Replay

Replay

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Chapter Twenty

Harry Redux

Hermione leaned back, put her hand over her stomach, eyes closed, and sighed contentedly. Harry grinned. "You don't have to rub it in quite so much, Hermione. I'm not a good cook. I get it, I get it," he said, rolling his eyes as he tilted his glass and caught the last dregs of the beer he'd been drinking with his shepherd's pie, which he had disposed of very quickly. She had also not failed to comment on the fact that after eating a toasted cheese sandwich at his house he had ordered a rather filling meal at the pub.

"Well," Hermione said sleepily, her eyes still closed, "I obviously married the right man as far as cooking is concerned. Neville is much better than I am, and he doesn't let Crookshanks steal my food...."

"You were the one singing the praises of Crups. Now you know how wrong you were. And what do you mean the right man? You were never interested in me."

"No, but Ron's as bad a cook as you are. I could have been eating burnt toasted cheese sandwiches for the rest of my life if he--if we hadn't split up..."

Harry was about to remind her that Ron had been the one to end their relationship, but decided not to. As anxious as he'd been for the rows to end he would have given anything to hear them scream at each other again after Ron told Hermione to sod off in no uncertain terms, in front of the entire school (it was during lunch at the Gryffindor table), giving a long list of all of the reasons why he no longer wanted to be saddled with her and wished he'd never met her. The following months of their not talking, not rowing, not even deigning to be in the same room unless they had a lesson together did not make Harry's last year in school any more tolerable, on top of everything else he had to deal with. And as much as he missed all three of them being close friends, Harry also would have given anything if the horrible tragedy that brought the three of them together again had never occurred....

"He is a terrible cook, it's true," Harry agreed. "You know that spell Luna put on their cooker so that he can't get near it? He forgets about it constantly and keeps getting thrown across the room whenever he tries walking too near it," Harry laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

"I know--Ginny told me. You'd think by now he'd been hurled against the sink enough times." She shook her head, leaning forward again with her elbows on the table, looking wistful.

"Yeah," Harry said agreeably, putting his glass down with a thunk. "You escaped a lifetime of bad cooking and forgetfulness. And I have two best friends who aren't always trying to kill each other. I like it much better this way," he added, trying to sound cheerful and put out of his mind yet again the reason that they'd become friends again.

Hermione gave him a strangely diffident half-smile. "Although...." she started to say softly, then stopped and sighed again, staring into space.

Harry felt a momentary panic in his chest. "Although what? You couldn't possibly be--I mean--Ron. The disaster that was you and Ron. Tell me you're not--"

Hermione gave a forced laugh. "Don't be stupid, Harry! Neville and I are--are perfectly--perfectly h-h-hap-happy!" she finally said, even while she burst into tears.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Severus Snape had never thought to go shopping with Harry Potter's son. He made an excuse for their not taking the Knight Bus; the mother drove them to the village and they took a train to London. (Severus knew that everyone on the Knight Bus would see the resemblance between Theodore Harrison and Harry Potter immediately; he felt it wiser to postpone the gawping as long as possible.)

Severus scrutinised the boy while waiting in the Muggle bank lobby for his mother to withdraw funds. He quickly decided that Harrison bore a greater resemblance to James than to Harry Potter; he had no scar and his hazel eyes were the exact same colour as his grandfather's. He was also taller and healthier-looking than his father had been when he'd first come to Hogwarts. This boy had clearly had plenty to eat, fresh air and exercise, as well as a doting mother. Severus felt a familiar hostility well up in him as he recalled meeting James Potter for the first time. The name 'Severus Snape' had been cause for immediate merriment with Potter and Black especially, and they did not cease to be amused by it for seven years. If only that had been the extent of his problems with them....

As they moved from shop to shop in Diagon Alley, more and more witches and wizards stopped to stare and point at young Harrison. Severus did his best to shield the boy from what people were saying, growing quieter and quieter as he found it increasingly difficult to stop the hateful memories of James Potter invading his brain. With every recollection came fresh pain; Severus was finding it very difficult to continue to be civil to the boy, to protect him and behave as though he were a random student. It was as though he had travelled back in time and was shopping with a young James Potter.

Harrison was oblivious both to the interest of the wizards around him and to Severus Snape's hostility. He hopped around his Potions professor excitedly, asking whether he could buy a broom to keep at his mother's house. (His mother decided that it would be too tempting for him before the term began.) In general, Harrison became the equivalent of a deeply annoying boil to Severus, one that he was thinking very fondly of lancing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Mum! Rory! Did you see that?"

Ginny stood at the counter with Mr Flourish, going over the invoice for the new texts, trying to assure him that even if a number of students failed to gain entry to the course due to low marks on their OWLs someone would eventually buy the extra books.

"We need to guarantee that there is no risk of any student not being able to purchase a text," she repeated for what seemed the millionth time. Mr Flourish frowned at her.

"Mum--" Ruby said breathlessly, tugging at her mother's robe while her sister stood nearby lightly stroking the resident bookshop cat, a large tawny-coloured tom.

