading into the house. He paused when he received no reaction from them and took in the shocked expressions on their faces and then Harry's position sprawled out on the grass. "Okay," he said with a resigned sounding sigh. "What'd Harry do this time?"
"Oi!"
The girls broke out into a fit of giggles at Harry's outraged cry and Neville simply shrugged at his friend. "Hey, you can't deny it's usually you that causes that reaction in people, Harry."
Harry grumbled under his breath while Susan, Daphne, and Hermione stood to greet Neville, each hugging him in turn. By the time Harry had his feet under him, Neville had made his way over and pulled the other boy into a brotherly embrace, the two of them slapping each other on the back a couple of times before separating.
"So? What'd you do?" he asked and Harry snorted out a laugh.
"Had a bit of a wandless breakthrough."
Turning, Harry held out his hand and the barely visible light in his eyes increased dramatically for a moment before he said, "accio sword." An instant later, the Sword of Gryffindor rose into the air from where it had been leaning against the stone wall and flew into his open hand.
Neville grinned widely and clapped at the display. "How did you finally figure it out?" he asked while Harry belted the sword around his waist and they all made their way over to sit at one of the larger patio tables where Binky had already set out tea, coffee, and butter beer.
"Well," Harry said, thoughtfully as they all sat and selected whatever drink they wanted. "I was thinking about it in the wrong way. It was something Hermione said, actually, that made me consider it."
"Me?" Hermione asked, surprised. "I didn't think anything I mentioned was really all that helpful. Other than continuing to use the incantation in order to focus your intent on the spell."
"And that was it. I'd forgotten that focus is one of the key components in performing magic. When you mentioned that, it made me think. People refer to wands as a focus. The wand helps to focus and direct our magic in a single direction. I think that, without a wand, the energy I'm trying to use gets scattered." He was frowning as he talked, trying to put his thoughts into an understandable narrative. Of all of them, Harry had a singular talent for intuitive leaps of logic that, on the surface, made little to no sense, but in the end turned out to be correct more often than not.
He ran the tips of the fingers of his left hand over the scars that covered his right hand. "Since the Chamber… well, I haven't really wanted to pull too hard on my magic, I think I've been nervous about overpowering something."
"Wand blowing up in your hand'll do that to a person," Neville muttered and Harry nodded.
"Yeah, well, anyway I was thinking about how wands are supposed to focus our power, like I said, and since I don't have a focus, I suddenly thought, maybe the power I was putting into my spell attempts wasn't enough? Maybe there wasn't enough being directed at what I needed to do. So this last time I pushed a lot more power into the spell than I would normally do. End result, the spell finally worked, and only a little more powerfully than a casual cast with my wand from before would have been."
Hermione, Neville, and Susan all considered that thoughtfully, but Daphne seemed more concerned than anything.
"I see that bringing up two new problems, Harry," she pointed out and he and the other girls both nodded.
"Someone want to fill me in?" neville asked.
"You're made a conscious effort to pull on your magic before, right, Nev?" Susan asked and he nodded.
"Took a little time, didn't it?"
Neville grimaced. "I see. That'll slow your casting speed down unless you can work on your control. Pulling up power that way needs to be quick as thought for it to be effective."
"Got it in one, Neville," Harry muttered, tilting the neck of his bottle of butter beer toward his friend in a silent salute. "Problem number two boils down to power. I appear to need to overpower a spell in order to get it to work even at an average level."
"Without a focus, it looks like wantless magic is wasteful. I won't be able to cast nearly as much as I used to before I'd be exhausted."
"Do you think that's something you'll be able to work on in time as well?" Susan asked, idly playing with the handle of her tea cup as she considered the situation.
Harry shrugged. "I haven't the foggiest. Only managed the two spells so far with a few minor exceptions so I can't begin to tell."
"It's a good thing you're so strong already," Daphne pointed out. "If we keep training we'll all just keep getting stronger, building up our magical muscles, so to speak. It'll be even more important for you, though."
"We can all put our heads together, too, and try to see if we can come up with some ways to increase your speed," Hermione added, already scribbling some thoughts down on a notepad she'd pulled from her pocket.
Without looking, Daphne reached over and placed her hand on top of Hermione's. "Hermione?" she said. "We have already finished all our summer work. Harry promised last week that he would take a break once he got at least one good spell working. You're not going to start a brain storming session now."
"But-"
"No," Susan cut in. "You need to learn to take more time to relax, too."
