Trouble In Paradise

--a *Harry Potter* fanfic by AngieJ (also known as Ebony Elizabeth)

DISCLAIMER: All of the characters, settings, and major plot lines belong to J.K. Rowling. Any original characters, settings, or plot developments are only possible because of the foundation she’s provided. The kleffa carrot belongs to Stephen King, from his book The Eyes of the Dragon. Anything else you recognize, I don’t own. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter 10 – A Sleep and a Forgetting

There are many kinds of storms.

Snowstorms. Thunderstorms. Storms of rain, dust, wind, sand, and hail... fickle fate or deaf heaven stirring the elements into utter chaos, destroying everything in their path... even life itself.

But no one ever talks about heartstorms.

Heartstorms are heralded by a flurry of questions, and shake even the best of us with gale-force winds of fear. The funny thing is, you don’t even haveto be in the direct path of a heartstorm for it to affect you in some way. All it takes is yet another story of wounds that will not heal and hearts that will not stop bleeding...

And as I watched Ron sit on the side of the bed where Mo lay, I couldn’t help but wonder how this heartstorm would end.

He hesitated for a moment. But only for a moment. The instant after he sat on the edge of the bed, his powerful arms reached over to lift the half-delirious figure on it into his arms. He cradled Mo’s head against his chest. His eyes were closed... the expression on his face was one of mixed pleasure and pain.

The sparkle had been temporarily extinguished from her always-laughing brown eyes by the tears that were now spiking her eyelashes. When she closed them, diamond rivulets ran down her cheeks. Her arms wound around him tightly.

Neville left the room, followed by Christina and Nick. I should have gone too--ought to have perhaps respected their privacy, if I was bound to respect such a thing under the circumstances--but I remained seated on the carpet next to Dot, who was still snoring.

Ron and Mo didn’t notice me at all. They clung to each other for several more long moments. Then she pulled away slightly, and opened her mouth to speak. But all that came out of her mouth was a little cry... for he kissed her with all his might, kissed her as if his kiss was the only antidote that this witch needed, indeed, would ever need. As he kissed her, she shuddered, and melted, and... she changed into a woman I did not know.

All the while my own heart was sinking, sinking. For this certainly didn’t look like some random casual affair.

They looked like lovers! Lovers reunited!

"I’m so sorry about this, Ronald," she whispered. I hadn’t known Mo long, but I knew exactly what her voice revealed. Her tone was that of a woman in love. "It’s my own stupid fault this happened."

"Maureen, I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about what you did..." he said, stroking her hair. "They said you deliberately drank that poison. Why would you do something like that, sweet? It was suicide!"

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, babe. Better me than her."

Ron shook his head. "Better neither of you! You could have died... I could have lost you... again... and what about our son?"

"Our son’s not the problem, Ronald, I am. If that poison had been lethal, you could have adopted Maury with no one the wiser... no one would have ever known about us. Probably would have been better off with Hermione as a mother."

He drew back and stared at her incredulously. "Barking mad... just barking..."

She stopped his tirade with an impulsive kiss. That was one thing about Maureen Ludlam... she didn’t do things by halves. She had that in common with my brother-in-law... both of them were more heart than head. Too impetuous for their own good.

"Oh, how I’ve missed you all these months," she whispered. "I’ve been so lonely, and I hate having to pretend I’m something that I am not. I’m a terrible actress, you know."

You certainly had me fooled, I thought to myself.

"I choked when it counted most, Ron," she continued. "If anyone ever told her about Maury... about us, it should have been you. How can you forgive me and my big mouth?"

"I was just as much to blame in all this, if not more," Ron admitted, burying his nose and lips in her hair, inhaling the scent of her as if it were a drug. "But I’ll forgive you if you forgive me."

Maybe poor Hermione had been right. Perhaps she’d Enthralled him after all.

Neville re-entered the room, a glass of something that looked like liquid mud in his hand. "Veritaserum antidote, suspended in pickled Murtlap juice," he said to Ron, handing him the glass. "She should drink this."

"Shouldn’t it be lavender?" Ron asked.

"Not for Veritaserum," said Neville over his shoulder as he walked out. I caught the fleeting look of revulsion over the situation on his face.

Ron held the glass to Mo’s lips. She frowned and complained, "It smells like rotten eggs. Can you imagine the case of nundu breath this is going to give me?" But she did drink. Gagging at first, but after stopping several times in mid-sip to twist her pretty features up into some rather comical faces, she finally drained the glass dry.

"That’s my girl," he said, taking it from her. "Wasn’t too bad, now was it?"

"Are you serious? It was the second-worst thing I’ve ever tasted," she said, hacking.

I wanted to ask her what the first-worst was, but didn’t. For Dot came to. Sitting up groggily, she looked over at me.

"The cat’s out of the bag, isn’t it?" she yawned.

I nodded.

Dot sighed. "Told you I was a bad omen."

"Not if you know where our son is," Ron said, setting the emptied glass on the nightstand. "Is he with Danica?"

Dot shook her head. "Are you daft? The last time I left the precious lamb alone with that dunderheaded granddaughter of mine, Maury was kidnapped and Danica received a nasty lump on her noggin. Which reminds me... weren’t you at another party when that happened?"

Mo sighed. "Come to think of it, you’re right. Ron’s brother--you know, Maury’s godfather--Bill was having a dinner party to celebrate his promotion. Nearly a month ago..."

"And then you both went through two weeks of hell when you found out he was missing," Dot finished for her. "I know, because I went through them along with both of you. I thanked every ancestor of mine, and some that weren’t, when you brought him home to me that Saturday. Even though the little mite seemed none the worse for the wear, I was determined it would never happen again under my watch. So this time, I brought the precious little lamb here to England with me..."

Both Ron and Mo started at once, and said the same thing.

"Where is he?"

"Ayr Island, at Black and Potter," Dot replied. "With Danica, but this time in a safe place with a host of fully trained witches and wizards around. Not to mention all those wunderkinds. He’ll be safe enough there until Sirius gets back."

"How did you know something was amiss?" Ron asked her.

Dot shrugged. "Well, my Star Eye bought me a clock long ago with hands for everyone in our family--my daughter Danataya, her daughter-the-dunderhead Danica who lives with me, spunky little Rory, and pretty little Shanna. I was having my lunch around noon when Star Eye’s hand spun about to Mortal Peril. I immediately contacted Sirius, and headed to Black and Potter, swift as a Snidget.

"But I have to see my baby," Mo said, tears filling her eyes. "I’ve not seen him since this morning... and with everything that’s happened this evening, I will not rest easily until I’m holding him again."

She then turned to her paramour.

"One of the things I hated the most about this charade, Ronald, was being away from him so much... going on just as if I’d never carried him for nine months... hadn’t gone through nineteen hours of labor, and on New Year’s Eve of all nights... hadn’t become a mother at all. Motherhood changes a witch, through and through... and here I was, fooling everyone into thinking I was still footloose and fancy-free.

"It seems like I’ve been only existing here in England ever since he was born. I don’t feel like I’m living until I’m back at home in Hamilton, or at the cottage. With Maury... and with you.

"And I keep remembering all those evenings and weekends we spent together in Muskoka last summer. Sitting on the rickety old porch step, watching the moon rise over the lake... swatting mosquitoes away from Maury’s tiny cheeks as you held us both in your arms and told us stories. And then, after we’d put him to bed, I’d lie next to you and shut my eyes, and I would... I’d pretend everything was... different." She sighed. "Those memories are the only thing that have gotten me through these past months."

"Everything’s changed now," Ron said hoarsely. "I was torn, Maureen."

"I know, I know. You were in love with both of us. Inconvenient, eh?"

He shook his head. "That’s not it at all. I haven’t been in love with Hermione for a long time now... you’ve held that spot in my life for years and you know it."

"Don’t get all sentimental, Ronald, you’re terrible at it," she said jokingly, reminding me of the Mo I thought I’d known again.

"It’s not sentiment, love, it’s truth. The man in me knows that there’s a place inside of his heart that only you can fill. But the boy inside that man will always love her in a way... she was my first love, my childhood sweetheart, and is still one of my two very best friends. That boy knew that he’d entered into a Covenant that could not be broken, ever , and he knew that if she found out, people would get hurt and it would be all his fault. That boy has made me do some terrible things over the past year... breaking your heart... and now, breaking hers."

She held his face in her hands. "You’re not a boy any more. You’re a man. You are my strength, Ronald. You make me laugh when I want to cry. And our son, as little as he is... all he sees is you."

"And all I see is you, sweet," he said huskily, gathering her close again. "Whenever we’re alone together, I feel like I don’t have to pretend anymore..."

"You’re talking too much, babe," Mo whispered. "Shut up and kiss me."

He did.

Dot placed a hand on my shoulder. "Shall we give them some privacy?"

Fifteen minutes before, I would have felt it unnecessary. Not to mention inappropriate. Leaving the room to give a married man a moment alone with his mistress would have felt like a betrayal of my sister-in-law. But now I wanted to speak with Dot. The minute we were in the hallway, the questions I wanted to bombard her with must have been written all over my face, for Dot began to explain.

"My Star Eye isn’t what she seems," Dot said quietly. "I felt your thoughts, child. I know you think she’s a certain kind of girl... a bad girl... that she trapped your husband’s brother before he even knew what hit him." The older woman laughed. "If she did, it was completely unconscious on her part."

"Forgive me, but I find that rather hard to believe," I said.

"You can believe whatever you want. However, there is a such thing as absolute truth. And the absolute truth, child, is this. My Star Eye came to the man she loves nearly untouched... there was only one other before him, by force. He took away from my Star Eye what she did not want to give. Over and over again."

My mouth dropped open.

"She was never the same after that," Dot said. "Star Eye was young... nineteen summers at the time... and Roger was her world. He was a powerful wizard, a Chalybian whose family had emigrated to Canada a generation before. She was a young, innocent girl who was questioning her sexuality and her place under the sun. Her mind was on romance and flowers... his mind was that of the wolf which seeks to devour the doe in the springtime of her life. He stole her innocence, body and soul.

"But the innocence of her spirit Roger couldn’t touch... and my Star Eye kept that locked away from him during all the long months she was ensnared in his trap. It wasn’t until their third winter together that she was able to free herself of him. Gradually I coaxed her soul to heal, and at once she began to study men as only a beautiful woman can. She learned to promise everything and give nothing, child... and still have a man believe always that the promise would someday be fulfilled... believe that the promise and not the fulfillment would be enough."

"So she was a tease?" I snorted.

"No," Dot sighed. "You see, Star Eye is a witch who knows how to make a wizard feel every inch a man. I taught her long ago that the most precious gift a woman can give is not found between her legs. It is her mind, her wit, and the unique perspective she brings to life. As a woman who loves women, that is something that I value most in my lovers. Our sex was fashioned to speak life into what everyone believes is dead. Star Eye does that well. She’s a lifter of heads, child, and a wiper of tears... always has been, ever since she was but a wee thing. Indeed, sometimes she leaves me wondering exactly which of us is the hyperempath...

"She met Ronald four springs ago, here in England. At first, she kept him at arm’s length, child, as she did all the others. But a soul knows its mate."

"What if that mate is already married? Four years ago Ron and Hermione were happy."

Dot’s eyebrow raised. "Were they really?"

"Yes, they were... listen, Dot, I do feel sorry for Mo being taken advantage of by that Roger character, and I’m also sorry for prejudging her. I thought she was a lot more uninhibited sexually than you say she actually is... but you must understand that she gives off that impression. But the fact remains that she slept with a married man and had his child. There is no excusing that."

A sigh. Then:

"Child, what did I tell you about stains?"

Just as we reached the living room of the suite, where Nick, Neville, Christina, and Dante all sat talking, the door opened. In walked Fred and Lupin... with a great black dog in tow. Sirius quickly changed back into his human form, shaking out his robes, at once in charge of the situation.

As Lupin began to search the suite like a Ministry Law Enforcement official, Sirius asked, "Who’s here, Dot?"

"Everyone who was here before, save the knight and the princess."

"So she knows now?"

"Not everything, and certainly not that," Dot replied. "But she knows about the prince, the star, and their little lamb. She would say she knows enough."

Lupin stopped his search and turned to Sirius. "Do you think I should go and..."

"No," said Sirius. "The knight wouldn’t dream of divulging that, not now. He’s done a lot of things, and a few of them have given this godfather some sleepless nights over the years, but he’s no hypocrite. The princess’ll be safe with him for the time being. I’ll check on them later."

He then turned to look at me, and shook his head.

"Of course you would have a front-row seat," Sirius said. He didn’t seem menacing about my seeming omnipresence, only resigned to it.

Fred put an arm about my shoulders.

"I’ll take her home so that they can give you a quick debriefing and you can give them updates, Sirius. And I’ll explain everything to her then."

***************

"It’s bad, isn’t it?"

We were sitting in the garden at the front of our home. Mo’s reverie had inspired me. After arriving home a bit before dawn, we’d slept for about four hours and now were enjoying the bright, slightly warm April morning. Sunday indeed.

Fred nodded. "It is. Worse now, because of the way it came out."

"How long have you known?"

"Since New Year’s Day, when we were all at the Burrow, chattering on about the mysterious baby in the newspaper and Orla. That baby looked like Ron... so I was sitting there trying to figure out exactly who might want to lace baby formula with Polyjuice when Mo walked in. The whole interaction between Ron, Mo, and Bill seemed scripted to me. When she apologized to Ron for what happened, I saw something pass between the two of them... and I knew. When George and I went to ‘check on something’ after the family meeting and before the press conference... we were confronting Ron."

"I have a million questions."