"Ssh, Ruby! I'm busy," Ginny said tersely, glancing at her for only a moment and removing her fingers from her robes before turning back to Mr Flourish.

"I think, Professor Weasley, that you must be under the mistaken impression that we have people beating down our door to own copies of Dangers of the Dark Arts," the wizened old man said acidly, tapping a yellow-stained fingernail on the ornate gold-leafed book cover and leering at her from under bushy grey eyebrows that constituted all of the hair growing on his head, apart from the tufts protruding from his ears. "If dark wizards were still threatening us all, that would be another matter, of course.... I couldn't keep this sort of thing on the shelves for more than a moment back when You-Know-Who--"

"But Mum--" Ruby whinged, wishing she dared to tug on her mother's robes again.

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Ginny interrupted him hotly, ignoring her daughter. "So dreadfully sorry that my husband's defeating Voldemort has hurt your business!" she said, her voice rising. Mr Flourish winced, which just added fuel to the fire that was Ginny's temper. "Oh, come on, Mr Flourish. Ten years later and you still can't say the name? VoldemortVoldemortVOLDEMORT!" she repeated, causing customers to look askance at her, while the old man cowered back against a bookshelf crammed so full of volumes they appeared to have been hammered into place.

Ruby gave up trying to distract her mother. He was already gone, anyway. At length they left the bookshop, her mother's red hair curling in sweaty tendrils around her face, which made Ruby hopeful that they could talk her into getting some ice cream at Florean Fortescue's (since her mother seemed like she could use something cold herself).

Ruby decided to try again when they were sitting at a table outside Fortescue's eating ice cream cones while their mother tried not to look like she was eyeing their treats covetously and drank a chilled glass of pumpkin juice. Ruby surveyed her mother cautiously; she seemed marginally calmer than she had been in Flourish and Blotts. "So, Mum--did you see him? In the bookshop?"

Ginny blinked in surprise. "See who? I was rather busy talking to Mr Flourish, Ruby, and I don't appreciate you--"

"But the boy! He looked exactly like dad!"

Ginny raised one eyebrow, then resumed sipping her pumpkin juice. "Don't be ridiculous, Ruby. Every little boy with dark hair and glasses does not look like your father."

"I know every boy doesn't. But this one did. He didn't have the same colour eyes. Brown, I think. And no scar--"

"--but otherwise he was identical to your father," Ginny finished for her in an airy, sceptical tone. Ruby sank down in her chair and wished she was eating Brussels sprouts or something she could refuse to finish in order to irk her mother. If she didn't finish her ice cream she'd be the only one suffering. It didn't help that a smirk was hovering around the edges of her sister's mouth as she demurely licked her ice cream.

"Oh, Mummy," Rory said suddenly. "Don't forget that we need to stop at the butcher's in the village to get the chicken for dinner."

Ginny closed her eyes and sighed. "That's right. I did nearly forget. All right then, girls, let's finish up so we can get the Knight Bus to the village...." She opened her eyes and looked fondly at Rory, the sun glinting off her dark hair as she nibbled delicately at the top edge of her ice cream cone. "It's a good thing you remembered, love. I wouldn't have done. Whatever would I do without you, Rory?"

"Probably have to wipe your own bum after you go to the loo," Ruby said very quietly, picking a currant out of her black currant-caramel swirl ice cream. Pausing before she popped the currant into her mouth, she looked up in horror at her mother, whose face was red with fury. "Oh, bloody hell," Ruby whispered quickly when she saw that, attempting to give her mother a conciliatory smile. "Did--did I say that out loud?" she added feebly.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Severus Snape wrinkled up his nose upon entering Ollivanders; dust lay thickly everywhere and both the boy and his mother gazed in awe, as they had also done at Flourish and Blotts, Madam Malkin's and the apothecary. Ollivander's luminous eyes appeared suddenly out of the darkness of the shop; he raised one eyebrow as his eerie eyes remained fixed on the eleven-year-old boy who stood nervously near the counter, gazing around at the seemingly infinite display of boxes.

"Ah, Mr Pott--"

"--Harrison," Severus said quickly. "This is Theodore Harrison. And his mother, er--" He realised suddenly that he had no idea what the woman's name was.

"Matilda," she said, smiling, extending her hand to Mr Ollivander. "But call me Tilda."

Snape found himself staring at her profile, wondering what she recalled. Ollivander gave her a wavering smile. "How do you do, Miss Harrison? And what a fine son you have.... You are a Muggle?" he said suddenly. She nodded.

"Yes. This has all been quite fascinating. Every shop stranger than the last! Do all of those little boxes have wands? How on earth will Teddy ever choose just one of them?"

"Ah, but he shall not. The wand chooses the wizard, Miss Harrison." He fixed the boy with a watery eye. "Your wand hand?" The boy raised his right hand uncertainly and Mr Ollivander removed a tape measure from his pocket, starting to gauge the boy's arms and legs while explaining the way that Ollivander wands were made. He began selecting boxes from shelves in a seemingly-random fashion while the tape measure continued on its own; Severus could see that Tilda Harrison and her son found this shocking, while Severus was rather bored with it. While visiting Ollivanders with other Muggle families and their children in the previous month he'd found the wand-buying experience especially tedious. Under normal circumstances he could have gone to browse in the bookshop, but he didn't feel comfortable leaving the Harrisons alone. The old man had already nearly blurted out the Potter name. It was a miracle that no one who'd seen the boy had done it yet. How did she think no one would guess?

