Chapter 3: Coming to Terms with the Past

"Rose? Rose? Rose Hermione Weasley, answer me!" Harry called, as he jogged along the grounds of Malfoy Manor. He paused in his search, and in the absence of the sound of his footfalls, cocked his ear and listened. Years of Auror training had enhanced his hearing.

There. Sniffling, but very faint. Coming from behind that bush. Peering around it, Harry found his niece curled up in a ball.

"Rose," he said gently. She jumped, startled, then glowered at him.

"If this was Mum's or Dad's idea, well sorry to disappoint them, but I don't want to see you either."

Harry couldn't stop the smirk. She sounded and looked like her mama so much in that moment, it was scary. Rose, however, noticed and grew more enraged.

"Don't laugh! I don't think it's funny! You lied to me just as much as they did!"

"I did not," Harry replied, still in a measured voice.

"Yes, you did! Keeping information from a person is the same as lying! I learned that from Mummy when I was four. Why didn't you tell me she was tortured by Death Eaters? Don't you think I should have been told that?"

"It was never my place to tell you that. I always knew your parents should be the ones to tell you and Hugo, preferably when you were a lot older. They would have wanted to tell you on their own terms: when and how they wanted to." Here, he gave his niece a pointed look. She turned away, wiping her nose on the back of her sleeve.

"That wasn't my fault. I didn't know that a simple dinner at my boyfriend's house would give you all PTSD. And Scorpius' folks arranged where we would be eating, not me."

Harry sighed. She had certainly outsmarted him there. "You're right. I'm sorry." Rose turned back to him and raised an eyebrow. "For?" She once again looked and sounded like a clone of her mother.

"For saying it was your fault for forcing your parents' hand on how they wanted to tell you about your mother's torture." She nodded, satisfied. Another moment of silence, and then Rose said in a tiny voice, "What exactly did happen here, Uncle Harry?"

Harry looked torn. He didn't want to break his promise of leaving the telling up to Ron and Hermione, but he knew neither of them was currently in a state to do so. He gave a sad smile.

"Tell you what. Why don't I show you what happened?" Rose looked terrified now, but she nodded slowly. Taking the girl by the hand, Harry turned on the spot and Disapparated.

Once uncle and niece had reached the Potter residence, Harry led Rose to a back closet in the basement. Inside was a Pensieve. Rose gasped. She had only ever seen one in books. Harry turned to her and grinned, as if he had read her thoughts.

"You'd be surprised how well off our families are, Rosie. Your aunt and I have a second one upstairs in our room. So do your parents at your house. This one holds the collective memories of your parents and me. All of our adventures together. Our greatest moments - and our worst ones." He dipped his wand in the liquid and swirled it around. Rose could now make out the shimmery image of the Malfoy's drawing room. She turned fearfully to her uncle. He smiled reassuringly down at her.

"Remember. I'm here with you. If you get too frightened at any point, tell me and we'll leave the memory immediately. Ready?" He held out his hand, and she clasped it. Then they dunked their heads into the Pensieve.

Rose felt herself falling until at last she landed feet first on the Malfoys' drawing room floor. She glanced about. Except for the dining room table and the candles, the room looked identical to the one she knew. Perpendicular to her and Harry was a group of men holding younger versions of her uncle, father and mother. Across from them was a wiry black-haired witch: probably Bellatrix Lestrange. Behind her was a younger Mr. Malfoy, and his parents - Mr. Lucius and his wife. In one corner was a mousy looking little man Rose did not recognize.

"Where did you get that sword?" Bellatrix barked at the men holding Rose's family.

"It was in her bag when we found them. Reckon it's mine now," grumbled the biggest of the men with a sickening, toothy grin. Bellatrix snapped at this, and her wand suddenly became a kind of whip, rope spurting from the tip and strangling the big man's neck. He finally freed himself, dropped the sword to the floor with a clang, and all but one of the men ran out of the house in terror.

Rose looked up at her uncle. "Who are they?" she asked tremulously.

"Snatchers," Harry replied grimly. "They worked as bounty hunters for Voldemort and his followers: rounded up Muggle-borns and other enemies of his regime. That bloke who just got choked was named Scabior - he was caught and sent to Azkaban after the war. Last I heard, he died in a prison riot there." Rose gulped and turned back to the scene. Bellatrix now approached the Golden Trio.

"Where did you get this sword?" she hissed, her voice dangerously low.

"We - we found it," Hermione replied, so quietly that Rose had to strain to hear her.

"LIAR!" Bellatrix screamed. "You were in my fault at Gringotts!" Rose could see some panic in her features now, and she almost smiled in satisfaction. Something about this sword was important if its presence here and not in Bellatrix's vault terrified the Death Eater so much.

