A/N: Thanks for the reviews - oliver james troy, hpnut1, lycus, , dexterZ, killing u with umbrellas, Davek86, SomeGuyFawkes, Tap Dancing Widow, immortal7, and Lord Flamel reviewed the last chapter.
Amy, Nigel, and Nicholas really are Harry's kids - it would be too easy and convenient to do otherwise.
"Alisha El Masri?"
The woman who answered the door was human and middle aged. She shook her head when Hermione repeated the Curse Breaker's name to her. She said something in Arabic and, upon realizing Hermione didn't understand her, pointed to herself and said her name.
"Salaam, Mrs Huskipa," replied Hermione to the older woman. "Thank you," she added upon being invited in. She made sure to take her shoes off. She was led to a spacious living room that was furnished in both Western and Egyptian styles. Being a Curse Breaker paid well - no surprise there. It occurred to Hermione that she was probably the poorest of her team members. Well, at least no-one would be approaching her for a 'loan to tide me over till next payday'.
"Mistress Granger?"
Hermione looked up to see an amply padded raven-haired witch with a beaming smile. El Masri was dressed simply, and for the weather. The interior of the house was pleasantly cool, despite the intentional lack of air conditioning.
"Breaker El Masri," replied Hermione with a smile. She stepped forward to exchange a chaste kiss and two sniffs with the Egyptian Felician. The greeting was standard between two female Felicians who had never met before. "You have a nice home. And please, call me Hermione."
"Alisha," responded the Curse Breaker, who then added a tad uncertainly, "I have been told that the proper action right now is to show you where my library is."
Hermione grinned. She didn't mind certain reputations preceding her.
"Follow me," said Alisha with a grin.
Alisha's apartment was, naturally, larger on the inside than on the outside. Even so, Hermione was surprised at the many corridors they walked down, and remarked upon this.
"Hunh?" asked Alisha, not comprehending at once. "Oh, I see! That's easily explained. Let's see if I can show you - ah! Here we are!" She opened a door, and then shut it very, very quickly, yipping out an apology in a language that sounded a lot less guttural than Arabic. The yelling coming from behind the door didn't sound like Arabic. Hermione didn't have much time to analyze it, however, since Alisha had desperately grabbed her hand and dragged her into another room two doors away.
"What are you -- "
"In here!"
Hermione looked around. She was now in a dark grim cell, with a dripdripdrip coming from some danky looking corner.
"You've got a Portal Corridor!' Hermione cried excitedly. "I've been trying forever to get hooked to one of those! How did you get onto it?"
"Old family," mumbled Alisha, who was still wondering if they were safe from the amorous couple she had so rudely interrupted. "My great something grandfather was good with the bribes."
"Good with the bribes?"
"He knew who to bribe. You can waste an awful lot of money bribing the wrong people, you know. Or bribing dishonest people who then sell you out to someone who bribes them more afterwards. Got to make sure you bribe honest folks, you know."
"Ah," said Hermione, who clearly did not know. She supposed it made sense though - she had read Huntington. Bribery was alright as long as it was done systematically. She was a great believer in systematicity, even if the word was too long to be of much use to Scrabble players. "Where are we now?"
Alisha shrugged. "No idea," she said. "Though if this is how they receive visitors, I wouldn't want to be a visitor." She peeked outside for a moment. "It's safe. Let's go."
Hermione blinked, and followed her. As she found herself back in the corridor, she looked at the door Alisha had opened earlier. She didn't ask what Alisha had found - the blush on the Curse Breaker's face was enough.
"Shouldn't you have knocked?" she asked. "And why wasn't it locked?"
"I thought it was a different door," admitted Alisha sheepishly. Hermione refrained from saying, `That much was obvious'. "As for the locking," she shrugged, "it's every occupant's responsibility to add their own locks. Knocking is optional, in an optional sort of way."
The witches looked at each other, mutually declared the topic closed until further notice, and continued on the way to the Library.