Hermione pouted, half-heartedly protesting as Daphne gently tugged the notepad out from under her hand, which had the rest of them chuckling quietly at her.
"But it's all just so fascinating!" she blurted out. "If the energy is diffused through lack of a focus, where does the excess go? Is there a specific ratio of power to make a spell work? Is it only because Harry has that feather in his arm or could anyone learn how to do it the same way?"
Susan scooted her chair closer while the other girl was talking and wrapped one arm around her shoulders even while she lifted her other hand and placed a finger over Hermione's lips, silencing her in mid rant.
"It is fascinating," Susan agreed. "But we're not spending the whole summer on studies. We're going to have some fun as well."
Hermione glared at the red head beside her but just huffed and sank back in her seat, arms crossed over her breasts.
"Why don't we all go see a movie?" Neville suggested. "I've wanted to do that again since the few we went and saw last summer."
A chorus of agreements met that suggestion and four eager faces turned toward Hermione. With all three of her bond mates, and Neville, giving her the same look, even Hermione's insatiable desire to learn was unable to stand up to the combined assault.
"Fine!" she gave in with a huff as the others cheered. Ten minutes later, they'd gathered together their belongings, placed a notice-me-not on Harry's sword, and were making their way through the Floo to the Granger Residence.
#####
Lost.
She was lost in a sea of pain and darkness.
She couldn't tell up from down, left from right, or front from back as waves of pain washed over her in an unending torrent.
"And th…"
Time did not exist. It could have been seconds or eons and she would have had no way of knowing. She floated, buffeted about by eddies and currents or mind numbing agony.
"… My true…"
What is it? Who is it? Where am I?
She could barely think, trapped in an endless prison that she couldn't even sense, much less attempt to escape.
"And that is my true fear."
Daphne!
#####
"Daphne!"
Hermione screamed and shot up to a sitting position in her bed, staring sightlessly at the dimly lit familiarity that was her bedroom at home. Before she knew it, arms wrapped around her and she recognized the presence, even if she didn't really see the person. As she collapsed bonelessly into her mothers arms, the tears began to flow.
Emma Granger held her daughter, a constant stream of soothing words and noises pouring from her mouth as she gently stroked the girls hair and rubbed small circles on her back. A flicker of movement caught her eye and she glanced up at Dan where he stood, uncertainly in the doorway. She could sympathize with how he felt. One thing about Hermione was that, while her parents had held her through many a bout of tears over the years, she had never once woken up, screaming in the middle of the night due to nightmares.
That night marked the tenth time in two and a half weeks that she'd woken with a certain blond girls name on her lips only to collapse into uncontrollable sobs moments later. A chime echoed through the hall outside and Dan glanced over his shoulder for a moment before turning back only for Emma to wave him away to check on the sound.
In their guest bedroom he found a green fire crackling in the fireplace and an easily recognizable face floating within the flames.
"Amelia?" he asked, only slightly surprised to see the woman in the fire. "Is something wrong?"
"I was just going to ask you that, Dan," Amelia Bones admitted, her voice just a little rough and her hair mussed and disheveled. "About ten minutes ago Harry and Susan woke me up, saying something about Hermione and about five minutes ago Daphne came through the Floo over here, also worried. Is everything okay on your end?"
Dan sighed and sank into a small armchair they'd purchased and placed in the room specifically for that purpose. He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees with his hands clasped tightly in front of him.
"Hermione woke up a little while ago, maybe ten or twelve minutes if I had to guess, she was screaming her head off. Emma is in their trying to comfort her right now but she's just been crying, pretty hysterically and hasn't actually said anything yet."
"One second…" Amelia's head disappeared from the fire and Dan waited as patiently as he could, staring into the emerald flames until Amelia's face suddenly reappeared. "That fits with what the others are saying. They didn't share the dream with her like they apparently sometimes do, but all three of them are saying that something from Hermione woke them each from a dead sleep."
"Is there anything we can do?" Dan asked, still feeling out to see in regards to the goings on around his daughter. Amelia had gone above and beyond, making sure they were as informed as possible and inviting them over frequently for dinners at the Boneyard to help them keep I touch with the world their daughter lived in. But when he was confronted with a situation like this, where nothing in his experience could help him, he just didn't know what to do.
"I think her bond mates might be able to help calm her easier, but I'm not sure about saddling you with three more kids to keep an eye on this evening."
