Chapters 11-20

Special Needs

At roughly the same time Lois Petrel stared at the calm face of an older woman with square glasses and a stern bun, who spoke with a distinct Scottish burr.

‘So my daughter does not have ADHD? She’s not a special needs child?’

Professor McGonagall frowned. ‘I do not know what this A-D-H-D is, but of course your child has special needs. She shows all the signs of growing up to be an extremely talented witch. You can’t just send her to some Muggle school and force her to forego her powers and her talents.’

‘A witch,’ Lois Petrel repeated.

A part of her mind was shouting at her to pick up the phone and call the police and the psychiatric hospital. But another part of her mind marvelled: Of course—that‘s what it is! She has power inside her that she cannot get rid of. That would make anyone behave as if they‘ve got a million ants inside.

‘Yes,’ Mistress McGonagall confirmed. ‘A witch. A human being just like you, but with very special talents—like me.’

Suddenly the woman appeared to fold in on herself, growing smaller and smaller in front of Lois’ eyes, until a dainty tabby cat sat on the chair before the young speech therapist. But before Lois could shout or have hysterics, the cat began to grow again, until the woman was back on the chair, not a hair out of place.

‘Wow,’ Lois said. ‘That—that is very convincing.’

Unless I wake in a nice, white cell tomorrow morning after having been locked up for a nervous breakdown. But of course she couldn’t afford a nervous breakdown, she had Alina to think of, and that had always kept her going, ever since she’d found out at age sixteen that she was pregnant. Pregnant, with the father disappeared over night.

McGonagall smiled. ‘Term starts at September 1. Alina will receive a letter via owl post—an owl will fly to you with a letter from the school—like uh… Muggle messenger pigeons. The Professor for Muggle studies, Professor Hitchens, will make an appointment with you to help you get everything Alina will need at Hogwarts.

’We take Muggle-wizard relations very seriously, and we want Muggle parents involved in their children’s education. So please, if you have any question at all, feel free to drop me a line via Floo network. We’ve hooked up your fireplace for message transport already. You just take a pinch of this powder, throw it into the fire, say my name and then you toss your letter into the fire. It won’t burn, don’t worry, but show up on my side of the network.

‘Once your daughter is at school, you can use school owls for your mail, or you can buy one of your own.

‘I know this is rather a shock and a surprise for you, but I promise you, Alina will be happy with us.’

oooOooo

Hermione wasn’t really surprised when Harry showed up in the evening of the day after she had visited Snape. She was curled up with Crookshanks and ’Most Potente Potions’ on the sofa of the empty Gryffindor common room, when Harry climbed through the portrait hole. ‘Hullo, Hermione,’ he said. ‘I brought you some butterbeer.’

Hermione was tempted to roll her eyes at him—what a transparent excuse! In her mind she imagined what Snape would say now, ‘Surely even a Gryffindor can do better than that?’

Aloud she settled for ‘Thank you, Harry, that’s really nice of you.’

She carefully placed the book on the reading table, far away from Harry’s bottles.

Harry held out a bottle to her. Glass clinked against glass. Hermione drank deeply and suppressed a shudder. She didn’t even like butterbeer, really.

For a while they sat silently in front of the fireplace. A year ago, Hermione would have prodded and nagged Harry about why he’d come. But now she simply didn’t have the energy. He’d come over to talk, that was obvious. Therefore she was reasonably sure he would eventually start speaking.

‘I’ve been to visit him,’ Harry said suddenly, without looking at his friend. ‘It was horrible.’

‘Why?’

‘He—he didn’t say anything, anything at all. He just lay there, looking like a ghost and stared at me. He didn’t even sneer or smirk. It was scary.’ Harry shivered. ‘And I—I apologised, but—but—how do you make up for six FUCKING years when I treated him like shit, and I bloody HATED him, and—

’And then he just closed his eyes.

‘Gods, Hermione.’ Harry slumped back. ‘And he doesn’t even know about the details of that trial and the sentence yet. And there’s no way of telling how much he remembers, though I do suspect it’s a fair bit from the way he looked at me. But he wouldn’t say anything. Anything at all.’

‘That’s because he can‘t, Harry. I talked with Healer Mugwort yesterday. Physically, he is healed, but that doesn’t mean there are no long-term effects, on his vocal cords for example. Not to mention the…psychological effects of the stress he was under when he was…attacked.’

The long words and the rather clinical explanation soothed her mind. And she could see that they had at least some effect on Harry.

‘Are you still working on purifying those memories?’

Harry nodded. ‘Yes, but that process should be finished soon. I hope. I don’t want to look at them ever again. Though I doubt that they will ever be far from my mind, for as long as I live. Going over them again and again to filter out what my…thoughts, feelings…my perception has added to them…Hermione…I …’

He shook his head, unable to find words to express himself.

‘Oh, Harry.’

They remained on the sofa for another hour or so, drinking their butterbeer in silence. Then Harry excused himself. Ginny and the others would already be waiting for him at Grimmauld Place.