"No, no, no," Ollivander said repeatedly when the boy's wand-waving efforts still came to nought; he must have tried dozens. He finally went behind his desk and slowly removed a box from a drawer, staring at the lid for a full minute before bringing it to Harrison.

"Try that," he said softly. "Mahogany. Eleven inches. Powerful. Excellent for Transfiguration." He opened the box and the boy reached for the wand tentatively, his gasp actually preceding the shower of red and gold sparks that emerged from the tip. Severus remembered the feeling of warmth he had felt before finding his first wand, which he still owned. He frowned at the wand in the boy's hand; something about it was very, very familiar. It looked used, not new, and appeared to have burn marks on the handle.

Ollivander nodded sagely at the boy, who was staring at the wand in awe. Tilda Harrison seemed equally awe-struck and asked nervously, "How much is it, Mr Ollivander?"

He shook himself, appearing to have forgotten she was there. "Oh, I should not charge you for that, I should not. It is a family heirloom, after all, given to me for safe-keeping. No, I should not charge your son for being chosen by his own grandfather's wand...."

"Grandfather!" Harrison exclaimed in shock. "My--my grandfather's wand? You--you know who my grandfather was? Who my father is?"

"Of course Mr Ollivander doesn't know who your father is or your grandfather was," Tilda Harrison said quickly, throwing Ollivander a hostile glare.

Ollivander was evidently immune to her hostility. "It is a strong line, madam, and will not be denied. That wand chose him for a reason. Wands can rarely be handed down in the same family. But now it is clear that it was retrieved after his grandfather's death and entrusted to me for a reason." He smiled at Harrison. "It has a unicorn hair for the core. A very unusual combination, mahogany and unicorn. Great strength and great delicacy; darkness and light, the hard-working and the pure, untouched. Like the original owner of the wand, you must also be a wizard of contrasts and contradictions, Mr Harrison. That will confuse others and could be to your advantage," he added with a nod.

Tilda Harrison appeared to have grown as impatient as Severus Snape had previously felt with the wand-buying ritual, but now he wouldn't have dreamed of being anywhere else. Harrison's mother looked like she'd prefer to be meeting the queen in her nightclothes.

"Are you certain about this wand, Mr Ollivander? I'd be happy to pay for a wand. I went to Gringotts and still have plenty of gold and silver...."

"No, my dear. That is the boy's wand." He turned to Harrison and smiled at him again. "Use it well, lad. Use it well."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry's mouth worked wordlessly as he glanced around the pub, hoping the other patrons weren't noticing Hermione making a scene. She covered her face with her hands and tears dripped from between her fingers. He watched her helplessly for a half minute, not saying anything, before she raised her tear-stained face to Harry. He swallowed. "Erm, Hermione, perhaps you should talk to Ginny about--about whatever's bothering you--"

Hermione shook her head. "I tried already. She thinks I'm--I'm overreacting and that if I just stop thinking about it everything will be fine.... Which is exactly what my mum said, and what Neville's gran told us, and his meddling old Aunt Enid...."

Harry shook his head in confusion. "Stop thinking about what?"

Hermione sighed. "I tried asking Ginny about what you two did, but she just said I wouldn't want to know. So maybe you'll tell me. Harry--when you and Ginny were--were trying for the twins, how hard was it?"

Harry's eyes went wide. "What? We weren't trying, technically. Are--are you asking--?" He stopped and peered at her, confused. "Um, what are you asking?"

Her mouth was pulled into a grim line. "Did it take many times? I mean--did you have any difficulty?" she said almost inaudibly. Harry felt certain that he was bright red.

"Erm, no, unless having that happen on your first go is--"

Hermione gasped. "You're joking! You mean the first time you weren't using birth control you conceived?" She sounded acutely jealous, which Harry couldn't understand.

"What? Hermione, you've seriously got the wrong end of the stick. So to speak." His face felt even warmer; he wished he had another pint. "That was our first time, period. Do you think we planned to have the twins eight months after we were married? And I'd always heard that you couldn't, erm, you know, on your first time...."

"That's a myth actually. Since a fertile woman is giving off pheromones that are designed to attract a healthy mate, it's even more likely that--"

"Hermione," Harry said, feeling very annoyed. "Healthy mate? Have you decided to leave off being a labour negotiator for elves and narrate nature films? I'm feeling a bit like a hedgehog now..."

Hermione stared at him, shaking her head. "Sorry. I just can't believe that you and Ginny waited that long. I mean--if your first time was a month before the wedding you would have been--let's see--just two weeks shy of your nineteenth birthday!"

Harry looked around nervously. "You pay the bill, Hermione," he whispered. "I'll be in the Gents' with my head in the toilet. I need to do something a little less embarrassing now..."