Dan frowned, thinking about that. They really didn't have the room to put up three more people overnight but…
"What about if just Daphne comes over?" he asked. "It's her name that Hermione screams every night that she wakes up, maybe she'd be the best choice?"
Amelia's head ducked out of the fire again and after a few seconds a new face appeared in the flames.
A few seconds later the fire flared brightly and Daphne stepped lightly through into the room, which caused Dan to smirk, just slightly.
"Is Harry ever going to figure out how to do that as easily as you and the rest do?" he asked, thinking of the last time he'd seen Harry use the Floo and saw the boy come tumbling out and he slid across the room one his back.
Daphne quirked a small smile. "Magically, Harry is much more powerful than we are, he also still hasn't gotten a handle on controlling or regulating that power, so, until he does Floo travel will always be a bit of an adventure for him.
He nodded, not entirely understanding, but accepting the explanation as it was and led the way out of the room and down the hall to his daughter's bedroom where they found her still wrapped in her mothers arms, still sobbing uncontrollably.
Dan barely noticed when the slender wisp of a girl brushed past him and made her way around the bed, climbing in from the other side. She didn't say anything, but Hermione seemed to sense her presence the moment she entered the room and he watched as Daphne gently coaxed her away from Emma and into her own arms. Hermione clung to Daphne like a sailor at sea clutching onto a piece of wreckage as the only thing keeping her afloat.
Emma came to stand beside him and they watched the girls for a few moments before, at his wife's urging, they left the room, letting Daphne get on with the process of comforting their daughter.
"You know," he mumbled into the dark some minutes later after they'd returned to their own bed and Emma had cuddled up against his side, his arm wrapped carefully around her, "it's something every father knows they're going to have to do one day. A lesson that we all know we're going to be faced with. That day when we learn that we're no longer the most important man in our little girl's life." He let out a long sigh somewhere between resigned and despondent. "I just didn't realize how soon it was going to happen, or that it wouldn't just be a boy replacing me, but two girls on top of that."
"You know damn well they're not at that point, yet," Emma whispered.
"Maybe not as far as a romantic relationship goes. But even as friends, you can't deny those three kids are the most important people in Hermione's life. Everything Amelia's told us. Everything they've gone through and experienced so far. Amelia's been amazing, keeping us up to date and helping us with all this magic stuff but… I don't know, I still can't help feeling like she's going someplace we can't follow. We can't be a part of her life the way we used to be."
"We're her parents, Dan," she told him after a minute of contemplative silence. "That was going to happen, no matter what, even if she wasn't a witch, one day we wouldn't be as big a part of her life as we used to be. But she'll always be our daughter, and we'll always be there for her whenever and however she needs us to be."
He sighed again. "You know we did that to ourselves," he pointed out. "We always made sure to teach her to be independent and to be able to handle herself."
"And she's growing into a strong, and beautiful young woman."
He winced at that. "Please, don't say that. I still want to pretend she's my little princess for a while longer."
One hand lifted and she gently swatted his chest. "She will always be your little girl, Dan. Worrying about it will only give you ulcers. Just let it go and be ready to be there when she needs us."
He grumbled good naturedly for a minute before they settled down and within minutes her breath evened out even as her body relaxed more fully against him, seeming to mold itself against his broader, harder frame. Dan, however, remained awake for quite some time, his ears straining for any sign of distress from the room down the hall.
#####
Daphne half reclined in the bed, partially sitting up against the head with a now silent witch in her arms. Through the bond, and through their physical contact she could feel Hermione relaxing, letting go of whatever had upset her so much and as she did she felt the worry and unease from Harry and Susan bleed away as well until eventually their emotions became muted as they both dropped off to sleep.
Daphne was exhausted. Two and a half weeks back at home with her father frequently in attendance was less than restful. She got away as often as she could, preferring to avoid the man whenever possible but… in the little time she did spend at Greengrass Manor, she'd seen things. Seen enough to know that her father's patience was running out. She didn't understand the urgency. What she did hear, was that the Lady Zabini had struck some deal that sent him into a fury when he heard about it. Apparently something that'd happened while they were still at school and it involved Harry somehow, so of course Cyril blamed her entirely for not influencing him in some way.
She pushed the thoughts aside, clamping down on her Occlumency and returning her focus to the now relaxed girl in her arms. She had more than enough time to worry about her father and everything else later.
