“Hello, ladies”, Harry smiled at the two nursing mothers. “If I’m disturbing, just shoo me out”.

“It’s fine”, Hermione smiled at her best friend. “We missed you, and I sincerely doubt we’ll surprise you with anything you haven’t seen already”, she glanced at the baby suckling at her breast and grinned.

“What did we miss?”, Lyra looked at him after they kissed.

“All hell broke loose. People are demanding we conduct a thorough sweep for other such people, and I had to calm them down and convince them that it would be counterproductive to create an atmosphere of paranoia that would alienate and disturb normal and decent wizards over a few fringe lunatics. Also, that we are quite safe and on top of things, and we prefer to remain reactive rather than proactive, because even when the enemies have the advantage of surprise and they make the first move, we’ll just mop them up like we did in the last two cases. Eventually, that argument won and things are starting to calm down”, he grinned. “Also, it’s good that we lifted the ban on dark magic so Lucius and Narcissa will be in no trouble for using the Cruciatus Curse on the thugs. They confessed everything after I hinted that I might let them talk to my in-laws in private if they are not cooperative”, he laughed. “Also, Viktor stood there looking murderous, and I seem to have hinted that I might leave the room for some urgent business if their confession took too long or proved to be lacking in detail”.

Both women giggled. “Did you sweep their base?”

“Immediately after they told us everything”, he nodded. “There was a cellar in the Knockturn Alley and a remote decrepit house out in the countryside. Other than the two unpleasant looking witches brewing potions and lots of squalor and dark artefacts, there wasn’t much to find. I would expect there to be similar groups that we don’t know of, but I think they had little to no contact with this one, and we interrogated the two women to my satisfaction. They hold grudges over this or that Death Eater or dark wizard that got killed or arrested, but since they haven’t done anything wrong we just warned them to stay out of trouble, put them under surveillance and left them alone”.

“So that’s that, I guess. Nice company Ron was keeping”, Hermione frowned.

“It reminded me of the hut of the Gaunts”, Harry nodded. “I didn’t think I’d see anything similar again, but live and learn, I guess”.

“Gaunts?”, Lyra looked at him and lifted an eyebrow.

“A remnant of an old pureblood family, heavily inbred, destitute and endlessly arrogant. They all died, but not before the daughter gave birth to Tom Riddle junior, who was best known by his artistic alias”, Harry grinned.

“Lord Voldemort”, Hermione whispered.

“Exactly”, he nodded.

“Please sit down and keep us company”, Hermione begged. “I love Lyra but we miss seeing other people”.

“It will be my pleasure. We’ve been missing you too, but you’ve been so busy with the babies, and we had so much work lately with this…”, he shrugged as he sat down. “Viktor is still at work, but he’ll be coming shortly”.

“You know, I was just talking to Hermione how much I envied her at school. She was smart and good at everything, and people loved her for it and praised her intelligence and magical ability at every turn. But when I did something similar, everybody went silent and looked almost afraid. Hermione noticed the same thing, but we don’t understand why”, she looked at her true love with her beautiful silver eyes.

“I used to feel really sorry for her”, Hermione nodded. “She was incredibly smart, to the point where I would look at her with my mouth open when she would pull out some quote from an ancient book, that I didn’t even know existed, or I couldn’t read it because it was in Latin, and it seemed like the professors didn’t even know about it, or she would do a spell with incredible ease, and everybody would feel uncomfortable and turn the other way, leaving her standing there and feeling awkward. It was a terrible way to treat someone”, she looked like she was about to cry.

“I think I know the reason”, Harry was suddenly serious. “They had another stellar Slytherin student in living memory. Best in school. Looked handsome and polite. Also incredibly good at magic. Everybody but Dumbledore was charmed by him. I’ve seen the memories”, he frowned. “You can guess his name, since we already mentioned him”.

“Tom Riddle”, Hermione put her hand over her mouth in shock.

“They thought I might be the next Voldemort”, Lyra was shocked. “But that actually explains a lot”, she nodded. “The better I did, the more I reminded them of him when he was my age. And, of course, they did not appreciate the prospects one bit”.

“But that was so incredibly unfair to you”, Hermione actually cried now. “You never did anything wrong, and you kept paying for other people’s sins regardless”.

“Yes, I always seemed to find myself at the bottom of some deep hole with slippery walls”, Lyra smiled bitterly. “At least now I understand why. But when it happened, it all felt so unfair I would cry myself to sleep almost every night, at least until Harry started talking to me again. After people saw us holding hands and talking, I think they started giving me the benefit of the doubt”, her smile brightened. “But I still envied Hermione so much. I would live vicariously – see her praised for an answer I also knew, and imagined what it would feel like to be praised for it for once”.

“I praise you now and you’re always embarrassed”, Hermione pointed out.

“Yes, because it feels so good”, Lyra smiled. “I fear I’ll melt into the floor and you’ll have to mop me up”.

Hermione giggled. “I can’t help myself, because you’re so awesome that you keep deserving every single bit of it”.

Lyra groaned and hid her face into her baby.

“Both of you are awesome”, Harry smiled. “You know, Viktor and I were quite scared when the two of you were giving birth, now that we know enough wandless magic to be scared. When you were in labour and going through all that pain, we thought that if one of you reaches for the magical layer on instinct, you might crush the space around you like an empty can of soda. How did you manage to be so disciplined?”

They thought about it. “I guess I was at peace with it. Accepted the agony. Looking forward to my baby. Praying a little to whoever is out there to look out for me”, Lyra smiled. “I was still new to it so I have to concentrate more, and that’s hard to do under the waves of pain, but I was also at peace with it all. If it were my first pregnancy, where I was really afraid because everything was new, it would be a different matter”, Hermione nodded.

“Girl, you levitated half a meter above the bed when you were pushing”, Lyra laughed. “The midwife’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out. Flashes of light and music came from the tears in space that you opened”.

Hermione was shocked. “I didn’t notice. Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“We were too relieved it all ended well, I guess”, Lyra kissed her hand. “Also, it felt amazing, as if you tore through the veil that separates this world from heaven and we could feel the other side a bit”.

“Well, if she had it any harder I guess we’d all be on the other side now”, Harry smiled, and it was now Hermione’s turn to hide her face in embarrassment.