Hermione started to laugh but it ended up sounding more like a sob. "I'm sorry, Harry. I just--I reckon I didn't think--I mean, even Neville and I--we were so afraid that first time that someone would suddenly decide that they just had to be in the Room of Requirement at that moment--"

"The Room of Requirement? You and Neville? No--don't. I need to get that image out of my mind now...."

Hermione laughed ruefully. "Mostly we were afraid that Ron and Luna would walk in.... I'm just surprised, Harry. About you and Ginny. That's not what she told me."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "All right, what tales did she tell you? Because it's coming back to me now--she said that night that she'd let a friend or two believe that we'd already, erm, well already. Because no one would believe we hadn't anyway..."

"No tales. No details, anyway. Except--well, she did strongly imply that she had no cause to be dissatisfied," Hermione said with a smirk. "I can't believe she was lying."

Harry grimaced. "What? You think she did have cause to be dissatisfied? Oh, right, that's not what you meant," he said when he saw her exasperated face. "Well, as you pointed out, Ruby is Ginny all over again--"

"--and Ruby can be somewhat 'economical' with the truth," Hermione added. "Although--it's not as though you never told a lie in your life." Harry shrugged over that. "But what I don't understand is--how did you wait so long? I would have thought the pair of you... Well, you were always staring at each other in public. You gave every impression that when you were alone together you were going at it like animals."

Harry's jaw dropped. "And when exactly did we give that impression? I had no peace at Grimmauld Place after my sixth year, what with Snape and Remus showing up morning, noon and night to badger me about Occlumency and Legilimency lessons. We might have had some time together during my seventh year if it weren't for--well, you and Ron and the cold war, plus everything else. And after it was all over and we got back from the Ministry, you and Ginny were still in the hospital wing for another month. And even after I bought my house it was impossible to do anything, since she was still so delicate and my Auror training started a week later, and then she had to go back for her seventh year...."

"I was lucky they accepted me in the program," Hermione whispered, remembering. "Madam Pomfrey didn't want to let me go...."

"Nor did Neville," Harry remembered, which brought them full circle. "I thought they were going to kick him out when he kept letting you win during duelling practise."

She shrugged. "Well, he was trying to keep me in the program. Madam Pomfrey was probably right--I shouldn't have done it. I wasn't fit. But even beyond that--I wasn't Auror material anyway; they were right to kick me out... And I like what I'm doing..."

Harry surveyed her shrewdly. "Hermione, you're trying to change the subject. You and Neville. What's going on, exactly?"

She sighed. "Nothing's going on, that's the problem. We've been trying to have a baby for years now. And in the meantime, you and Ginny managed it on the very night you lost your virginity to each other and Ron and Luna turn them out like it's nothing at all...."

Harry guffawed for a moment, but stopped himself quickly. It had been an utter shock to him that Ron had taken to fatherhood the way he had. He and Luna had three boys so far, as though trying to duplicate Molly and Arthur's output, and Ron took great pleasure in rolling around on the lawn of what Harry still thought of as Luna's dad's house, where they now lived, wrestling with little Percy, Cedric and Harry (who was called Hal), for all the world like a golden retriever playing with its pups. At three, four, and six the boys all looked remarkably similar (like small versions of Ron), and if they weren't all together, so Harry could judge by size, he often used the wrong name. And Luna was pregnant again.

"Well, erm, have the pair of you been to see, you know, experts?" he said nervously, wishing that he really was in the loo with his head in a toilet.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I don't know, Harry, would you say talking to every Healer in Britain, Ireland and the rest of Europe, plus Canada and America, plus going to every Muggle fertility clinic in all of those places qualifies?" Her voice had a bitter edge.

Harry was shocked. "Blimey. Is that what you do on all of those holidays?"

Hermione nodded miserably. "What fun, yeah?"

"And--and no one can help? That just seems--odd. I mean, you'd think that with all that witches and wizards can do--and all that Muggle medicine can do, for that matter--"

"Well, see, there's the problem, Harry. You have to actually have something wrong with you to be cured of it," she said abruptly.

Harry stopped dead. "But you just said that you and Neville can't have kids."

"Evidently. But there's absolutely no reason why we can't, according to the experts. They say that we should have had a half-dozen by now. So, I don't know, maybe I'm the last person you should be asking for parenting advice," she added with a sniff.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Thank you for your help, Professor Snape." Tilda Harrison stepped back from the door and prepared to close it, then looked shocked for a second. Snape! she thought. I remember now.... She looked at him suspiciously and he looked suspiciously back, as though he knew what she was thinking. She remembered the things Harry had said about him, the unfairness, but also his bravery, his work for the Order of the Phoenix....

"You are quite welcome, Madam," he said stiffly.

"And--and thank you. For not telling Teddy about--you know. And thank you for not telling anyone we met in the shops. Although that Mr Ollivander--"

He looked at her grimly. "I did not need to tell him who your son's father is for the same reason that I did not need to tell anyone else who saw him. Surely you noticed the reactions? I can appreciate that you do not wish to reveal the, erm, circumstances of his conception, which are naturally a private affair. I mean--a private matter," he amended, annoyed with himself for his sloppy choice of words. "But you must understand--there is not a person at Hogwarts who will not immediately know who his father is. You seem to remember his telling you some--things. Surely he mentioned his--fame?"

