When we came to, Ron and I somehow ended up on the floor of the bedroom. A moment, seemingly infinite, passed as we made eye contact. I could feel my heart thumping wildly in my chest as the sensation of being thrown began to settle down. Ron's brows knit tightly together, his breathing haggard.

"Dani."

"Ron."

We sprang together simultaneously, grabbing on to each other tightly.

"Dani, what the bloody hell was that?"

"I think it was...a memory. I can't believe I ever forgot you. What the hell? What the hell is happening to me?" I looked toward the group, focusing particularly on the twins in front of us. "Fred. George..." My voice cracked. "I spent every summer at The Burrow. Every. Summer. How could I forget that?" Memories flooded my vision as it all came back. The sheer force knocked the wind out of me. They pounded through my head, firing off flashes of my childhood that had all been forgotten. "The last time I saw you was – "

"Your sixth birthday. Dani, where did you go?" Ron asked, gently rubbing his thumb over my hand.

"Give her some time, Ron. Can't you see she's overwhelmed?" Hermione scolded him and crouched down in front of me.

"You were both so young, it makes sense why you wouldn't remember," Harry assured from behind her.

"No, Harry," Hermione stated, closing her eyes with a sigh. "Someone put a memory charm on her. You didn't recognize anyone's names or faces did you?" I shook my head as I wiped the tears off my face. Hermione looked away sadly, before turning to help me off the ground. "I'm sorry."

"Ron?" Molly yelled from the bottom floor. "Dinner's ready!"

"Are you going to be okay? I can stay up here with you if you like." I gave Harry a small smile before opening the door.

"I'm usually not this much of a prat. And anyway," I straightened my posture and took a deep breath. "I came here for answers. Won't do me any good to stay up here crying. I'm not that pathetic."

There was so much that I missed. Hearing Sirius talk about Voldemort's return made my heart fall into the black pit of my stomach. I was slowly realizing that my mother's disappearance was more than just a simple act of negligence and abandonment. There was a war brewing and maybe, just maybe, she sensed it.

"If Voldemort's raising an army, then I want to fight." I nodded along with Harry.

"Me too."

"No. No, you're children. Children who –"

"Will get murdered just the same, regardless of what we do." A solemn energy permeated the space as the adults in the Order considered my words. "Look, I realize that things are very dangerous now, but I have to find my mother. And based on what I heard tonight, it's becoming quite clear that whatever happened to her had something to do with all of this."

"You really have grown so much," Arthur Weasley stated with a lopsided smile. "But your mother...well, the circumstances surrounding her disappearance are...odd."

"Odd? What do you mean?" With a heavy sigh, Molly Weasley walked over and placed a hand on Arthur's shoulder.

"The last owl I received from her was on the night of your 11th birthday. She sent it from Romania."

"Romania? She – but she was gone when I woke up that day. You mean to tell me that she was able to send you an owl, but didn't tell you I was all alone?" Molly looked down to the floor, making it apparent that whatever was on that letter left her with immense guilt. "Or...did you know? Did you know?!" I yelled, standing up and slamming my hands on the table. My anger radiated outward, violently shaking everything in the room as if it were an earthquake.

"Deianira. Please, let me explain," Molly pleaded. "We knew you were alive, but we didn't know where you were. Your mother was very secretive. She thought that keeping you as far away from us as possible would keep you safe, keep you hidden. You moved around a lot and by the time we figured out where you were, she'd taken you somewhere else. I believe that's how she'd gotten all my letters. I thought maybe once she figured out that we were tracking her, that she'd come to her senses. Your mother was an extremely powerful witch, more powerful than anyone I've ever known. Her line goes back to the very beginning of Hogwarts. A fact that your father knew and exploited."

"What does that even mean?" I picked nervously at the skin around my nails, trying to hold in the panic that threatened to paralyze me. The silence was really all I needed to hear, but Sirius was quick to rip the band-aid off.

"Your...conception wasn't exactly a happy one. Your father –"

"Raped her. My father raped her." The bile that rose up in my throat burned my esophagus. I wanted so dearly to run back to my cottage, back to ignorance, back to solitude. By the pity engraved on everyone's faces, I knew from that moment on that whatever would happen next, wouldn't be pretty. "Okay." I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists, trying desperately to contain the fire that threatened to erupt from my palms. "What does her bloodline have to do with that?"

"Er...well. Your mother's family are direct descendants of one of the founders of Hogwarts."

"Yeah? And?"

"For a while, no one knew if Godric Gryffindor had any descendants left. We thought they'd all died out. But the reason why that matters is, because we think your father was trying to combine the strength of his bloodline and your mother's to create the perfect weapon. To create you."

"Wait. Sirius, you're saying Dani's a descendant of Gryffindor?" Ron's faced screwed up in confusion before settling into a grin. "Brilliant." Hermione promptly smacked Ron upside the head in response.