"Better?" she asked in a quiet whisper and Hermione nodded, her wild hair tickling Daphne's cheek as she moved. Hermione was laying against Daphne's right side, both of her arms wrapped tightly around the blond's waist as if she was a life sized teddy bear or something.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Hermione started to shake her head, but then she hesitated and slowly nodded. Daphne settled in, letting herself slide further down the bed until she was mostly laying flat with the other girl sprawled across her and kept both of her own arms wrapped around her, gently stroking her hair with one hand as she waited.
"I can't remember it," Hermione eventually whispered, breaking the silence that'd settled over them. "Every time I wake up I can't remember whatever I was dreaming, I just know that I was dreaming, something. I always wake up, screaming for you, but I don't know why. I just always have this… ache… this pain deep in my chest. I can't explain it."
She lifted her head and looked up into Daphne's icy gaze.
"Ever since they revived me at school I feel like there's something about you I should know, something I should remember, but I just can't think of it."
"Can't be anything too important then," Daphne tried, schooling her face to remain as impassive as she possibly could. There's no way she heard me, she thought, almost desperately. Petrified victims aren't aware of their surroundings. It's like they're in a magically induced sleep
Hermione shook her head, weakly. "No," she insisted. "It is important. I know it is. I just… I can't remember."
Her voice was heavy, weary as her emotional outburst caught up with her and exhaustion began to set in.
"The ache in your chest, that sounds like what we felt when you were petrified and mostly cut off from us," Daphne tried. "Maybe you're remembering an echo of what you experienced during those weeks?"
Hermione considered that carefully even as the desire to sleep grew more pressing. "Maybe," she mumbled. "But… that doesn't explain why it's only ever you, never Harry or Susan…"
Hermione trailed off and before Daphne could even think to respond her breath deepened and her body went slack, relaxing fully against her bond mate as sleep overtook her. Daphne breathed out a quiet sigh of relief and selfishly hoped that the other girl wouldn't remember their conversation in the morning.
Mother is going to be insufferable when I tell her that she was right, she thought. I really won't be able to keep all of this from them for much longer. And we still need to tell Harry about our scars. Merlin, he's going to be so upset…
After a few more minutes spent thinking Daphne shook her head and decided it was time for her to head home. She gently attempted to lift Hermione's arm from where it was wrapped around her stomach but as soon as she tried the other girl whimpered in her sleep and her grip on the blond tightened. Daphne's lips turned up into a small, sad smile after she tried several different ways to escape only to find that Hermione fought back in her sleep each time, refusing to let go of her.
"Now, if only I could be sure you'd act like this while you were awake and knew how I felt about you, and Susan," she muttered after giving up on the idea of escaping and settled in as best she could to sleep. Secrets wouldn't keep for much longer and she resolved to enjoy what she could get for as long as possible, just in case things didn't go as well as her mother believed they would.
#####
Lord Greengrass stood, his broad frame filling the doorway as his cold eyes swept the room, taking in its empty state with barely a glance and cataloguing the information for the future. The chime of the Floo had woken him in the middle of the night and he knew immediately it had to have something to do with the disappointment that was his eldest daughter. His expression was hard, cold as he observed the room for a moment longer before he spun on his feel and stalked away, heading directly to the Lord's Office.
Greengrass Manor was an old ancestral home, older than the Malfoy's and nearly as old as the Potter's. Not that Lord Potter had visited any of the properties he'd inherited through his family. That much had been shown by the investigation he'd paid for into the young Lord.
That was of little concern to him, however. What concerned Cyril Greengrass was the wealth and power that he could command. Worse, more than anything was that little… bitch's failure. Why couldn't she understand? Ever since she was so stupid as to let her emotions get the better of her… she owed him! She owed Lord Potter and if he ever got it into his head to collect he could single handedly destroy everything that Cyril had built.
She either needed to tie the brat down, or he needed to remove her from the equation.
Sitting at his desk he pulled out a handful of scrolls from the bottom most drawer after first disabling a lock, three traps, and one blood ward keyed to him. He carefully unrolled each scroll and laid them out on his desk side by side with the corner held down by small stones, ink bottles, and other various items he kept on hand for just such a purpose.
"Malfoy, Nott, Rowle, Travers, Yaxley, Selwyn…" He muttered to himself as he started reading through each of the contract offers, using one hand to trace the words with a single finger while with his other he made notes on each contract and what was being offered.
He would not let some stupid little brat of a Lord destroy everything he had worked so hard to build. Not if he had anything at all to say about it. He did not return to sleep that night, instead working into the morning hours as his mood grew darker and darker.
