Chapter 13: August 2004

Hermione rubbed her hands together nervously. Today at supper, Hermione would tell Kissara that, if she wanted, she could call Bellatrix 'momma'.

The day after she had given Bellatrix permission to be called Kissara's momma, the dark witch had come back and told Hermione that she would wait until the Gryffindor was comfortable with the idea of sharing Kissara near completely. Hermione was glad and thankful for that chance. At first she had regretted the impulsive decision, made when she was tired, but now she knew it was right. Though she could have gone with 'aunty Bella,' she felt that 'momma' was a better choice.

July was an odd month between the two mothers. Bellatrix had tried her best to be friendly, but Hermione had avoided Bellatrix. Hermione only stopped avoiding the other woman when Bellatrix had starting acting like the woman she had come to know before the 'incident'. Then unfortunately she started to again act like the dangerous woman. She always tried to keep her guard up, but Bellatrix's 'live in the moment' attitude was bringing the young mother back to before the war. She hated it, but she was happier. Her daughter brought her great joy, but Bellatrix seemed to patch something else up, something she didn't know needed patching.

It frustrated her.

She spotted Tonks coming down the road with the children, they had all gone to the nearby creek today to play with the children, Andromeda had made a brief appearance around lunchtime. Hermione had left them around 5 to prepare supper and to mentally prepare herself for the conversation ahead, the Lupins wouldn't be staying for supper, she needed to talk to Kiki alone.

"Aunty Mione! Look what I got!"

Hermione noticed the kids' mud-covered shoes and clothes. Kiki was taking her muddied clothes off on the porch, but Teddy ran straight into the hallway towards his aunt to show her what he had caught. "Take your shoes off!" She quickly reminded him.

"Oh right." The little boy backtracked, he had left a trail of mud down the hallway which his aunty cleaned up with a quick scourgify. Heading towards the door, Hermione got a colliding hug from her daughter as she ran upstairs to get a change of clothes. Teddy also stripped and his mother went upstairs to get him a change of clothes while he showed his aunty Mione the rainbow frog he had caught. Teddy was convinced the frog was a type of magical creature, his aunt knew it was probably hexed at some point but didn't feel the need to spoil his fun.

"Very cool. Though I hope you don't plan on keeping it, that's not very nice."

"Mum said we will put it back in the creek when we leave."

His mother came back downstairs with his cousin and handed him a new pair of pants and socks. The women had learned very early to leave changes of clothes for the kids and themselves at each other's houses. Hermione picked up his dirty clothes, she'd wash them and they'd go into the 'change of clothes' dresser upstairs. Teddy dressed and the family said their goodbyes. Tonks whispered "good luck" to Hermione and, with that, the Lupins headed back to the creek to release the frog.

Once Tonks and Teddy had walked out of sight, Hermione scooped up her four year old and pretended to fly her to the kitchen. The girl giggled and as soon as she was seated on the counter, she hugged her mommy, who squished her back. Hermione had already cut up some veggies. She asked Kissara to assemble and mix the salad while she finished the chicken breasts.

Normally Hermione tried not to talk too much to the girl for the first half of supper because signing at the dinner table takes up much of the girl's attention and she was usually the last to finish eating. Though today, it was Hermione who ate slowly. She was just going to tell Kissara that she could call Bellatrix her momma, but realized that wouldn't make sense, Aunty Bella would make more sense to the little girl. She needed to tell Kiki why one and not the other. They did suggest telling children they were adopted around that age, and it wasn't like she didn't know what adoption meant, her daughter had read a couple of books with adopted characters.

When they were almost done eating, Hermione signed; 'We need to talk'

Kiki immediately straightened up, her swinging feet stilling underneath the table, sensing that this wasn't going to be their usual kind of talk.

'Do you like Star?' It was often easier to sign a nickname than spell out a name. Bellatrix was Star, Andromeda was Aunty flower for her impressive gardens, Tonks was Aunty wolf for her Patronus, Harry was Uncle 'Z', Ron was Uncle Puppy (or dog since there is no sign for puppy) for his Patronus, Ginny was Aunty 'fly' for her career in Quidditch (they hadn't thought horse would be a good nickname), and Teddy was Bear.

Kiki nodded.

'Do you know why you two look so much alike?'

The girl shook her head and leaned her chin on the table. Her mother was too nervous to correct her posture. Sensing the nervousness, Kissara jumped off her seat and went to sit on her mommy's lap.

'How many people does it take to make a baby?'

'Two,' the little girl had already asked the, 'how are babies made?' question.

'And where does a little baby start its life?'

'In mommy's tummy.' Kissara was getting annoyed, she didn't need to be quizzed on this, and what did it have to do with Bella?

'What happens when there are two mommies?' Hermione had decided to skip on the father part of the story, Bellatrix hadn't talked about that. They'd get to it when she was older.

'Only one mommy has the baby in her tummy?' she guessed.

'Right. Now you didn't come out of my tummy, but Star's tummy.'

Kissara looked up at her mommy, wide-eyed.

Hermione continued quickly; 'When Star found out you were in her tummy, she was scared.'

Kiki's eyes teared up. 'Why?'

'Because she thought she wouldn't be a good mom.'

Kiki was surprised and asked, 'Why?' another time. 'She's very nice.'

'Yes, she is nice. But sometimes people think odd things.' Kiki took it at face value, but her mother was talking about the voices. Kiki interpreted her birth mother's 'voice attacks' as temper tantrums, she found the tantrums odd in an adult but didn't think much into it.

'So,' Hermione continued, 'she decided to put you up for adoption, to try and give you better parents.'

Kiki knew what that meant, she simply nodded. She felt off. 'And you found me?'

Rambling a bit, Hermione continued, 'Yes, I found you. I immediately fell in love with you. I love you just as much as if you had come out of my tummy. I saw you and I knew you were my daughter.' The young mother smiled tearily at her girl, who cuddled into her. 'So I became your mommy.'

'But Star is back.'

'Yes, she saw you and she thinks that now perhaps she can be a better mother.' Hermione's breath got knocked out of her, she was going to explain further, but her daughter's crushing hug stopped her. Wriggling a little out of the hug, Hermione asked, 'What's wrong?'

'She's not going to take me away, is she?'

"No, no" Hermione shook her head and signed; 'No, she wants to help me take care of you, you would have two mommies.'

Her daughter looked at her with an unreadable look, seemingly thinking as hard as the child's brain could think.

'So now I call her mommy?'

'Only if you want to.'

'Ok' the girl hesitantly agreed. She settled back down on her mom's chest only to have her mommy lift her chin with her index finger.

'When or if ever decide to call her your mother, you call her momma instead of mommy so we can tell who you're talking to'

Kiki nodded. Her mommy had shown her the typical sign for mother or mommy- a completely open hand, fingers widespread with thumb on the chin for mommy. There is no distinction between mother, mom, mommy and momma since most of the time there was a mom and a dad, so Hermione came up with her own variation with slightly bent fingers for momma.

'So I don't have to call her momma?' Kissara double checked.

'Not if you don't want to.'

'Can I call her Aunty Star?'

Hermione sighed. 'No, it would hurt her feelings. Either Star or momma, ok?'

The girl nodded.

Kissara spent the next couple of minutes snuggled in her mommy's arms. When the girl was done thinking things over, she looked up at her mommy and signed, 'Can we have ice cream now?'

The tense mother burst into laughter and hugged Kiki. 'Yes, we can have ice cream now.'

As they cleaned up supper and prepared desert, the young mother suspected Kissara wouldn't be calling Bellatrix 'momma' anytime soon but honestly Hermione was just very glad that her daughter didn't seem to doubt how much Hermione loved her.