"Where we're going," asked Hermione, "this library, it's public then?"
"It's a family library," answered Alisha. "I'm not the only El Masri in this Corridor."
The Curse Breaker cast a spell that was surprisingly familiar. Hermione figured she'd learnt Muffliato from Bill Weasley, who had learnt it from Harry or Ron. Her research on Alisha said she had worked with Bill for a few years in the past. "Who else is on our team?"
"Petr Ivanovic," replied Hermione. "He does Potions. Educated at Durmstrang and the Magical Sorbonne The second youngest Potions Master this century, after Severus Snape. He's a tiger like me. I've never met him though. He writes good popular Potions articles."
"Oh yeah," said Alisha. "My brother reads that stuff. I can't stand it myself. My boggart's a cauldron, and it's usually melted."
"You would have been great friends with Neville Longbottom," said Hermione wryly, thinking of the long deceased Herbology whiz. "Snape was his boggart. Literally. Saw it myself."
"Ah, boggarts! Well, on other days, my boggart is a saucepan. Not fair, really, it ought to be all the eggs I burnt while trying to boil them. Thank goodness for Ernest and Benni!"
"Benni? Ernest?"
"Benjali Ahmed. My housekeeper. You met her, actually. She's a nice Squib, comes once a week to keep up appearances for the neighbours. The real source of order in my life is Ernest McNamara. He's the House Elf who turns up every day other than today." She didn't bother saying how much she paid him. Free (and paid and happy) House Elves were the norm in Felician Society.
"Your housekee - oh!" said Hermione, slightly embarassed at having thought that her name was Benjali Huskipa earlier.
Alisha didn't enquire as to the cause of Hermione's flushed face. "So, who's number four?" she asked instead.
Hermione grimaced. "Harry Potter."
Alisha almost stopped walking in shock. The look on her face moved from shock to awe to adding two plus two to make four to realization to sympathy.
"Does he know yet?" she finally asked. Hermione was grateful for the lack of questions.
"That he's on our team? No. I'm telling him tomorrow. That I'm innocent? Yes, he's seen the evidence now."
Alisha said nothing, but gave her team leader a good one-armed hug and vowed to pummel Bill Weasley for information later on.
"I hit the freak! I get two points!"
"But you didn't knock him down! You only knocked his glasses off! That's one point!"
Meanwhile, the object of their attentions was still running. It was a little messy-haired runt, clutching his dirtied broken glasses for dear life. Nigel Potter watched, shocked, as the boy who was clearly his father ran from half a dozen boys and girls intent on using him for target practice.
"Why didn't you fight back, dad?" Nigel asked.
"I did, a couple of times," replied his father. "Managed to get Piers' nose bleeding. Uncle Vernon broke my arm when I got home. I'll show that to you another day, if you like."
Nigel said nothing, clearly having great difficulty reconciling the victimized boy in the Pensieve memory with the mighty wizard that was his father.
"There will always be people weaker than you and people stronger than you," stated his father. "If you must fight, choose the latter, because the former is too easy. Only a coward takes the easy way out."
Nigel hung his head, chastened.
"Your grandfather - my father - was a bully too. But he got over it, otherwise Grandma wouldn't have married him. It's in your blood to be a bully and a coward. You have to be strong to get over it."
Indeed, the further memories Harry had obtained of his father had not been completely favourable to the Marauders' memory. He wondered, especially with the most recent revelations, if James Potter had used a Love Potion on Lily Evans. He hoped not.
On the other hand, if that had been the case, then he'd have one more thing in common with Amy, Nicholas, and Nigel - and Tom Riddle. Child of a Love Potion.
No - his kids were different. They had parents who lived and loved them, even if said parents didn't love each other.
After a few extra identification tests (based on magic, blood, and DNA) and a couple of oaths (one by Hermione when she stubbed her toe), Alisha looked at the information packet Hermione dumped in front of her.
