A Lion's Heart

The existence of other witches and wizards in large numbers outside of books had always seemed a bit unreal to Jaina. Yet here she was, surrounded by men, women, and children, all wearing robes and chatting excitedly about Quaffles and Beaters. She sat a full ten minutes totally ignoring the pitch, simply taking in the crowd.

When she at last turned back to see her mum, Hermione was watching the warm-ups through a pair of old Omnioculars; Jaina thought they were plenty close to see without them. She pulled the Omnioculars her mum bought for her out of the sack. Looking at them with a "How can this possibly make this any better?" expression, she hesitantly raised them to her eyes.

"Wow!" she whispered.

Jaina spent the rest of the pre-game time studying each member of the team going through his or her moves. She had always loved reading about Quidditch; she'd long thought it was the best sport ever. Hardest for her to believe was that the real thing could be so much better than a book. One last time Jaina watched each player carefully. A question burned the tip of her tongue, but she thought she might have exhausted the limit of questions about her dad she was allowed in one day.

"What is it, Jaina?"

"What is what?"

Hermione laughed. "You look like there's something you're just dying to know."

Jaina dropped her gaze. She wanted to know, but she didn't particularly want to ask. Until this morning, her dad had been comfortably imaginary. The more she talked and thought about him, the more real he seemed. The empty part of her began to ache.

Her mum sighed. "You know, the Cannons were the worst team in the league for a century. The Department of Magical Games and Sports was on the verge of dismantling them all together. It fired the entire team and advertised to start an entirely new one... and almost failed. Your dad could have played for any team he wanted. No one ever dreamed he'd choose Chudley, but he signed up just days before the department was going to have a hearing about its fate. Ron was so distraught about his team getting knocked off that your dad later told me it was the easiest decision he'd ever made. He wanted Ron's team to be the best because it was 'so rare that he got anything that was the best.'

"The old Gryffindor captain, Oliver Wood moved from Puddlemere to play with him again, as did Fred and George Weasley... and others followed, suddenly flocking to play for the Cannons. He only played one game. One game... They won spectacularly. Suddenly your dad was famous all over again. Everyone credited him for saving the team. I still remember the look on his face when he saw the headlines. He hated the attention, and it always seemed magnetized to him anyway.

"There was an incredible party that night - you'd think they won the World Cup or something. As we were leaving, Dumbledore showed up looking old, older than I'd ever seen him and asking to talk to us. Harry and I agreed to become Aurors that night... He never played Quidditch again."

Jaina couldn't look away from her mum's transfixed face; she looked like she'd give anything to be watching that match now.

"Was he quite good?"

Hermione grinned. "Some say he was the best Seeker ever. He could have played for England. We'd have won the cup, probably more than once. Not that I'm biased."

Seeker. Somehow she knew already. Somehow, watching the seeker had felt so right, so perfect. Her heart gave a jolt as she realized she could be watching her father up there. Someone to kiss her mum after the match and carry her on his shoulders to see the rest of the team.

Before her thoughts could carry her away much farther, she felt her mum's hand on her shoulder.

"Look," Hermione breathed, wide eyes looking to the announcement board at one end of the pitch.

The girl followed her line of vision, feeling herself freeze as she read the message scrawled on the screen.

"Happy birthday, Harry Potter. We miss you."

It didn't take long before the crowd had fallen into a profound silence, staring at the words as one. She heard a sob to her left and took her mum's hand in her own without looking away from the screen. Her eyes were held firm by the simplicity of the message and the depth of emotion conveyed by the crowd. As the words slowly faded to nothing, people moved as if in a dream. Slowly, conversations started up again, quietly at first but progressing relatively quickly back to their original dull roar.

Hermione continued weeping quietly in her chair, her daughter's hand slid into her own.

"Did you do that?" Jaina asked quietly, unsettled by the never-ending surprises this day had brought so far.

Her mum shook her head slowly, sniffling and rubbing at her eyes in an attempt to regain composure. "I don't think you understand yet just how important your father was to... to everyone. He was The Boy Who Lived and who saved the world and brought back a Quidditch team and who gave up his career to go back to saving the world. He was a hero, in every sense of the word. A lot of people remember... Anyone could have done that: the team, a friend, or just a random everyday person he never knew. It's so hard to say."

