Chapter 12
"How's the headache?" Hermione asks.
"Almost gone now," Becky replies.
They lapse back into silence, and Becky wonders how it is that she's so tongue-tied in front of her own mother. Only this woman isn't her mother, really, is she? She's Professor Granger, who doesn't have any children, and doesn't want any children. Or maybe she does want children, but with Draco, not with Daddy. Not the children she has in the other timeline. Not Becky.
"So how do you like your classes?" Hermione asks, the kind of question adults who don't particularly like children ask children.
"They're fine," Becky says.
"Which is your favorite?"
"Defence."
"Who teaches that?"
"You do."
"I do?" Hermione asks, surprised.
"That's not what you teach now?"
"Gods, no. The Dark Lord would never permit it. I teach Transfiguration."
"I'm not very good at Transfiguration. You try to help me, but it's my worst subject."
"How are you at Potions?"
"Brilliant. Daddy's been teaching me since I was little," Becky says, and feels tears pricking at the back of her eyes. She will not cry. This isn't really Mum, and she won't cry in front of her.
"You love him very much, don't you?" Hermione asks.
Becky nods.
"It must have been terrible seeing him that way when you went back to the past. Draco showed me the memory," she explains when Becky looks surprised.
"It was awful," Becky says. "He's nothing like that. You were, erm, Mum was joking about it just that morning, and I couldn't believe it."
"Joking about what?"
"About how the students used to hate him," Becky says. "You, I mean, she…"
Hermione smiles. "The pronouns get tricky, don't they?"
Becky smiles back. "They do."
"You don't have to call me Professor Granger and say she instead of you."
"You want me to call you…?"
"Mum is fine. If you like," Hermione adds awkwardly.
"How could you joke about it, Mum?" Becky asks. "About how horribly Daddy treated you when you were in school? He was awful!"
"I don't know, really. He was awful, but from what I saw in your memories, in your timeline, somewhere along the line, he stopped being awful." She sighs. "I suppose that by the time we had you, the way he was when I was in school seemed like a long time ago and it didn't matter anymore."
"He was never awful that I can remember."
"I wonder what changed?" Hermione muses. "As he said, something happened between my first year and my fourth that prevented the Dark Lord from coming back. Maybe whatever it was is what changed things for….for your father."
"Maybe," Becky says.
"In those memories, we seemed like a happy family. Were we?"
"Oh, yes!" Becky says. "I mean, Lucius is a prat, but aside from that, we're – we were – very happy."
"I really named your brother after Lucius Malfoy?"
"He's Daddy's best friend, and the one who got you the job at Hogwarts."
Hermione's eyes widen. "He did?"
"Yes. After you and Daddy and Gus, Uncle Lucius and Aunt Pansy are my favorite people in the world," Becky says, and when Hermione's expression darkens, quickly adds, "I know Pansy's awful in this timeline, but she's nothing like that in ours."
Hermione snorts.
"What's Uncle Lucius like in this timeline?"
"Trust me, you do not want to know."
"That bad?" Becky asks, and sighs when Hermione nods. "You're right. I don't want to know. Seeing Daddy and Pansy this way is bad enough."
"Tell me about your brother," Hermione says.
"He's almost as smart as you and Daddy. He thinks he's smarter, just because he beat both your NEWT scores, but –"
"Did he?"
"He did, and he was perfectly insufferable about it."
Hermione smiles. "Then he really is my son, isn't he?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Insufferable. That's what Snape always called me when I was in school."
"He still does, once in a while," Becky says, "but only to tease, and he says it in a nice way."
"I don't think anyone in this timeline has ever used the word nice to describe anything about Severus Snape."
"This is a horrid timeline," Becky says. "I'm so sorry I did this, Mum, really."
"I know."
"And I'm sorry about…about Draco."
Hermione's expression turns guarded, and she calls for Blinky and orders tea.
Hermione pours tea for both of them and looks at this girl who both is, and is not, her daughter.
"Draco was awful when you were in school, too," Becky says, stirring sugar into her tea, "but he isn't now."
"No, he isn't," Hermione agrees. He's the only person since Minerva died who hasn't been awful to her. The only adult, anyway. Some of the students aren't. The others, the children of Death Eaters…the less said about them, the better.
"When did he stop being awful?" Becky asks.
"Sometime after we left school. After the final battle, I went into hiding with Minerva. Do you know Minerva McGonagall?"
"Yes," Becky says. "She was Headmistress until last year, when she retired."
"Her family had a house in the Highlands that was under a Fidelius Charm, and I studied Transfiguration with her there. She was injured in the war, so there were some things she couldn't do, but she taught me everything she could. When she died, I started teaching students privately. Draco heard that I was teaching, and got a message to me offering the position at Hogwarts. I ignored him for over a year, but eventually, after I'd heard how bad things were for the students at Hogwarts under a series of Death Eaters who had no business teaching Transfiguration or anything else, I agreed to meet with him."
"And he was different from when you were in school?"
"Yes. I couldn't see it at first, didn't want to see it. I wanted to go on hating him." She vanishes the cold tea from her cup and pours more. "It took a long time for me to see that he'd changed sides, and that no one knew, apart from Snape's portrait. He was all alone, trying to protect the students as best he could. When he protected them too well, it would take him days to recover from the Dark Lord's punishment." She draws a shaky breath. "I've never known anyone braver."