Hermione, meanwhile, gave no reply to Bellatrix's accusation. Enraged, Bellatrix pushed Ron and the younger Harry back towards the one man who had not fled the room after her attack.

"Put the boys in the cellar!" she ordered. "I'm going to have a little talk with this one, girl to girl!" She got right in Hermione's face, as Rose's father and uncle were hustled out of the room and down some stairs and out of sight. Ron was yelling something, but Rose could not make it out.

"Where is he taking you?" Rose asked fearfully.

"Fenrir Greyback put me and your father in the manor's cellar. He was a werewolf. Bit Uncle Bill, you know. And Remus Lupin."

"Teddy's dad?" Rose asked, shocked. Harry nodded.

A scream made her turn back to the scene - and she almost fell over. Bellatrix had knocked Hermione to the floor and was lying on top of her, their faces inches from each other. Peering around, Rose saw a glint of silver catch what little light there was in the room. A knife - and Bellatrix was cutting it into Hermione's skin. Hermione violently shook and screeched bloody murder.

"Where did you get it? Where?" Bellatrix hissed, pausing in her sadistic game.

"I-I don't kno-o-ow! I didn't take anything!" Hermione sobbed in pain. Not satisfied with her answer, Bellatrix continued to jam the knife into Hermione's arm, the girl's screams echoing off the walls.

"NOOO! MUMMY!" Rose screamed. She tried to run to Hermione's side, but Harry held her back. "Let me go! That bitch is torturing her! She's killing her! DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH MY MOTHER!" she roared the last at Bellatrix.

"There's nothing we can do, Rose! They can't see or hear us! Come on!" Harry ordered, and before Rose could do anything else, their location changed.

They could still hear Hermione's screams, but they were now on stone steps descending towards a locked, gated door. Through the bars, Rose could see Ron and the younger Harry - along with an old man, a dark-skinned boy and a girl who looked like her Auntie Luna - bathed in the glow of a ball of light. Rose's dad was adding calls of "HERMIONE!" to her mom's screams as he frantically ran around and dug at the walls, trying to find a way out. The younger version of her uncle was trying to shut him up.

"Be quiet, Ron, we have to come up with a plan…"

A sudden CRACK! made the prisoners look up to find a house elf had now suddenly joined their cell.

"DOB-" The young Harry punched Ron in the arm to keep him from shouting. The house-elf, Dobby, explained that he could Apparate in and out of the cellar. The young Harry quickly arranged for him to take Luna, Dean, and Mr. Ollivander ("He was the old wandmaker! His son runs the wand shop now!" Rose exclaimed) to -

"Shell Cottage on the outskirts of Tinworth!" Ron suddenly burst out. "Trust me," he added to younger Harry when he looked back at the red-head.

"Meet me at the top of the stairs in ten seconds!" Dobby ordered, then with another CRACK!, he and his passengers were gone.

"WHAT WAS THAT?" came a shout from upstairs that sounded like Bellatrix. Rose began to tremble.

"Oh no! She's going to catch you and Dad!" she almost sobbed to Uncle Harry.

"No, she's not!" Harry whispered reassuringly to his niece, and Rose was disturbed to see that he was actually smiling. "Watch."

"NO! SEND WORMTAIL! MAKE HIM GO AND CHECK!" someone ordered from above.

Rose was about to ask who Wormtail was, but her answer came when the mousy man she had seen earlier came down the steps and walked right past her and Harry up to the door.

"Stand away from the door! Don't anybody move! I am coming in." He even sounds like a mouse, Rose thought.

He opened the door…and the ball of light that had lit up the cellar unexpectedly went out. Sudden scuffling and muffled cries could be heard. Rose didn't have to think very hard to realize that her father and uncle were putting up a fight for their lives; she could only imagine what was going on in the darkness just beyond. She didn't have to for very long, either, when Harry suddenly hissed "Lumos!" illuminating the passageway.

Rose could now see Ron, the Wormtail guy, and young Harry fully engaged in a desperate struggle on the cellar floor. She saw her father wrestle a pair of wands from the little man's grasp. Young Harry, meanwhile, was holding Wormtail in a death grip, his hand over the mousy man's mouth.

"Wormtail? What's going on down there?" called a voice that seemed to be Scorpius's grandfather, Lucius.

"Nothing!" Ron called back in a pretty good impression of Wormtail's voice. "All fine!"

The real Wormtail struggled vigorously, and in the light of the wand, a silvery object reached up and clasped young Harry's throat. With horror, Rose realized that the silvery object was Wormtail's hand; he was trying to choke her parents' best friend to death.

"You'd really try to kill me?!" the young Harry wheezed. "After what I've done? You owe me, Wormtail!"

It was almost as if these words were an order to the silver hand itself, for it now released young Harry's throat and began to strangle the throat of its owner instead. Young Harry dropped Wormtail's form and crawled back, horrified. His expression matched the one now on Rose's face; she was watching a man essentially strangle himself before her eyes.

