When Lucius walked through the hall at last, he was accompanied by two wizards and a witch whom Theresa did not recognize.
Lucius did not look at her, nor did he speak to her. He merely walked up the stairs with two of the wizards while another, a fourth, entered the house after his fellows. The witch stayed as well.
Theresa was confused, and rather frightened. What in the world?
The witch approached Theresa, who stood in the hall. "Ma'am . . . what is your name?"
Theresa nearly startled. The witch's voice and demeanor were firm, but not—not harsh or—or superior.
"Ma'am, please—your name?"
Theresa eyed the wizard who'd just entered. He remained several feet away from her and the witch.
"Ma'am, we're not going to hurt you, but I need your name."
"Theresa."
"And your surname?"
"C-Conroy." Theresa's throat began to constrict.
"And your husband's name? What was it?"
"I—Roman. Roman Conroy."
"And did you have a child with him?"
Theresa swallowed. "Yes. A daughter—her name's Josephine."
The witch nodded. "Where is your daughter, Mrs. Conroy?"
Mrs. Conroy?
"She's—outside, playing."
"Go and get her, Mrs. Conroy, and please hurry."
"Wha—I—what is—" Theresa was horribly confused.
The witch gazed steadily at Theresa. "Do you know anything that's happened in the last two days, ma'am?"
"No!"
The witch nodded; something in her features softened. "The war is over." The witch jerked her chin up the stairs to where Lucius was with the other wizards. "His side lost. You and your daughter are coming with us—we're Aurors, Mrs. Conroy. I'm sorry to rush you, but please, your daughter. I'll come with you, shall I?"
"Oh!" said Theresa.
She found Josephine behind the manor, not far out on the great lawn.
"Mammy. . .?" Josie cast an anxious glance at the strange witch beside Theresa.
"It's all right, my love—"
"Are you Josephine Conroy, Miss?" The witch Auror asked Josie in the same firm yet kind voice when she'd demanded Theresa's name.
Josephine hugged her mother and nodded. "Y-yes—"
"Let's go, then," said the Auror.
When they reentered the hall, Lucius and the rest of the Aurors were already there again. Lucius was standing sideways to Theresa's view, and still did not look at her, nor at Josephine. One of the wizard Aurors held a bag in his hand, which he extended to Theresa.
"I'll take it," said the witch Auror. She turned to Theresa and her daughter. "Let's step outside, Mrs Conroy."
As they walked towards the front door, Josie began to show the panic that Theresa, up to that point, had not.
"Mammy. . .! W-here are we going?"
"I'm taking you both to Hogsmeade. There's a room for you there. You'll be safe. No one will hurt you there."
Theresa wavered between denial and an empty, shocked sort of acceptance of what they were experiencing.
"Come on, Mrs Conroy." The witch Auror spoke soothingly. "Come on. Let's go."
Outside of the manor, Theresa found herself asking, "W-why can't we go to our home in Hogsmeade? Why do we have to go to a—room?"
The Auror didn't quite meet her eye when she replied, "I will explain when we have you settled, Mrs. Conroy."
Beside Theresa, Josie walked on nervous, bouncing feet with eyes wide and anxious, but her soft grasp on Theresa's hand and the way she did not lean against her told Theresa that her daughter had fully accepted what the Auror had told them—The war had ended. They were leaving.
They passed the great wrought iron gates, then the tall yew hedges on either side of them to reach a dirt lane. The Auror reached into her pocket and pulled out a tiny, worn book, most of its pages torn and stained.
"You've traveled by Portkey before, Mrs. Conroy?"
Theresa nodded once, and the Auror charmed the old book to activate it.
Theresa contemplated looking behind her, towards the manor beyond the gate.
She did not. She touched her finger to the Portkey on the Auror's say-so, and found herself, her daughter, and the Auror on the lane that lay outside of Hogsmeade.
They'd been given a room above the Three Broomsticks. Their neighbors consisted of other freed prisoners. The Auror asked Theresa if she and her daughter would like to be left alone, or would they like to ask her questions. Theresa, who only minutes before had been assaulted by the site of so many of her surviving neighbors and acquaintances from the village, and by the magical reconstruction going on in the streets, begged quietly for them to be left alone. If they had a choice, she wanted to use it for some semblance of privacy.
The Auror nodded, smiled at Josie, and left the room.
