FIC: "The Ladies of Godric's Hollow" for featherxquill

[bethbethbeth]

Recipient: featherxquill
Author: tetleythesecond
Title: The Ladies of Godric's Hollow
Rating: R
Pairings: Griselda Marchbanks/Bathilda Bagshot, implied background Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, with appearances of a canon-character's semi-original aunt.
Word Count: 17,000
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *None.*
Summary: Griselda Marchbanks and Bathilda Bagshot are two women with a dream and sound principles. However, when Bathilda's nephew pays them a visit in the summer of 1899, the question arises how to stay true to them.
Author's Notes: This comes with fervent gratitude to my fantastic betas, K and P, who worked miracles on this tale. Dear featherxquill, I had the hardest time choosing between your wonderful prompts -- I hope you like what I did with this.

One literal and one paraphrased quote are from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, page 287 of the British hardcover edition.

---

~ 1997 ~

If anyone were ever to make a film about Godric's Hollow, it would be one of them art features where nothing ever happens, and everything is black and white.

Shepherd John Whitby was sure of it as he sat under the awning of his caravan, smoking a pipe and watching his flock graze in the drizzle of a cold summer afternoon.

Nothing ever happened in Godric's Hollow.

The young ones had long left the village, going where the jobs were, and even many of the older folks had begun trading their draughty cottages for tiny, identical boxes in what they now called assisted living communities. Those who still lived here left in the mornings and returned in the evenings, save Paul Farnham and Eliza Shunpike and himself, who had nothing to leave Godric's Hollow for.

Wouldn't even notice the absence of colour, Whitby thought as he pulled the zipper of his jumper a little higher, not with the weather being like this. Never had such a drab summer since Maggie had left him for that hotel fellow in town.

It hadn't always been like that. Godric's Hollow once had been a colourful place. Whitby watched a smoke ring dissolve in the fog as he fondly remembered the time when the hippies were still here. Young couples, most of them, kind folks with lots of babies, and with a talent for attracting strange goings-on and even stranger visitors. Kate Pritchett had said they had supernatural powers; she knew, she'd said, because her brother had married one of them. Then again, Kate Pritchett also sent her toenail clippings to a fortune teller up North. True, there had been that evening when Paul Farnham and he could have sworn that they'd seen a flying motorbike. Just as likely, though, that one of the ales that night had been a bit off. Pete Abbott had said so, too.

In any case, the time of the hippies was long over. Most of them had left after that terrible explosion that had killed the young family, and those few who had remained simply faded into the grey-in-grey background. Like Eliza Shunpike, whose son was now in the Navy, or so one heard.

CRACK!

The sudden noise made Whitby look up. A flock of crows fluttered up by a tree near the country road, shouting its collective indignation at the perpetrator. Must be Paul's engine backfiring again. Been doing that a lot of late, last time when that dead ringer for Klondike Annie appeared here, poking her nose into all sorts of old stuff. He'd pay him a visit later that evening. Better have a look at that engine.

He reached into his pocket to retrieve his matchbox. Damn fog had made his pipe go cold again. He lit it ceremoniously, and when he looked up, he saw someone walking by the country road.

Busy day, he thought.

Squinting, he saw that the passer-by was a woman. An old one in a purple overcoat, leaning heavily on a cane with a silver handle. Wasn't she that friend or sister or whatever of Miss Bagshot's?

Poor Miss Bagshot. He didn't like her much; never had, even when the lights had still been on in that brain. The young hippie girl with the husband and two beaus had said that she once was a professor or something. Well, he wasn't sure about that. All he knew was that to him, she'd always seemed strange, ancient already when he was a boy, taciturn and not a little scary. Now, if he believed in supernatural powers and toenails and things, well, there would have been the perfect witch.

No, he didn't like her much, but still, he couldn't help worrying what would become of her, now that Mary was gone. Mary used to check on Miss Bagshot twice a day, to make sure she ate and help her dress and things. Left her husband, though, like all of them. Moved to the Continent with the children, or so one heard. See? One couldn't keep a wife in this drab place even when one had a decently-paying job. Poor Reg.

"Morning, Mam," he shouted, but the woman didn't answer.

***

WFLCOME TC GODPIC'S HCLLOW.