"Well, I don’t have quite that many answers. But I told you yesterday that I would tell you all... I’ll do my best."

"You spoke of Bill. I got the impression that he and Mo were dating one another. And that it was getting serious."

"They are not... that would be even more revolting, wouldn’t it? Bill and Mo are only good friends and have been for years. It was all part of the ruse," Fred said. "Bill’s known about Ron and Mo since their affair began and about Maury since before he was born. Ron figured that someone in the family should know about the child just in case something happened to him... and really, the process of elimination was easy."

I understood it instantly as well. "Charlie’s in Argentina. Percy’s... well, he’s just Percy. If Ron had told you, he’d be telling George--and vice versa--so he figured that was one person too many. Ginny’s a woman and too close to Hermione for his comfort. And of course he wouldn’t tell Molly or Arthur. On the other hand, Bill’s been divorced for ages and is very laid back. Cool. Levelheaded. Quite liberal. Makes sense to me."

"You’re spot on," Fred said. "When Ron learned that Hermione was pregnant a few days before Christmas, he and Mo had a huge row in which she told him to go back to his wife. So they broke off their relationship... but they still... well, I gathered that you’ve seen them together, unmasked."

"Yes. They’re obviously in love. If you can call it that," I added.

Fred nodded. "When George and I confronted them on New Year’s, they were in a panic. Not only did they have their own mess to cover up, Orla Quirke had gone turncoat... I don’t know all the rights of it, but it seems that Orla has been the one responsible for all this mess being brought to light."

I shook my head. "No. Ron and Mo are responsible. A moment of weakness is one thing... wrong, but forgivable... we all make mistakes... but I get the feeling that they were more than just a one-night stand."

"Easy feeling to get. Yes, their first affair lasted for nearly a year, ended shortly before Mo learned she was pregnant with Maury, and picked up again when Ron learned of the child. She was going to abort... but between Orla and Dot, she was talked out of it. Then they were together from then until Christmas... that makes another year and a half. To the outside world, they were just agent and superstar client. But they’ve been leading a double life." Fred let out a deep breath, running a hand through his hair. "My own brother. Can you imagine it?"

"Poor Hermione," I murmured. "No woman deserves that. I don’t care what her shortcomings were, he ought to have told her."

"Well, I can’t say that I agree with his reasoning, love, but I can see why he didn’t. Remember, he didn’t even tell Harry... Harry had to piece together the puzzle for himself just as George and I did. In a way, I think Harry feels at least half as betrayed by this as Hermione does."

"But why would he?" I asked. "Harry’s not the one married to him."

"Ron and Harry are brothers in all but name. Harry isn’t just angry at what Ron did to Hermione, he’s even madder that he isn’t godfather... and that Ron made a conscious decision not to tell him. Perhaps if he had put Harry in the picture earlier..."

"Harry would have told Hermione eventually," I said grimly. "Make no mistake about that."

Fred nodded. "Triad friendships are strange, aren’t they? We both should know from experience. Always there’s a subtle imbalance. George and I are twins... Lee can’t share the mental connection that we have. And before her death, you and Katie were growing closer and away from Alicia.

"Ron’s friendship with Harry and Hermione just might be one of the most unique situations I’ve ever seen..."

"That anyone’s ever seen," I added.

"Right. Which is why I think that everything must be tied in together... Ron’s affair, the recent events, and what has happened between the three of them since the Covenant... but unless one of them tells us, there’s no way of knowing for sure.

"They all have their outside friends and lead different postwar lives, but from the beginning of the war until now, their friendship’s been balanced. Ron and Hermione’s marriage notwithstanding, you can’t say that any two of them are more connected in friendship than the other."

I thought about this. Then I said, "Hermione told me that she feels excluded by Harry and Ron sometimes because she’s a woman."

"That’s all in Hermione’s head, I think. You must remember she’s a hyperempath... she knew all about Ron’s guilt over Mo and the child, and sensed Harry’s anger and frustration and guilt over having to keep it from her. So she’s been wound up tighter than a gordian knot for months. I felt sorry for her, but of course it wasn’t my place to say anything to her about what was going on.

"If it’s any consolation, I wish she could know that both Harry and Ron think very highly of her and always have. You know how wizards talk when there aren’t any witches around... in all these years, I’ve never heard either of them say anything less than respectful about Hermione, even in jest, and Merlin help the wizard who talked about her in a way they didn’t like."

"Always nice to have defenders," I said, nudging him, thinking of the times when Fred, George, and Lee, even as silly as they were, had stuck up for me and my friends.

"It’s more than that. Something else was going on as early as Hogwarts... something secret that no one else knows of but them... and it may be a minor reason why Harry never married, although I rather think the Covenant has something to do with it."

I flashed back to that Saturday at Black and Potter some weeks before. "Oh, no! Do you think that... Harry... and Hermione... ever..."

"Not a chance," Fred said. "They’re like brother and sister, those two, and always have been. No, the reason why Harry is so reluctant to commit is because of the Covenant."

"Excuse me," I said, "but what is the Covenant?"

"It’s the reason why the three of them are so powerful," Fred explained. "This is what I know. During the Missing Week, when we all went with Dad, we were following Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s trail. We got all the way to Ayr Island... and that’s where we found them.

"It turns out that Ayr, where Black and Potter was later established, is one of ten portal islets that are located throughout the world. And the Black family have been the Gatekeepers of Ayr for millennia."

That came as a shock. "I’d ask what a Gatekeeper is, Fred, but I still want to know about this mysterious Covenant."

"It’s all tied in together... and I was as slack-jawed as you are now when I first found out. Remember that network of caverns underneath the manor house and school?" I nodded. "Portal islets contain passageways to an infinite number of places. Different dimensions... alternate Earths. All of the portal islets around the world used to have a wizarding Gatekeeper family guarding their entrances. Thera in the Aegean, one of the Seychelles, an isle in the midst of the Bermuda Triangle that is quite invisible to Muggle airplanes and satellites, and Easter Island are some of the other locations I remember...

"Gatekeepers are ordinary witches and wizards, just like you and me... but with a difference. Gatekeepers are gifted navigators of the space-time continuum by birthright, and can easily negotiate the rips that occur at each individual portal to give them information about that particular world before they enter. Try to teleport without a Gatekeeper... you’re bound to be caught up in an inhospitable dimension that will kill you the millisecond you enter it.

"In olden times, wizards and witches traveled back and forth through time and space at leisure, with the aid of Gatekeepers. But as the ages wore on, and Dark Magic was on the rise, the special features of these alternate worlds were used to cause irreparable harm. The bubonic plague, for instance, was brought back from one of these worlds in the High Middle Ages... the Dark Sorceress responsible meant to kill every Muggle on the planet. That was the beginning of the end... we would retreat away from the Muggle world a few short centuries later.

"After a great debate in the mid-seventeenth century in which some of the greatest witches and wizards who ever lived delivered speeches that we studied--well, slept through--in Binns’ History of Magic course, it was agreed that all seven portals would be sealed forever. The Black family had sealed off the portal around the same time as the International Compact on Wizarding Secrecy was signed, and old Angus, Gatekeeper at the time, refused to teach his son the ancient knowledge. So the secret died with him.

"According to Sirius, he and his older brother Max found the caverns when they were just kids, sometime in the 1960s. By then, even the very fact that they were Gatekeepers had been lost for generations. Sirius’ grandparents still lived in the drafty old manor house, but his parents often talked in secret about selling the old island off once they inherited it.

"Max was killed when he and Sirius, after much effort, found a way to unseal one of the portals deep beneath Ayr. Max was immediately sucked in... Sirius grabbed his arm, and would have followed, but then he heard a scream. He pulled his brother out, and his brother was dead... it’s ironic, but the first world they’d discovered was the one Voldemort would use years later as his base of operations. Tartarus."

So that was what Ron had been referring to! No wonder Hermione turned white as a sheet when he mentioned it. Any place that the Dark Lord called home was bound to be something rather less than a Magical Homes and Gardens article spread.

Fred continued. "The Blacks grieved for a long time, but as they grieved, they searched the house for information about the mysterious caverns. Then--in a dusty, forgotten corner of the library, young Sirius found old Angus Black’s maps and lore, secured in a lockbox... sealed with a long-dead kleffa carrot. Or so Sirius thought."

I gasped. Kleffa carrots are living locks that are half-animal, half-vegetable. If a person who is not the owner of the sealed item tries to force the carrot or pry open the object, the kleffa carrot lets out a scream that does not kill as a mandrake would, but causes instant deafness.

"Sirius tried to jimmy the lock. The carrot began to scream... but Sirius’ reflexes were quick, and he immediately stoppered his ears with his fingers. He still lost a bit of his hearing in his human ears, though... which is why he loves his dog form so much, as his other senses are heightened when he transforms. And he says it’s why he devoted a great deal of study into becoming telepathic in the years before he was sent to Azkaban.

"Anyway, his grandparents lost their hearing entirely, but were able to blast the kleffa carrot away before Sirius’ parents came into the library. Unfortunately in the blasting, some of the maps were damaged... and part of the work Black and Potter does is surveying the network of caverns and where they all lead.

"While Sirius was in Azkaban, a former Death Eater by the name of Graham Sheffield discovered Ayr Island, quite by accident. In the first year of the war, he returned with a small army... killed Sirius’ grandparents..."

"Oh, dear," I said softly, tears filling my eyes.

"...and used an Asili Gatekeeper from the Seychelles to find a suitable place for Voldemort." Fred paused.

"Tartarus," I said. "Well, if Tartarus killed Max, how on earth could Voldemort or the Death Eaters survive there? Not to mention your brother and his friends?"

"Because it is only the entrance of Tartarus that is dangerous... it takes Hermione to explain it properly, I think, and of course I never heard her explain all this... Sirius told us, and he admitted he didn’t rightfully know, which is why Dad and us couldn’t follow them. But evidently Hermione figured it out once they arrived at Ayr all those years ago, and they were in." Another pause.

"In where?"

"In a dimension where one cannot use ordinary magic."

I shivered. "How utterly diabolical."

"But not foolproof. That’s where the Covenant came in. It is a spell so complex that all of their mentors--the Egyptian woman Neftis Abidijan, a hooded guy known only as Drakkar who opened up Ron’s clairvoyant abilities, plus Sirius, Remus Lupin, Mundungus Fletcher, Mad-Eye Moody, Arabella Figg, and a host of others who were all still there when we got to Ayr--had to help them cast."

"Were you there?"

"For part of it... but Ron told me the rest ages ago."

And as Fred described the scene in complete detail, I was transported to that long-ago night that began the Missing Week.

Here Fred stopped telling the story. He’d only told the beginning of it in a few short sentences, going from what Ron had told him later. I suppose my too-vivid imagination just might have embellished my mental picture overmuch. But I’m sure the spirit of what I’d imagined was right.

"Yeah, that was Dad and us," said Fred. "Lucky, isn’t it, that they had started the ritual already and all their wands were preoccupied... they would have blasted us to Tartarus before they even knew who we were.

"Sirius sort of held up a hand to stop things, and everyone looked at us. And then I heard Dad say, ‘That is my son.’ Pointing to Ron. The way he said it, Angel... I’d never heard him sound so broken before, and haven’t heard him sound like that since."

"Did he try to talk Ron out of taking part in the Covenant?"

"No, because Sirius came over and talked to Dad. I didn’t catch a lot of it--George and I were goggling over that cavern--but I caught words like ‘sacrifice’ and ‘common good’. So Dad insisted that he put something into the cup as well. And then Bill did, and Percy, and Charlie, and of course George and me."

"What did you give them?" I asked.

"Laughter, of course. Evil doesn’t know what laughter is, not really. It can laugh at the pain or suffering of others, it can laugh at irony, but it can’t laugh for joy. Laughter is dead useful against Dark Magic... you know that there are a couple of DADA applications for Cheering Charms."

I nodded, laughing. "Now you sound like Percy."

"Then somebody AK me, please." We both laughed. "He gave them a nice enough gift as well... do you want me to go on and tell you what happened next? I haven’t even got to the best part yet."

"Certainly, but first there’s something I have to tell you, Fred. Since we’re on the subject of gifts and all... we’ve got a very special one coming to us..."

His eyes shone. "What is it, Angel?"

But I didn’t get a chance to finish. For just then, George and Anya Apparated onto our front lawn. Unfortunately, several neighbors were out--fortunately, all but one hadn’t noticed a thing--but the little old lady across the street had been watering her Dutch tulips and proceeded to empty an entire watering can onto one poor blossom.

"AAH!" She ran into her house, screaming. I groaned. We’d have to move long before Malinda began Hogwarts.

Anya was still frail, but seemed much closer to the girl I remembered than to the haggard wraith she’d been two and a half months before. Her light brown hair had been cut in a smart chin-length style, and was pulled back behind her ears with a butterfly-faceted clasping amulet. She was still rather pale, but there was now a faint sparkle in her brown eyes that I’m sure my brother-in-law had something to do with.

"How are you, dear?" I said as kindly as I could. She eyed me warily. I wondered if she yet associated me with the popular crowd who’d actively excluded her back at Hogwarts--though that foolishness was years ago.

She nodded. "Worlds better."

Fred clipped the back of his twin’s head. "How many times have I told you not to just pop up in the front here, you moron? This isn’t Hogsmeade!"

"Yeah, well, this is an emergency. Percy and Penelope were over this morning..."

"...your fault for living in the same town..."

"...and they said that they plan to tell Mum and Dad about Ron’s kid sometime between lunch and tea."

Fred roared. "Damn it! Who told them? It was you, wasn’t it?"

