“Masters, come quickly”, Kreacher seemed upset. “Scum, villains, servants of the Dark Lord. Mistress Cissa and Master Lucius caught them”, he croaked.

“Is everybody safe?”, Harry took charge immediately.

“Yes. The children are safe, and the Lord and Lady Malfoy are safe. Kreacher thinks villains are not safe”, he laughed viciously.

They all looked at each other and started relaxing. “I think I have an idea how this developed”, Viktor grinned.

“You go first, we’re can’t rush in this condition”, Hermione nodded. The women were eight months pregnant and were already hardly waiting to give birth and get it over with.

…

“Mommy, where are grandpa, grandma and daddy?”, Lily asked Lyra.

“They went to the Ministry to make a statement and put the bad men in prison”, she smiled at the child. “Tell me, what was it like?”

“Grandpa was reading to us, and grandma was playing with us before. Then Kreacher came and was very upset. Said two bad men are at the front door, trying to break in. Grandpa told Kreacher to watch us, and he and grandma went downstairs, there was a noise, and they came with two men. They couldn’t move, but they said nasty words I didn’t understand, and then grandpa and grandma pointed sticks at them and talked to them in Latin, but I don’t think the men liked it very much”, Lily nodded seriously.

Lyra smiled. “No, I don’t think they liked it very much, either”, she giggled.

“Did those men want to hurt us?”, James looked worried.

“I think they did, sweetheart, but grandma and grandpa are very powerful and would never allow it”, she nodded and hugged the boy. “You are both perfectly safe”.

“Mommy, grandma told me that one can have only one mommy and that my mommy is Hermione and not you”, Lily looked like she was about to cry. “Is that true?”

“It’s true in a way”, Lyra confirmed. “You see my big belly?”, she pointed, and the girl nodded.

“There’s a new baby inside. When it comes out of my body, I’m going to be its mommy. You came out of Hermione’s body that way, so she’s your mommy. However, I love your mommy very much, and she loves me very much, and we both think of both of you as our babies. We don’t make a difference”, she hugged the girl.

“Does it mean I can call still call you mommy?”, Lily smiled.

“Of course you can. I love you very much, and I wouldn’t love you any differently if it was I who gave birth to you, and not Hermione”, Lyra ruffled the girl’s hair.

“I love you too, mommy”, the girl beamed.

…

“We interrogated them properly at the office”, Viktor looked grim yet relieved. “Of course you didn’t get all of them”, he nodded to Lyra. “They were from the same group as those five, but they waited in their base, if you can call it that. They wanted revenge so they planned to kill our children”.

“They were planning this for a while. Since nobody but the residents can apparate inside, they lurked at the door and waited for all four of us to leave, and then they tried to break in through the door with spells. This alerted Kreacher, he alerted Lucius and Narcissa and that’s how their plan came to a bad ending”, Harry finished.

“Azkaban is too good for those two”, Lucius looked murderous.

“It is, but what upset me the most is that I looked at them and they were almost identical to the scum that roamed our home when the Dark Lord was there”, Narcissa frowned. “Worst of all, I looked at them and realised that they don’t all look like that by accident. The Dark Lord was producing such people because that’s what he wanted us all to be: nasty, filthy, vicious, cruel, without love, kindness or virtues. He would do superficial displays of good manners, but it was as if he never actually realised what manners are for. Manners are there to make people feel welcome, cared for, accepted and safe. With him, it was the opposite – a way to make cruelty and terror even more vicious, and people like those two used to snicker like hiyenas when her would torture and kill people. What’s worst, I could see us turning into those monsters, the way Bella turned from my kind and gentle sister into a perverted, vicious monster with dog-like devotion to the Dark Lord, and contempt, hatred and viciousness for everybody else”, she finished, as Lucius nodded. “We came frighteningly close, and it’s a fate worse than death. I think what saved us is that we had a daughter we loved, unlike the rest of them, who were childless, loveless and less than human in other ways as well”, he frowned.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t deal with it more quietly and the children saw it”, Narcissa smiled at Lyra and Hermione.

“We are grateful to the two of you for dealing with them”, Hermione bowed and smiled, and others nodded seriously.

“It was our great pleasure”, Lucius bowed back. “I’m so glad we were here, and not the two of you, who look as if you are about to give birth any moment now”, he beamed at the women.

“I fervently hope so”, Lyra sighed and smiled.