Griselda pulled her scarf more tightly around her head and marched on. The letters on the sign had lost yet more bits since her last visit. Like the village, it had seen better days.

She should come more often; nobody knew it better than she. There was no excuse, and she wasn't dishonest enough to blame the long absences only on her other commitments. Granted, what little of her time she didn't spend saving the last vestiges of an educational system that deserved the name went into arranging Portkeys and fake Muggle identities, and not the least part of it was spent trying to convince Gussie Longbottom of the charms of Majorca. But that wasn't why she neglected coming to Godric's Hollow more than she neglected taking her hearing potions.

She passed the sign and went down the main road, trying to ignore the pain in her joints and the shortness of breath that always came with this sort of weather. Whoever had said that old age wasn't for ninnies, or something to that effect, must have been English. It was the understatement of the century.

She reached the war memorial that turned into a statue of the young Potters as she passed it, and continued on to the village square. Some fifteen years back, the residents had rebuilt the old covered wool market here, in a bout of optimism prompted by a sudden influx of visiting campers that some had taken for the beginnings of a recovery of tourism.

It had never worked out that way, though. The penniless strangers came and went, the paying tourists never followed, and in the light fog and the drizzle, the market now looked like the moth-eaten hat of a witch who had first cursed the village and then left on the last passing wool merchant's carriage.

By the pub, Griselda turned left onto a small cobblestone lane that led up the hill on the Southern edge of the village. When she'd reached almost the end of the lane, she stopped in front of a small, warped house, with a front garden that had long succumbed to the rule of wild ivy and chickweed. Here it was, the house in which she'd lived some of the happiest years of her life. The house that she'd once thought of as a place of laughter, love, and learning. Laugh and love she'd done all right; only the learning hadn't quite turned out the way she'd thought.

She ripped a rogue sprig of prickmadam out of a crack in the bricks before she stuck the key into the keyhole. Straining her good-for-nothing ears for a noise from within, she turned it, and paused again before she opened the door. She hadn't walked into this house with an easy heart in almost a century. At first, there had been the guilt, the feeling of having been the one who'd walked out, who had betrayed their dream, as it were. Then there had been secret that stood between them and that Griselda had never brought herself to confess.

And nowadays, there was the fear. The uncertainty whom she would find when she opened the door. A Bathilda who didn't recognise her, who took her for a burglar and defended herself with all her strength, which could be remarkable for a woman going on a hundred and sixty? A Bathilda on a good day, who remembered who she was, and who sometimes teased her with age-old anecdotes? Or the Bathilda of the dishevelled hair and the empty eyes, who didn't even notice she was there and just sat there dangling images of her own future self in front of Griselda's face?

There was a hum coming from somewhere in the back of the cottage, and Griselda breathed a sigh of relief. Humming days weren't lucid days, but they were peaceful days.

"Dearest?"

A year or two ago, she'd taken to using the old endearment again. It was the safest bet. Bathilda didn't always recognise Griselda these days, but most of the time, she still knew her Dearest. On bad days she could get angry because nobody but the young woman in the picture on the mantel was allowed to call her that, but Griselda usually managed to calm her by explaining that no, the woman in the picture was for the young Tilda in the picture, and shouldn't old Tilda have a Dearest as well?

Griselda followed the hum into the parlour and found Bathilda sitting in the armchair by the window. She was still in her nightgown, the light blue one that barely reached her calves now after years of washing. Reg must have stopped by in the morning; the wispy hair was clean and brushed, and a small stain on the nightgown suggested that she'd been eating. He even must have spoken a dusting spell. Nevertheless, there had to be a replacement for Mary soon, Griselda thought as she flicked her wand to Summon Bathilda's frayed dressing gown from the bedroom. If only there was an applicant to whom Griselda could entrust the task with a better feeling.

Bathilda looked up and smiled a near-toothless smile as she stretched out her twig-thin arms.

"Dearest," Griselda repeated. She helped Bathilda up, eased the bony arms into the dressing gown, and sat down on the armrest of Bathilda's chair. Putting her arm around the frail shoulders, she placed a kiss on the wisps of hair, just as she'd done when they still were dark brown and sprang from a bun that always held pencils or quills to jot down a thought or a question, an idea or an hypothesis.