Theresa wondered when they would next be called for, and what the reason would be.
It was strange to see Hogsmeade outside their window, again. Stranger still to lie in bed to sleep without Lucius's assured presence, whether in the moment or in the future, perhaps after a meeting with the other Death Eaters.
It was not until the next morning, long after Theresa and Josephine had dressed, that there was any knock on the door to their room. When Theresa opened it, she was surprised to find Madam Rosmerta on the landing.
"Mrs. Conroy—I don't know if you remember me—"
Theresa did. They were only acquaintances, and just barely, but Madam Rosmerta had never been rude or condescending to Theresa. When she'd married Roman and moved to Hogsmeade with him, some of the villagers hadn't liked it, but mostly, they'd ignored her. Others were rather dubious about her presence. The worst Theresa had ever gotten from them was condescension or a sort of patronizing tone that revealed how un-knowledgeable they were of Muggles' ability to understand the Wizarding world. Most of her neighbors, however, had always been pleasant.
"Mrs. Conroy, I do hope I'm not intruding, but I've noticed the two of you have taken no meals since you've been here."
Theresa blinked. In truth, she hadn't known how, when, or even if they could expect food.
"I—we—" Theresa didn't know what to say, nor what an appropriate response would be. The best she could come up with was, "Well, we don't have any money right now—"
"Oh! No, my dear! I meant that you haven't come down to the meals when they're being served. I'm more than happy to see that they're brought to your room, if you'd prefer?"
Behind her, Theresa heard Josephine get up from the bed where she'd been sitting in a stupor as they'd waited for something to happen. Probably, the mention of food had grabbed her attention.
A thought seemed to have occurred to Madam Rosmerta. "Did you not know that there are meals served to the guests here? They're free of charge—the Ministry is covering everything!"
Theresa had not known. She shook her head.
"Oh dear! The both of you must be starving! Oh yes—the Auror who brought you here yesterday is here! She came to speak to you at breakfast. Oh, I'm so sorry, Mrs. Conroy! Please, come downstairs with me—or I can send her up here, if you'd be more comfortable speaking to her in your room—she did say it was something of a private matter."
"I—we'll go downstairs, Madam Rosmerta."
Josie held tightly to her hand in the crowded pub. Madam Rosmerta led them to a small table near a window, where sat the witch Auror from yesterday.
"Mrs. Conroy, good morning." The Auror stood as they approached.
Theresa nodded. She waited for further instructions.
"Won't you sit down, Mrs. Conroy?" asked Madam Rosmerta.
Theresa glanced at the Auror, who was watching her with an expression that Theresa couldn't interpret.
"Please, Mrs. Conroy." The Auror gestured to the chair across from her, and Theresa sat down. Josie, as per usual, situated herself in her lap just as a third chair was pulled to the table. Theresa was unsure of what to do. Would they be offended if her daughter didn't sit in the chair they'd gotten for her?
"Mrs. Conroy," began the Auror, the chair seemingly forgotten. But Madam Rosmerta interrupted.
"I beg your pardon, but Mrs. Conroy and Josephine have not eaten since their arrival." She turned to Theresa and Josie, smiled, and told them she be right back with something hot.
"Thank you," said Theresa.
"Why haven't you eaten, Mrs. Conroy?"
Theresa glanced up at the Auror, feeling a mite embarrassed, and ashamed for having let her child go so long without food. "I didn't know they would feed us—ma'am."
"You don't have to call me 'ma'am,' Mrs Conroy. Please, call me Roberta. And I—I think I owe you an apology: I'd thought that being here—I should have told you that you would be taken care of."
Theresa looked up again, gave the Auror—Roberta—a small smile of apology, and looked at the tabletop again.
"Mrs Conroy, have you and your daughter left your room since coming here?"
Theresa could not have imagined doing so without being told that they could. She gave Roberta another furtive glance and shook her head.
"Mrs Conroy," Roberta spoke gently, "Would—you may look at me, you know? You can look everybody in the eyes, again."
Theresa did look at Roberta then, but it was mostly due her surprise. She hadn't fully realized she'd been avoiding looking any witches or wizards in the eyes. She'd been ordered not to so many times, it had become normal to her, just another habit.
Madame Rosmerta returned with two heaping plates of scrambled eggs, sausages, and toast. A flagon of pumpkin juice floated behind her, as well as a pot of tea.