They were both in the El Masri library (where appropriate oohs and aahs had been uttered by the impressed Tigerwitch) and had cast numerous privacy spells to augment those already present in the room.
"I had envisioned a situation where you gathered the four of us in a room and told us everything at once," commented Alisha, "though I'm certainly not complaining. Did you make copies of everything then? Or just of the stuff we need to know?"
Hermione gave her a wry grin. "This isn't Mission Impossible... you know."
Alisha began humming, perhaps in response to the last two words.
"Urgh, no! Schifrin's tune is great, but if I hear it one more time I'll go nuts! To answer your question, this is most of what I know. I'm not telling you everything until we get one more binding oath in. No offence, but I'm low on trust."
The Egyptian witch shrugged. "Don't blame you. This is enough to keep me going for a while. Got any clues as to where we'll begin our search? Or what curses you expect me to break?"
"The Bastards," Hermione responded, referring to the Council who had ordered her on this mission, "have been following Golden Paw groups searching for it. Two are in Egypt, one in Giza, one in Alexandria. There's a third group in Berlin and a fourth group in Yemen."
"A large spread," commented Alisha, surprised.
"Quite. And there will probably be more groups tracking us. Say, you've got Emergency Portkeys and all?"
"Of course. Never leave home without it. Might get stuck inside a tomb or in my lover's closet when his wife gets home."
Hermione blinked, and decided not to press that issue further. "Right. Now, the Chalice has a wee part of Nef's soul in it. There must be magic on tracking that."
"That's ... optimistic!" countered Alisha, deciding on a word more polite than `bloody f--king stupid'. "You have no clue what it's like. Her soul fragment, I mean."
Hermione shook her head. "I read a lot about soul pieces and how to destroy them. That was a long time ago, but I went back and checked some of it. I also read some of her journal. She had to do some experiments before she created the Chalice. Using ths souls of slaves. She created other objects. If we could find those, we might find out something about how the soul is warped in such spells. Then use that to create a better tracker."
Alisha considered this. "That makes sense," she said slowly. "The Council has other people tracking the Paw people? Oh, good. "But you still need to find one of these experimental pieces, don't you?"
"Ah!" said Hermione triumphantly. "But I have!" She placed a photograph down. "It was in her journal. With some deductive reasoning."
"I don't believe it," said the wide eyed Curse Breaker. "I really don't. Can you show me how you got to this conclusion?"
"Certainly," replied Hermione, getting a few more papers out of her files. The two witches settled down to a nice session of intellectual argument and detective work.
Bill Weasley was now the Head of the Weasley Family. It wasn't a gender thing; his mother could not have been Head since she wasn't born a Weasley. His father had died in the War, as had Charlie and Percy. And from what the twins had told him, he was rather glad his father and favourite brother - Charlie, not Percy, even if the latter had been a spy for Dumbledore on the Ministry - was here to see this.
They were gathered in Fred's house. Harry had offered Pensieve memories of what his youngest brother had said under Veritaserum, and then had Ginny take some as well to answer further questions. They did not subject his mother to the same indignity, but was primarily because they did not need to.
"The Weasley Family has done you a great disservice," said Bill formally, aiming his contrite words at Harry. Around him, Fred and George nodded. Ron was silent and staring elsewhere. Molly was still furious, but Bill had Silenced her a long time ago. In truth, he was rather horrified at her adamant insistence that Harry and Ginny were very much in love and that no harm had been done. He wondered if she was the only one who had not realized long ago that the Potter marriage was more like a traditional loveless Pureblood arranged marriage than anything else.
"What do you wish of us?" asked Bill. It was an open-ended question. Theoretically, Harry could ask for the Weasley name to be wiped off the earth.
"A divorce," Harry replied promptly. Molly jumped up, her maw open in a silent wail. Bill stunned her, which caused even Fred and George to gape. "Ginevra loses the Potter name. The children keep it. I get custody of them. Visiting rights by their mother are at my discretion, and can be none."