"Are you going to be all right, mum?"

"Yeah, just had to get my cry of the day out of the way."

Jaina grinned. "You made a rhyme."

"I do that all the time."

The two traded glances before helplessly bursting into giggles that would last until the very start of the game.

Jaina leaned forward in her seat, Omnioculars pressed into her face. She watched the referee open the box containing the Quaffle, bludgers, and snitch as the announcer finished introducing the last Magpies' player. Each team got into formation in the center. Jaina focused in on the Chudley Seeker, someone by the name of Spencer. His lips were pursed in concentration, his eyes squinting as he looked from his position down into the box.

"Good luck," the girl murmured a moment before the referee threw the Quaffle in the air and the match began.

The Magpies got off to an early lead, gaining first possession and scoring the first goal. Unprepared for the sudden assault, the Cannons' Keeper, a young woman whose name Jaina missed, put a little too much enthusiasm into her dive and shot past the Quaffle before it entered the hoop.

Hermione made a sound of adverse surprise as the ten points for the Magpies went on the scoreboard. Her daughter pulled the Omnioculars away, watching her for a minute. She'd have never thought her mum would be so into the game, seeing as how Jaina had inherited her voracious appetite for books. Wondering whether her mum had always loved Quidditch or if she had grown to love it because of her father, Jaina missed the second, third, and fourth goals of the game and subsequently nearly dropped her Omnioculars when she looked up to check the score and found it 40-0.

"Yikes."

"The Keeper's a little nervous," Hermione informed her daughter without looking away from the game. "I think she's new."

Jaina put the Omnioculars back to her eyes. It was apparent to her by the frustration she could easily read on the faces of the Cannons' Chasers that they hadn't touched the Quaffle yet. Again the ball slipped past the Keeper, and in her state of nerves, she tossed it, hardly looking, into the grip of the Montrose Chaser who'd just finished scoring.

The girl had just begun to lose hope about the outcome of the game when one of the orange-clad Chasers managed to wrestle the Quaffle away from his opposing player. Like one player the three moved across the field, the red leather ball hardly staying in one's hands longer than a few moments. Dodging Beaters, Bludgers, and Chasers, they moved towards the goal hoops. Hardly pausing, the female Chaser farthest from Jaina fired the Quaffle - which had only just reached her grip - through the center hoop. The Magpies' Keeper wore an expression of pure bafflement, the girl was amused to notice. It'd been more than a few seconds since he lost track of the Quaffle, handled expertly by the opposing team.

Not to be outdone, the opposing Chasers sped back across the pitch, moving confidently, though Jaina privately thought, not as wonderfully as the Cannons had just looked. The young girl grimaced, thinking of the Keeper guarding the team's hoops, but this time, she looked set. Her hands gripped the handle of her broomstick firmly but loosely, maintaining the control needed to fly but ready to reach up and grab the ball when it came to her.

The opposing Chaser did not notice this, however, as he sped toward her, clearly expecting no resistance. After all, she had not stopped them before. He stopped suddenly, tossing the Quaffle in a blur of red to his teammate on the left who promptly fired at the nearest hoop. The Keeper, just a flash of orange, dove.

"It's ano- save! She saved it!" the announcer screamed, sounding elated.

Jaina watched avidly as the Cannons at last joined the game, pulling ahead 100-60 in no time. Suddenly she saw a sparkle of gold in the corner of her vision. Centering and focusing her Omnioculars on it, her heart started to pound. It was the snitch. It fluttered around the bottom of the Magpies' goalposts for a while before disappearing. Wildly, she scanned the playing field. There it was again, hiding near the bristles of a Cannon Beater's broom.

The girl soon forgot about everything going on around her except the Snitch. She lost it, found it, lost it, and found it over and over again. It was mesmerizing, watching the golden winged ball travel all over the pitch. Finally around the tenth time she relocated it, this time right in the middle of the far Cannons' hoop, she heard the crowd give a collective gasp. Widening the focus, Jaina saw the Chudley Seeker speeding towards the goalposts.

"He's seen it," she said aloud in a breathless voice.

The other Seeker had seen it too, but he was much farther and much later. Before he'd managed to make up half the distance to his opponent, the Snitch was in the Cannons' Seeker's hand.

Giving an ecstatic cry, the girl jumped out of her seat in joy.

