Chapter 6: My Heart Will Go On

Several weeks following her husbands' departure, Hermione was in bed, reading a book. She gently rubbed her abdomen where her children were growing inside her. An ultrasound at a recent doctor's appointment had revealed to her that one of the babies had been sired by Harry; the other by Ron. The mother-to-be was overjoyed. She was carrying a part of the two men she loved more than anyone in the world inside of her.

Hermione's reverie was interrupted by a rapid knock at the door. She went downstairs and opened the door. Standing there was Seamus Finnegan, an old Hogwarts classmate of her and the boys. He was an Auror.

"Good evening, Seamus-" Hermione began, but was surprised when Seamus swept into the room. Several others followed, appearing suddenly out of the shadows along their front stoop. The Aurors ran about, shutting blinds and going through rooms. Seamus stood in the center of it all, barking out orders. He then spoke into what looked like an earpiece to Hermione:

"Mr. Minister, we have The Brains. Hero Land is now secure. Do you copy? Over." He held up a hand to field off Hermione's burning questions to listen. "That is an affirmative, Mr. Minister. We will gut the place from top to bottom and then bring The Brains & Precious Cargo to you. Over and out."

"Seamus, what is going on?" asked Hermione. Seamus turned to her, his expression grim.

"Mrs. Potter-Weasley, we are in the middle of a national crisis. We have been assigned to your protection. We will kill anyone on sight who attempts to do you or your unborn babies harm. It is imperative that the Golden Trio lives on."

National crisis? Kill on sight? Have Harry and Ron been assigned this protection? Hermione wondered, bewildered. She wanted to voice these thoughts aloud, but Seamus was no longer paying her any attention. He strode through the house, inspecting every little nook and cranny and absorbing thousands of pieces of information a minute from his Auror subordinates. The Aurors then gathered in the center of the kitchen, plastic bags filled with Harry, Ron and Hermione's belongings that Hermione guessed might be used as evidence for a crime. Suddenly, Seamus cocked his head and a finger flew to the earpiece.

"Talk to me," he ordered. "Affirmative. We'll bring her over straight away." He grabbed Hermione's arms. "Come along, Hermione." He and the Aurors hustled her out the front door to a waiting car. Hermione could barely keep up the pace with her pregnancy, so an Auror immediately scooped her up in his arms and carried her.

Suddenly, yells of "Avada Kedavra!" came out of the darkness. Seamus and several Aurors blocked the bolts of green light and returned fire.

"Stupefy! Get them out of here!" Seamus roared, gesturing to Hermione. Hermione and the Auror carrying her (who turned out to be Dennis Creevey) dove into the backseat of an SUV. Dean Thomas tackled Hermione, using his body as a shield to protect her. "Get down and stay down," he ordered.

"For bloody Godric's sake, Neville, go!" Dennis roared.

"We're gone, man! Solid gone" Neville shot back and the car took off. As the vehicle sped through the streets, Hermione began to shake from the trauma she had just endured. Eventually, she fainted.

When Hermione came to, she found herself surrounded by blanche walls. It reminded her of the many doctor's offices she had visited over the last several months. She realized she was lying in a comfortable bed, with a nightstand and a tray of food beside her. She was hooked up to a machine, and drips which contained morphine and other sedatives hung from them.

A powerful kick within her abdomen caused her to wince, and her hand flew instinctively to her stomach. One of the babies had stirred. She could not help but smile at this. They were safe. She and Harry and Ron's babies were safe.

A giant steel door opposite her opened and she looked up. In strode Kingsley Shacklebolt. After greetings and questions probing each other's welfare, the Minister of Magic got right to the point.

"Mrs. Potter-Weasley, as I'm sure you've been told, we suffered a national crisis last night. Our world was the victim of an intricate and covert operation – an attack – with a scope not seen since the Second War or the American Muggle event known as 9/11." He breathed heavily before continuing. "The operation was a calculated effort to bring down the Ministry of Magic and instill anarchy, through the coordinated and nearly simultaneous assassinations of several high ranking Ministry officials and iconic heroes/symbols. It is quite ingenious in nature, actually – we believe the plan was modeled after a conspiracy surrounding the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in the mid-1800's." Another pause as the Minister wiped his glasses clean. "As you may have guessed, you were on a targeted list of people to be killed, as were your husbands and was I."