"WHAT!" yelled Ginny. "They're my kids too! They need me!" She had expected the divorce. Now she was just a mother - a mother who had made a huge mistake a long time ago - fighting for her children.
"NO!" Harry yelled back. "Not any more! You tricked me! You're lucky I'm not sending you to Azkaban for this! So just shut up!"
An awkward silence descended on the room.
"Who's going to mother them?"
"Nobody," replied Harry. "I'm quitting my job. I'll take care of them."
This time it was Ron's turn to protest, though he quailed when Harry turned his icy gaze towards him.
"Say something, Ronald?" hissed Harry. "I thought you were my friend. You're no better than Scabbers. Is it the lot of all Potters to be betrayed by their friends? Just - stay away. After today, if I ever see you near me again, you'll be a testing bed for every scrotal Hex I know."
Bill coughed. "Would you like an official restraining order on certain individuals, Mr Potter?" he offered. "To prevent them from ever trying to communicate with you?"
"Yes," mused Harry. "Good idea. Gin, Ron, and Molly. Now, what about Hermione? We tore her reputation to shreds based on what these liars here said.
"How do you want this to play in the Press?" asked Fred.
Harry paused. He had thought long and hard about this. The problem was that whatever public punishment he laid on Ginny, it would reflect on his kids. Did he want his kids to be known as the children of a Love Potion? No -- but then he remembered what he had seen in Nigel's memories, of his kids saying that they could do anything since they were Harry Potter's kids. And he remembered the other two sons he had, who had grown into kids he'd like to know better despite (or was it because?) having a single parent.
"What about if we just say that I was dosed till I got married?" suggested Harry. As everyone at the table knew, he had been dosed until the birth of Nigel and Amy. But this way, only the marriage would be blamed on the Love Potions.
George and Fred looked at each other, then at Bill. He was already nodding thoughtfully. They did likewise.
"Good," said Harry. "I'll have to have a press conference to that effect." His Auror work had made such public announcements more common, though not less palatable.
Ginny was relieved. Despite all this, her children would still be the primary Potter heirs...
"Hermione has two twin boys," continued the Boy Who Lived. "They are mine. When that lot made us f--k each other, she fell pregnant. She tried to tell me about it, but Ginny intercepted her letters. She raised them by herself. They are my oldest, my Heirs."
The Weasleys' jaws - other than those of Fred and George (and a still stupefied Molly) - dropped. Ginny made a small sound that sounded like a horrified 'No!'
"She could have found a way to contact you without Ginny's interference, could she not?" said Bill after he'd recovered.
"She didn't want to," replied Harry, who had no idea that the Felicians had stopped Hermione from trying to contact him afterwards. "After what we did to her, I don't blame her. I don't even know if the kids will accept being called Potters. They think I'm dog shit."
"You've talked to Ms Granger recently, then?" asked Bill, still keeping his salutations formal. "And your other two children?"
"Yes," answered Harry. He thought for a moment, and then smirked. "You know, she has the right to challenge Ginny and Ron to a duel in public, for screwing her reputation. I'd pay to watch that."
A/N: Regarding the whole bribery issue, some may have noticed the reference to the quote "An honest politician is one who, when bought, will stay bought." Hermione has read Samuel Huntington's 1968 work Political Order in Changing Societies, which suggests that the way bribes 'grease the wheels of commerce' in overly bureaucratic societies is a good thing. This isn't always agreed with (or true) but it's an interesting viewpoint. As someone said about football (the real version, not Aussie or Yankee Rules), 'If both sides decide to cheat, then cheating is legal'. But we digress... (and no, I've not read it myself, so let's not get into a discussion of it).
The next update may be a while. Thanks to everyone who's been reviewing, particularly Cateagle ;) In the meantime, Hermione fans can enjoy these lists of Betrayed!Hermione fics and Buffyverse/Grangerverse crossovers.