"No, idiot. Somehow it got out at the party--Anya and I arrived after all the fireworks. It took a while for people to disperse--everyone was talking about Hermione and Mo and what had just happened. And then as everyone was leaving and heading back to the Narcissus portal, the rumor sort of flew around. I’m sure it’ll be in the Prophet within a couple of days."

All eyes darted to me.

"I am not going to do what I did New Year’s Day!" I shouted. "I am not an editor any more--I am but a lowly correspondent. Anyway, I’m tired of the lies and the reversals and the cover-up. I hope the whole story gets splashed across the front page."

Anya shook her head. "Surely you don’t mean that, Angelina. Think of how many people would be hurt by that."

"People are always hurt by lies in the long run. People can be hurt by the truth. The difference is that lies keep hurting. Truth, no matter how ugly it is, always makes things better in the end. It always heals."

"Truth or not," George said, "this is not for Percy or Penelope to tell our parents. It is Ron who will have to tell them what he’s done."

***************

Another heartstorm was raging at the Burrow that morning. For when we arrived, Ron and Mo were already there... and they had Maury with them. Ron had just gone into the kitchen with his parents, and the door was shut behind them. Thank Merlin for small mercies. I was glad that Percy and Penelope would arrive in Ottery St. Catchpole to find that their thunder had been stolen.

When we walked in, Mo was seated on the living room sofa. Her baby--well, her toddler now—was bouncing on her lap as if he couldn’t wait to run around on the floor. The baby from the pictures--the baby whose face was now known all over the world. Talking to him in mother-fashion... loving, low tones... the baby laughed and babbled... trying his best to make infant conversation as she prompted him.

She looked up and smiled, but not in her usual confident and nonchalant manner. Mo Ludlam actually seemed nervous.

"Good morning," she said.

The twins and I were rooted to the spot. Anya didn’t suffer from our indecision. She immediately sat next to her and began to speak.

"Lovely day, isn’t it? We met a long time ago, Maureen, but just in case you don’t remember..."

"I do remember," said Mo, warming to her instantly. "I’m glad that you’re doing better."

She nodded. "What a darling little boy you have."

"Yeah. Little snip of a man, rather," Mo replied. "He thinks he’s one going on forty-one sometimes."

"May I hold him?" Anya asked.

Mo shrugged. "Certainly."

Anya reached over to the baby. As she leaned, the pendant she was wearing about her neck interested Maury a great deal. He began to tug on it until his mother pulled it out of his chubby little fingers and Anya stuffed it underneath her sweater. The baby threatened to cry over his lost trinket, but Mo shushed him and soon all he cared about was leaning on Anya’s thin chest... perhaps he was due for a nap soon.

"He’s gorgeous," was Anya’s verdict. "Don’t you think so, Angelina?"

Her words pricked my conscience. No matter what I thought about the circumstances under which he had been conceived (and my thoughts on that matter were eloquent indeed!), he was only a child. He didn’t ask to be born. He deserved nothing but love and happiness... and after all, I was his aunt.

I sat on the remaining unoccupied space, on the other side of Anya. Maury’s eyes, though sleepy, found mine. They were twinkling midnight blue. Just like his dad’s. He’d been similarly blessed or cursed (depending upon your tastes) with his dad’s red hair, and there were a few faint freckles scattered across the bright of his nose. Yet at such a close proximity, I saw Mo in him too. She was in the slant of his eyebrows, the shape of his mouth, the ears that laid back so nicely against his head.

And then he smiled at me.

I smiled back.

***************

It seemed to be an unspoken summons, but by teatime the entire family had arrived at the Burrow save Charlie, and his owl arrived at lunchtime to say that he, Liz, and Elizabeth Molina would be in England by the very next day. We asked Jim to please keep the children until the evening... a family emergency had come up, and hopefully by then it would be all straightened out. We volunteered to keep his children for an entire weekend as thanks for the favor.

Reactions ranged the spectrum. The twins and I, I believe, were somewhere near the middle in our opinions about things. We didn’t like the circumstances, but the situation had to be dealt with somehow... how, we did not know.

Percy and Penelope were furious. They refused to even acknowledge Mo’s presence, did not approach the baby, and offered one-word, snippy answers to Ron’s questions. They talked together in low tones, and took their lunch to the garden... Percy tried to speak with Arthur in private, but Arthur insisted that it was not a good time. Molly, who’d been in the kitchen since Ron had left that morning, was engaged in a flurry of cooking and baking... and for heaven’s sake, no, she didn’t need any help from Penelope. Or any of us for that matter.

Arthur had spoken to Mo, and held his grandson. From time to time, he’d disappear into the kitchen, and then return alone again.

Bill seemed to be bothered by it all. He knew his parents were obviously upset about things, especially his mother, because he’d known and had helped Ron cover things up. Just before Ginny and Draco arrived, he muttered something about heading up to Hogsmeade, then Disapparated.

Fred, George, Anya and I sat in the garden later than afternoon with our tea. It was a lovely spring day indeed... sun-filled and unseasonably warm... yet the collective mood in and around the Burrow seemed heavy. Pensive. Almost as if it was the calm before the storm.

Yet what could be worse than what had already happened?

None of us had much to say. To me, the great conversationalist, talking seemed superfluous. Jokes seemed to be in bad taste... even the twins thought the situation too dire for their usual off-color jokes. And Anya was quiet anyway.

Ginny found us not too long after our arrival. She was holding Maury--and was so cheerful that it was unbelievable.

"Hi, everyone!" she said, sitting down. The baby squirmed, wanting to get off her lap, so with a quick kiss she let him down. "Nice day, isn’t it?"

We all stared at her. Then Fred said to George, "She and Malfoy disappeared halfway through their engagement bash, and we’ve not seen hide nor hair of her until now."

George nodded, as if this explained everything.

"If you really must know, I’m not only happy because of my darling. I’m happy because this hideous mess has finally come to light. I’ve finally met the nephew I’ve known I had ever since Draco told me about him last spring. I didn’t want to believe him at the time, either... I thought his hatred of Ron had gone too far, and I was furious with him. Turns out he was right after all."

"How the hell did Malfoy find out?" Fred bellowed. I wondered if he’d refer to Draco by his last name even after his sister married the man.

"He put two and two together," Ginny replied. "He has a hand in every pot, even in the sports one, so he’d had dealings with Maureen before and suspected something was up between her and Ron. Then this fall, when he and Hermione got closer, she shared a lot of her suspicions with him..."

"While he was sleeping with her, you mean," said Fred. I nudged him sharply, although I was glad he’d just come out and said it.

"You have got to be kidding," Ginny said. "Draco and Hermione have never slept together. They did spend a lot of time together this fall, but nothing like that was going on. He’s into Eastern philosophy, and is an adept at all kinds of mystic meditation... got into a lot of Muggle New Age stuff when he was living in Washington State... but the only kind he ever showed her was yoga."

"Sure about that, Gin?" teased George. "Tantra’s a form of meditation too, or so I hear..."

"The Kama Sutra stays by my bedside, so I’m sure I know all about it," she shot back. "Hermione’s way too stiff and straight-laced for the lotus... and the..."

"Okay, moving right along," Fred said. "So Draco knows and you know too. Great. So... what next?"

"That’s not our decision to make," Ginny said. "It’s Hermione’s."

"I think their marriage is pretty much over," George said, shaking his head sadly. "Can’t imagine Hermione letting Mo stay in the spare room, and fixing up the nursery for the poppet."

We were all quiet then. Watching Maury bounce through the grass on his chubby baby legs, chasing an elusive moth.

Mo came out then, eyes darting to and fro, looking for her baby. When she saw him, she walked quickly across the grass towards him... he ran towards her, saying ‘Ma!’ and laughing, but must have tumbled over a hidden hollyhock, for he plopped down face first into the grass.

That set us all to laughing, but little Maury cried until she picked him up and shushed him. Then he leaned his head against her shoulder... and lifted it up again when he saw his father approach.

"Da!" he said, lifting out his small hands for Ron. My brother-in-law scooped the baby out of his mother’s arms and lifted him high above his head, tossing him up... the child squealed with delight. He did this several more times before setting him down.

Maury immediately lifted up his hands... Ron protested, "Then what’d you learn how to walk for?" but picked his son right back up.

He then turned to Mo, and put his free arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him and they walked over.

Ron spoke first. "I need to talk to Hermione. Does anyone know where she is?"

"She could be anywhere," Ginny replied, smiling at the baby as he jumped from his father’s arms again and over to her, then glaring at Mo. "Could be over her mum’s. Could be in her office at the MMRI. Could be still off with Harry somewhere."

"They weren’t in Scotland when we got Maury from Black and Potter this morning," said Ron. "And Sirius said he knows they left the hotel last night."

"Then perhaps they’re at your house," Fred said. "After all, she lives there too. Wonder if she’s still Stunned."

More silence. Once again, I wondered why my husband always had to say the wrong thing at the worst possible time.

"Perhaps I should take Maury and head back to Canada," Mo said, looking up at Ron. "You can send me an owl about whatever you decide and..."

He kissed her soundly. Her arms wound around him, and remained there after he released her lips to talk.

"I want you by my side," he said to her. "The baby doesn’t have to be there, but I want her to hear what happened from both of us. Perhaps together we can make her understand."

I seriously doubted it. Glancing around those of us seated in the garden, I knew I wasn’t the only one.

Nice to see that Ron was in an optimistic mood, though.

"Ginny, Angelina..."

Ron again. What did he want now?

"I’ve sent owls to various places I thought she might be this morning, none of which have been responded to. You two talked her into doing the press conference back in January, so I thought..."

"Pity we can’t change the past," Ginny said to her brother acidly.

Ron continued his appeal. "I thought perhaps you could talk some sense into her."

"You have got to be kidding," I said. "Or haven’t you ever heard of the old expression, ‘blast the messenger’? Why don’t you go tell her yourself?"

"Trust me, I know her, and I know Harry," he said. "It’s better this way. I don’t care what you have to tell her... just convince her to come and hear us out."

"Ron, this isn’t exactly neutral ground," Anya said, surprising everyone by speaking up. "Hermione knows that we are your family, not hers... she’ll feel cornered."

"That’s nonsense," Mo replied, yet not meanly as she seemed to like Anya. "Hermione ought to know that sympathies are definitely on her side. I know that none of you care for me and everything that I represent right now... it’s all over your faces, all except Anya’s, and she’s not a Weasley yet." Anya blushed at the ‘yet’, and I smiled to myself, wondering if George would end up swearing off wizards after all.

"I’m the usurper who’s intruded on your lives. And Hermione is still his wife. So if there’s any place where Hermione ought to feel as if she’s among allies and friends, it’s here."

Ginny did not stop glaring at Mo. But after a moment, she sighed, stood up, and turned to me.

"Let’s get this over with, Angie. I have a ton of wedding things to do... Draco and I, along with Mum and Dad, are supposed to be meeting with Heidi again after dinner. The sooner we take care of this mess, the better."

I quite agreed. I was tired of the never-ending drama... it was time to resume normal, humdrum daily life.

But somehow, I still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that this heartstorm was far from over.

**************

Ginny and I arrived at Hermione’s house just in time. The front door was closed, but not locked. You could hear the shouts from outside.

"Don’t you tell me what I ought to do, Harry Potter! I’m so tired of you ordering me about that I could scream!"

And here I thought she was doing just that.

Harry’s voice was calmer but just as loud. "No one is telling you what to do, Hermione. All I said was that you ought to at least give them a chance to have their say."

"Say? That whore of a witch had better be glad that I left that room without her tongue. She wouldn’t have been saying anything if I had ripped it out!"

At that moment, Ginny opened the front door. There stood Hermione in the foyer, enraged beyond reason. Her right hand was clenched into a small fist, and she was pounding it into her left palm menacingly.

She didn’t seem to notice us standing there... but Harry did. He glanced at us as if to say, ‘Do you have any new ideas? I’m fresh out,’ and turned back to belligerent Hermione.

"Hermione, you can’t go ripping out tongues even if you have just cause. You don’t know what happened, how this came to be, or anything. They even kept it from me until a couple of months ago..."

"Thanks ever so much for that little reminder, Harry," she snapped. "You’re on my list as well. I can’t believe you knew about her... about them... about that kid and didn’t breathe a word to me. That hurts more than you know.

"You always say that you make no difference between the two of us, that you care about us both equally. This situation is a case in point... you sided with him when you didn’t tell me. What is it, Harry? Is it because I’m not a man too? Is that it?"

"Hermione. Who am I with now? You, or him?"

"Oh, stop the nonsense! You’re only with me because you’re trying to calm me down. The hysterical female of the great Trio. The unbalanced one. The one most likely to go drown herself in the Thames because of today’s events..."

"No. I’m here with you because I love you. I hate seeing you hurt. And Ron..."

"Don’t you say his name! Don’t you tell me than he loves me too! He is in love with that woman. She’s had his child. They’ve been carrying on for years behind my back... no, not even that, Harry... under my nose! That tramp is laughing up her sleeve at me. How could I have been so stupid? So blind?"

"You’re neither of those things, Hermione. You know that. What Ron did to you was beyond wrong. He’s disappointed everyone who loves him. He knows that. His parents are livid, his brothers and sisters are going berserk, and all of our friends are of the opinion that he’s pond scum. In the end, he has to live with what he’s done, Hermione... not you.

"As for me, I don’t know whether to choke him for being such an idiot or kick his sorry arse for hurting you so badly. I’ll probably end up doing both. But when all the dust settles, I’ll still be his best friend. And I think you will be, too. He still needs you and he knows it..."

"He was never my friend," she said coldly. "Not if he did this to me, Harry. I gave him eighteen years of friendship, thirteen years of love, and almost six years of marriage. I tried to give him a child of our own. And it was all a lie."

