Eccossaise in E-flat

She didn't know what to do. She was lost and felt helpless, more helpless than she'd ever felt. And that was really pathetic, because barely a month before, she had nearly killed a Death Eater by herself. She would have if she hadn't been stopped--not by a Death Eater, but by Harry Potter himself. Granted, she'd seen the sense in not having a stain like that on her conscience if she could help it once she'd calmed down some, but at the time she'd nearly killed Harry too. Much more nearly than the Death Eater. Everyone had accepted her version of the tale, which was that Harry had accidentally got in between her and the Death Eater and been caught in the crossfire, mainly because Harry was not yet conscious. But that was another story entirely.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror and tried to imagine the girl she'd been back then, or even before that. She couldn't. It was like trying to imagine an imaginary friend she hadn't pretended to see since she was six. As far as her mind was concerned, that girl no longer existed, and she hadn't even been real.

But that girl had existed. She knew it, because she had been that girl. That girl hadn't looked much different from the one now looking at her out of the mirror, but she had been. The girl in the mirror looked the same, but she wasn't. She held not one, but two guilty secrets that she hadn't told anyone yet.

No--that wasn't quite true. The first guilty secret, the one about Harry, she had told to her old teacher--he alone had noticed that the scars Harry brought away radiated from a single point on the side of his chest, indicating only one person had hit him, not two. He hadn't talked to her since then, but she'd been avoiding him, too.

She had told her two favourite brothers, the ones she trusted, the ones she loved the most, what her second guilty secret was. They had been shocked and angry--but to her surprise, not with her. They had assured her it wasn't her fault and that she didn't ask for it to happen. Both had promised to stand beside her all the way, even if no one else would. She loved them both for it.

Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to the bathroom and headed downstairs. One of her brothers noticed her and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, Now?

She nodded. Now.

He stood up from the chess match. Her other brother, who was his opponent, got up as well, saw her, then walked over and gave her a hug. The three walked into the kitchen. Her mother was cooking dinner.

"Mum?"

Her mother looked up and smiled warmly. "Hello, dear."

"Mum, there's--there's something I need to tell you."

Her mother stopped and looked at her. "Yes? What's wrong?"

She hesitated, looked to her brothers for support, then took a deep breath and rested her hand on her stomach.

"Mum...I'm pregnant."