***

~ 1881 ~

"Bathilda! Over here!"

Eleanor Bones's baritone effortlessly sailed above the heads of the three dozen ladies assembled in her parlour. The monthly lecture on the betterment of girls had just come to an end, and the crème de la crème of Wizarding ladyhood was collectively emerging from the music room for refreshments and a chat.

This was Griselda's first time at Bones Manor. It wasn't customary for teachers-in-training to be invited, and she was by far the youngest woman present. With no acquaintances in the room and the ladies all busy retrieving best friends or favourite enemies, she'd been unsure whether she'd manage the small-talk part of the evening. All the greater was her gratitude when her hostess approached her with a glass of port and a smile as wide as if there could be no greater honour for a seasoned Ministry official than to talk to a teacher-to-be one-third her age. Miss Bones had just asked Griselda her opinion on the lecture when she spotted the newcomer by the door and beckoned her over. "First timer, like you," she murmured. "Been inviting her for years, but until tonight she'd never made it."

"Really?" Griselda was astonished. Every woman she knew of would rather cut off a finger than miss an invitation to one of Miss Bones's soirées, even though she suspected that most were here for the gossip and canapés rather than the lectures. But Miss Bones was obstinate, and she had a mission. No merriment without prior edification concerning the woman question. As for Griselda, she could take gossip or leave it alone, but she'd been beside herself with pride and not a little trepidation when the first ever female Head of the Department of Magical Education had singled her out of the flock of young women filing out of the lecture hall one day and requested the pleasure of her presence at Bones Manor, that coming Wednesday at six.

Griselda's glance followed that of her hostess. By the door, there stood a woman in a plain, brown dress, with plain, brown hair streaked with the first hints of dusty grey. Her bun was just this side of neat, and something stuck in it that Griselda could not quite discern.

The woman was short, a bit squat, and her pale eyes seemed a little absent-minded as they searched the room to make out where the voice had come from. When Miss Bones waved again, the woman gave a wry smile and approached them. Griselda saw that she limped a little.

"At last, Bathilda," Miss Bones boomed as she held out her hand to the newcomer. "I had feared that I would have to resurrect Herodotus in person to get you here." Turning to Griselda, she added, "Bathilda Bagshot is well underway to becoming the most celebrated magical historian of our century. Her ground-breaking work on Dilys Derwent just won her the Historia Magica Award."

"Of which you are the Chief Juror." Miss Bagshot's voice was quiet, and Griselda saw that her ears had turned a little pink.

"Which shows that it is an award to be taken seriously," Miss Bones stated. "Bathilda, meet Griselda Marchbanks, top of her Hogwarts year, top of Miss Wright's teacher seminar, and, mark my words, we'll both live to see her succeed me as head of the DME if we don't lose her to some undeserving husband before."

Griselda smiled. References to husbands had become increasingly frequent since her twentieth birthday, but they seldom had the tenor that Miss Bones gave them. "There seems no danger of that right now," she said.

"Well, let us bless the fates for that," Miss Bones declared. "Now, I hope you'll excuse me, my dears. I hate to leave two such brilliant, young minds, but I have to go and entertain our lecturer. Bathilda, if you're looking for your pencil, it's in your bun." And off she went towards a stately witch in forest-green robes and a slate-grey bun. She held a silver lorgnon and seemed to think it the most natural thing on earth to receive a hand kiss from a square-shouldered witch in a black reform costume.

They stood in silence for a heartbeat. It hadn't escaped Griselda that Miss Bagshot was even shyer than she, despite the fact that the woman had to be well into her thirties. She'd probably have to make the start herself.

"You've missed an interesting lecture," Griselda began.

"Missed?" At that, Miss Bagshot's watery eyes grew large. "Heavens, what time is it?"

"Just past eight."

"Goodness." Bathilda fished a pocket watch out of her robes. "And here I was, thinking that it's a quarter to six," she said, tapping the glass of the watch. "Wonder how long it's been saying that."

Griselda laughed. "Well, if you'd like to, I'd be glad to tell you about it. It was about the benefits of engaging young girls in philosophical thinking through dialogue. Really quite intriguing."

And as she saw a nod that was so violent that yet another streak of brown hair tumbled out of the too-loose bun, she slid her arm under Bathilda's and steered her to two armchairs in a corner that had just become vacant.