"No, it wasn’t," Harry insisted. "The present doesn’t negate the past. Never has, never will. Nothing will ever change what you felt for him..."

"Harry, stop it. Please. You can’t imagine what I feel like right now. All I want to do is crawl into a hole somewhere and not come out for a long, long time."

"If you do, I’m going with you. And as I’m not much for sun deprivation, I say we nip that idea in the bud right now. Next!"

"You can’t imagine how embarrassed I feel right now, Harry."

Ginny walked up to Hermione and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You have no cause for shame, Herm. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault that men are such horrid beasts..." Harry cleared his throat, "...present company excepted, of course."

"Did you and Angelina know about the baby... about her?" Hermione asked, eyes darting back and forth severely.

"No, I did not," I said helplessly. "I’m so sorry, Hermione."

"There’s nothing to be sorry about," she sniffed in reply. "After all, it isn’t your fault that I sent my husband straight into the arms of another woman. It’s mine... doesn’t everyone blame the woman when her husband strays?"

"Oh, Hermione," Ginny said, very sadly.

"Please, Gin, the last thing I need right now is your pity. I’m not very used to failure... and this has got to be the biggest one of my life..."

"It is not your failure!" Harry said harshly. "It’s Ron’s. Why don’t you stop making excuses for him, go on to the Burrow, and demand an explanation? You deserve one."

"Harry," I began, "perhaps now is not the best time. I know everyone’s over there... Hermione might not want to be a spectacle."

"Now’s as good a time as any," he insisted. "Ron and Hermione are good for sweeping things under the rug and letting them mildew. The reason this happened in the first place is because they never learned how to sit down and talk."

"If I were to sit and talk with Ronald Weasley and... and Maureen Ludlam right now," Hermione said grimly, "at least one of us would not come out of that room alive."

"We’ll all be there to mediate, then," Ginny said. "Everyone’s at Mum and Dad’s anyway... it’s Sunday and she’s made a ton of food, as the wedding planner is coming later on. That’s where Angie and I came from. Ron and Mo are there as well..."

"And the baby?" Hermione said, voice dripping with ice.

"Oh, I think he’s off with Mo’s godmother, that Dot Lightfoot witch. As disconcerting as the bairn is, Hermione, surely we can’t blame him for what’s happened, can we?"

Hermione turned to Harry.

"Harry, that baby is over a year old. He’s walking, he’s talking... he’s almost ready for toilet training! And five months ago, I was pregnant . By him. Has he no shame? Why didn’t he just come clean about it and divorce me?"

"I don’t know, Hermione. Which is why you need to go and hear him out."

"Harry, listen to yourself. It’s still about him! Don’t you understand my point of view? Don’t you understand why I can’t?"

Harry studied her face for a long moment. Then he reached for her, and enfolded her into a tender, warm embrace. She muffled her anguished sobs against his chest as he let her cry her heart out, stroking her back and hair. Ginny turned away, shaking her head, murmuring a remark or two about her horrid brother.

"I hate seeing you hurt," he finally said, into her hair. "If he were anyone else, he’d be pushing up lilies. As it stands, I can’t exactly kill Ron."

"Fine," she said. "If you won’t, I will. And that damned Maureen with him."

"Well, then you’d be making that little baby of theirs an orphan," Ginny pointed out. Wrong thing to say.

Hermione looked daggers at her. "Then you and Draco can adopt the brat, can’t you? He’d probably turn out a sight better than he would being raised by those two liars... cheats... scoundrels..."

I sighed. "Hermione, the twins have called a meeting after dinner. Molly is in a state, you know... she and Arthur have gone off somewhere, and he told us not to expect them back before nightfall. We cannot have the family falling apart at the seams over this. And right now, it’s very much women against men... and those who knew versus those who were kept in the dark.

"You have to be there, Hermione. The family..."

"Oh, sod the damned family!" she screamed. Harry jumped, as she was still semi-locked into his arms. "When the chips are down, you’re all Ron’s family, aren’t you? What sort of sympathy could you possibly have for me? Maureen has taken my place in his life... what kind of place do I even have amongst you Weasleys now?"

"No matter what happens, Hermione," Ginny said, "you will always be part of us. Ron is only one-seventh of us kids... and he just lost his say in the matter. In my eyes, you will always be the sister I never had."

"Did you say that to Fleur when she and Bill split?"

"Oh, come off it, Hermione," I said. "You are not Fleur Delacour. She never was one of us, and that was completely by choice. The loss was completely hers. But if we were to lose you, the loss would be all ours. And I’m sure that the other sisters-in-law agree."

Hermione smirked. "Not Penelope. I’m sure she’ll point out all my wifely flaws."

"Penelope’s not there," Ginny said. "Neither is Percy, Charlie, or Liz... Charlie’s still in Argentina, and Percy and Penelope went back to Hogsmeade. Bill left when we did... he’s a little embarrassed by his part in all this, so I owled Madeleine. She’ll take good care of him, trust me. So it’s just us younger ones and our spouses. And once you come with us, it’ll be you and Harry as well."

"And Ron and Maureen," Hermione spat. "Don’t forget that."

Ginny sighed. "How could we? We’re going to have to deal with her as well... for no matter what happens between her and Ron, he’s our nephew and she’s his mother."

"That baby is practically Ron’s double, isn’t he?" Hermione shook her head. "No questioning the fact that he’s a Weasley too. And yes, that bitch is his mother. He’s in love with her. I knew exactly when it happened... knew exactly when his thoughts were no longer fully concentrated on me. And there was something else there, too, this inexplicable tenderness I’d pick up from him sometimes. I should have known about the child... how could I have been such an idiot? So naive?"

"You’re neither of those things, beautiful," Harry repeated. "You’re brave and you’re strong, and you’re going to come out of this on top."

"Nice try, Harry," she said, finally pulling away from him. "I’m not nearly as brave nor as strong as you seem to think..."

"Why are you a Gryffindor, then? Do you run away from trouble, or do you face it head-on? I expected more out of you than this."

"Well, I’m sorry to have fallen short of your great expectations," she said, voice dripping with sarcasm. At the look he gave her, she appeared to soften a bit, and the sadness reappeared in her eyes. "Harry, I am tired. I’m tired of being fed up. I’m tired of not being able to concentrate on my work because I’m so bloody angry. I’m tired of taking it out on everyone... tired of being snappish and short-tempered and just... unhappy.

"I have turned into a woman I do not know... I don’t even recognize myself anymore, but I do know that this isn’t me. Tell me what I should do, Harry. For I honestly have no idea." She laughed bitterly. "Isn’t that a first?"

"That’s just it." He let out a deep breath. "I’m not sure what you can do besides hear Ron out. I’m the last person who should be doling out advice. I’ve only made things worse for you, Hermione. Maybe I should just head back to Scotland and..."

"You had better not!" she shouted. "You always do this. You always want to avoid conflict, especially when you know he’s in thewrong!"

"Yes, he is wrong, Hermione. We’ve gone over this repeatedly for the past sixteen hours. And I’ve already suggested what you can do about it. Not my fault you don’t like the suggestion."

She walked away, pacing up and down her long hallway. Ginny and Harry and I stood around, silent. Although none of us adhere to any particular religion (most modern witches and wizards are secular, though certainly not all), I know that I was holding my breath as reverently as I could... the closest I’d ever get to a prayer.

Then we heard:

"All right, I’ll do it."

Hermione stepped into the midst of us, looking first at me, then at Ginny, and finally at Harry. She continued to look at him as she said:

"There is a condition, however. If I let Ron have the satisfaction of telling his side of the story... it will be on my terms."

*************

Hermione had a laundry list of items for Ginny and I to procure before the Summit (as I’d dubbed the event in my mind) began. There were also certain people she said had to be in the room... so Harry was off to Ayr Island to talk two of them into dropping their important work and being in attendance. By the time we arrived at the Burrow, all the seats in the living room save one were occupied. Mo was seated on the sofa directly in front of the poster window, flanked by Ron on her right and Remus Lupin on her left.

In one corner armchair sat Draco, checking his watch repeatedly and yawning. When he saw Ginny, the bored look disappeared from his face. After she deposited an odd-looking black box on the tea-table, she went to sit on the ottoman in front of him, leaning her russet head against one of his thighs.

The other armchair held a lounging Sirius, who also looked as if he had somewhere else to be just then. His brown eyes were locked on Harry, who was standing in the doorway with folded arms and a defiant frown. If they were communicating telepathically, the conversation was doubtless eloquent indeed.

Fred and George were seated next to each other on the love seat, and Anya was seated on a floor cushion in between them. They tried to move over to make room for me, but I grabbed a cushion and sat on the floor next to Anya, using Fred’s legs as a backrest. Even with everything going on, the reporter in me wanted the best possible vantage point.

Hermione was the last to walk in. She was carrying a silver bowl with a lid. The runes and symbols carved around the edge made it obvious that this was one of the more modern Pensieves. This she set on top of the strange black box. Then she perched herself upon Molly’s knitting chair, a slightly battered family heirloom with a high oval back, cabriole legs, and ornate wooden carvings. The reupholstered cushion had been charmed to relieve tension via heat or massage long ago.

It was doing nothing to placate Hermione just then. She was staring at Ron and Mo smilelessly, and they were doing their best to avoid her cold gaze. Mo looked very much like a unicorn caught in the gaze of a basilisk. Ron merely looked caught up.

Everyone else in the room was eyeing the three of them warily. The twins had their wands on their laps--armed and ready just in case.

No one spoke or moved for what seemed like ages. And I had a wild moment of wondering if we’d be stuck there like that for all time, fixed in suspended animation. Living art. The Theatre of the Absurd.

Then Ron broke the silence.

"Shall we begin?"

"No, you will not," Hermione snapped. "I will.

"Let me make something absolutely clear. The only reason both of you are still breathing with your vitals attached is because Harry disarmed me last night. I haven’t seen my wand since yesterday, and according to him, I will not see it or get my hands on it again until I hear you pair of null-witted venomous lobalugs out. So you can thank him and his blasted sense of honor for my attendance today. Since I’ve got to be here, I set the rules. I call the shots... and I run the show."

Seated in that high-backed chair, she looked exactly like the Queen of Hearts. Never had I seen her appear so sovereign. It was really difficult to pity a woman who looked to be complete mistress of the situation... who looked as she’d turned into stone.

The corners of Ron’s mouth twitched upwards into a smirk, even as he avoided her eyes. "So... where would you like me to start, love?"

"You’re not going to start at all," Hermione snapped. "I’ve had enough of your lies. Your Pensieve will suffice. Unlock it so we can get started. And I’d advise you not to call me ‘love’ again, for I don’t need a wand to kill you."

Some of Ron’s spark had returned the minute Hermione said the magic word...

"That’s my Pensieve?" Ron roared. "I thought it was yours... why’d you even bring it out of the house? You had no right to touch it!"

"Excuse me, Ron, but when you shagged that," she indicated Mo with a derisive nod of her head, "you lost all rights that I am honor-bound to respect. Now. Will you unlock it nicely so that Ginny can set up the Simulator, or will we have to blast it open?"

He glared at her. "Always your way or the flyway, isn’t it?"

"I’m in no mood for banter, damn you," Hermione said. "I’m going to count to one... and when I finish, that mixing bowl had better be unlocked or I am going into Arthur’s shed, getting a bloody tin opener, and prying the damn thing open with my fingernails."

She said this so calmly that it was much more effective than a raised voice would have been. Mumbling under his breath, Ron took his wand, pointed it at the bowl, muttered "Sesame" and the lid slid off the bowl and landed on the floor with a dull thump. Instantly, a silvery light emanated from the basin... a light that was shifting and ever-changing.

Ginny stood up. "I’ll set everything up, Hermione... does that Simulator have enough juice left to do the trick, schnooglepuss?" she said to Draco.

"It had better," Draco replied. "It’s brand new. Unless you or the house-elves have been sneaking into my home office, no one has touched it since the day I put it there."

As Ginny had noted on the damp January day that the press conference article cleared Ron’s name, the Project-A-Note Simulator was one of the more successful Malfosoft office products. No turn-of-the-millennium wizarding corporation was without at least one Simulator. It was much more efficient to add the minutes of a board meeting to a common Pensieve suited for the purpose, then Simulate key highlights for team planning sessions.

I knew all about Simulators, of course, but I had never seen one in use at the Daily Prophet. Cassandra Claire doesn’t fully trust magitechnology, and trusts Draco Malfoy’s corporate ethics even less.

Ginny opened the black box... and set Ron’s Pensieve inside it. Nothing happened, but no one seemed alarmed.

"Search by?" asked Ginny. That’s when I remembered Fred telling me that Simulators needed either a search term or a string of terms in order to work properly... for the average Pensieve contains so many memories that any given Simulator would explode if it tried to project them all at once.

Hermione’s eyes darted across the room. Her gaze landed on its target and bored into Mo’s forehead like a wandbeam.

"Maureen Ludlam," said Hermione.

Ginny took her wand and dipped its tip into the black box. I suppose she was stirring the contents of the Pensieve. The light began to swirl, molecules vibrating and clashing and dancing... soundless music, almost.

Then she drew her wand out of the black box, crying out "Expecto Maureen Ludlam!"... and a silver-and-white spangled spectrum of light, liquid, and nebula followed the arc of her wand.

If the occasion had been any different, I would have been awestruck. For the room itself began to spin, and we were all engulfed in a sense-overwhelming experience of all colors rushing together and all points merging together to transport us into a virtual reality that had really happened in the recent past... a dreamscape from the annals of Ronald Weasley’s mind...

