“Are you mad at me?” Hermione sat alone in thought and Harry was worried she was upset for learning he didn’t trust her enough to tell her things.

“What? Oh, no, I was just thinking about something related. I’m actually proud of you, and I feel very warm and cozy about it, because knowing you kept her secrets means you would keep mine as well, and that makes me feel secure. No, I was thinking about Ron. When I told you something, it remained between us. But when I would tell Ron something, it was in the public domain. He would even mock me over it in public, and that made me furious. But somehow, I always forgave him for it. During our first two years at school, I can remember a dozen things he said to me, or about me, that hurt me as much as anything Lyra ever said, and yet we locked Lyra out instantly as an enemy, and Ron was seen, I don’t know, as an insecure, well-meaning buffoon, I guess”, she seemed to be angry at herself.

“I was thinking about that too. Not now, but other day. How we just assumed his heart is in the right place – he’s a Gryffindor. He’s a Weasley. They’re all good folks. But Lyra felt dangerous, focused, in enemy camp. If Ron said something hurtful, we assumed he’s insecure and trying to prop himself up. If she did it, we assumed it was a weapon intentionally aimed to hurt us. I don’t even understand how he got sorted into Gryffindor, but then again Peter Pettigrew was a Gryffindor. I just foolishly assumed then that everybody in Gryffindor has to be good, and everybody in Slytherin has to be bad. And they all kept giving us those baleful looks, unlike the Hufflepuffs who were nice to everybody, or Ravenclaws who were aloof”, he reminisced.

“Part of it was just childish competitiveness. If you sort kids in two classes, each class will start trying to prove they are better and see the other as the competition”, she noted. “Even if the classes are sorted completely at random, and they are called A and B”.

“That’s true”, Harry conceded. “However, when you add serious politics and war into the mix, it becomes really bad. I was told – by Ron, as a matter of fact – that Slytherin produces the most dark wizards of all houses, and that the Dark Lord and all his followers were from Slytherin, and their children are now going to be sorted there as well. You can imagine how I reacted to that. Also, I saw Ron in rags and looking neglected, complaining about being the youngest in his family and how everybody is appreciated more than him and whatever he does will not be seen as special, and I saw myself in that – I was also in rags, I was always told I don’t matter and I’m just a waste of space and food. When I look at it now, I see him as an inherently insecure, ungrateful kid who never really learned to appreciate anything and was just entitled, felt everything he had was nothing and wanted more because he thought he deserved it. And you don’t even know the half of the nasty things he said about you when you weren’t there, and I’m not repeating those”, he grinned.

Hermione giggled. “And then Lyra came to our compartment, looking confident and important, well dressed, dignified, and we both interpreted that as haughty, spoiled and nasty, and she made faces at Ron’s clothes and even more when I said that my parents were muggles, and made that hamster joke when I was already sensitive to having those big front teeth”.

“Nice hamster you’re having, Potter. Did you buy it in Diagon Alley, or did it follow you on its own?”, Harry reminisced. “That felt like such a nasty thing to say to someone, that I instantly sorted her in the same box as Dudley and all other nasty bullies I ever met”.

“It was nasty, and it hurt”, Hermione remembered, “But it was by no means worse than what Ron kept saying about me, if you remember”.

“I do, in fact, and I can’t understand why I didn’t react the same way to him. Probably because he looked poor and neglected, and in my mind people were either poor and neglected, or bullies”, he frowned. “Now that I think of it, he was a terrible pig who cared more about food and his personal comfort than people, and she was a wonderful person who just managed to say all the wrong things”.

“And then she got sorted into Slytherin and we took it as a confirmation that she’s an enemy, and he got sorted into Gryffindor and we took it as a confirmation that he’s a trustworthy friend”.

“Exactly”. They looked at each other in silence.

“Whenever she tried to approach me in the hallways, I would give her a nasty look, because she was the enemy, a bully and a nasty person, and never even talked to her if I could avoid it. I didn’t see her as a person – she was just something you need to fight and defeat, and the fact that she looked like a pretty girl felt like a trick of the enemy that made her worse”, Harry remembered.

“And then she had enough and saved us from our own nastiness and stupidity by ordering you to take out your wand and kill her, if she’s the enemy and vermin, and if not, to treat her with dignity”, Hermione smiled.

“I was too self-righteous to feel ashamed of anything at that time, but she really made me feel ashamed of myself”, he smiled. “She forced open the box I put her in and made me realise that she’s a girl with feelings and that I actually treated her horribly”.