***

~ 1997 ~

Griselda leaned her cane against the kitchen wall and opened Bathilda's pantry.

She'd helped Bathilda dress and brushed her hair, and now she cast a quick glance around the sparsely-stocked shelves, looking for something that might do for lunch. After a dismissive frown at the oatmeal and milk, she took two eggs and a sprig from the potted thyme on the windowsill. Bathilda loved thyme.

Little had they known back then, Griselda thought as she cracked open the eggs and let their contents glide into a bowl. Little had they known that after that evening at Eleanor's, Bathilda and she would hardly spend a day apart for the next twenty years, and after a short while, even hardly a night.

They must have spent hours in those armchairs. Griselda had a good memory and a fondness for well-presented facts, so she'd given Bathilda a nearly unabridged version of what she had heard in the music room. Bathilda had listened with rapture, and in the discussion that ensued they soon discovered that they shared a love of learning and an interest in teaching (though Bathilda saw herself more writing textbooks than standing in front of a classroom), and a passion for philanthropy. They had discussed the condition of girls, Platonic versus Victorian teaching methods, concepts of education from French Muggles to Dilys Derwent and the new Dean of the Salem Institute, and had just arrived at the mutual confession of their complete lack of talent for household spells, when it suddenly dawned on them that they were being watched.

Eleanor Bones was sitting on the chaise longue by the fireplace, smoking a slender pipe and looking genuinely amused at what she saw. "Don't let me rush you," she laughed, holding up a hand as they both shot up from their armchairs.

Everyone else had already left.

First-time guests and already the last ones to leave -- it was nowhere near what they both had been taught. They took their leave with curtseys that Eleanor reciprocated with hand kisses, and as they readied themselves to Disapparate from the front hall, they agreed that they should meet again soon. It was quickly decided what they would do. Griselda couldn't boil an egg to save her life, and Bathilda had two left hands with kitchen tools. Thus, nothing seemed to make more sense than to combine their inadequacies and continue their conversation over an attempt at producing dinner at Bathilda's the next evening.

And here I stand and haven't improved a bit, Griselda thought as she eyed the yellow mass in the frying pan, charred on one side and glibbery on the other. Merlin, had she forgotten to put butter into the pan? She quickly wondered if she should dare a second attempt, but she decided that it didn't matter. Perhaps it would bring back a memory. It would certainly taste of Dearest.

Despite being a culinary disaster, the dinner at Bathilda's had been the best evening Griselda had ever had. They had found that their love of teaching wasn't the only thing they had in common. There was also a distinct lack of inclination to marry, for example, and the ability to stand on their own legs, not least thanks to mentors who had shown them that they could.

In Griselda's case, that mentor had been Eleanor Bones. They'd met at Hogwarts, at one of the talks organised for girls just before O.W.L.s. Back then, most girls left Hogwarts after their fifth year, and each year, the teachers organised a series of lectures on options for young witches to make themselves fit for married life, or unmarried life if the fates were ungracious. Finishing schools in Switzerland introduced themselves, as did schools for household magic, St Mungo's nurse department, and the teacher seminar of the Ministry's Department for Magical Education. The year Griselda sat her O.W.L.s, the DME was represented by a forbidding-looking witch in black robes and a men's haircut. Piercing eyes under furrowed brows sweeping across the room, she gave an inspiring speech on the contribution the female sex could make to the betterment of Wizardkind by cultivating the minds of the young, and the opportunities the teaching profession held for women who wanted to be their own mistresses. Griselda felt as if Miss Bones were reading her every expression, even saw what went on behind her forehead. And that was quite a lot.

Griselda did not come from a family of money. She was one of many girls, not the eldest, and by far not the prettiest, tall and bony as she was, and completely without natural charms, as her grandmother rarely failed to point out. Impatient and impertinent when she felt that she was right, which was often, she had been declared a write-off on the marriage market by her family, and her parents had planned for her to take up a job as a typist at the Department of Magical Games and Sports, like Aunt Lydia before her. It would pay poorly, but if she remained at home, she could contribute to the household and even keep some spare money for herself.