The sensation of our journey, all things considered, quickly became less essential... not to mention far less interesting... than the past events that were unfolding like opening blossoms. For History of Magic had never been this fascinating...

"And a nice try it was," Mo says, pecking his cheek. "You almost had me, hook, line, and sinker. See you at the Wasps game next week."

The strange wizard leaves, and within two seconds Orla is following him. The band finishes their current number and then begins another song. Mo turns to Harry, who had been muttering monosyllabic responses to Orla’s chatter and seemed rather relieved that she was gone.

"This is my song," she smiles. "You’ve got to dance with me, Harry."

Harry smiles back, but shakes his head. "I don’t really dance."

"Yes, he does," says Hermione, looking up from the journal and at her old friend with a smile. "Don’t take no for an answer, Maureen. He needs to learn how to loosen up and relax."

As Maureen and Harry leave the area for the dance floor, Ron takes the journal away from his wife, closes it, and places it out of her reach.

"You ought to take your own advice sometime," he says, kissing her. "I don’t know what’s been happening to you lately... you’re starting to remind me of what you were like when you were in medical school."

She pulls away from him, glaring.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you’re making no time for us. Come on, Hermione... you don’t need to work in both Muggle and wizarding medicine, even if you do have the training."

"My patients need me."

"No, Hermione, I need you." He swallows. "I’ve always needed you, for as long as I can remember. Yet sometimes I wonder. I love you so much, but it’s almost like you’ve always kept the best part of yourself away from me. Sometimes I feel like you’re a million miles away, love... and that’s not what I want for us."

"Oh, Ron, honestly. I thought you of all people wouldn’t believe in the ‘deep soul connection’ myth. Even a hyperempath knows that sort of thing only really exists in fairy tales. Perhaps we don’t understand everything about each other. But I love you and you love me. We know each other’s ways. In the absence of understanding, that’s as good of a reason as any for making a life together. Happy marriages have been built upon much less."

He shakes his head.

"So meaningless. What’s the point of it all, then? What of the end? Will we come to the end of our lives and realize that we never understood what the other really wanted out of life, or who they really were? Tell me, is that tragic or comic?"

"What difference does it make?" asks Hermione. "I keep telling you that love isn’t this deep connection of souls. It’s a decision. I decided to become your wife, Ron, and I am trying my best to love you without losing myself in the process. Isn’t that enough?"

He sighs.

"I’m going to go freshen up our drinks."

Just before he descends the staircase, he looks back. Hermione has reached over the table for her journal and has resumed reading the article.

3 June 2006. Saturday.

"I envy the music lovers hear," Mo says, leaning back on the blanket in the grass. "Isn’t that silly?"

Ron admires her. A beautiful woman in a beautiful setting. They are enjoying a picnic in Petroglyphs Provincial Park in Ontario... celebrating their first year as agent and client. And what a profitable year it had been for both of them.

He smiles sadly, and one wonders what he is thinking of. Perhaps the picnics he and his wife used to have on the Hogwarts grounds during their school days? There haven’t been many picnics for him and Hermione lately.

He says none of this, however. Ronald Weasley has always been a man to whom vocalized sentiment comes rarely, if at all.

So he merely asks, "What sort of music?"

"Hey, haven’t you ever watched two people who are in love? Like that couple who just got married over near the fountain. Like your parents. You see them sitting on a park bench, walking hand-in-hand, standing close to each other in a queue at the grocery store, the subway, the theatre... and you can hear a symphony."

Ron shakes his head. "I think you’re bonkers. Love isn’t some deep soul connection. It is a decision between equals."

Mo throws back her head and laughs.

"You make it sound like a business transaction. No, that’s not what I think love is like. I’ve never experienced it, not really, but I ache to hear love’s song sometimes... from the bittersweet chords of brand-new passion to the full-fledged symphony that plays between a couple who have loved each other for a long time."

"All right, what have you done with my friend Maureen?" Ron teases her, for his agent is not given to flights of fancy... she is a realist, not a dreamer.

Or so he thinks.

"You can see it in the way they look at each other, Ronald. The shared looks, full of meaning that only they can decipher. A touch on the shoulder. Fingers intertwined. You can almost hear it, if you listen close."

"I’ve never heard anything."

"That’s because the music belongs to them and them alone. All you can ever have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories. Like shadows. Like a forgotten, sweet incident that you only remember late at night or in the wee hours in the morning. Or when you see the happiness of others."

His pupils dilate as she sits up, looking at him with a warm, friendly smile. It is easy to see that he is suddenly seeing her in a very different light.

"Have you ever made that kind of music?" he asks, not even caring that it is an inappropriate question for one who is supposedly only your business associate. Indeed, feeling as if he has every right to ask it.

She shakes her head. "Nah. You know what? I’ve learned not to trust happiness. In my life, it’s been rare and short-lived. That’s why it’s so much fun to watch others in love, to know that the music does play, even if it will never play for me. That’s why I love to sing so much. And that’s why I envy the music lovers hear. Don’t you?"

He lifts her hand from the checkered blanket and places it in his.

"All the time," he says softly.

11 August 2006. Friday.

Ron is pounding on the door of a small cottage in the Muskoka woods, near the lake. It is late evening and pouring down rain.

"Hold your winged horses, I’m coming." The voice is Mo’s. She opens the door and is shocked to see her client and friend standing there, looking for all the world like a drowned rat. "Well, look what the kneazle dragged in."

"Shut it, you hate cats," he says. "Can I come in, or are you going to make me fly back in the rain?"

"You’re the one standing on the doorstep yakking," she teases, but moves aside to let him enter.

Underneath his soaked robes, Ron is wearing Muggle jeans and a t-shirt, which are soaked too. Mo orders him to take off his clothes in the foyer so that she can charm them dry, then offers him her chair by the fireplace and several fluffy white towels.

"Nice shorts. You know, I’ve always wondered if you were a boxers or a briefs man," is the first thing she says as she sits down on the braided rug before the fire, the skirts of her light dressing robes billowing out around her even as the bodice clings to her curves... drawing his eyes.

"You shouldn’t have been thinking about my underwear in the first place," he says, dark blue gaze flickering over her firelit features like flames.

"At least I didn’t stare at it, wondering if you had on any at all," she replies, following the path of his heated gaze to her breasts. "If it helps, the answer is no... I’m a nudist and wasn’t expecting any company."

He shifts in his seat. "Can we change the subject?" he asked, unable to take his eyes from her.

She shrugs. "I’m not the one whose idea it was to interrupt a poor tired feminist entrepreneur on her vacation. Now, unless you just happened to have suddenly developed a passion for flying around water and trees in the middle of a thunderstorm, spill it."

He does. He and his wife’s latest argument had been over Harry’s birthday. Hermione had wanted to give their friend a surprise birthday party... "you only turn 26 once". Ron was upset because she didn’t think to give him a huge party on his birthday in March. Hermione had countered with "well, you have so much more than Harry does... you have your family, you have your career, and you have me. Harry’s lonely, you know that... surely we can bring some cheer into his life!" Ron said it wouldn’t work, he won’t support it, and if she tried it he’ll tell Harry and ruin everything.

"After all," he says to Mo, "it's not our fault he chooses not to settle down. That's his decision."

Of course, Hermione had her way, and Harry’s birthday party was a huge success. Ron didn’t follow through with his threat to tell Harry beforehand, but Hermione was still angry that he didn’t support what should have been a joint effort to celebrate their best friend. So she was being cold and unresponsive towards Ron.

"Well, that’s childish," says Mo once he is done. "So what made you so irrationally angry about it?"

"Because I think my wife is in love with my best friend! I have every right to be angry!"

Mo finds this hilarious. "Don’t you think you’re overreacting a bit? Just because the woman threw the man a party doesn’t mean that she wants to jump in the sack with him."

"You don’t know them, Maureen! I don’t even think she’s conscious of it! But I know what I know. She cares a bit too much for him. I may have lost a lot of the Second Sight in Tartarus, but there are some things I’d have to be blind not to see. ‘Harry, Harry, Harry.’ It’s always about Harry. I know he’s our best friend, but there are limits, don’t you think?"

"Of course there are."

"You know, although he’s my brother at heart, there are times when I wish he’d just go away. I know the bastard is trustworthy, honorable, but... I just don’t like the way my wife looks at him when she doesn’t even know she’s doing it."

Mo looked shocked. "What way is that? Aren’t they just friends?"

"Yeah, they are. But they also have secrets from me. They know something I don’t know."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Listen, I know both of them. I know when Harry’s hiding something. I don’t know what it is, but he’s hiding it."

"Do you... do you think they ever..."

Ron laughs. "Nah. They know I’d kill them both. Besides, even if the thought had crossed Harry’s mind, it’d be impossible for him to do. When he returned from his postwar retreat, he told me some of the special powers he’d been given there made it impossible for him to do certain things. One of the prohibited behaviors on that laundry list of no-nos is to ‘ravish another man’s wife’. So it’s not a question of would, it’s a question of ‘could’ and he can’t."

Mo is quiet for a long time.

"We women can be very persuasive when we put our minds to it. What about Hermione?"

Ron lets out a long breath. "I don’t think she’d ever do anything like that to me. In the beginning when we were kids, I fell in love with Hermione, but she... she was interested in Harry. Harry was too busy fighting Voldemort to be in love with much of anybody. So she turned around, and there I was. She grew away from him and towards me. She grew to love me, I’m sure of it. But... but..."

"There’s always the knowledge that he was her first love."

Another long breath. "Yes. No one else knows about it but me... no one else was really close enough to the three of us to know. But I’m wondering if she’s ever told him. I mean, it’s not like he’d do anything about it, but still... but still..."

Mo is nodding. "A woman’s first love is special to her. I should know."

"Tell me about him."

"Well, he’sresponsible. A man of his word. If he says he’s going to do something, he will. If he’s not, he won’t. He’s honest…" She breaks into a laugh. "Sometimes too much so. One of the things I see in him that I don’t like is his lack of tact. He can be downright rude at times. But he’s strong and brave and wise. Not to mention tall and fiery and handsome.

"But most of all, he’s funny. He fills my world with laughter and joy, and I can’t imagine how I lived from day to day before I knew him."

"Sounds like I’d like the bloke," Ron says, still staring at her.

She stands up from the braided rug. Takes a decorative mirror from the mantlepiece. Then walks over to Ron and holds it up to his face.

"I’m sure you would. Let me introduce the two of you. Ronald Arthur Weasley, meet Ronald Arthur Weasley."

His answer is not in words. Soundlessly, he pulls her into his arms and...

"Cue!" Ginny shouted, from somewhere far away. "Cue!"

We were pulled out of the Simulator for a moment. Back in the Weasley living room, it took seven of us to restrain Hermione, who had lunged at the sofa. I had wondered why she’d wanted so many people present while she heard Ron and Mo out. No more.

"Control yourself, Hermione!" Sirius ordered her. "Sit down!"

"Oh, shut the hell up, Sirius! Did you just hear that dragonshit? The man made up wild, groundless claims about me and a man who is supposed to be his best friend to justify his lechery! How disgusting is that?"

Harry walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. Hermione looked up at him, placing the opposite hand over his.

"Harry, I said I’d do this, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Must I sit here and watchhim make love to her?" She turned to face the rest of us. "Does anyone here even care about my dignity?"

"It was your bloody idea to use the damned Simulator in the first place!" Ron snapped.

"Oh, forgive me for thinking you were a decent human being. I had no idea you’d put all your memories of shagging her into that bowl so that you could re-live your precious moments together at your leisure!"

Mo’s voice was small but firm. "Ginny, isn’t there a Filtering charm that is sold along with the Pensieve Simulator?"

"Yes, there is," Ginny said, lips set. "I’ll filter out all the sordid details. But remember, Maureen, I’m not doing this for you or my brother. I’m doing it for my sister-in-law, who doesn’t deserve to be any more embarrassed than she is now."

Once the controls were set, we were once again back in the Simulator.

21 April 2007. Saturday.

"For the first time in my life, I feel like I have something that isn’t a hand-me-down," Ron is saying.

It is the evening after the 2007 All-Wizarding Chess Tournament. The French restaurant is the best that Muggle Liverpool has to offer. Their corner table is set far away from any prying eyes. Yet Maureen Ludlam is picking at her food, appetite obviously gone.

"Now you are telling me that I can no longer have that. I can’t accept it, Maureen. I’m never going back to leftover love again. Not now that you’ve shown me the alternative. I’d be a fool."

She looks up, eyes awash with tears.

"Ron, I cannot do this anymore. You are married, and I... I’m tired of sharing you. I don’t like being jealous of a woman I really like and respect. But most of all, I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror again and hold my head up."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of, sweet. Do you hear me? Nothing! You are a faithful witch with a good heart and good intentions..."

"Intentions to break up a marriage? Where’s the good in that?"

"Maureen..."

"Ron, I am your mistress. Let’s define our terms correctly. You are married. You have no intentions of ever divorcing her. So where does that leave me?"

He reaches over the table and takes her hands in his.

"I love you."

She gasps.

"I love you, Maureen, in a way that I never knew existed until I met you. Remember that symphony you told me about last spring? Ever since last August I’ve been hearing it, hearing not only when I’m around you, but whenever I think of you. I love you more than anything else in the world."

"Don’t tell me that," here Mo chokes on a sob, "not when you’re still married to her."

"You know why I can’t divorce her, we’ve been over this time and time again. But I do love you, Maureen Gwyneth Ludlam, and I am certain that you love me as well."

She stands up suddenly.

"I want to trust you. And only the stars know how much I love you. But I’m not sure that love is enough. Good-bye, Ron."

With that, Mo pecks his cheek and leaves the restaurant.

