As Harry trudged through the forest with his two sons - rather, the two young men for whom he had provided sperm - he wondered why he hadn't heard of Felicians before today. He couldn't even recall Luna ever mentioning them, though it was certainly possible he hadn't been listening at the time. He was well aware that there were several sentient beings on earth other than humans. Centaurs, goblins, House Elves, pond demons, werewolves, vampires, giants, trolls, dwarves, merpeople, leprechauns, dolphists, and ents all came to mind. But ... cat-people?

"Do you know what happened to Crookshanks?" he suddenly asked. "She was your mother's cat. Half Kneazle."

"Dead," said Brian.

"Ah," said Harry. So much for the conversation going places. He glanced at Chris, wondering if the quieter twin would offer any more words.

"Lorry," added Chris.

Well, one word was better than none, Harry supposed.

Perhaps in subconscious memory of their mother, Harry had actually stopped by a library before he came to find her grave. (Assuming she was dead, of course -- he hadn't failed to notice that Jane bit her lower lip in the exact same manner as her cousin.) It said a lot for his flustered state that the library was in a house that he'd sworn never to return to. It was a dusty room deep inside the dingy spider-ridden house that was 12 Grimmauld Place. And like any respectable Pureblood Family library, it had a copy of The Encyclopaedia of Sentient Creatures in Europe by Ann Thropic.

Felicians. Half-Breed: Human/feline. Estimated Population in Europe : 800 000, mostly in Prussia, Eire, Portugal, and Serbia. Origins unknown, suspected to be as a result of a curse widely used in the 1100s....

... Like werewolves, they have extremely fast reflexes, agility, and a keen sense of smell... their strength depends on which feline they embody...

... All Felicians are Animagi, though nearly all are Squibs or Muggles ...

... their society is loose yet well organized; it is run by a hierarchy of councils...

... Felicians are given a necklace or ring that changes their appearance to human when in human society; the magical spells underlying these glamours are unknown, though they are believed to be Goblin or House Elf in nature...

... Felicians are prone to rebellion, and were expelled from Britain in 1381 and from France in 1744...

At least, that was what he could remember from it. He had wondered why Hermione would have come to Britain when she was banned from there; he wondered why Dumbledore allowed her.

Meanwhile, he was still walking with his children in an uncomfortable silence.

"I don't recall the journey with your mother taking this long," said Harry.

No answer.

"Do you like any sports?"

No answer. He sighed inwardly. He was rapidly getting tired of this. Then again, his other kids weren't as close to their broody teenagers years as these ones. Oh, and his other kids didn't hate him either.

"Would you like to hear of some stories of your mother when we were at Hogwarts?"

The cubs' ears betrayed them as they perked up at once. He began wracking his brain for a good Hermione story. Eventually he settled on the one where they had rescued Sirius Black in their third year.

"... Your mother stepped in front of me ... They cast a spell - and it turned out that Ron's rat, Scabbers, was really an Animagus! And he began to beg..."

Both twins were enthralled, to Harry's delight. He had become an expert story teller to satisfy the three kids he had watched growing up, and did voices and impressions and intonation rather well. Then he realized something.

"Wait a minute," he said, interrupting his own story. "Can you Felicians sense if someone is an Animagus?"

The boys' moods turned grim instantaneously. "You still don't trust our mother?" spat Brian.

Chris looked disappointed as well. "Scabbers would have smelt like any other rat to her. So would Mr Black as well. Animagi smell like animals. According to Ernest Harroway's book on Felicians, There are some really doddering ol' cats who can sometimes sniff the difference, but even they are rare."

Harry nodded, then winced as Brian began muttering about how he could possibly think that his mother would have hidden her knowledge of Scabbers' non-rat-ness from him if she'd known.

"Why didn't Hermione tell us?" asked Harry in frustration before he could stop himself. He couldn't say, 'She could have trusted me!' because as the aftermath of the Lust Potions had shown, she clearly could not. He had long realized that he always put the feelings of the Weasleys, particularly Ron, ahead of Hermione's - even before any Potions had entered the equation.

Brian huffed, doubtless thinking the same thing. Harry had no way of knowing that his twin sons had perfected the routine of Good Cop, Bad Cop (and several variants thereof) to a fine art.

Chris deigned to explain. "She couldn't have, even if she wanted to." The implied rebuke still hurt, Harry noted. "Felician children have a charm placed on us when we're toddlers so we can't tell anyone who doesn't already know about us. It's removed when we're older. Eighteen, I think."

There was silence. It seemed no-one was interested in the conclusion of the Black Rescue story now.

"What does Jane do?" asked Harry after a while. "For a living?" He could not contemplate her being a simple housewife. A complicated one, perhaps, but ...

"Research," said Chris. "At the Dublin Magical Institute. She got her Transfigurations Mastery three years ago. We delayed it a bit," he admitted. Still, Harry was impressed. She had finished at the same time as most other people would have, and she'd had two kids to take care of. His kids.

"We helped with her final project!" said Brian excitedly, proving he could say more than two words unaccompanied by bile.

"Not on purpose," clarified Chris, shooting his brother a quick look.

Harry observed as Brian returned to his surly self, and for the first time realized that the dynamics of power between the brothers was more complicated than he had been led to believe.

"Mistress Granger." The speaker was an old lynx who was a member of the High European Council. She had been summoned to their Headquarters in Heidelberg. She was completely fine with that, since it gave her a good excuse to hang out with German researchers working on projects similar to hers. And as she was a promising young researcher and Transfigurations Mistress at the Dublin Magical Institute, they were glad to see her too. Besides, Southern Germans made the best sausages in the world.