"The Cannons win by a score of 390-120!" the announcer yelled over the deafening cheers of the crowd. Jaina couldn't wipe the silly grin off her face. This had been the best day ever.

"Wasn't that great I found the Snitch way before he did and I was so happy he caught it and it was a lot cooler than in my Quidditch books even though I really like them and mom," Jaina at last paused to take a breath. "This was the best idea."

Hermione grinned at her daughter, pleased that the day had been such a success. She wrapped a loving arm around the girl as they walked over to a ministry wizard standing near the gates.

"Hello, Hermione," he greeted with a smile while fishing an old newspaper out of the box at his feet. "This'll go off in," he checked his watch, "five minutes. Drop you off right in your front yard."

The man was no longer looking at her, however. He'd dropped to a crouch and was shaking Jaina's hand, saying, "You must be Lillian."

The girl made a face. "Everyone calls me Jaina," she informed him and then added as an afterthought, "sir."

"Everyone calls me Dean," he mimicked with a wink at her. "Nice to meet you at last."

Jaina smiled at him but felt secretly relieved when her mum said farewell and guided her out the gate to an open area of the lawn. Various witches and wizards were now disapparating, while those with children were either walking out onto the moor or waiting with Portkeys like they were.

She looked up at her mum, a question suddenly occurring to her. "Mum, why-"

Before she could finish, a hook jerked behind her navel. Her hand stuck to the newspaper she had been touching as the two of them lifted of the ground and spun, not stopping until Jaina felt her feet slam into the ground. For a moment, she thought her legs would hold her up, but she was so dizzy that it was impossible. Toppling onto the ground, she stared up at the sky until the trees within her vision stopped swirling around her.

Hermione offered her a hand up. "You were saying?"

Jaina looked at her mum blankly for a moment. "Oh, right. Why did that wizard know me? How did he know my name was Lillian?"

"Remember how I told you your dad was famous?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Well, in a way that makes you famous too. For being his daughter. It was all over the papers when you were born."

Jaina felt her mouth fall open. "So everyone knows me?"

"Well, not really. Dean knew who you were because you were with me, but most people won't know you on your own. Even fewer will call you Jaina."

"Because my name is Lillian Jane, after dad's parents."

"Right." Hermione led her daughter up the porch steps and into the house. "Do you still want to look at photos or would you rather head up to bed?"

Jaina looked shocked, "Are you kidding?"

Minutes later, the mother and daughter were pouring over photo albums in Hermione's study off of the living room.

"This is your dad, Ron, and me with Hagrid, Hogwarts gamekeeper. I think it was our... second year."

Studying the dark haired, green-eyed boy and the girl that would become her mum carefully, Jaina remarked quietly, "I look nothing like him, do I?" She could not quite hide her disappointment at this revelation.

"Unfortunately, you're a bit of a carbon copy of me," Hermione told her daughter with a fond smile, "but you're a lot like him too."

Cuddling in closer to her mum, the girl said, "Really? How?"

"I could name a thousand ways, but mostly his smile. And his eyes."

"But he had green eyes."

"I know. I can't explain it, really."

They continued in silence through the albums until the last was placed on top of the pile.

Hermione glanced at the clock. "You'd best get to bed."

Jaina's eyes searched her mum's. "Do you think we could look through them one more time?"

"Tomorrow. They're not going to go away. You may look at them whenever you like, love." She leaned down and kissed her daughter on top of her head. "Goodnight."

The girl returned the kiss. "Goodnight mum. Thank you for the Quidditch game... and the photos. I love you."

"I love you too."

Jaina stood and walked across the room, her mind overflowing with a multitude of thoughts about Quidditch, strangers who knew her, and Harry Potter. A man with her last name, her eyes, and her smile. Her father.

Reaching out mechanically to turn the doorknob, she was startled by her mother saying, "Jaina, wait."
The girl turned, curious. Hermione hesitated, not entirely sure what made her speak when she had not been planning to mere seconds ago. She fingered something in her pocket. This movement did not escape her daughter's attention.

"What is it, mum?"

"The letter."

"What letter?" Jaina was concerned by her mum's peculiar behavior.

"The letter that came this morning..." Her voice faded as she struggled to say the words.

Hermione took a deep breath. "It was for you."