An Unlikely Savior ~ (Edit) COMPLETED

Chapter 18 ~ Breaking the News

At supper the next day, Rose and Hugo Weasley were surprised by their father, who entered the Great Hall to collect them.

”Dad? What are you doing here?” Rose asked her father.

”I’ve come to bring you and Hugo home for the weekend,” Ron replied, giving the Potters a wave as they acknowledged him over their food. Alsop saw Ron, but he was seated at the Ravenclaw table, so he didn’t get a chance to say hello.

”Why, dad? What’s going on?” little Hugo piped up, his blue eyes worried. “Is mum okay?”

”She’s fine. We just want you home. We have something to tell the both of you,” he said. “Now, come along. I already have permission to take you.”

Both Rose and Hugo rose and exited the Great Hall.

Ron waited in the entrance hall while his children went to get their heavy traveling cloaks. As he stood there, his own memories of the school came flooding back, particularly the final battle. Hogwarts was completely restored now, but the castle had suffered great damage, walls blown out, or crushed in by giants, turrets crumbling.

His throat tightened as he remembered the death of his brother, Fred. He was one of his twin brothers. George never seemed quite the same after losing him. It wasn’t anything obvious really, it was just when he was around, there was a sense of something vital missing, of his being incomplete.

It was like that with twins.

”What do you think is going on, Rose?” Hugo asked his sister breathlessly as they rode the shifting stairwell back down.

Rose shrugged.

”I don’t know, Hugo, but I’ve got a feeling I’m not going to like it,” she replied.

Hugo looked over the edge of the stairs, standing dangerously close to the edge. Rose yanked him back by the collar of his robes, so he choked a little. ”Stop that, Hugo!” she hissed at him.

He scowled up at her, his freckled face contorted as he roughly loosened his collar with one crooked finger.

”You’re such a big sissy, Rose. I wasn’t going to fall,” he complained. “And you’re a worry-wart. You always think something bad is going to happen. Maybe they’re going to tell us something good.”

“I doubt it,” she said as the stairwell connected to the second floor level. They got off and walked down the corridor a ways, then entered a narrow stairwell that led to the first floor. They exited the corridor and walked down the marble staircase and met Ron at the foot of it.

”We’re ready,” Rose said.

Ron inspected them. They were both wearing their Weasley hats and scarves, lovingly knitted by Molly, their grandmother. Weasley gloves covered their hands snugly.

”Right then. Let’s go,” Ron said, and they exited Hogwarts.

As they walked across the grounds, Ron tried to prep them a little.

”Now, remember, we need to be supportive of your mother. No complaining or acting out,” Ron told his children.

”Why would we act out?” Hugo asked him.

”I’m not saying you would, just don’t,” Ron replied with perfectly skewed grown-up logic.

“See? I told you it was bad,” Rose mouthed at her brother, who frowned at her but didn’t say anything.

They exited through the gates of Hogwarts and Disapparated.

*********************

”What? A sister?” Rose exclaimed.

They were all sitting around the kitchen table, Ron seated across from Hermione and Rose and Hugo seated next to each other on the left side.

Rose looked at her father rather accusingly.

”Dad, did you cheat on mum?” she asked him pointedly as Hugo looked at him wide-eyed.

“What? No!” Ron exclaimed. “No one cheated on anyone. We weren’t married when she was conceived. It happened a long time ago, after the final battle.”

Rose continued to scowl at her father. He had a daughter and didn’t tell anyone?

”Rose,” Hermione said quietly. “She’s not Ron’s daughter, she’s my daughter.”

Rose stared at her mother incredulously.

”Your daughter, mum? And you didn’t tell us?”

”I—I didn’t know,” Hermione said, shaking her head slightly. “I only found out recently, when she became sick and her father contacted me. I had to give her a blood transfusion.”

Hugo looked very confused.

”Mum, how could you not know you had a daughter? I mean, you had to carry her—“ he said, as Ron and Hermione looked at each other. This was it.