He wished he hadn't spoken; she bore the most terror-stricken face he'd ever seen on anyone. "You're certain? I thought--Mr Ollivander--but--but everyone will know? It's been so many years now--"

"Ten years since he defeated the Dark Lord. But to many it is like yesterday. It is possible that it may appear in the Daily Prophet after today's trip, if any of the wizards who saw your son speaks to a reporter. You truly did not notice the reactions?"

She wrung her hands. "I was so fascinated by what I was seeing around me that--that--"

"Please, Miss Harrison," he said stiffly as she began crying in earnest.

"Oh, no," she sobbed, sinking down onto the bottom step of the staircase. "How can I send him now? It'll be far worse, won't it, to have everyone know who his dad is, than no one knowing? And he's so been looking forward to this..."

"You would deny him his right to a magical education because you wish to hide his parentage from him?" Severus whispered in shock. She looked stung by this.

"Are you telling me that you don't think the other children will give him grief over this?"

Severus thought of something else, though, that she didn't know. She didn't know that Harry Potter was a Hogwarts teacher. She did not know that her son would be taught by his own father. He decided that he would not tell her, or she would surely forbid him to go. Severus observed her hunched shoulders, vaguely recalling a young woman (she appeared to be much younger than she was now) lying face-down on a couch, stunned, while he modified her memory.... But then how did she remember so much?

She ran her fingers through hair that was about equal parts blonde and grey, her large light eyes shining with tears. "I've tried so hard to protect him, and now--"

"You cannot protect him forever. There isn't a school of magic in the world where he could go and not be recognised for who he is." He sighed. "You should simply accept that the time has come when this can no longer be kept a secret."

She hugged her knees, nodding, then looked up at him imploringly. "Can I ask a tremendous favour of you, Professor Snape?"

He froze. Very hesitantly, he responded, "Of course, Madam."

"Please be there for my Teddy. If he needs to talk to someone. Could you? I--I'm so afraid of how he'll respond." She sighed, examining her tear-soaked skirt. "He'll be furious with me. He's been begging me for the last two years to tell him who his dad is."

"Is there a particular reason why you have not?" He tried to sound ignorant.

She grimaced. "Well, the circumstances of--of Teddy's conception were--unusual, shall we say. It's not exactly the sort of thing I want to discuss..."

He nodded. Yes, he thought. An adult shagging a sixteen-year-old is something you don't want to bring up with your eleven-year-old, let alone a younger child...

"So, please, Professor? Just be there for Teddy? No preferential treatment, of course. I just--I think you understand what I'm talking about...." She had turned deep pink and he nodded; he did indeed know exactly what she was talking about. However, she thought his nod meant something else. "You will? Oh, thank you so much!" She smiled through her tears and stood, extending her hand; he took it reluctantly and she pumped his hand vigorously as she gabbled, "I don't know what to say! It will be so much easier knowing that you'll be looking out for him should anyone mention his--his father...."

When she had finally withdrawn her hand from his, he gave her a very small bow with his head and said, "Just have him down at King's Cross on the first of September. Platform Nine and Three Quarters." He handed her Harrison's ticket. "You'll have to walk through the barrier between platforms Nine and Ten. There will be others doing the same. The train leaves at eleven, so don't be late." He couldn't bring himself to say anything else. The last thing he intended to do was look out for her son, for James Potter's grandson and Harry Potter's son. He nodded to her again before turning to leave.

But when the door closed behind him, he turned, uncertain. Should he have told her that Harry Potter was going to be one of her son's teachers? And then another thought occurred to him: Should I warn Potter that he's coming? From what the mother had said he had the distinct impression that Potter did not know that he had an illegitimate son.

He knew where the Potters lived because they had dutifully sent him an invitation to their wedding nine years before. He remembered it very vividly because he'd thought it the height of arrogance (and quite typical) for Potter to be living in a former church. He hadn't been planning to attend but Dumbledore had convinced him that it would be good form, no matter how little he wished to spend a hot August afternoon pretending to be happy for Potter and Ginny Weasley. However, this served his purpose now; he knew exactly where he was going and without further ado he Apparated to St Clare's Chapel.

When his vision had cleared he looked around, blinking; he stood in an overgrown graveyard, tall wildflowers waving in the grasses surrounding the ancient gravestones and monuments. He was at the edge of the property; in the distance, on a terrace near the house, he could see a table and chairs. The Potters seemed to be having their tea in the late summer sunshine, out-of-doors. Severus could see Potter's wife, her bright hair aflame in the evening sun, sitting at one end of the table, dishing up food for their twin daughters. The two dark heads looked identical from this distance, so like their father, who sat at the opposite end of the table from his wife, laughing. On a manicured section of the otherwise overgrown lawn adjacent to the terrace a tennis court had been created; some rackets were lying carelessly on a bench near the net. Four bicycles, two large and two small, were also standing nearby, the tall grass brushing the pedals.