"Please let me know if you and Josephine want more, Mrs Conroy!"
Theresa thanked Madam Rosmerta, tried to look her in the eye longer than two seconds, couldn't, and let Josie slide off her lap to sit in the third chair to begin eating her breakfast.
Theresa waited for Roberta to begin speaking. Madam Rosmerta had said she'd arrived for a word, had she not?
"Please eat, Mrs Conroy. I'm going to have a word with Madam Rosmerta. And please take your time. You two must be hungry."
Josie finished everything before Theresa, so she switched their plates and drank more tea. Roberta returned to their table and began to speak to Theresa.
She told her the times of the meals that were served each day, that anything she or her daughter needed—more food, clothes, medicines, sanitary napkins—they would be available, free of charge.
"And you are under no obligation to repay anyone, nor are you expected to do anything while you are here, Mrs. Conroy."
"Thank you."
"There's no need to thank me, Mrs. Conroy."
"How long do we have to stay here?" asked Josephine, not to Theresa, but to Roberta.
"I'm not sure about that, I'm afraid. All I can tell you for now is that you and your mother won't have to worry about being hungry, not having enough clothes, or being sick." Roberta smiled at Josie, who almost smiled back before returning to her food.
"Mrs. Conroy, I came to tell you about your house."
Her husband's body had been preserved by magic in a casket at the school. Theresa would later be asked if the spot they'd buried him at in Hogsmeade's cemetery was all right with her. They would move him to wherever she wanted, they said.
The place was all right, she said. There was no proper grave marker yet, so she asked if one could be made and placed there. Whatever you want, they told Theresa.
Roman's and Theresa's house had been cleared, mostly refurbished, and turned into 'temporary' headquarters for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Roberta explained, "They wanted a quiet place—your house was suggested. They said everyone who'd lived in it was—"
To her neighbor's and the villagers' credit, Theresa would learn in the future that they'd truly thought they'd not see her, nor any of her family, again.
"He told us," said Roberta. "When he started helping us—he 'assisted' us in catching the Death Eaters who ran after Voldemort was killed, you see—he told us this was your family's home."
No one needed say who he was.
"Speaking of whom," said Roberta also, "He'll never bother you again. That's a promise. Do you want to know anything about him, Mrs. Conroy?"
It didn't take Theresa a second to reply, "No."
She would learn, later, that his son was brought back to his home at the manor. She was glad she and Josie were not there when he arrived, nor any time after. She did not know Lucius's son, did not feel any sympathy nor hostility towards the boy. He was simply the son of her rapist.
May he be nothing like his father.
"My son—Jeremy—" Theresa tried to hold it together. Roberta had the wherewithal to tell her immediately, "They collected his—remains. . ."
Jeremy's bones had been placed in a small, child-sized casket and left waiting in a building filled with other such caskets, those filled with other remains and corpses of unidentified persons, or, as in the case of Jeremy, those waiting for an appropriate burial.
Theresa remembered what Lucius had told her, about the bitch with the puppies in her old cellar.
Nothing but bones. Theresa wondered if the bitch hadn't outdone her in seeing that its young were always fed.
"You say the word, and your boy will be buried."
That first day, when Roberta took Theresa about the village and explained about her house, took her to the cemetery and the makeshift morgue, Theresa still struggled to accept that Voldemort had been killed, that his Death Eaters had all been apprehended, and that all the former captives and prisoners of war had been freed.
In the evening, Roberta visited again, and she had to tell Theresa that she did not have to wait on someone else's word to leave her room.
"You may do whatever you want. You can leave this room whenever you want. You are a free woman now, Mrs. Conroy—you and your daughter both."
Theresa felt as though her mind had been left back in the camp and the manor. Over the following days, she struggled to look people she'd known for years, and had gotten along with, in the face. Leaving her room at the inn for anything other than meals and to wash and use the toilet felt like a sort of disobedience, though to whom or what she could not say.
Josie had accepted the war's end and society's rebuilding much more easily. Being away from Theresa for too long still bothered her, but she would leave the inn by herself without telling her mother to wander about and talk to people she recognized. Theresa was glad of this.
The day after Jeremy's burial, Theresa was told that there was a house they could move her and Josie into.
"It's quite nice. It is further out than—than your old house, and it is smaller, but it's clean; furnished; the garden's large, and it would be yours—it would belong to you, legally. There're papers and everything."