“That, and how smart and dignified she was, and how articulated and sophisticated under stress. I already knew she was a top student, but class is one thing; seeing that display was quite another. I went from having classified her as a nasty cow, to wanting to be like her”, Hermione smiled. “And when you talked to her and explained how she was, I felt really miffed for missing out”.

A perfectly balanced tray levitated itself beside them.

“Snacks”, Lyra shouted from the kitchen.

“Thanks”, they shouted back. “Smoked salmon, buttered toast, Earl Gray tea”, Hermione noticed. “You’re spoiling us”, she shouted.

“Shut up and eat, you’re pregnant”, Lyra shouted back.

“I’m not missing Ron any more”, she gave Harry a conspiratory whisper as he snickered.

“Did you know?”, Hermione gave Harry a mock-suspicious look.

“That Latin is her second native language and that she read the classics in the original? Of course”, he smirked. “Since we were thirteen”.

“And you never told me”, her look became judgmental.

“A gentleman never tells”, he took a bite of his croissant. Viktor choked on his coffee, while Lyra pretended not to notice and smiled into her cup.

Hermione pointed a finger at Harry, tried to say five things at once, was left without words, and just stood like that while everybody broke into laughter in earnest.

“I’m pretty sure this statement wasn’t meant to cover those circumstances, but I do applaud your discretion”, Hermione eventually finished and smiled.

“We talked about lots of stuff that was private, and I felt comfortable talking about it only if it were politics, and stuff I felt both of us would feel comfortable talking about in the mess hall, to others”, he got serious. “It felt sacred. I still feel I’m allowed to mention any of it only if she already told you herself”.

“Thank you”, Lyra whispered.

“I think it’s a wonderful family tradition”, Viktor nodded. “Knowing the langue of the ancient family books really gives you a sense of connection to your ancestry, makes you able to participate in it properly”, he smiled at Lyra. “Will you teach the kids? And I’m including myself”.

“I would be honoured, if everybody agrees”, she looked at them and they all nodded. “And if you don’t mind, I would like to include Lucius as a fellow teacher, since he’s feeling pretty low and abandoned; and Narcissa can teach them the family lore and lineage, the way she taught me, because Lucius wasn’t the only caring and diligent parent”, she smiled.

“That’s a great idea. They must feel terribly lonely and possibly guilty in that big house, all alone”, Hermione nodded. “And honestly, I would love to learn enough Latin to be able to actually read that book you gave me”.

“De incantationibus by Apollodor of Syracuse?”, Lyra winked. “Oh, I might actually read from it to all of you and translate; that’s a much better way to learn than cramming declinations”.

“What is it about?”, Harry was curious.

“Oh, ancient spells and basics of verbal magic. The original was in Greek, and this is a second century BC translation. Interestingly, the spells themselves were in Latin, but slightly messed up, as if created by a non-native speaker who didn’t really know the grammar. I think the original was written around second century BC, soon after the Roman conquest of Syracuse, so the author might have been a contemporary of Archimedes, or close enough. He even explains how he made his wand from Phoenix feather and olive, and consecrated it to Athena and Apollo, invoking their blessings upon both components as their gifts”, Lyra explained.

“Woah”, Viktor was the first one managing to speak.

“Exactly”, Harry nodded. “Now you see why I spent my school years feeling like a dumb kid who somehow lucked into being taught stuff by the two smartest girls in the world”.

Hermione blushed. “To their credit, they never actually bragged or treated me like an idiot, they just slowly brought me up to speed”, Harry smiled at both women.

“I felt guilty when I realized how poorly you were treated by those horrid muggles, while I was pampered, taught and loved”, Lyra took his hand and kissed it. “The least I could do is share”.

“We brought a little something for you”, Lyra smiled as she and Hermione unloaded two picnic baskets with wine, cheese, ham and fresh bread. “It’s small payback for feeding everybody since forever, but we had to start somewhere”.

Molly and Arthur stood in shock, because that wasn’t how things usually worked. “Ah. Oh. Thank you”, Molly smiled. “Please, sit down, make yourselves comfortable”, she managed.

“I guessed Ginny would be hanging out with her boyfriend and George would be busy and we didn’t want you to be alone now”, Lyra smiled at them warmly.

“The home does feel so empty now”, Molly whispered.

“That’s why we’re here”, Hermione came to hug the motherly woman.

…

“Anyway, does anyone know why Gamp’s law of elemental transfiguration has exceptions in the first place? I always wondered about that, lacking money and having to figure out food and housing and all that. I though you might know”, Arthur looked at the two young women.