Hermione sat up in the bed and reached out a hand to Kingsley. "Minister, where are my husbands? Are they alright? I need to know."

"We are still attempting to locate the ocean liner your husbands and their fellow Aurors were on board. There is the possibility that their ship may have been attacked, but we have yet to confirm. And, not to worry, we are perfectly safe here. This is a secure, underground bunker in a top secret location. You and I and several members of my administration will remain here until further notice." With a final order that she rest for now and new developments would be reported to her immediately, the Minister strode from the room.

Hermione sank back into the pillows. Harry and Ron may have been endangered. As far as she was concerned, they were implied missing in action. She prayed that they were alright. They have to be alright, she told herself. They need to see their children. She was still stroking her abdomen when she fell asleep.

Hermione was awoken several hours later by Auror Hestia Jones, who ushered her out of the room and through a maze of tunnels spread throughout the bunker. Finally, they entered a giant room filled with computers, monitors, televisions and other technology.

"Good evening, Mrs. Potter-Weasley," a staffer greeted her. "Welcome to the Situation Room."

Hermione was guided to a conference table and helped into a chair. Surrounding her were Aurors, Seamus, Dean, Neville and Dennis Creevey among them, high officials in the Minister's administration and Kingsley himself at the head of the table. On top of the table sat a mini Muggle tripod.

"Minister, you are live in 3, 2, …go." Hermione had just registered what was happening as Kingsley began to speak:

"My fellow wizards, we are less than 24 hours removed from these horrific events. But, I can assure you, as one of my predecessors did similarly: your Ministry remains strong. The forces of evil that threatened us on September 23rd, 2003 – a date that will live in infamy – have failed. Our government has continued and is still." He paused impressively.

"However, we have not endured without our losses. This attack targeted the lives of people that our world holds dear, myself included. We lost several brave men and women yesterday – and many other lives were violently extinguished along with them. Therefore, I now ask for a moment of silence as we pray for the souls of the victims."

A monitor behind Kingsley's head lit up and pictures with captioned names below them began to appear. Hermione recognized several Hogwarts teachers and students, workers at Gringotts Wizarding bank and Ministry staff (she would later learn that a hijacked airplane had been flown into the wizarding school and a train purposefully robbed and derailed into the bank). But the worst was yet to come. All at once, Ron's face appeared on the screen.

Hermione let out a strangled scream of anguish: "NOOOOO! Please, please, God, no…" Harry's face quickly followed, and that did it. Hermione collapsed out of her chair onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Her husbands, the loves of her life, were dead. The ocean liner had been attacked; it had to have been. Her babies would never know their fathers.

All at once she felt hands grabbing for her, but she fought them off. She needed to get to her wand; she wanted to die, to kill herself – why subject her children to a life where they had no fathers? Hermione felt herself being carried from the room, down the hall and placed in a chair. She vaguely heard someone calling her name.

"Hermione, listen to me!" Neville Longbottom was telling her. "I can only imagine the grief you must feel – no wife or mother should ever have to go through something like this – but to mitigate your pain as best we can, we must show everything to you at once. Just try and calm down, and when you're ready, we'll take you back inside." It took well over an hour for Hermione to do that, but when she finally stopped hyper-ventilating, the Aurors ushered her back inside the Situation Room.

Highly trained agents had managed to recover security camera footage and sound recordings from the doomed ship. Hermione watched as a squad of roughly 15 Death Eater pirates forcefully boarded the boat and took it over. They killed two Aurors as a deterrent, and took Harry, Ron and a group of 20 others hostage. Hermione could hear her one husband trying to negotiate with the Death Eaters.

"Just stay calm. We can work this out," Harry was saying. At the sound of its father's voice, one of the babies gave a sharp kick. Hermione eyes stung with tears.

The Death Eaters refused to listen and locked the prisoners below deck. There, recordings were played back of the Aurors discussing what to do. Then, Patronus messages from loved ones could be seen appearing and asking if they were alright. Little by little, the wizarding soliders pieced together what was happening and their likely fate. They began to come up with a plan to break out of the galley, race for the captain's quarters and force their way into it to regain control of the ship. Many of the Aurors, ever wanting the smell of adventure, agreed, but some were less sure. Ron could be heard reassuring the hesitant ones.