”It’s a long story, Hugo, but I didn’t carry her. You see—I owed a Life Debt to someone, a wizard,” she began.

”A Life Debt? Why?” Rose cut in.

Hermione blinked at her, and Ron came to her aid.

”At the final battle, your mother lost her wand and had to escape the fighting because she was defenseless. Everyone was fighting in the Great Hall, and she ran out and up the stairs and was seen by a Death Eater named Fenrir Greyback—“

”I know who he was! He was a werewolf, a really bad one,” Hugo said excitedly.

”Yes, he was very bad, Hugo. A murderer. He enjoyed killing whether he was a man or a werewolf. He chased your mother and trapped her in a corridor. He was going to—“

Here, Hermione shook her head slightly. She didn’t want him to tell them about the attempted rape.

”He was going to kill her,” Ron said, “and this wizard killed him with a sword and saved her. Then he claimed a Life Debt, which meant she had to perform a service for him in return for his saving her life.”

Hugo scowled.

”That doesn’t sound right. If you save someone, you do it just because it’s right to do, not to get something back,” Hugo declared, the Gryffindor in him shining through.

“Not everyone sees it that way, Hugo. This wizard was a Slytherin,” Hermione informed him.

”Oh,” Hugo responded shortly.

That explained it. Slytherins always wanted something. They never did anything without a reason.

Rose stared at her mum.

”So, what did he want, mum?” she said tremulously. If her mum had a daughter, it could only be one thing. Sex. And her mum agreed to that?

“All he told me was that he needed me to collect a very special ingredient, and we went to the Forbidden Forest. He gave me a potion and the next thing I knew, it was the next day and I was in his quarters,” Hermione said, turning red.

Ron reached across the table and took her hand, squeezing it slightly.

”I-I knew something had happened between us physically because I could feel it. I thought he had collected my blood. Virgin blood is very valuable in potions,” Hermione said, redder than ever.

Both Rose and Hugo stared at their mother.

”But he didn’t take blood. He took—an egg. A fertilized egg and kept it for several years somehow, then managed to create a daughter. I never knew about her. He raised her by himself,” Hermione said softly.

”He stole a baby from you?” Hugo asked for clarification.

”In a manner of speaking, yes,” Hermione told her son.

Both Rose and Hugo were silent for a full five minutes as they took this in.

”Who is the wizard, mum? What’s his name?” Rose asked him.

”Severus Snape,” Hermione replied.

Rose stared at her mother. Severus Snape used to be a Death Eater, one who barely escaped going to Azkaban. He killed the old Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

”Severus Snape? He’s a criminal, mum,” Rose said, her voice so low it was a whisper.

Hermione frowned at her.

”He isn’t a criminal, Rose. He was a member of the Order who worked undercover fighting the Dark Lord. He was a spy. Unfortunately, since Dumbledore was dead, all the details of his service couldn’t be proven. But there was enough evidence provided by Harry, me and a few Order members to keep him out of Azkaban. He’s a hero.”

“His daughter goes to Hogwarts—Eileen Snape. She’s a real—“

Suddenly a look of horror crossed Rose’s face.

”Oh no, mum. No. Not—not Eileen,” she said, her voice strained. “She can’t be our sister. She’s nothing like us. Nothing at all.”

”I’m afraid it is Eileen, Rose,” Hermione told her gently.

Rose dropped her forehead to the table in despair.

”Not Eileen Snape,” she said again, her voice muffled. “She’s the meanest, strangest witch at Hogwarts. She doesn’t like anyone—except Alsop. And you know how stuck up he is.”

She’s a friend of Alsop?” Hermione asked her daughter, surprised.

”If you can call it that when she’s not turning him into things,” Rose replied in a heavy voice as she lifted her head. “This is just awful. She’s not going to stay here now is she?”

Hermione shook her head.

”I doubt it, Rose, although I want to get to know her. She is my daughter after all,” her mother said.

”Great. Just—great,” Rose muttered.