Severus' eyes fell on the girls again. They don't know that they have an older brother. This was going to be hard to explain all around. He continued to watch them, and as he did so, he lost his nerve, pulling out his wand again and Disapparating silently. He arrived in Diagon Alley, where it branched off into Knockturn Alley. Glancing around furtively, he strode into Knockturn Alley and immediately found the disreputable pub he sought, a pub where no one bothered you if you didn't want to be bothered, where the employees seemed even to avoid accidentally looking at the patrons' faces, so they could never be called upon to give testimony before the Wizengamot....

The truth will come out in due time, he thought. And will it be Potter whose reputation is ruined? No. There would be a small scandal for him, but it would pass. And while his wife and daughters might suffer some scrutiny and discomfort, for some reason it was Tilda Harrison who occupied his mind; she was the one about whom he worried, as she would have to face her son with the truth about what she'd done when Potter was a mere teenager... He picked up the firewhiskey and drank it quickly, feeling it burn his throat; as he assimilated the burning sensation, embraced it, he closed his eyes, thinking about a tall Muggle woman with greying blonde hair and large light eyes....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first of September dawned with a whimper, the sky over all of Britain, it seemed, blanketed with grey clouds that seemed to bode nothing good.

Ginny sighed and stared at the ceiling in the grey dawn light. The gilding and red paint was flaking off the heavy hand-hewn timbers and boards that supported the weighty tile roof of St Clare's, but she rather liked the worn, angled bedroom ceiling. It was comforting and familiar. That evening they'd be sleeping again at the top of the north tower of Hogwarts, where Dumbledore had helped them create a home within the castle when she and Harry had first been hired, but which never really felt like home to her.

Only a year after they'd taken the Hogwarts jobs they'd had to work out what to do about the girls' education, since neither they nor Molly were keen on the idea of her teaching the twins. (Molly had been taking care of the girls when they were teaching lessons, but she'd indicated that she had no interest in actually being their tutor after a particularly painful prank Ruby had played upon her grandmother involving a salamander and stinging nettles.) So the girls had gone off to the Barnard Castle primary school, which involved a lot of back-and-forth between Hogsmeade and County Durham on the Knight Bus, although after the first month the girls were in school Ginny and Harry had decided that it would be nice to spend the weekends in their own house, where they now went every weekend during the school terms, in addition to all of the school holidays.

Ginny was glad; she missed St Clare's more than she thought she would when she started teaching. Somehow living at Hogwarts as Professor Weasley (it was deemed too confusing to have two Professor Potters) made her feel unsettled, as though she ceased to be married when she walked into the castle. She knew that this was ridiculous, yet the feeling persisted. It didn't help that Dumbledore and then McGonagall preferred that professors' private lives remain just that, private, so Ginny and Harry behaved as though they weren't married whenever they were in "public" at Hogwarts, although most of the students--if they read and remembered their history texts--knew that Harry had married her (it was public knowledge) and that they had two daughters.

However, they respected the wishes of their employer and did not walk the corridors arm in arm; they did not even show their children to the students. (They had a special passage out of their tower for taking the girls to Hogsmeade early every morning in order to hail the bus.) And Ginny had to seethe in silence while sixteen- and seventeen-year-old girls preened before Harry and batted their eyes at him. She wanted to ask them whether they were just bloody stupid or had never heard that The Boy Who Lived was a married man, not to mention their teacher. Perhaps they just didn't care. She laughed for a moment, wondering whether the same girls would have been throwing themselves at Harry if he still looked as he had when he was in school....

"What's so funny?"

She turned to see Harry gazing back at her affectionately and smiled at him. "Nothing." She rolled over and put her head on his bare chest, tracing a dark line of hair down his stomach, making him flinch. She patted his stomach now instead, feeling the resistance both of his muscles and the thin layer of fat that lay just below the surface. "Where has the thin little runt gone that I married?" she asked playfully, rubbing his belly.

"He's been haring after his wife for the last eight years as she rides her bicycle all over the county and plays tennis obsessively in an effort to, and I quote, 'not have hips the size of a house.'" He patted his own stomach now. "To do all of that I need to eat well."

She detected a defensive note in his voice. "I didn't say you were fat. You're lovely," she whispered, kissing his shoulder, meaning it. "I'm just trying to remember when you actually started looking like a man instead of a little boy. I don't think I could have caught you and prevented you from scattering bits of yourself all over the ground if you weren't still a skinny little thing at the end of your sixth year...."

"My being scrawny was life-saving that day, it's true," he agreed. "But I wasn't little," he added, the defensive tone having come back.

"Yes, I remember. When you'd grown a fraction of an inch taller than Hermione you were positively crowing about it," she laughed, grinning. He turned over and started tickling her; she screeched for a second before attempting to clamp her mouth shut. "Stop it, stop!" she gasped as he continued, although she had a feeling that he didn't want to be using his hands for tickling her any more; when he did stop it was by giving her a look that always took her breath away and bringing his mouth down on hers....