11 August 2007. Saturday.

The weather is much like it had been on that fateful evening a year before: cool and stormy. Again, Ron is soaked by the rain, but this time he is wearing only Muggle clothing and no cloak. He is pounding on the door like there is no tomorrow.

"Damn it, Maureen!" he roars. "Dot told me you were out here... and I know you’re in there. Open up!"

Finally, her voice sounds from the depths of the cabin.

"Go away."

"Not an option. Either you let me in or I’ll blast the door open. Your choice."

Footsteps. The sound of the wooden door being unlatched. Then a creak, and her face appears... the bags under her eyes reveal that she has not slept soundly for a long time.

"Why haven’t you been in England in months?" he asks, brushing past her and into the little house. "Why did you suddenly go on sabbatical during your busiest time of year? Why is Luke running the agency, and why wouldn’t Orla tell me where you were? Even if you don’t want me any more, you are still my agent! I want some answers, and I want them now!"

She stares at him as they stand in front of the fireplace.

"You have no right to barge in here, drip water all over my rugs and floors, demanding answers as if you have a right," she says, cool as a cucumber. " Where’s your wife?"

"Has nothing to do with us... or with this." He crushes her in a tight embrace, soaked clothing and all, then almost lets her go immediately as his eyes widen with shock. He’d been so enraged when he entered that he hadn’t noticed what her loose summer robes only barely concealed.

Mo is pregnant. Very pregnant.

Ron looks stunned.

"WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME?" he roars.

"What the hell was I supposed to say?" she asks quietly.

Mo begins to cry and he melts, remorse for his outburst written all over his face. He sits down on the armchair and pulls her onto his lap.

"How many months?"

"Six, I think... according to my mediwitch, he was conceived around your birthday."

"Best gift anyone’s ever given me."

"Then thank Orla and Dot. I didn’t want to go through with it at first. I also considered adoption..."

"I would have never forgiven you. This child is mine, too, and I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything."

"I can only hope he won’t suffer because of what we’ve done."

"He?" Ron is obviously excited. "You’re giving me a son?"

"Correction. Fate has given us a son... and already I love him. I talk to him while I’m out here, all alone. I sing to him at night. I’ll give him a million things I’ll never have. I’ll hand him the world on a silver platter."

"We both will," corrected Ron. "I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel... words can’t express it."

As he kisses her with more and more intensity, the manner in which he does intend to express his feelings is obvious...

"Damn, I thought this was all filtered out," Ginny groaned. "Cue, cue, cue."

"How the hell was all this kept from me?" Hermione said harshly. "Shut that damn thing off, Ginny, I don’t think I can take any more of this."

"How was it kept from you? Easy? You weren't watching. You were so wrapped up in your two jobs and secret project that the world could have blown up and you wouldn't have noticed. You hardly looked at me, and whenever you did all I saw was contempt. No, it wasn’t blatant, but it was there. You never really got over the fact that I didn't want to save the world with you any more. Ever since I turned down that teaching position with Black and Potter and decided to continue my Quidditch career…"

Mo started to speak, but Hermione cut her off.

"I don’t want to hear a word from you. I want to hear it from my husband."

Ron sighed, then rounded out his side of the story.

"Well, Mo told Orla about the baby back in June of ’07, almost two years ago. Back then, Orla wasn’t what she is now... some of you know that. Harry certainly does. She was Mo’s dearest friend here in England, and we trusted her..."

"Yeah, trusted her more than me," said Harry, shocking all of us. Usually he doesn’t interrupt in such a petty fashion, but I suppose he couldn’t help himself.

"It’s not that we didn’t trust you, Harry," Ron said. "We talked for a long time that autumn about whether or not to tell you. Mo wanted you to know... thought you should. But in the end, we decided against it. We already had enough people who were in the know--Dot, Luke, Orla, her sister and brother, and then Bill--and I didn’t want to put you in the position I was in. Having to keep it from Hermione."

Hermione interjected, "Do you realize that all this could have been prevented two years ago by telling me the truth? I could have taken your arse to the cleaners, divorced you, and moved on with my life."

"Hermione," Sirius said, "let the man finish, please."

"After Maury was born," Ron continued, glaring at his wife a bit, "our makeshift "Keep Things Under Wraps" committee moved into action. Bill used his connection to stop his name from being recorded in the UK via the Magic Quill..."

"He wasn’t born in England," said Anya.

"But both his parents have UK citizenship," said Lupin. "Mo has dual citizenship, I think, as Canada allows that, so of course the Magic Quill would record their son’s birth. Loads of British parents have had their children overseas, while they were on holiday or for whatever reason. So it doesn’t matter where he was born... he’d still be eligible for Hogwarts."

Ron continued. "Rory and Shanna registered the baby with the Canadian Ministry under an assumed name. And finally, Dot performed the Fidelius Charm to hide Maury--Orla was our first Secret-Keeper."

Another glare from Harry. I was beginning to understand why he was so angry... they’d trusted a woman who played right into the hands of the Cabalistica over him.

Obviously, Hermione shared her best friend’s sentiment. "Honestly, how stupid can you get? Did you do any sort of a background check on the woman?"

"Thanks ever so much for rubbing it in," Ron snarled.

"Any time, dear," she replied.

Mo straightened up a bit. I suppose that Hermione’s cattishness made her seem a lot less threatening to the other woman.

"I’d like to pick things up from here. I returned to work last April... so that was about a year ago. Dot kept Maury during the day in Gravenhurst. Every night I could and on weekends when I wasn’t working, I picked him up and stayed with him in my summer cottage... Ronald and I had winter-proofed and remodeled it a couple of years before. And he joined us there whenever he could steal away."

"Which, thanks to Hermione's neverending work schedules, was a lot more than I expected..." Ron trailed off a little, sarcasm fading. He then looked over at Mo with the sort of goofy tenderness one would expect from a schoolboy. "But still... all the time in the world couldn't be enough."

More tutting from Hermione. I didn’t begrudge her. As a married woman myself, I felt she was more than entitled to her anger.

"It was a perfect spring and summer. We kept the baby close, but as you know, Fidelius does allow certain people to find you. So we had visits from Dot, of course, and her granddaughter Danica... once Danataya, Dani’s mom and Dot’s only child, even came down from the Yukon. My brother and sister were there every weekend they could, and Bill would visit, too.

"From that April until last August or so, there was only one major thing that happened. Orla had turned up her flirting with Ronald a notch--she'd always liked him--and began to make full-fledged passes at him. ‘You already have one mistress,’ she’d tell him, ‘might as well take another.’ Ronald and I talked, and I confronted Orla. She grew very angry and threatened to compromise our privacy. So... I fired her." Mo shrugged. "The new Secret-Keeper was Danataya at first, until Dana asked us to switch. Then we decided to use Rory and Shanna together. Double the protection. So even if Orla decided to talk, she’d never find the baby.

"Orla showed back up on my doorstep in September of last year. She was so apologetic about things that I melted. After all, we had been close. We made up, and I hired her in a lesser capacity at Ludlam, as I’d hired someone in her place. She wanted to be Secret-Keeper again, but Ronald put his foot down. I’m glad one of us was thinking... he asked me why the hell I went all soft and gave her a job again. I stood my ground, but I wish I hadn’t.

"In October, Orla and I were having lunch one day. We started talking about Maury’s future. She started planting all these doubts in my mind about Ronald... if things ever soured between the two of us, then what sort of security would the baby have? I told her I had enough money to take care of my child, and told Ron all about it. To my great surprise, he sided with her, saying that she was right."

Hermione’s eyes narrowed like a cat’s. "Seven million Galleons for a trust fund? That’s a little excessive... how could you have possibly thought I wouldn’t have known?"

"The trust fund wasn’t seven million, Hermione, it was seven hundred thousand. Remember, Orla’s an accountant witch. She charmed the numbers so that they were raised by a power of ten. Little did we know that she was gathering evidence for her surprise package to Hermione... and for the media scandals. Someone is helping her doctor pictures and fabricate documents, too. When Ronald told me about the Cabalistica, everything made so much sense."

"What a genius," Hermione said. "Truly, your intellect is dizzying."

"Hermione, do not say another word until they are finished ," Sirius said. I wondered why he seemed so irritated by her. What was she supposed to do, win the Miss Congeniality award while her husband and his mistress tried to justify what they’d done?

As it happened, I didn’t have long to find out why Sirius was upset. But first, Mo and Ron had to finish their tale.

It was Ron’s turn to continue. "Christmas of last year is when things really started to happen. Hermione and I had our first talk in ages over breakfast, and what a talk it was."

He continued by telling us of her shocking announcement that she’d purchased a million shares in Malfosoft. "‘It’s time we diversify our portfolio anyway... we have Ogden’s shares and are major shareholders at 3W. Can’t we invest in something outside of the ‘bread and circuses’ category?’ she told me. I wasn’t thrilled about investing in anything that had Malfoy’s name attached to it, but over the years I’d tended to give in to Hermione on household matters out of guilt for what I doing behind her back.

"‘I wish you had asked me about it first,’ was all I said. She shot back, ‘Well, you certainly didn’t ask me when you lifted seven million out of my account.’ I pointed out that it was a joint account, and she told me that only three million, seven hundred fifty-nine thousand, one hundred and fifty nine Galleons were mine... so the account was majority hers.

"And then she says, ‘I know this may be the worst possible time to tell you this, but I think I’m pregnant.’

"It threw me at first. In all of 2008, I’d slept with my wife on the average of about once a month at most, usually after a major fight and reconciliation. For a moment, I couldn’t even remember if I had been with her all month... and I had a moment of doubting if it was really mine."

"You scum-sucking, sleazy piece of rotten gillyweed." That was Harry again. All of us goggled, for it was the second time he’d done this. "You didn’t doubt her," he indicated Mo with his eyes, "so how could you even think such a thing about Hermione?"

Ron glared right back at Harry. "You tell me, O Perfect One Who Can Do No Wrong. After all, we all know that it’s always Ron who messes up."

"Yeah, you messed up. And let’s get something out in the open right now. The reason why I punched you when I finally squeezed what was going on out of you on Boxing Day was not because you cheated and lied about it, not because you didn’t tell me about your son, but because of what you said about her." He clenched his fists and furrowed his eyebrows.

"I don’t give a damn about how your feelings might have changed toward her over the years. This woman sitting here in front of you today is your best friend and the Third Partaker of the Covenant. If it wasn’t for her, you wouldn’t have had the chance to meet Maureen... you’d have died in Tartarus! So no, you will not disrespect her. Not in front of me. You’ve already dishonored her enough..."

"Harry," interrupted Sirius sharply. "Stop blocking me."

It was then that I realized they’d been communicating telepathically. Of course I couldn’t help but be curious about what they were on about.

"I don’t want to hear what you have to say, Sirius."

"Then just remember that hypocrisy is appalling in all its forms."

Bitter laugh. "You should know all about it. This is just as much your fault as it is mine."

"Just stay out of it, Harry. You’ve done enough already. Perhaps too much."

Ron’s eyes darted back and forth between Harry and Sirius. "May I finish now? That is, if you don’t mind."

Harry started to say something more, but Sirius spoke up. "By all means."

"I went immediately to Mo in Canada later that morning. I told her about Hermione’s pregnancy. Mo asked what I planned to do... I told her I didn’t know. Mo got angry... I think she felt a bit threatened..."

"I did not," Mo said firmly. "I just wondered what place your illegitimate son would have now that the true heir was on the way."

"This isn’t the Middle Ages, it’s the twenty-first century," Ron replied. "And there’s nothing illegitimate about our son. I tried to tell you that, but we argued and you told me to go home to my wife. And that was that.

"If that wasn’t bad enough, when I got back to Chelsea, Hermione confronted me about being missing. I told her that I was shocked she actually cared where I went. ‘I know you’re cheating on me,’ she said. We argued... I threw Malfoy in her face..."

A derisive chortle came from said Malfoy, who’d been soaking in the exchange as if he hadn’t witnessed anything so entertaining in years.

"We went back and forth about that all the way to the Burrow. When we got here, Hermione told me not to say anything about her pregnancy. I did--she got mad--and you all know the rest of that." He looked up at Hermione. "So where did you go Christmas night?"

She turned to Sirius. He nodded.

"I went to my office at our clinic in Diagon Alley," she said. "I sent an owl to Draco asking him to meet me Boxing Day afternoon, then considered my options. I didn’t want to see Ron again that night, so going home was out of the question. I considered going to my parents’, but I knew they’d encourage me to grin and bear it and patch things up with Ron... I inherited the ability to put a brave face on things from them.

"I thought about going to Ayr, but I knew Harry and Sirius were still in the South Pacific working. Then I remembered that Remus has a little flat in Greenwich... and he was always so great to talk to." Several of us nodded or vocalized our agreement, and Lupin seemed a bit embarrassed. "So I headed to his home, wanting to speak to him, but he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what else to do, or where else to go."

A tear trickled down her cheek.

"We found her," Lupin continued quietly, "curled up on my doorstep, completely covered by a thick blanket she’d conjured. Harry, Sirius, and I had just Apparated in. We didn’t know who she was... Sirius immediately started making jokes. ‘After bragging about how swank your new neighborhood is, how does it feel to come home to a bag lady draped across your front door?’ It was only when I shook the blanket-covered woman awake that we saw it was Hermione. She’d cried herself to sleep and was blue with cold."

Ron looked extremely uncomfortable, which made me feel a bit better about his character.

"Well, Padfoot made soup and tea, and I went for blankets and a tub of water. Harry held her and let her cry... she tried to talk, but wasn’t sounding very coherent... and then she went to sleep in his arms. Harry then said he would find Ron in the morning, and find out what the hell was going on."