“I’m afraid I don’t know”, Hermione shrugged. “I can tell you what they are, being a nerd and all, but I don’t know why”.

“I do”, Lyra whispered.

Everybody looked at her. “I thought nobody knows”, Hermione started.

“It’s because we refuse to live in a world where nothing matters”, she looked at her friends with those beautiful silver eyes that looked like two stars. “Or we are made by someone who refuses to have nothing matter. Pick either”, she smiled. “We refuse to accept a prize without a contest. If something is not deserved, we refuse to value it. If we value it, we want it to be precious, we want it to come as a result of a battle won, of choices well made”. She looked at Arthur. “If we can just wave a wand and produce gold, why would anyone accept it as payment for anything? If we can produce food and shelter, why would money be precious? If we want something other people have, what could we offer them as compensation?” She turned to Hermione. “And your list of exceptions is incomplete”, she smiled. “We also can’t raise people from the dead. We can’t replace body parts lost in battle with evil. We can’t produce children magically. We can’t cause true love magically – only a mockery of it. Loss needs to be real. Sacrifice needs to matter.” She kissed her friend’s hand. “Love needs to be earned”.

“Woah”, she rose up as she saw a dusty tome in the library. “You have it as well”. She picked up Annales by Tacitus. “My father used to read it to me before bed time”.

“You speak Latin?”, Hermione managed to gather her bearings.

“Latine expedite loquor, quod pater meus me ab aetate duorum annorum docuit”, Lyra smiled. “I speak fluent Latin, thanks to my father teaching me since I was two”, she translated.

They all looked at her with their mouths open. “My grandmother gave me this book, but nobody could ever read it since we didn’t know the language”, Molly managed.

“He would also read me from Cicero, Vitruvius and Plutarch”, Lyra’s eyes were soft with memory. “I especially liked the stories about Alexander’s conquest of India, and how they mocked Nero”.

“It is no wonder you were always so loyal to your parents”, Arthur mused. “I misunderstood. I always imagined you being united by common contempt and hatred of lesser families and lesser humans”, he grinned. “It would never occur to me that Lucius was a loving father who would read to his little girl in Latin”.

“He was, and I adored him”, Lyra smiled. “It was a hard blow when I found out that he could be wrong, and in such a grave matter. I think I grew up then, ceased to be a child and became a grown woman, who had to make her own choices and carve her own path. But I repaid them for their love, Arthur. I could have escaped that horrible dungeon at any moment. The price would be their death or terrible torture, so I stayed there to protect them, and I knew that I couldn’t defend myself or protect myself properly because it would expose them to repercussions. Terrible things kept crossing my mind – things like having to silently accept being gifted to some villain as a trophy, be raped in my own bed and not make a sound, because they would be punished for my disobedience. I am incredibly grateful to all of you who fought for us on the outside and won our freedom, and to God or fate or whatever for sparing me the worst of consequences. I am grateful to you, Molly, for killing aunt Bella for me, despite it being my job”, she looked at her with deep serenity and seriousness.

“We didn’t know”, Molly looked horrified. “We couldn’t even imagine what you had to endure”.

“Oh, we could; we just didn’t bother”, Arthur was repentant. “We didn’t see Death Eaters or anybody else on the other side as actual people, and we didn’t bother thinking about their children either. It would get in the way of business”, he sighed remorsefully.

“I didn’t say it to make you feel guilty, Arthur”, Lyra smiled. “I wanted to let you know that I repaid my parents for all the love and kindness they showed me in my childhood by enduring hell in order to save and protect them. I did it because I wanted to remind you that you, like my parents, gave everything to your children, and yet, I fail to remember Ron ever reciprocating. He consumed your love, care, shelter, food and other things you could barely afford, and he thought he repaid you by coming for more. In the end, he repaid you by becoming a terrible person and putting a stain on your family name. What I am saying is: please, don’t feel guilty. Your problem isn’t that you didn’t give enough; it’s that you received too little in return, and you ended up depleted. Will you allow us to love you, and take care of you, in his stead?”, Lyra looked at them pleadingly, with the eyes of a goddess, as they both burst into tears and came to embrace her.

…

“You learned Latin since you were two”, Hermione looked at her, as they were back home on their couch.

“Yes”, Lyra smiled. “Surprised?”

“Actually, no. I’m in awe”, she smiled as she massaged Lyra’s feet. “At two, I was proud of myself for speaking full sentences in English”.

“I wish we were born as sisters. We both seem to have been lonely little nerds”, Lyra laughed.