At that moment one of their mobile phones started ringing; it was playing a Muggle tune Ginny didn't know, so she knew it was Harry's. As the tune continued to play and Harry continued to kiss and grope her, she opened her eyes and attempted unsuccessfully to speak and kiss at the same time. He obligingly moved his mouth to her neck. "Um, don't you think you should get that, Harry?" He murmured something inaudible against her skin and otherwise continued what he was doing. Ginny battled the urge to let him continue and the urge to stop the noise the damn phone was making. The phone won. She rolled over, away from Harry's grasp, inducing him to grunt in a complaining tone; she picked the phone up from his bedside table and answered it.

"Yeah?" she said tersely to the caller.

"Ginny?"

She sat up abruptly, pushing Harry's hands away. (He'd decided to try to learn whether she could carry on a conversation whilst he was making that virtually impossible.)

"Mum!" she cried, her eyes wide, which was all that was needed for Harry to spring away from her and cease all physical contact.

"I thought I'd called Harry. Oh, dear, I must have made a mistake...."

"No, you did. I just answered it myself so it would stop playing that tune he's so fond of," she said truthfully, sticking her tongue out at Harry. He responded in kind.

"Oh, all right. I thought I was going spare...."

"What is it, Mum?" she said impatiently. Harry was continuing to display his tongue to her. Ginny was very glad that her mother couldn't see him; she would have been scandalised.

"Well, I'm sorry, love, but I can't pick the girls up at school today. Ron and Luna have asked me to watch the boys while they go to the midwife; there's no one else. Can you or Harry do it? I know it means missing part of the feast, and it's the first day of the term and all...."

"No, it's fine. I'm sure Harry would be glad to pick the girls up. And he probably won't miss the feast at all." Ginny grinned at Harry, who frowned at her. He stuck his tongue out at her again and revisited the idea of distracting her, which made her gasp.

"What was that? Are you all right, Ginny?" her mother wanted to know.

"Erm, yes, Mum, just fine. We just--we have a lot of things to do today. Better get to it!" she said more excitedly than she'd intended; she was very glad that her mother had no way of knowing exactly why her voice had become so high-pitched.

"You don't sound all right, but if you say so.... Well, I'd best be making your father's breakfast. Have a good trip!"

"Yeah," Ginny gasped, trying to keep her voice even, despite the things that Harry was doing. "We--we will. Say hello to Dad for me. And Ron and Luna and the boys," she managed to gasp, wanting to both throttle Harry and do some other things to him that were the polar opposite of throttling.

"Ta!" her oblivious mother said. Ginny returned the phone to the table and glared at Harry, eyes narrowing.

"You've been very, naughty, Mr Potter. I think a detention is in order."

Harry grinned mischievously at her and kissed the tip of her nose. "That was exactly what I was hoping for, Professor Weasley."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Teddy shifted from foot to foot, pulling at his shirt collar, which felt very stiff and uncomfortable. The fabric of the robes was very warm as well, but at least he'd managed not to fall into the lake on the trip across the dark water that was led by Professor Grubbly-Plank. It had been a close call, too, for the water had been quite choppy and the wind had a hint of rain in it, which Teddy hoped would wait until they'd reached the castle. The idea of being in a huge old castle in Scotland, full of ghosts and witches and wizards, during a violent thunderstorm gave him a wonderful shivery feeling inside.

He'd been anticipating this for so long it was hard to believe the day had finally come when he was arriving at Hogwarts as a first year student, bearing the wand of his mysterious dead grandfather, whose name he still did not know but was determined to learn as soon as he could. Surely someone else at the school would see the family resemblance, as Mr Ollivander had, and he'd finally learn where he'd come from and why he was magical when his mum was not. This gave him an even greater thrill than anticipating being in the castle during the rainstorm.

"What d'you suppose they're gonna make us do?" the boy standing next to him whispered as they waited restlessly in the room to which Grubbly-Plank had led them. His name was Nate and Teddy had already made friends with him on the train. Nate's brown eyes were large with apprehension and Teddy swallowed and fingered his wand in his robe pocket, wondering what magical feats they'd have to perform to be Sorted into their houses.

"Dunno," Teddy said shortly. "Mum told me a few things, but she's a Muggle so she didn't come to Hogwarts and doesn't know a lot."

Nate snorted. "My mum could have told me a lot, but she chose not to," he said bitterly, taking out his wand and admiring the rosewood handle. Nate had told Teddy on the train that his mother was a witch who'd taken up living as a Muggle on principle after his dad died. He'd grown up thinking he was a Muggle, not knowing his own mother could do magic or knowing anything about magic until he'd received his Hogwarts letter and she'd had to explain it all. Unlike Teddy, Nate had lived in London and knew a lot of other kids who lived with just their mums, as his mother worked at a private charity assisting single mums (but he knew no one else like Teddy who didn't even know his father's name). They'd bonded immediately because of this, but it didn't hurt that everything was equally new to them both.