"That was the day Ron spent the night over your house," Harry said to Fred, "and I came over in the morning. Boxing Day. After leaving Hertfordshire, and before we caught Malfoy at the house in Chelsea, we went back to Lupin’s. That’s when it all came out... the affair, the child... and the fact that Ron thought Hermione was cheating too.

"I told him to tell her. He kept saying he would. But he put it off until New Year’s... and by then, Orla had played her hand. I knew there was no way he’d tell then."

Mo obviously didn’t like Harry’s harsh tone of voice, so she picked up the conversation. "We didn’t know not to trust Orla until the first of the year, when the article came out. By the time that it did, she was nowhere to be found. So in January, February and March we had only one priority: to keep our son safe. We did that by sealing all leaks. We also stopped our affair cold. Ron saw his son only at Dot’s house.

"For good measure, Bill and I let everyone think that we were involved. Bill wasn’t thrilled about playing his part, but we convinced them that then was not the best time in the world to divulge secrets to the Weasley family. We’d gotten to be good friends anyway... it wasn’t that much of a stretch.

"We thought we had everything under control. And then... Maury was kidnapped the night of Bill’s promotion party."

Ron and Mo then explained what happened together.

Maury had two caretakers: Dot and Danica. Dot cared for Maury during the day... Danica primarily during the evenings and weekends as she was a Squib and went to the regular Muggle high school nearest Gravenhurst.

The night of Bill’s promotion party, Dot had a Seniors Exploding Snap tournament at a friend’s house across town. She left Maury with Danica. Neither of them knew that Secret-Keepers Rory and Shanna had been abducted by the Cabalistica earlier that evening. Dark wizards tortured Shanna with the Cruciatus Curse until Rory made the only choice he could to save his sister’s sanity... he divulged Maury’s location.

Around 7 p.m. EST, just after dark... almost midnight in England... Danica was at home in Gravenhurst playing with Maury. He was levitating various toys and trying to make her catch them.

The attack came without warning. They took Maury with them, leaving Danica behind. The girl was unconscious and seriously injured.

The Muggle neighbors hear her scream... and called the police. Thankfully, there was a wizard family who lived down the block, and they alerted the Canadian Ministry Department of Law Enforcement via Floo message.

Chaos ensued. By the time Dot arrived home, Danica was being carried via stretcher to an ambulance—she was in critical condition. The Muggle neighbors had told the police that the Lightfoot family kept a little red-haired babe with them... and that they saw the abductors flee with the baby. Dot could have Memory-Charmed the investigators, but by the time she got home, they were gone.

So Dot rushed up to the stretcher, touched her grandchild’s arm—staggered and swayed and half-fainted into a rescue worker’s arms—Danica slowly raised herself up from the stretcher. She was still in pain, but conscious and no longer critical.

The ransom note was left on the dining-room table. After putting Danica to bed, Dot immediately alerted Luke Lawless via fireplace messenger—she has both Ron’s and Mo’s itinerary at all times, and knew that both would be at Bill’s promotion party. Luke went to the promotion party, alerted Harry and Sirius, and then they all burst in upon the chess scene.

It was too much for Mo. Her son was gone... and the little brother and sister she’d spent half her life protecting and providing for were also in danger.

So she cried.

And Ron got teary because he felt as if it was all his fault. After all, he knew way more about Dark Magic than Mo did... and he knew the smart money was not on their baby coming out of this alive. Ron had wanted no more war... nothing at all to remind him of the pain, the sacrifices, the unpleasantness... and his involvement with it had come back to haunt him yet again.

Ron and Mo agreed to pay the ransom for Maury, Rory, and Shanna. Sirius helped them set a trap... along with a reluctant Harry, who felt as if it was getting out of hand, and for all their sakes, Hermione had to be told. Of course, everyone shot that idea down.

The trap failed. Rory and Shanna were recovered, but the goons got away with the kid--the ransom was doubled--Mo had a few choice words for Sirius and Harry.

So while Harry ran the school, Sirius and the other Black and Potter operatives searched. They located Maury the Friday Hermione had come to sit with Malinda... and rescued him the Saturday morning we’d headed to Ayr Island.

Finished with both the Simulation and the rest of his very long tale, Ron sank back into the cushions of the long sofa, looking quite drained.

All eyes were now upon Hermione.

"You made me a promise on our wedding day," she said quietly. "You looked into my eyes and told me that a woman’s heart was a man’s strength. If that is the case, Ron, you must be feeling weak indeed."

"Hermione, this entire fiasco was to shield you from what we’d done, wasn’t it? Neither Maureen or I wanted to see you hurt. That was the method behind our madness."

"Fine sentiment after the fact, isn’t it?" she retorted. "My feelings should have been considered before you made the ill-advised decision to press Mo Merrylegs to the mattress! As they were not, it seems as if we’ve come to an impasse."

She spread out her fingers. A parchment appeared on her lap.

"I’ve dedicated a great deal of the past two-thirds of my life to you, Ron. If you want a divorce, I want two-thirds of our assets."

"You’ve got to be kidding!" Ron roared.

"I assure you. I’m not."

Here Lupin intervened. "Hermione, don’t you think you’re being a tad vindictive?"

"Of course I am not, Remus," she responded icily. "This is the man who I not only decided to marry, but he was first and foremost my friend! He has not only shattered our marriage vows. He has broken the mutual trust of a Friendship that is celebrated around the world..."

"And it will continue to be celebrated," Mo said softly.

That set Hermione right off. "And just what would you know about it? You’re half responsible! I can’t believe the nerve of you. I invited you into my home. I attended goodness-knows-how many of those boring Ludlam Agency events. We went to the pub together... laughed together! You and I even traveled together that time to see Ron play in Brazil! And you couldn’t wait to poison my husband’s mind against me..."

"It wasn’t like that, Hermione," she whispered, eyes filling with tears.

"Oh, will you shut it? Don’t you dare tell me what it was like. It’s bad enough that you carried on for years with a man who you knew full well was married. I always knew there was something sneaky about you. Now it’s all out in the open. You are despicable."

Mo was openly crying now, her gorgeous face as lovely and sad as an autumn storm. "I’m sorry, Hermione. You don’t know how sorry I am that any of this happened. It was such a huge mistake..."

Ron laid a reassuring hand on her thigh, and with a gentle palm turned her cheek to face him.

"Maureen, it wasn’t a mistake at all. I’m tired of apologizing... it’s not going to change a thing. We’ve suffered with this guilt long enough, haven’t we? The fact is, our child is one of the best things that ever happened to me. And so are you..."

"Until his new agent wears a skirt even shorter than yours invariably are," Hermione snapped. "Payback is hell, Maureen. Next time around, when you’re in my shoes, I want you to remember this moment. Owl me and tell me exactly how it feels."

The silence that followed Hermione’s cutting words was supercharged. Ron held Mo as she wept, looking at his wife as if he couldn’t believe she was being such a bitch. Both twins were staring into space. Draco was shaking his tow head without the slightest indication of real pity. His fingers were laced through his fiancee’s... Ginny’s eyes were darting back and forth incredulously.

Sirius and Remus appeared very paternal, the twin voices of authority and reason. Remus sat on the other far end of the sofa next to Mo, regarding her with sympathy mixed with pity. Sirius’ hand rested on the back of the armchair that was serving as a throne for Queen Hermione’s court, where she’d made herself out to be judge, jury, and executioner.

As for Harry, he leaned against the doorway as if he was going to fall. That was a new one—I don’t think I’ve ever seen Harry lean before.

When happily ever after goes wrong, what else can be said?

"Happiness isn’t something one deserves, Hermione. It’s something that one must work for."

That was Sirius. He said it in a grave tone, almost as if his words presaged dire things to come. Great. The one thing we needed was more soap... of course we all hadn’t had our full share.

Sirius continued speaking. "Granted, I’ve never been married before, but this I do know about that noble institution. It takes two."

Hermione’s eyes glittered dangerously. "Please, Sirius, would you mind telling me something I don’t know?"

"All right, then, I will. What you don’t seem to understand that it takes two to make a relationship work... and two to cause it to fall apart. You, my dear, are not perfect. Far from it. Truth be told, you are as much to blame for this marriage’s woes as Ron is."

"Am I?" she shouted. "I may not be perfect, Sirius, but I damned sure didn’t step out on this man when the seas got a bit rough!"

That’s when Sirius gave her a look that--if I was reading it correctly--crumbled the very foundation that Hermione’s case as "woman wronged" stood upon.

I must have interpreted it spot on, for my sister-in-law’s expressive brown eyes narrowed to slits.

"I have always been faithful to Ron! Always! I’ve been with him since we were sixteen years old, and he’s all I’ve ever had! There has never been anyone else for me. Ever."

In that moment, she was a veritable queen. The lady Guinevere in all her glory, as she’d been on her wedding day nearly six years before. Even Mo couldn’t hold a candle to Hermione in her outraged splendor. Rage had much the same effect on her that Hera’s Blessing had all those years ago. Twin spots of red stood out on her peaches-and-cream cheekbones. Her eyes flashed with agate fire. Her brown hair was in the same controlled waves that she’d worn at the engagement party, but sometime between then and this summit, she’d lost the pearl clip. And somehow... perhaps it was due to emotion stirring her magical prowess... somehow her skin seemed to glow.

She was completely inviolate in her fury... and absolutely breathtaking.

And Ron, a tarnished Arthur, was staring across the room. But not at his wife, despite the visual display that she’d become in that instant. He was staring past her makeshift throne and at the doorway... at his best friend. He was wearing the same quizzical expression that I’d noted at the Snitch on New Year’s Eve.

"You know something, don’t you, Harry?" Ron asked slowly. "She’s told you something, and she told you she’d kill you if you spilled it. She never told me about it, but I knew. What is it, then?"

"There isn’t anything to know!" shouted Hermione quickly. "Listen, Ron, just because you've proven yourself a lying, cheating, unprincipled scab, don't you dare try and tar Harry with the same brush! He’s nothing like you! Nothing!"

Ron ignored her. "So, Harry, if everything she says is true... why won’t you look at me?"

He exhaled his exasperation and frustration. It was almost as if he was admitting defeat.

And then his gaze met Ron’s.

And in that instant, there was a short-circuit in the powerful three-way current of the famous Three so profound that all of us could see it.

Hermione, perhaps for the first time since they were all kids at Hogwarts, understood neither of her best friends.

And perhaps for the first time since they were at Hogwarts, Ronald Weasley and Harry Potter understood each other perfectly.

And I flashed back to that wedding day nearly six years before.

Queen Guinevere.

King Arthur.

We all knew something was badly wrong, but none of us knew exactly what had happened at first. So it bewildered almost everyone when Ron whipped out his wand, pointed it at Harry, and shouted "Demasculate!" Seconds later, we all had our own wands in hand and had each shouted a countercurse. The spell ricocheted off the walls as we all dodged it--it missed Remus' ear by a hairsbreadth. It finally careened into Molly's favorite cushioned ottoman--and reduced that Weasley heirloom into dust.

When the smoke cleared, the tableau that emerged was quite tragicomic. Fred and George were holding their younger brother as if he were dangling on the edge of a precipice. Maureen was cringing, eyes wild. Remus mirrored my own horrified expression. Draco was holding Ron’s wand out of his reach, completely detached from the unfolding events. Ginny’s mouth was gaped open as she gazed at Harry.

Harry’s wand was nowhere to be seen. But he wasn’t leaning anymore. Not at all. Now he was standing his ground with folded arms. Looking so angry and frustrated he could burst at any moment. Meeting Ron’s disgusted stare with an unrelenting one of his own.

"Would someone mind telling me exactly what the hell is going on here?" shouted Hermione. Her eyes were wide from shock and confusion... and Hermione Granger confused is a rare sight indeed.

"I’m with Hermione," Ginny said quietly. "This is getting too weird for words."

Ron’s eyes blazed blue fire at Harry.

"It wasn't enough that you had absolutely everything else in our world offered up to you on a silver platter, was it, Harry? You just had to have her too."

Harry didn’t say a word.

"You know, I knew she’d been with someone else. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew. But never in a million years would I have dreamed you would have been that self-serving, backstabbing bastard."

Hermione's eyes darted from Ron to Harry and then quickly back again. Then she began to laugh like a madwoman. The sound was actually quite frightening.

"Do you realize how absolutely and utterly ridiculous you sound, Ron? In all these years, neither Harry nor I have even considered what you're suggesting. We all know what you've done... please don't make it even worse by inventing fairy tales. Surely you can find some better diversionary tactic."

Harry’s stare had turned from Ron to his godfather. "Sirius..."

But now Sirius had come to stand in front of Hermione, walking around the ruins of the ottoman. He sat down on the arm of the chair. His mouth was twisted with slight amusement, but his eyes were extremely grave. Somehow, he didn't seem like a jester at that moment.

No.

More like a augurer come to knock the queen from her royal throne.

"Fairy tales, Hermione? Allow me tell you a story, then," he said.

The twins, Anya, and I shared an amazed look. Draco appeared supremely smug, as if he felt the unfolding scene was poetic justice... and then he saw that Ginny was horrified and relented. Remus was shaking his head sadly.

"Once upon a time, but not so very long ago, there lived a remarkable girl in a far-off land. This girl became a princess in all but name. Pilgrims from far and wide sought her wisdom, and her counsel was as valuable as rubies. She had riches, and fame, and was loved by almost everyone in the realm.

"She was betrothed to a prince of the same realm, who was wealthy and kind and liked by everyone. They had been children together, and as they grew into manhood and womanhood, their affection grew into love. Indeed, the prince loved her dearly, and their great friendship and love was celebrated by all the subjects of that kingdom.

