The Darkest Days

"Morgania?" Harry asked again, as if to make sure there was no overlooked detail.

"Yes, Dad. She said her name was Morgania."

Harry and Kiera were sitting on the bed in the now ruined room.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Yes."

"Morgania what, though? Did she give her last name?" Harry questioned, probing for answers.

"Of course she did, Dad." Kiera replied sarcastically and snippily. "Right after we shook hands, talked about the weather, and I introduced myself."

"We're not going to get anywhere if you keep on like that," he chided.

"Don't you get it, Dad?" she exclaimed, rising from the bed and whirling around to face him. "There's nowhere to 'get.' There's no conclusion to draw. It was a freak attempt on my life, I'll probably never see her again. She claimed she was responsible for all the mysterious violence. Come on, she's my age. She's probably just somebody who thinks it's funny to go around scaring the shit out of people and pretending she's the daughter of Voldemort."

"You don't believe that," Harry said softly. "I know you don't."

"It's not as though I would be singled out as a target," she gulped, now close to crying. But she was lying. Blatantly and carelessly lying. She turned away from her father, so he wouldn't see the tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to roll down her cheek.

Holding back a sob, she began to remember the moment, that day. She looked over her shoulder. The contents of the Pensieve were swirling again. Kiera tried to block her emotion, clear her mind as she had so often done through Occlumency, but it was to no avail. The memory appeared in the mirror. Harry became curious and moved closer, but the scene was foggy.

"Don't look," Kiera pleaded. "There's nothing there."

"What haven't you told me?" Harry asked, soothingly. "What are you trying to hold back, trying to hide? What happened?"

She couldn't lie, he would find out. Reluctantly she let her mind go again and instantly the figures in the Pensieve cleared.

The first figure was Kiera herself, at the age of eleven. She was small for her age then, and still was now. The second figure was another young witch, hate furrowing her brow, a maniacal glint in her eye. Towering over Kiera was the corpse of none other than Albus Dumbledore. But not like he had ever been.

His skin was ashen gray, his beard matted and tangled. His tattered robes bore a sickly green color to them, and his hat was pushed askew. Saliva dripped from his open mouth and the eyes that had once been warm were now hollow and expressionless. The greatest sorcerer in the world had become an Inferius, controlled by a witch no more than eleven.

Dumbledore attacked, sending the eleven-year-old Kiera scrambling out of the way, diving for her wand. Kiera had been trying to remember, searching back on her years of knowledge, how do you defeat an Inferius?

Dumbledore again snatched at her, but she ducked and skidded across the floor. In a moment of dawning comprehension she shouted, "Incendio!" Flames shot from the tip of her wand, engulfing the Inferius. Smoke poured from the creature, stinging and stabbing her eyes. When at last it cleared, she searched for the witch, but all Kiera saw was a swishing, midnight blue cloak.

Harry stared at the Pensieve. "You've been attacked by this girl before?" he asked, disbelievingly. Kiera nodded. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I wanted to forget," she choked back a sob. "I wanted to pretend that nothing had happened. Get back to the real world. I wanted to believe that there was no reason that had happened. Like maybe she got confused. But it was always there, gnawing at the back of my mind. Preventing me from finding the peace to get to sleep at night. Preventing me from living the way I want to."

Harry took his daughter in his arms. "I'm sorry, sweetie. But you're a Potter, and Potters don't often get to do as they please. You've been marked for things like this since the day you were born. By being my daughter, you were made a target."

"That would explain the mark," she said, hesitantly.

"Mark?" Harry inquired.

She held up her left hand. Burned into the flesh of her palm was a target. Etched into the middle was an elaborate "M."

"M..." Kiera mused. "Morgania."

"I'd almost forgotten," Harry said. "There's definately more to Morgania than meets the eye."

"Yeah," Kiera agreed. "For example, why does she look like me?"

Harry wiped the tears off Kiera's cheek. "I think it's time to pay a little visit to the Ministry of Magic." He snapped his fingers, and the room disappeared.