It seemed ages ago that Professor Snape had told them to wait to be admitted to the Great Hall and explained the house system (but not the Sorting) to them. Teddy had resisted the urge to grin and wave at the Potions master but had given him a small smile instead, receiving a very small head-bob in return. Nate had asked him about this and Teddy had told him about the shopping trip to Diagon Alley, and how much he was looking forward to Potions, which was clearly taught by the coolest teacher in the school. Nate had merely said, "Huh," and looked at Professor Snape with a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

Finally, the doors to the Great Hall opened and Professor Snape led them down the centre of an enormous room with a ceiling that was a maelstrom of whirling dark grey clouds, to the high table at the front. Before this sat a small stool with a very tattered old hat on it. Everything Teddy saw made him grin ear to ear, from the floating candles to the elaborate robes and hats on the professors at the high table to the ghosts wafting about the rafters. He almost laughed out loud when the Sorting Hat began its song. A singing hat! Everything just seemed too good to be true. Teddy felt like he was living in a dream.

Nate was one of the earlier students called to the front; as he sat on the stool with the hat sitting on his shoulders, completely obscuring his head, Teddy peered around a taller boy's shoulder, seeing that Nate was positively shaking with anticipation. In almost no time at all the hat was crying out, "Gryffindor!" eliciting another roar of approval from the very rowdy Gryffindor table, where three or four other students had already been sorted.

It seemed to take an eternity for Professor Snape to get to "Harrison." When his name was read at last, Teddy stepped forward and sat on the stool, not noticing that the entire hall had gone very quiet for a long moment before erupting in hushed whispers that, cumulatively, started to sound like a distant avalanche. Once his head was inside the hat, however, Teddy could hear none of it. Instead he heard a strange voice in the darkness:

"Ah, what have we here? Hmm.... A good line, bravery in each generation, actions of historical significance, in fact... But you will forge your own path, yes indeed.... I see greatness for you, if only you are not bound by the past.... Here is one who was born for GRYFFINDOR!" the hat finally cried, making Teddy breathe a sigh of relief.

However, when he took off the hat, he discovered that the hall had gone utterly silent again. Even the Gryffindor table wasn't bursting with cheers and applause as when others were sorted into that house. And then Teddy noticed that while many people in the hall were staring open-mouthed at him, some seemed instead to be staring at someone sitting at the high table.

One person started clapping; in the silence, the belated acknowledgement of his Sorting seemed forced and unnatural, although the rest of the Gryffindor table finally joined in, somewhat more subdued than they'd been earlier. Teddy walked nervously to the table and sat next to Nate (whose full name was not Nathaniel or Nathan; Teddy had planned to tease him good-naturedly about it, but now that had flown out of his mind).

Professor Snape called the next name, and the next and the next, until finally all of the first years were Sorted. Professor McGonagall stood to give the start of term notices. Why does it seem that she's looking at me?" Teddy wondered as he watched her and listened to her words. He didn't want to seem paranoid, however, by asking Nate whether he thought the headmistress was staring at him in particular as she spoke. As it was, Teddy wasn't completely convinced it would be true paranoia to wonder why the other Gryffindors were almost uniformly leering at him and grinning at each other, whispering in each others' ears and giggling behind their hands when they saw him looking back.

He learned nothing by looking at the person at the high table that everyone else seemed to be staring at, either, for it seemed that they'd actually been looking at an empty chair sitting next to a handsome woman with long red hair. It didn't help that this witch was looking back at Teddy with open hostility when he met her eyes and he looked quickly away, hoping that she taught the older students and he wouldn't have to withstand that hate-filled glare during any of his lessons.

Suddenly, the doors of the Great Hall opened again and a sopping wet wizard stood there. The conversation stopped abruptly, the sudden silence absolutely deafening.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Harry looked around the hall, at the silent, staring faces. He'd sometimes reduced new students to gawping and giggling, but that usually stopped after he'd returned their first assignments, leaving no impression that he would be lenient or rest on his laurels (or give high marks in return for adulation and fawning).

However, he'd never had a reception quite like this on the first day of the term. He wasn't usually late, but after he'd picked the girls up at their school it had taken forever, it seemed, for them to collect everything they wanted from home. (He was at pains to convince Rory that she could get anything that she had forgotten the next day after school.) That was followed by a stomach-churning ride on the Knight Bus and arriving in Hogsmeade just as the skies opened. And then even after their usual Thestral-drawn carriage brought them round the back of the castle, to the hidden door that led to their tower, Ruby had pointed out that Hades needed to go for a walk, so he'd taken her and the damnable Crup once around the lake in the pouring rain; Rory had come along seemingly for the purpose of sniffing disdainfully at Hades the entire time and complaining every time she got mud on her boots (which was constantly).

Dobby was charged with getting the girls their tea and supervising them until Harry and Ginny returned; later, Ginny would oversee their baths and Harry would tuck them up in their beds. However, for the moment he was free of parental responsibilities and was in such a hurry to get to what remained of the feast that he hadn't bothered to dry off.

I can't be that gruesome looking, he thought, frowning as he walked through the silent hall, feeling the eyes of everyone present upon him as though he were actually being physically touched. The only sound other than his footsteps was of water dripping from his robe, landing with loud plops on the stone flags.

"Hey, Ted," Nate said, nudging his new friend, who couldn't take his eyes off the wizard striding purposefully toward the high table. "Maybe that's your dad!"

---