"The prince and his bride-to-be had a friend in common who’d been a boy with them as well, a valiant knight who was the most famous and celebrated warrior in their world. This noble knight was the prince’s most trusted general, and the princess bride was the lady who the knight invariably championed. He wore her favors proudly in the tournaments, and when he went off to war, he always was sent with some token from her... a ribbon, a garter, a chaste kiss.

"It was inevitable that the knight would fall in love with the princess bride. After their greatest battle, he made the only decision possible. He bade his childhood companions farewell, and set off for a far-distant land that no one else from their kingdom could reach. This saddened the prince and his lady much, and they made him promise that should he ever need them, or vice versa, that he would draw them to wherever he was. Thus the Three made a pact with one another, and parted company.

"Three years after the pact, the prince’s head was turned by a fair courtier. At the time, the princess bride was studying under a number of sages, and her thoughts were more occupied with the knowledge of the ages than the language of love. Meanwhile, the prince remained at court, ruling his kingdom. Granted, he still cared a great deal for his bookish Aphrodite... but in fairy tales as in real life, a man gets lonely sometimes...

Sirius trailed off thoughtfully. Then, ignoring red-faced Ron, he plunged ahead.

"A number of vicious courtiers carried the rumors to the princess bride. For months, she refused to believed them. She decided to return to court and surprise her prince. Instead, she was the one who was surprised. For when she stole into the prince’s bedchamber, she beheld the proof of the prince’s infidelity with her own eyes. As for the prince, who was sleeping with his paramour in his arms, he never knew that his lady had been there.

"The princess-to-be ran weeping from the court and the palace. Without telling a soul in the kingdom, she prepared to journey to the land where her knight and champion was secluded. The hardships that she endured on the way is another story entirely. Suffice it to say that after weeks of searching, she found him."

Sirius paused. Harry took this opportunity to speak.

"This is neither the time nor the place for this," he said, jaw clenched. Ron’s face was buried in his hands. Remus was shaking his head a little, as if this was all coming back to him. Everyone else was still stunned... it was quite an entertaining story, but I didn’t plan on sharing it with Malinda at bedtime.

An expressionless Hermione cut him off. "Yes, this is the time and the place. Especially seeing as I can place everything that took place up until this storybook woman’s journey, and nothing afterward. And after all, it’s just a fairy tale, isn’t it, Harry? Please continue, Sirius."

"Are you sure, Hermione?"

She was silent for a long time. Then she replied, "Sirius, tell me what happened. I need to know."

"Needless to say, the knight was pleased to see her. At first, he couldn’t believe what the lady was telling him about her love and their friend. It took a long time for him to believe it. But after a while, believe it he did. He encouraged her to return to the prince anyway, to forgive him for the sake of their abiding friendship, but the stubborn girl refused. She told the knight that the only way that she’d leave was if he returned with her to talk some sense into the prince, or failing that, challenged his dearest friend to a duel over her slighted honor. And while she was at it, why did the knight deem it necessary to leave his friends and his kingdom in the first place?

"The knight avoided her question for five whole days, and instead showed her every rock, every river, and every tree of the mysterious land that he’d retreated to. In doing so, the girl forgot her troubles and felt more alive than she’d ever been in her life. They explored the enchanted land for six full days and talked for five long nights. On the evening of the sixth day she asked him the question one final time..."

"Sirius," Harry said sharply.

His godfather ignored him. "...and when he answered her truthfully and she replied in kind, they talked no more. Suddenly, everything made sense to them. Without thinking of the consequences, caring nothing at all for the repercussions, they threw caution to the wind and..."

Ron had lunged for his wand again, but Draco was quicker and the twins’ grip was sure. Ginny’s mouth was still open. Mine wasn’t. I was far beyond a mere dropped jaw just then.

Remus sighed long and loud. "Skip ahead a bit, will you, Padfoot? After all, this is supposed to be a fairy tale, not the editorial section of Playwizard."

Sirius shrugged but obliged. "By the dawn of the seventh and final day, both of them had been changed forever. They spent one more week there in that enchanted place, which is our world is but a night and a day.

"On the first morning after the fortnight had ended, the knight’s guardian found them. Together. The knight watching over his lady and his love as she slept in his arms at long last..."

Harry interrupted him angrily. "Spare us the sentimental embellishment, Sirius. Just get on with the story, since you felt so compelled to tell it."

"The guardian and the knight talked as the lady slept the morning away. At first, they were in fierce disagreement. The knight wanted to return to the kingdom with the lady immediately and challenge the prince for the right to her hand, as the pact had been shattered by all three. But the guardian suggested a more amicable course of action.

"With a powerful, careful spell or two, the lady would remember nothing of her incredible journey. The lady would go through with her marriage to the prince and all would live happily ever after. For the guardian knew that if the knight’s secret was ever revealed to the prince, the ensuing feud would result in a time of unparallelled chaos in the kingdom. What the guardian did not know at the time... indeed, could not know... was how deep the knight's love for the princess bride was. He agreed to give her up only for the sake of the kingdom, and then only reluctantly.

"So the two men carried out this plan. The knight insisted on keeping a final tryst with his lady, and insisted his guardian leave them for seven more days. Then on the first morning of the next week, he and the guardian cast the spell of oblivion over her and transported her back to the kingdom. The knight and his guardian entered into a pact of silence... and together, they aided in bringing the prince and his lady back together again.

"The royal marriage was celebrated far and wide. The guardian breathed a sigh of relief. The knight was relieved and glad for his companions’ joy... but unlike the lady, he didn’t have the luxury of forgetting. His only consolation was that the prince whom he’d sworn fealty to so long ago would live happily ever after with the lady he would always love. Forever and ever. The End."

Sirius stood up from the arm of Hermione’s chair. His eyes rested on each of the Three in turn.

"Not all fairy tales are pleasant in the telling... or have happy endings. I apologize to everyone present for my part in this. At the time, I thought it the best solution for all involved. Now I’m starting to think it was one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made. The only other lapse in judgment comparable was talking Lily and Prongs into letting Wormtail be Secret-Keeper. Perhaps all this could have been prevented if I hadn’t interfered."

Hermione had flushed pink. It was almost as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, but somehow had to.

"Is this... if this... if this is a true story, why can’t I remember any of it? I know of no charm that safely and selectively erases memory in such a seamless fashion."

Remus sighed again. "Hermione, Padfoot is right in reminding you that you don’t know quite everything. It turns out that they enlisted my help in ensuring safe, sweet oblivion for you. In all my journeying, I’ve stumbled upon many useful spells..."

So that was what Hermione’s sleep-talking had been all about!

The shadow by my finger cast

Divides the future from the past:

Before it, sleeps the unborn hour,

In darkness, and beyond thy power:

Behind its unreturning line,

The vanished hour, no longer thine:

One hour alone is in thy hands,

The now on which the shadow stands.

It was part of the spell that had been cast over her. Talk about a sleep and a forgetting.

"We’ve kept the secret for all these years," Remus continued. "We thought it was worth it when we saw how happy you and Ron appeared to be..."

"I can’t believe that either of you would do that to me," interjected Ron. He was staring at both of his best friends incredulously, as Maureen’s hand caressed his shoulder gently. "Of all the conniving, nasty, unfair things to do!"

Harry was mad at the world just then. "As if you’re the saint! You’ve got your own damned mistress sitting right next to you!"

"Maureen has nothing to do with what you did to me, Harry. An outsider is one thing. Hermione is quite another." His eyes... oh, they glittered dangerously. I knew nothing could ever be the same between them again. "If you wanted her, why didn’t you say so years ago? I could have killed you back then and spared you years of pining and self-inflicted anguish."

"Killed me?" Harry laughed that notion to bitter scorn. "How exactly would you have done it? Anyway, it’s highly dubious that my untimely death would have kept your trousers zipped. You’ve made her miserable, Ron. She’s spent the past six years and more trying her best to make you happy. Yet and still you’ve always blamed her for not being the wife you wanted..."

"Perhaps she would have been more of a wife to me if you hadn’t shagged her before we even had the chance to say ‘I do!’ I'm not blaming her for not being an ideal wife. I'm blaming her for not trying to be a wife at all. She worked night and day at solving everyone else's problems, then refuses over and over again to take part in solving ours..."

"She might have put more effort into it if she’d thought she’d get some reciprocation!" Harry said hotly. Ron rounded on him, eyes blazing.

"There you go again, talking out the back of your broomstick. Switch shoes with me and we'll see if you don’t end up doing the same..."

"Don’t you two even think about discussing me as if I’m not here!" shouted Hermione, standing up so suddenly that her chair fell over on its back. "I’m so horrified right now that I can’t begin to know what to think or how to feel! Both of you are worse than despicable. You’ve treated me as if I am an object, or some mindless doll. I am not anyone’s plaything, nor their trophy!

"Ron, you made me fall in love with you. I wasn’t even thinking about a soulmate back in those days when we were young and innocent. All I cared about were my books, and fun, and my friends, and winning the war. You won me over so long ago that I never really considered anyone else taking your place. In the beginning, I wanted you and only you. Can you honestly blame anyone else besides you for your infidelity?

"And Harry, perhaps I was just as much to blame as you were for what happened all those years ago. If I really did go chasing after you that time, I’m sure that I had an inkling of what I’d find. What I am furious about is that you didn’t trust my judgment enough to allow me to make my own decisions. Sirius and Remus had no business interfering, and yet you allowed them to. What you did was beyond wrong. It shows that you had no respect for me and my ability to make the best choice... my own choice.

"Well, now it’s all out in the open. The famous Friendship is a damned lie. If I never see the both of you again, it’ll be too soon."

With those words, I do believe she was going to Disapparate. But the instant before she popped into thin air, Hermione realized she was missing something important...

"Harry, you still have my wand. I want it back."

As she stood in front of him with her palm outstretched, even as enraged as she was just then... she trembled a little. And I wondered what was going through her head, her world suddenly inverted with the realization that someone very dear to her had spent so many years loving her in vain, knowing that she would never, indeed could never rightfully return the sentiment.

But there was nothing tragic about this particular admirer. If he felt either sadness or regret, it did not register on his face.

Instead, there was a kiss in his eyes. A kiss and a promise of something more than that. By the time she reached him, she wasn’t blinking any more and her breathing was shallow.

He reached into his robes, and handed her back the wand in question...

She touched it, then drew back.

"Take the Safety Charm off, Harry. I’m not going to hurt myself. Or anyone else. Not now." Surprisingly calm.

He tightened his fists around her wand. It glowed from green to blue.

Neither of them took their eyes from one another for a moment. Hermione’s had gone liquid amber with uncertainty. Malachite fire smoldered in the depths of Harry’s. I saw no uncertainty there... indeed, I was thankful that a look was just a look. For that gaze, if tangible, would have liquefied the very elements.

By the time Hermione turned away at last, she was flushed.

"Brother and sister. Of course," I muttered to my husband under my breath, who was just as stunned as his twin, then shared a knowing look with Anya.

Dangling her wand between her fingertips, Hermione said, "Since this seems to be storytime, I’d like to continue Sirius’ little tale."

"There was once a baseborn princess who was cruelly betrayed by not only her prince, but by the knight who had sworn to protect her always. In doing so, that prince and that knight made her the laughingstock of the entire kingdom."

Her brown eyes were awash with tears... I had to look away. For never in my life had I seen such anguish written on a woman’s face.

"Heart bleeding and torn, there was only one thing that the princess could do...

She walked over to Ron. Slid her wedding rings from her finger. And dropped them both in Mo’s lap. The other woman recoiled in reflex... for it hadn’t been twenty-four hours since she’d been on the receiving end of Hermione’s wand.

"She renounced her crown, and said to the prince that she no longer wished to be his princess. Because she hadn’t been princess of his heart for a long time...and although make-believe is all right in fairy tales, it has no place in real life."

Ron took the rings from Mo’s lap. Clasped the rings in his palm so tightly that the veins in his hands worked. Pressed that fist up to his forehead... and perhaps it was my overactive imagination, but I do believe that a tear fell from his eye.

There was no time to dwell on that, though. For Hermione was casting a spell that I’d never seen before... and judging from the looks on most of the faces, I wasn’t the only one lost.

When she was done, she’d conjured something... a revolving loop of glowing rope with three thick strands--one blue, one red, and one green. The skeins rotated about each other, forming a triple helix that generated a whole lot of wind... everyone’s hair was flying.

That was Sirius. Indeed, all of the men in the room looked horrified save Draco, and even he seemed to be having a moment of disbelief.

"Listen to me," he said. "I know you’re hurting right now, but the Covenant has nothing to do with your pain. If you withdraw from it, Hermione, you know what will happen."

"I am beyond care."

He raised his wand. "I will stop you."

"Sirius, you cannot stop me and you know it. Let me finish my story... for yours has just shattered my life into a thousand pieces, and I cannot let it be."

Leaving the loop revolving madly in the center of the room, she faced the man standing in the doorway again.

"Then she went to the knight," she said to Harry, slowly, "and told him that he not only violated the code of chivalry by his rash actions, he broke faith and trust with her by using one brain to make decisions for two adults. For ‘love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.’ And she told the knight in parting that she wondered if he’d ever really been in love with her... or simply the idea of her... or the idea of love itself."

Hermione reached into the whirling vortex, and pulled something out. It was the blue strand. She wrapped it around her arm... and it disappeared into her right ring finger.

And she was still crying silent tears.

"So the princess broke Covenant with the prince and the knight, broke the Covenant of ages, and went into self-imposed exile. To regain what the prince and the knight had stolen from her so long ago... herself. The End."

She Disapparated without another word.