When Your Parents Tell You Bedtime Stories

8

"If life was perfect and all endings were happy...well, what fun would that be?"

~me!

Things had settled down in the few weeks since Persephone's moments of truth. Life seemed to be back to normal, only three people in the castle besides herself that knew. Alphard, Aludra, and Rigel never brought it up, and they never talked about it. I guess it was one of those, okay, now I know the truth, let's get on with life, things.

Double Potions with the Gryffindors was brutal; especially when Snape had paired them all with Slytherins.

"Mirach, why don't you just sit back and let a real witch do the work?" Persephone spat in anger at whom she had been paired with.

"I thought your job was to sit back and look pretty?" he asked, cutting up some roots for their potion. "After all, you are the daughter of Draco Malfoy."

Persephone froze for a moment before regaining herself, "yes, I suppose I get much from him."

"Let me do that, Granger," he snapped, ripping a vile effortlessly from her hand and adding it's contents to the light blue potion. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

"Sod off, Achernar," she said, dumping his not yet finished roots into the potion. "Bloody Gryffindors," she muttered under her breath.

"Sniveling Slytherins," he muttered back, making sure to keep his voice low. Silence over took them and he glanced over at the icy Slytherin. Persephone's long black hair curved down around her shoulders, the ends of her curly strands teasing her face. Her pale complexion glowed in the dark of the dungeons. After stirring the potion she brought her head up, her cool chestnut eyes, big and wide, meeting his soft blue.

Mirach quickly found their next ingredient on the table, cursing her under his breath. He could tell, just from pictures, that her mother had been Hermione Granger, famous martyred Gryffindor. Why does no one else see it? What he couldn't figure out was why her father was Draco Malfoy, and why she didn't look a thing like him.

Persephone, eyes burning coolly as they searched her partner, became quickly unnerved by his calmness around her. Most people were intimidated. She had only really studied him once, out on the Quidditch field. He was a good flier, and very fit for it. His hair fell into his eyes and he reached up and irritably brushed it back. Stifling a laugh she turned back to their potion; at least he was good at Potions, it was perfect.

*********

After a four day walk through the forbidden forest, wand always out at ready, the cloaked man finally burst onto the Hogwarts ground, welcoming the vision of sky. Stealing a glance at Hagrid's hut, and around the ground, he figured everyone was in classes. Sliding back to the edge of the forest he slid down, back against a tree, and waited for nightfall.

***********

"So, how's your "lab work" going, Mirach?" Stacy Ortega said leaning over the table to talk to her friend.

"Yea, you definitely got the worst of them all," Bobby Weasley said, seating himself next to his best friend. "At least Aludra minds her own."

"How horrible is she?" Stacy asked.

"She keeps to herself," was all Mirach said.

"Keeps to herself? C'mon, Achernar, give us the dirt," Bobby pressured.

"She's definitely Hermione Granger's child," Mirach said. "Bloody brilliant."

"The Hermione Granger? I thought there might be some connection, but her mother! Call me an amazing bouncing ferret," Stacy said sitting back again.

"Granger and Malfoy?" Bobby said. "No way, she was my uncle's best friend, there's no way she would've gotten together with Malfoy."

"She doesn't look a thing like him," Stacy said, just as Mirach opened his mouth to say the same thing. "I mean, where did she get that mass of black hair from?"

"Of course!" Bobby said, cutting Mirach off again. "Harry Potter must be her real father! I bet that's why he was here at the Quidditch game with Malfoy!"

"Why would Harry Potter leave his daughter in his enemy's hands?" Stacy said.

"I don't'..."

"Stop, the both of you!" Mirach said cutting them out. "It's not our place. We should know better then to go sticking our noses in Slytherin business, they'll just get dirty, or worse, cut off."

*********

"So, I bet you just love working with a Weasley," Persephone said, continuing their conversation on Potions.

"He keeps to himself, which is perfectly fine with me. For a child of Charlie Weasley he's sure very un-Weasley like," Aludra said.

"What about you, Rigel? How's Wood?"

"She's obsessed with Quidditch, that's for sure. Doesn't shut up about comparing our team to hers. Just want to smack her upside the head with a broomstick and tell her that we've been the one's kicking their ass for the past four years," Rigel replied. "What about you, Perseph', how's Achernar?"

"The original Gryffindor. Brave, chivalrous, hates Slytherins, absolutely loves boasting. But, what else can I expect for someone whose mother was in the order of the Phoenix," Persephone said, spitting out the last word.

"Worst off is that he's very distantly related to you," Aludra said through a low chuckle.

"What?" Persephone shouted.

"Well, Andromeda, his mother, is related to Sirius Black, who is related to your father."

"Well, that'll keep even your brilliant mind reeling for awhile," Rigel said, taking a huge bite out of bread.

Persephone chucked a bit of bread at her friend's head and the conversation turned to lighter topics.

********

Nightfall came all too quickly to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As the sun fell behind the horizon, sending a dark shiver of pink across the sky, and the lights in the castle shone brightly, a man emerged from the forest. Throwing an invisibility cloak over his figure, he made his way towards the main doors of the castle.

By the time lights around the castle turned out and an eerie silence fell through the air an unwanted figure was in Hogwarts main entrance, heading for his destination.