"It's alright. Harry and I hijacked an airplane just like these guys did for a mission once. How different can this be?"

What? When the bloody hell did my husbands hijack an airplane? Hermione thought. She wanted to yell at Ron that it was probably very different, thank you very much, and to not act foolishly.

Just then, the ship began to rock violently. Screams could be heard. Several Aurors began sending return Patronus messages to their loved ones. Some said goodbye, some gave clues as to their intent. Harry told Ron to Patronus Hermione. Ron tried, but his Patronus wouldn't form. Hermione felt herself reaching out to him. He must be afraid. Who wouldn't be, in this situation? When the Patronus still wouldn't work, Ron pulled out his Muggle cell phone, and Hermione thanked Merlin that she had convinced him to get one and learn how to use it…until she remembered she had not received a call from him. The tape recorders then began playing a conversation Ron was having with someone else on the phone. Hermione would later learn it was a Muggle emergency dispatcher.

"Hello, this is Mrs. Madison. What is your emergency?"

"Hi, this is Ron Weasley of the Maersk Queen Victoria. We are an unarmed freighter in the Atlantic Ocean and have been boarded by armed D- pirates."

Mrs. Madison and Ron exchanged in a back and forth, in which she asked probing questions about the hijackers and the passengers' plight. Ron gave very detailed answers. Suddenly, the ship began rocking violently. Hermione could hear panic in her one husband's voice.

"We're all over the place! Thing's going to flip over any second, I reckon. I really don't know where we're going. Oh Merlin, please, help us!"

Ron then revealed to Mrs. Madison the passengers intent to rush the pirates. Mrs. Madison asked Ron if he was sure that was what they wanted to do. Ron replied they had to do it. More lurches on the ship could be felt as the camera's focus bobbed.

"Oh god!" Ron cried, and then he began screaming, "Hermione! Hermione!" Hermione shivered. His cries sounded just like the ones she had heard the horrible night at Malfoy Manor.

"Yes?" replied Mrs. Madison.

"Oh, that's my wife's name."

Mrs. Madison gave a nervous laugh. "That's my name too, Ron."

"Something's going to happen. I don't think we're going to get out of this thing. In case I don't, here's my phone number. Call my wife; she's expecting twins next month. Tell her…tell her I love her and the kids very much."

Mrs. Madison received the phone number and promised she would call. Hermione then heard Ron say to someone, "Are we all set? Ok…let's ride!"

With that, the security cameras panned as the Aurors broke out of the galley by breaking the steel lock and killing the guards. The footage followed them as they ran throughout the ship. The tape recorders picked up others sending Patronuses or making calls as they went along. The passengers fought bravely, grabbing spare wands from fallen pirates and using other Muggle weapons and objects to bring them down. They managed to reach the captain's quarters. Inside the Situation Room, people were cheering them on, even if they knew the dreaded outcome.

"Magnificent valor," Neville mused quietly.

Three Death Eater pirates had locked themselves in the quarters. The tape recorders could now only pick up a jumbled mess of soundbites, the security cameras rocked violently along with the ship as the Death Eaters sent it into turbulence, trying to throw their assailants off balance.

"Hold! Hold them from the inside! Hold!"

"Into the quarters! The quarters! If we don't, we'll die!"

"Smash that beam!"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Went the oak door as the passengers bashed against it.

The cameras panned as the door gave way and passengers forced their way into the quarters. The Death Eaters were now grappling with them as well as each other for control of the wheel, and began to panic.

"No! Stop them!"

"Let's get 'em!"

"GIVE IT TO ME!" screamed one Death Eater. "FUCK!" Too late.

There was a horrific crash and what sounded like an explosion before the camera footage fuzzed out. One of Kingsley's leading generals went to a map and pointed to a spot on the coastline.

"The Maersk Queen Victoria ran aground on this rocky strip of coastline, just a few miles from the port just outside the Ministry of Magic. It was carrying thousands of tons of fuel. If the ship had crashed into the port, it is estimated that the entire Ministry of Magic would have been destroyed."

Hermione felt numb. Once again, her husbands had been heroes…as well as their colleagues. They had prevented an attack on the Ministry of Magic. She began to weep for so many reasons: she had lost her loves forever, they had died protecting their world, they would never meet their children and on and on they went.