"Elder Munsch," she said with a slight inclination of her head. Cats didn't stand for much ceremony. That was for pack animals like dogs and male humans.

"Please, come with me," he requested, though it was clearly an order. He began walking along one of the underground corridors that criss-crossed the city. "I knew your grandparents," he said after a while. "Your maternal grandmother in particular. One of the finest leopards I've ever met."

Hermione followed him, her curiosity piqued. Her grandparents had died before she was born, so all she had to remember them by were photographs.

"She could strum a most exquisite waltz on her cello. Do you play? No? Pity. She had a fine sense of humour, Francesca did. I'll never forget the time she filled our clique leader's shoes with dog shit." He chuckled, as did Hermione.

"Clique leader?" Hermione asked.

"We were in the resistance together," said the Elder. "In Holland. Good times. She introduced me to my mate, Delilah. I owed her several favours. It was one reason I asked Dumbledore to accept you into Hogwarts. You learnt more there than you would have learnt anywhere else. Your grandmother would have wanted it. She would have been very proud of you, you know. Not just because you were the first non-Squib in her family in generations, but because you made good use of your talents."

"Thank you very much," said Hermione with a slight blush. "I had no idea you were the one responsible for getting me into Hogwarts."

"I wasn't the only one," he said. "I also know of your later ... problems with those who once called friends. And in about, oh, twenty minutes, you will be calling me a dog."

Hermione grimaced. "Well, as long as I don't have to work with them or anything, I'm fine."

Munsch looked pityingly at her, the look on his face clearly indicating the conversion of minutes to seconds.

Hermione shook her head to get rid of the memory. She was very close to being out of her depth here. She supposed she wasn't the only one who had been giving the task of protecting Felician society from the rest of humanity, but that was scant comfort. She was rapidly becoming allergic to threats.

And this would require working with Potter - she was looking forward to that like a drunk looks forward to a hangover.

She glanced at the window of her empty house (Alyx had returned to work) and then at the drinks cabinet (empty, damn you Alyx!) because she was going to need one very quickly. And she had sworn never to cast 'alcholomenti' again...

Blast! Her treacherous cubs were bringing him in! She suddenly realized that large Animagus forms weren't built for subtly getting away.

The door opened. The twins entered with their father. Chris was leading, causing Hermione to wince. Chris only led when things were deadly serious.

"Hi, Mum."

Hermione nodded, her eye focused solely on Harry.

"Tell him."

Hermione sighed. She supposed it was alright for her twelve year old son to give her orders that she was going to give herself anyway. She nodded, and then indicated to him that he and his brother should leave.

"Sit down, Potter," she said, standing up and walking around. "Drink? I've got no beer here, since my friends think I'm an alkie."

He shook his head. Standard Auror procedure meant not drinking from strangers' houses. Or - as he was starting to realize - from friends' houses as well. He walked around, looking idly at the things on Hermione's walls. He spotted a painting on the wall of the Hermione he used to know, with her fully human glamour. He wondered who drew it. 1

"Hermione Jane Granger never died."

There was silence for a moment.

"I figured that was a possibility," said Harry after a while.

Hermione's eyes widened for a moment, and then she shrugged. "Figures," she said. She was still clearly shocked at the fact that he hadn't blown up at her.

"I don't suppose a sorry at this point would suffice," said Harry after a while.

"Not really," she said with a shrug. "Would be nice, though."

"I apologize, Hermione."

She gave him a look. He tried reading it, and failed.

"How are your mustelids?"

He blinked, confused.

"Your weasels, Potter."

He knew better than to complain about either appellation.

"Good kids," he blurted before he could stop himself.

"Yes, I suppose they got the best of everything, didn't they?" sneered Hermione.

"Merlin, Hermione! If I'd known, I would have - "

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You would have gone all noble and shit. Maybe even married me or some such shit. I didn't need you, Potter. I had funds, I had my mum delighted to babysit, I had Alyx and Kevin, I had my people. You had killed Voldemort, you didn't need your homework whore and chief researcher any more. So don't bother mentioning the word alimony."

Harry said nothing for a while. "Should I divorce her?" he asked. He really was confused.

Hermione sighed. "You can come to love someone when you share enough experiences with them," she said, looking away. "You're not under any coercion now. If you love her, stay with her. Forgive her. If you can't trust her any more, then it's your call. It's not like I give a watoozie."

Harry said nothing. He wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say. He figured that this wasn't the time to mention that there were a few holes left in her whole story.

"You got a cellphone, Potter?" she asked suddenly.

"Yeah," he said. He didn't use it much, but kept it around. It was a useful device that most Muggle-borns and half-bloods used at various degrees of frequency.

"Good. Glad to see you haven't been totally polluted by Weasley Pureblood ignorance." She scribbled a number on a notebook and handed it to him. "That's my private number."

Harry looked at it. It was, indeed, a phone number. Plus the words, 'Bigger shit going on. Need your help. 3pm tomorrow. Cafe Socrates, Cork.' He was surprised, but kept his poker face on. He thought she gave him an approving look. He wrote his number on a napkin to give to her.

"I better go," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah, I suppose."

He left the house, and she heard a crack as he Disapparated.

Ginevra Molly Potter looked at her charmed communication device in dismay. It was a short message from Ron.

"Harry knows about all the potions."

She sighed. And gulped.

A/N: Some incredible reviews so far - thanks very much. I've not caught up to answering all of them yet, but some of them have influenced the details of this fic.