"No…"

Wormtail was desperately trying to get air; his face was turning blue, his little eyes darting back and forth in their sockets. At last, they rolled up into his head and he slumped backwards onto the cold stone before giving one final twitch. He was dead.

It was clear from the stunned expressions on Ron and young Harry's faces that they had not intended to kill their captured combatant, probably just knock him out long enough to escape.

"Who gets his wand?" Ron, young Harry, the real Harry and Rose looked back to see Dobby at the top of the stone steps. Harry placed a hand on his niece's shoulder.

"Let's go," he murmured, and they were suddenly back upstairs in the drawing room.

It was eerily quiet now. Bellatrix and the Malfoys were standing off to one side. In the center of the room lay Hermione. Rose could hardly bear to look at her. If she hadn't known her mother had just been tortured, Rose would have thought she looked almost beautiful lying there, as though she may have been sleeping. Only Hermione's glazed over, emotionless eyes and the blood trickling down her arm dispelled this quaint notion. The rise and fall of her chest as she gave short, painful breaths and the presence of her invisible future daughter were all that indicated to the world that she was still alive. Rose peered closer at her mother's bloodied arm. There's something written there….When she saw what, she almost threw up: MUDBLOOD. A horrible wizarding slur had been carved into her mother's skin, visible only by (in a sick poetic way) the very blood that had given her, Rose, life.

"Oh, Mum…" Rose croaked through the hand over her mouth and she began to weep. Her uncle stroked her hair, then gently nudged her.

"Look."

From where they were standing, they had a good view of the stairs that young Harry and Ron had been taken down - stairs where the same two young men now crouched.

"And I think we can let the goblin go now," Bellatrix was saying. She approached Hermione until she towered over her. "The same won't be said for this one," she chirped in a sickeningly calm voice.

"Like hell!" Ron snarled and he moved, young Harry hot on his heels. "Expelliarmus!"

The drawing room devolved into a fierce duel: Bellatrix and the Malfoys versus Harry and Ron. Young Harry knocked Mr. Lucius behind a couch, Greyback was Stunned and thrown into a nearby wall.

"Drop your wands!" Rose turned her attention away from the battle to see Bellatrix holding her mother, the same cursed blade that had tortured her now at her throat. Her father and uncle defiantly stayed frozen.

"No," Rose gasped in terror.

"I said drop them!" Bellatrix repeated, pressing the blade until a trickle of blood appeared on Hermione's neck.

"All right!" young Harry yelled angrily, and the boys threw their weapons down and put their hands up in surrender.

"Good! Draco, pick them up! Lucius, call the Dark Lord! He'll praise us so when he sees we got Harry Potter…" her voice trailed off as a creaking sound made her look up to what Hermione had been forced to stare at.

The chandelier was moving, and at the top was none other than the house-elf Dobby.

A beat, then time and space seemed to slow as the whole glassy mass came crashing to Earth. Bellatrix let out a shriek and pushed Hermione away from her, towards the boys - the Death Eater bitch obviously only cared about saving her own wretched skin.

Amazingly, neither woman was crushed by the falling decoration. Hermione stumbled forward into her future husband's arms. Bellatrix barely managed to keep her balance. In the confusion, the young Harry boldly ran forward and wrested the seized wands from Mr. Malfoy, Scorpius' dad, who barely put up a fight. Glass shards flew everywhere. Scorpius' grandmother seemed to be the only one injured by them, as she was holding a now-bleeding arm, her wand lying at her feet.

"You dirty little monkey!" Bellatrix bawled at Dobby, who was now standing by the prisoners; the goblin had also joined them. "You could have killed me!"

"Not kill! Dobby only meant to maim or seriously injure!" the house-elf clarified, and if it weren't for the dire circumstances, Rose would have laughed out loud.

"Kill him, Cissy!" shrieked Lucius' wife. Dobby snapped his fingers, and Bellatrix's wand flew out of her hands and into his own.

"How dare you defy your masters!" Bellatrix roared.

"Dobby has no master," the elf snapped back defiantly. "Dobby is a free elf, and Dobby has come to save Harry Potter and his friends!"

Time once again seemed to slow. Rose watched as her loved ones began to disappear into space itself as they desperately Disapparated; in the same instance, Bellatrix played the only card she had left. The knife spun from her hand, turning over and over, it seemed, in slow motion towards the prisoners. Rose prayed that it would not reach her family and their friends before they disappeared completely…

Her prayer was in vain, as the knife was sucked into oblivion with them. Bellatrix's mouth curved into a small grin.

"I think we've seen enough," the present-day Harry said, and Rose only wondered why he hadn't said that ages ago as the memory disappeared around them at long last.