Of course, their old home was out of the question. Theresa wondered if she would've gotten it back if she weren't a Muggle (but did she want to go back inside that house?). The only thing that really bothered her about it was that none of the witches and wizards who had taken, renovated, and continued to use her family's home had bothered to face her to offer even a half-hearted apology. Again, she wondered if her being a Muggle had something to do with it.
She supposed she could try living with Josie in the Muggle world, again. Josie would continue to attend Hogwarts, of course. The girl was a witch and needed to hone her magical skills. Where would they go? Back to Theresa's home village in the north of England? Back to where memories of her father plagued her, where, when she was a child, she'd fantasized that the kindly, gentle vicar, whom she didn't think had ever mentioned Hell or the Devil to his congregation, was her father. Sitting in church as a little girl, Theresa would catch his eye, and when he would smile at her and continue to speak of how the meek inherited the earth and that those who sowed in tears would reap in joy and such, and she would feel as though she had a father who loved and took joy in her. Her mother had loved her, her father had scared her, but those fleeting moments in the church every Sunday under that good vicar's eye had been the purest form of love that Theresa knew until she met Roman, and then when she had her children.
She asked her daughter, the joy she had been left with, her Josie, where did she want to go?
"Aren't we staying in Hogsmeade, Mammy?"
The house they offered was smaller, yes but quite nice—they'd not lied about that. Josie liked the back garden best of all; it was much wider than a typical country garden, really.
The house boasted two bedrooms. The kitchen needed a cleaning. The furnishings were a bit mismatched but in good condition. Theresa suspected a man, likely single whether young or old, to have been the previous occupant.
"I know it's a bit far from the main part of the village," said one of the wizards who'd accompanied Theresa and Josie for the viewing, "but we thought it might be nice for you two to have the peace and quiet it offers."
Theresa thought him quite correct. A darker part of her also knew that the out-of-the-way property could have been a way for the villagers to set apart its single Muggle inhabitant. Even if that were true, Theresa was growing rather fond of the small cottage with its great, open gardens. Josie had already asked Theresa if she could move the other bed into her—Theresa's—room.
"Is all this really ours if we want it?" Theresa asked the wizard who seemed in charge. The Auror, Roberta, had long been pulled into other duties.
"Yes, Mrs Conroy. The cottage and the surrounding land—I have the papers here with me, if you wish to accept the property."
Well, thought Theresa, it was by far the easiest way she'd ever come into such ownership.
Theresa and Josie moved out of their room at the Three Broomsticks early the following morning. It was the first time since leaving the manor that Theresa felt no trepidation opening the door and going elsewhere without permission.
They were surprised when, upon arriving downstairs in the pub, Madam Rosmerta and some of the remaining guests looked up from a beautiful breakfast spread they were setting out as though they'd been caught off guard.
"Look Mammy, there's waffles today!"
Josie loved waffles more than any other breakfast food.
Madam Rosmerta approached Theresa. "You aren't leaving so soon, are you, Mrs. Conroy? We wanted to send you and Josie off properly!"
It was an even bigger surprise when some of their surviving neighbors arrived to wish them well during breakfast, which consisted of all of Josie's—and even Theresa's—favorite things to eat in the morning.
"I'm glad you aren't leaving. Seeing your daughter around makes me feel like things are already better," said one wizard.
"I'm so sorry they won't give you your house back, Tres'n. I don't think they should've done that," said a witch who'd never spoken to the Conroys before the war, but who now kept an eye on Josephine when she saw the girl walking about without her mother.
"If you ever have problems with magical things, I'll come and sort them out for you, Mrs. Conroy. I don't live too far from you, now." "Here're some tea things for you. . ." "Here's a lock for the shed—it will work for you as as well as for a witch or wizard!"
They helped them carry their new things to the cottage outside of Hogsmeade. Theresa had to keep reminding herself that it was her cottage now. They asked her where she would like things to be put, and after a cup of tea with the biscuits someone had given her, left her and Josie to accustom themselves to their new home.
About an hour after everyone had left, Theresa found herself standing her doorway, staring out onto the empty lane that led past their new home. Josie was somewhere in the back garden, amusing herself. Theresa wondered when Josie would ask her questions again—about the things that had happened. When would Theresa have to admit to her daughter what Lucius had done to her? She could not imagine that Josie would never ask. Eventually, Josie would grow up, and she would suspect things if she didn't simply realize exactly what had been her mother's purpose in the camp and in the manor.