"Really? That's your takeaway?"

"You're telling me that my mother was raped specifically so that I could be born and used for what exactly? I don't even know who my father is. I don't even know his name." I looked up through wet lashes at the lot of them. "What was his name?"

"No one you want to know," Molly stated, compulsively cleaning to distract from the overwhelming anxiety she felt.

"That's not up to you to decide. I have a right to know. Who was he that my mother felt the need to leave all of you behind to hide me?"

Remus Lupin leaned forward on his elbows to level with Molly who was readying herself to shut down the conversation. "Molly, she's right and you know it."

"Fine! Alright! If you must know, your father remains to this day one of the most horrendous people that I've ever had the misfortune of knowing. And that's all you need to know."

"That doesn't help me!" I exclaimed, exasperated. "If I can find him, I can find her!"

"NO! Absolutely not! Your father –"

"Is a death eater," Sirius interjected, clearly annoyed with how Molly was handling this. I immediately looked to my right at Harry.

"Death...eater. I'm sorry." Harry shook his head in an attempt to assure me, but I could tell that he had deflated tremendously upon hearing that my family was part of hunting him down.

"You have nothing to apologize for. You don't even know him," he said, while squeezing my hand.

"You're right. I don't. I don't know his name and I don't know mine. I have zero clue if I have grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins at all. My mother talked even less about her family than she did about my father's."

"So all this time you just went by your first name?" Ron inquired. "You don't know your family name?" I shook my head in response. "That's insane. I can't even imagine not being a Weasley."

"Rodriguez. You are Deianira Rodriguez. That's your mother's last name and that is your real family." Sirius stated with a smile. "But your father –"

"Sirius, if you don't shut that trap of yours," Molly angrily interrupted.

"God, why are you guys making this so fucking complicated? Just tell me!" I pleaded.

"Elder. His last name was Elder. And that is all you're getting from me," Sirius shot a wink over at me, before casting a curious look around the table.

"Elder..."

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked as she approached me.

"I don't know. It just feels...wrong. Deianira Elder." I tried to sit with the name, but something felt off. Maybe it was the collective look of relief on the adult's faces. Maybe it was the name itself that just didn't mesh. But I knew. I knew in my heart, that something wasn't right and they were still hiding something from me.

"Well he is evil, so I'm glad you feel a disconnect."

"Ronald!" Hermione yelled, hitting him hard on the arm.

"What? Everyone was thinking it."

"I think I'm going to head upstairs. It was great to meet you all...again. Even if that was the absolute worst conversation I've ever had."

I raced up the old, rickety staircase, ignoring the voices that called my name behind me. I ducked into a random bedroom, collapsing onto the floor and sobbing loudly. My chest felt like it was going to burst. I had never felt such pain, such agony. I now had to settle with the fact that if abomination were a human, it would literally be me. The mere thought of me brought my mother so much suffering. And to make matters worse, she had to watch me grow up. She had to look at me every single day, watching me grow into the monster that reminded her of the man she most hated in the entire world. To say I felt guilty, would be a vast understatement. My existence seemed cruel and in that moment, all I wanted to do was to just disappear.

Suddenly, I could hear a number of footsteps approach the room I was in. The slow creak of the wood door echoed loudly in the silence.

"Deianira?" Hermione called out, softly. "Where are you?" I quickly wiped away my snot and tears before standing up and turning toward them.

"Maybe she's not here?" Ron asked. My brows knit tightly together as I waved my hand in his face.

"Ron, I'm right here." Ron jumped about five feet back, obviously startled.

"Where?"

"Yeah, we can't actually see you," Harry added.

"Really? I'm staring right at you guys. Look." I quickly threw a pillow at Ron's head, causing him to stumble backward and fall to the floor.

"Hey! What was that for?" Harry and Hermione began laughing as they helped Ron stand up. I joined in, happy that I was now crying from laughter as opposed to the trauma I was just introduced to. When I approached the lot, Hermione gasped loudly.

"How did you do that? I thought you didn't have a wand. Harry, did you give her your cloak?"

"No, of course not."

"I never needed a wand. And to be quite honest, I don't have a clue how I can do half the stuff I do. Until you mentioned it, I didn't even know I was invisible." This caused Hermione to give me a stern look. I could tell she was wracking her brain, searching for an answer to whatever problem she saw in me. But it never came.

"So you don't know any incantations nor do you have a wand, but you can make yourself invisible at will."

"I do actually know incantations. I just rarely use them. But basically, yeah."

"She can make fire too," Harry stated with a wide grin on his face. I responded with a hard glare in his direction. "What? It was amazing." Hermione gently grabbed my hands and turned my palms to face up toward the ceiling.

"Show me."

"I can't." I pulled away from her, awkwardly shifting back on my right leg.

"Why not?" She asked, casting me a suspicious look. All I could do was shrug at her.

"I'm not angry."