Hugo, on the other hand looked very excited. He knew about Eileen, too.

”Wow, we have a Slytherin sister,” he said, smiling.

”That’s not a good thing, Hugo!” Rose snapped at him.

”Says you. Maybe she’ll be nicer to me than you are,” he said. “You never want me around you at school and always call me a little troll.”

”Oh, and you think Eileen’s going to want you around her? You’re nutters if you think that. She’d hex you as soon as look at you, Hugo,” Rose declared.

“You don’t know that!” Hugo argued. “She might be glad to have a little brother!”

Both Ron and Hermione listened to their children debate the situation for a while.

Finally Ron made them stop.

”Your mother and I have decided to keep this in the immediate family for now, which means you can’t tell any of your friends, cousins, aunts, uncles or grandparents. You can’t tell anyone. We want to get it all sorted out before we let everyone else know. Do you understand?”

Both Rose and Hugo nodded. Rose didn’t want to tell anyone she was related to Hogwarts’ snarkiest student anyway.

“We understand,” they said in unison, Rose looking miserable while Hugo still looked excited.

Suddenly, Rose asked, “Does Eileen know you’re her mother?”

”I imagine she does by now. Her father promised to tell her.”

”I bet that was a shock,” Hugo said, shaking his head. “I wonder if she hexed him.”

”Probably,” Rose breathed as Hermione and Ron looked at each other.

Hermione couldn’t help but wonder if Eileen was as bad as Rose said she was. She had been raised by Snape after all, and he was an anti-social bastard with a rotten attitude. A lot of it was probably due to how he had been treated over the years. He probably had projected a lot of his bitterness on his daughter. It was a sobering thought.

They had supper and Rose and Hugo went to bed. Ron and Hermione sat in the living room on the sofa, her head resting on his shoulder. A fire burned in the hearth before them, casting shadows over the darkened room.

”Ron, do you think Eileen is as bad as Rose said?” she asked her husband.

Ron, who knew first hand how vicious the Slytherin could be, shrugged slightly.

“She could be,” he said, “but, maybe if she is given a chance to be loved by someone normal, she’ll come around. Maybe you can reverse the damage Snape’s done.”

Tears began to fill Hermione’s eyes as she imagined Snape teaching Eileen to be hateful and bitter towards others.

”That poor girl,” she said in a broken voice.

Ron kissed her temple.

”Don’t cry, Hermione. You’ll have the opportunity to give her something she’s never had. A mother’s love. That can make all the difference, you know.”

”I wasn’t there for her.”

”You couldn’t have been there for her. You didn’t know she existed,” Ron said softly, pulling Hermione closer.

”I have to let her know, make her understand that if I had known she existed, I would have been there for her in every way, Ronald. In every way.”

”You’ll have your chance to build a relationship with her, Hermione. I’m sure she’s going to be curious about you. Let’s just wait and see what happens. If she contacts you. We’ll just have to be patient until then,” he said.

Hermione sighed, and listened to Ron’s heartbeat.

“What if she doesn’t contact me, Ron? What if Severus has warped her so much, she doesn’t want to see me?”

Ron frowned a bit.

”Then you’ll just have to go see her. It’s your right as her mother, Hermione. Don’t worry. I’ll be with you every step of the way if that happens. She’s still under the age of consent. You can go to the Ministry and get visitation rights if you have to,” he told her. “The records at St. Mungo’s can prove maternity.”

Hermione hoped it wouldn’t come to that. It would be so much better if their interactions weren’t forced. Eileen might resent her if that happened.

”Things are so complicated,’ she breathed.

”Life always is,” Ron replied as he stared into the flames.

*********************

A/N: And the saga continues. Rose isn’t too happy, is she? Hugo seems to accept it just fine. Hermione is worried. You can’t blame her really. And Ron. Lol. If she was loved by someone “normal” she might be all right. :::shakes head::: There’s still a bit of git in there. :::snert::: Anyway, thanks for reading.