Theresa forced a breath into her lungs, forced it slowly out. Well, she thought, she had survived far worse horrors than being questioned by her daughter, she would just have to remember that when the time for truth-telling came.
Were those footsteps on the lane?
They were, and they belonged to a man of about Theresa's age, perhaps a little older. He approached her house rather nervously, she thought, and looked as though he were guilty of something. He looked like an everyday jack-of-all-trades, the kind that left their home young and milled about in odd jobs to afford decent meals and beers at the local pub with their friends, the kind that keeps clean but always has that work-ready look to them. He wore a flat cap which he pulled off his head when he was close enough for Theresa to hear him speak, though he remained quite a bit apart from her doorstep.
"Hello," Theresa offered.
The man shifted his cap in his hands, unable, it seemed, to meet her eye. Finally, he turned his hangdog eyes up at her and said, "Ma'am—Mrs. Conroy—I've come to apologize to you."
Theresa had not known what to expect, but this was certainly not it.
The man cleared his throat and continued. "I am one of them that turned your house—after the war, I mean. I was one who suggested your house to the Law Enforcement Squad as a headquarters, and then they payed me and another couple of lads to fix it up and remove things for them. If you want to spit on me, hit me, o-or anything, I wouldn't stop you from doing it."
Theresa was stunned. Of all the people who had commandeered her family home and then learned she was alive still, it was one of the men who'd pointed it out and gutted its insides to be the one—the only one—to offer an apology.
The man said nothing as Theresa took everything in—his words, his expression, his patched work clothes, and the way he hung his head as he waited for her to do whatever she wanted to him.
She waited for her heart to steady its beat, for her breath to return to a more bracing pace before asking him, "What's your name, sir?"
He looked up, mildly startled at her address of him. "Bowood, ma'am—Chiron Bowood."
Theresa nodded. "Well, Chiron, I don't know that I would have been able to enter that house again."
Chiron didn't seem to have expected her to say this.
"Do you live around here, Chiron?"
"I—n-no, Mrs. Conroy. But I was here when the first battle began. Been here since. But I've worked in Hogsmeade before."
"Is that how you knew my old house?" Theresa asked calmly.
Chiron seemed to deflate. "Yes, ma'am. It is."
Theresa nodded again, looked around her a moment, wondering if she'd heard Josie rustling about in the back garden.
She turned back to Chiron. "Would you like a cup of tea?"
Now he was really startled. "No, I—I mean, thank you for the kind offer, Mrs Conroy! But I have to get back to work soon, you see."
"Well, all right then."
She smiled as she watched him back up, stumbling when he put his cap back on his head.
"Chiron!"
He turned around so sharply that he almost tripped again.
"When you're near here again—if you're in need of some quiet company and a cuppa, you should come by."
Chiron's eyes seemed to brighten a little at that. He gave Theresa a small smile and called back, "I'd like that. Thank you, Mrs. Conroy."
Josie was sitting on the sunlit back steps when she noticed the dog. It stood a safe distance away from the house, its tale waving gently behind it, unsure if it was in safe territory. She watched it bound off towards the shed, and because she was curious, Josie followed it.
Jeremy had loved dogs, Josie knew.
She gasped with delight as a number of scraggly, tired puppies bounded towards her from a shallow hole that had been dug beneath an old fallen tree trunk. She giggled as they tried to jump onto her and lick her face and arms. They rolled awkwardly into her lap and on the ground when they tumbled after attempting to climb her back.
Josie remembered the dog she had seen—the mother—but she was laying down some feet away, her tail thumping the dirt and her eyes solemn and watchful, just in case she'd thought wrong and the people here were not so friendly, doing her job as her litter's mother. They smelled safe and familiar.
Jeremy would have loved these puppies, thought Josie—would have taken in every one—and the mother, obviously—no matter how many boring chores he'd have had to do to keep them.
The puppies sniffed constantly at Josie, tickling her all over with their wet noses. When she laid down to see their reaction, the mother rushed over and began to sniff Josie in earnest, inhaling every inch of her until she lay back down again, this time with her tail thumping more rapidly and her back pressed against Josie's side, knowing they were somewhere safe at last.