When Your Parents Tell You Bedtime Stories

19

When a dream takes hold of you, what can you do? You can run with it, let it run your life, or let it go and think for the rest of your life about what might have been.

~ Patch Adams, Gesundheit!

Harry remembered it. He would never forget it. After Hermione had died it was just too hard for him to be with anyone else, so he never had. Harry glanced over at the man walking beside him, desperately searching for the girl he considered his daughter. Harry had done the right thing.

All those years ago, as Hermione lay on the ground dying, Harry remembered bending down and wanting to hold her in his arms and tell her how much he cared about her. But Harry didn't love her. Not in the way Malfoy did. That's why Harry had left her alone those last few minutes of her life, with Malfoy, despite the tightening of his heart as he had walked away. He had done the right thing. A kind of bravery that takes more then being a great Gryffindor; it's the bravery that comes from being a great friend.

But now Harry's mind was reeling. What if Persephone was his child? It had never been hard for people to see her being Blaise's with the black hair and tall broad figure. But, Blaise looked an awful lot like Harry, too.

"You really think she's mine, Malfoy?" Harry whispered.

Draco didn't answer. Instead, he put his ear up to the end wall of the only hallway and listened. "There's voices behind here, Potter. Find us a way in."

*****

Rigel couldn't sleep; not without knowing what was going on. Apparently, Aludra was having the same difficulty, because they were both sitting in front of the common room fire, thinking. What if something happened to Persephone? Rigel would never forgive himself.

"She's alright," Aludra spoke up reading his mind.

"I know," Rigel said convincingly.

"Then why are we so worried about her?"

"I don't know," Rigel answered.

"You think a Slytherin can really fall in love with a Gryffindor?" Rigel looked up to see Aludra looking into the fire, asking the questions basically to thin air and praying for an answer back.

"I don't know," Rigel whispered, slipping onto the couch beside her and placing a comforting arm around her shoulder.

"It would be nice. To have an emotion that strong that it outlaws everything else; even common sense. Wouldn't it?" Aludra asked, finally raising her eyes to his.

"I suppose so. But we're Slytherins. We're not suppose to feel, Aludra."

"I know, Rigel. But I'm tired of feeling only the rain when I'm longing for the sun."

Rigel simply didn't know what to say to that.

********

"How are you feeling?" Mirach asked, looking at the girl in the opposite corner from him.

"Better," came a soft reply. Mirach couldn't explain why he was giving the Slytherin a second thought. But, since he'd found himself trapped in a room with her, she'd really been the only thing he'd been thinking about.

"We'll get out of here," he called into the eerie silence.

"I know," came a distant reply. Mirach slouched against the wall and closed his eyes.

******

Two defeated Aurors slumped against the wall on the other side. "We've-tried-every-spell," Harry said, panting heavily.

"Wasn't it you who said sometimes the best way is the Muggle way?" Malfoy asked, standing firmly on two feet. "We're taking this wall down by force."

"But, Malfoy, that's solid stone! That's insanity to try it!"

"Then lock me up in St. Mungos, Potter. I won't let anything stand between me and that little girl."

"She's not little any more," Harry said softly, admiring the way Draco Malfoy was so taken with something other than money and power.

"I know," Draco whispered, pulling Potter back to help him find something to force down the wall.