“True, but at least we now seem to be making up for lost time”, Hermione giggled.

“How did you turn out so normal? I was in that place for only a few hours and I was at my limits. If that lasted for days, let alone years, I’d have gone insane”, Hermione rested after their practice session. The children were so exhausted from running and jumping at the floating lights that they fell asleep on the floor, and they had a peaceful moment now.

“I believe you, but you were actively tortured by aunt Bella, in the same way she mentally damaged Alice and Frank Longbottom to the point where they are permanently in St. Mungo’s and unaware of the world around them. I was at no point the target of their focused attention in that way, which was fortunate for me”, Lyra pointed out.

“But still; you’re so incredibly sorted out that you’re basically healing everybody and providing comfort, rather than being broken and in need of healing yourself. How did you even manage that?”

Lyra thought about it. “It was horrible. I still feel cold terror and start sweating when I visit that house. It is full of terrible memories for me. I wouldn’t look nearly as sorted out if I had to live there”, she smiled. “But to me, the actual terror was of a different kind. It started when Voldemort returned, I saw what a horrible person he was, I understood that my parents were wrong about him, and I returned to school to tell Harry, only to find him flirting with another girl”, she shrunk into herself a bit. “I understand now that I assumed all sort of things about our relationship he had no idea about, so he didn’t understand how that would affect me, but from my perspective… my life was over. I chose him when I was eleven. It could be only him. He looked at me with suspicion and fear thinking I sided with Voldemort now that he’s back, and he kissed another girl; he never kissed me like that. When I gave him a hateful look because he betrayed me, he took it as a confirmation, because argumentum ad Voldemort always seemed to hang between us”, she smiled, and wiped a tear off Hermione’s cheek. “For two years things were broken between us to the point where he ended up almost killing me”, she continued. “Those two years were the darkest in my life; I had Voldemort and his minions in my home, and they contributed to my despair and terror, but after Harry realised he loved me – and by the way I will be eternally in your debt for your role in this – and he told me he’s mine if I wanted him, it was as if a sun lit up in my heart again and I was whole, and I felt my life returning, I felt I had something to hope for, other than merely trying to keep my parents alive and surviving for their sake. My chosen life was back on track. I might not die as an old maid after all”, they both laughed through tears. “I was still terrified at home, but it was all external now, not terror feeding my inner despair and hopelessness. I understood what truly mattered, what I had to protect at all cost, and what I merely had to endure”, Lyra smiled like a small sun.

“So that’s what you meant by ‘nobody hurts what is mine’, after you wiped out those thugs”, Hermione realised.

“Yes”, Lyra nodded. “I realised that life isn’t time, or place, or things. It’s the people you love. Life is when you spend quality time with them, and everything else is just scenery and energy to power it. At the time I came to that realisation, my life were my parents and Harry. When my parents had a change of heart and allegiance about Voldemort, and Harry understood he loved me, the two parts of my life that tried to tear me apart came together to heal me. Voldemort, werewolves, death eaters – they were just scenery. Sure, they were the scenery of a Lovecraftian horror, and they still threatened everything I loved, but after my heart was healed, it was just an external threat. It was manageable. I still shivered in fear every time I had to pass through a dark corridor in my own home, and I would wake up screaming in terror from nightmares I had about what would happen if it came to the worst, and the absolute worst were those five minutes when Hagrid brought Harry from the woods, as dead. How I even survived that, I will never know. I was in a daze even when he stopped pretending to be dead and woke up properly only when Voldemort was dead. Then I realised that I lived life conditionally, until that moment. I expected us to die together more than I expected us to live together. I didn’t mind, as long as the ‘together’ part was there”, she smiled, and wiped both their tears now. “After all, I didn’t know if Voldemort could be defeated at all, now that Dumbledore was dead. I hoped, but it was a weak hope, easily defeated by reason. And then we went to talk, we both apologized for our respective roles in our misfortune, and he asked me to marry him, and I said yes”, she beamed. “From that point on, my soul was so thoroughly and profoundly healed, that nothing really bothers me, unless it threatens the people I love, but as you could see, I practiced magic a lot in case that happened”, she grinned. “And there was another thing that felt like deep healing: when I surrendered my virginity to Harry in our first night together after the wedding, and I felt such relief and happiness that it got to be him, and not some filthy creep Voldemort gifted me to, or that accursed werewolf raping me as prelude to eating me alive”, she shivered. “That fear was with me for years, and only at that point it felt finally resolved, and I got to live my life as I chose it”, her smile came back.

Hermione just hugged her, because there were no words.