Miss Bones seemed to have seen all that, for as Griselda filed out of the Great Hall that day, subdued like a young witch who had just seen how things might have been, she felt a large, heavy hand on her shoulder. A deep voice said: "Miss. A word."

That had been the beginning. Miss Bones hadn't rested until Mr Marchbanks had grudgingly agreed for his daughter to remain at Hogwarts until her N.E.W.T.s, of which Griselda took home seven with top marks and one with reasonable ones, for she was not a natural at Charms. She got a small stipend from a foundation for girls, of which, as she later learned, no one but Eleanor Bones was the founder and sole contributor. Together with some tutoring work, it paid for a miniature room and bigger suppers than she could eat at old Mrs Weasley's, and two or three used books a month.

Griselda never went out much, for lack of money, and also for lack of interest in the conversation of most of her classmates. Thus, her delight and surprise knew no boundaries when, over an atrocity of a steak-and-kidney pie and a mountain of potato debris, she recognised that she had, finally, found a friend who was just like her. Bathilda, dear, shy Bathilda, who could neither cook nor pin up a decent bun, was a well of knowledge, with a mind so much sharper than her knives and a voice so soft that Griselda could listen to it for hours as it told of Goblin insurgents, the inherent good in man, and the reformative powers of a sound knowledge of history.

And a fascinating history she had had herself. Griselda knew that Bathilda's father Bartholomew Bagshot had been a famous historian himself. She owned a frayed copy of his standard work on Goblin subversion. After Bathilda's mother had died when Bathilda was an infant and her much older brother had left the family to move to the Continent, father and daughter had become everything to each other. She had helped him plough through the archives in the holidays, and he had taught her everything she knew, which explained the weaknesses in the hair and housekeeping departments, as well as the lack of inclination for worldly matters. When he'd passed away some ten years ago, he'd left his daughter the house, his private archive, and an empty vault at Gringott's.

Yes, Griselda Marchbanks and Bathilda Bagshot had hit it off like the Hogwarts library on fire. In fact, they shared so many beliefs, so many experiences, and so many hopes that it hadn't taken them many more barely edible dinners to decide that Griselda should give up her room at Mrs Weasley's and move in with Bathilda. It would come out so cheap that they could hire a cook, and who knew, perhaps eventually put into practice some of their ideas for a better world for women, girls, and mankind in general.

Those were the days, Griselda thought as she scraped the sorry excuse for a scrambled egg onto a plate, poured a glass of milk, and carried both to the living room.

They had become everything for each other. The rock in the surf and the breeze in the night. The mother, the father, the nurse and the friend and the partner in dreams, work, and worries. Eventually, the husband, the wife.

Had the world been a different one, it could have been so nice.

***

~ 1891 ~

"Let me see what you're doing, Marjorie."

Griselda put a hand on the girl's shoulder and took the half-finished garment from the table. It was a deep blue robe with lighter inlays and a pearly-white trimming around the neck. Marjorie Malkin, seventeen and in a condition far from befitting an unmarried girl, really had an astonishing way with fabric.

Griselda took a lorgnette out of her pocket. At thirty-one, her eyes were slowly beginning to pay her back for long days in the office and nights spent reading by candlelight. She inspected the neckline of the dress and was hard put not to show the full extent of her appreciation. The stitches were even, tight, and nearly invisible, the slim, ruffled lining impeccably clean and perfectly regular. Between this girl's fingers, any needle seemed to turn into a wand.

Yet the whole thing looked decidedly low-cut.

"Beautiful work, my child. But don't you find it a bit daring?"

"No, Miss. Look." Marjorie took the dress back and placed it flat on the table. "If I may ... please," she added after she'd seen Griselda's frown and heard a distinct cough from the background.

"It's a summer robe, Miss," she continued when Griselda had nodded for her to go on. "When it's warm, you want as much air on your ... you want your dress to encumber you as little as possible. So at home, when nobody's looking, one can wear it like this, and when one goes out or the milkman comes round, one simply does this." Marjorie tapped the décolletage with her wand, and lo! ruffles began mushrooming out of the seam, growing into the empty space until they formed a perfectly acceptable neckline. There was even a light blue ribbon with which one could fasten the collar around the neck.

"Who tells me that this is how the owner will wear the dress when the milkman comes?" Griselda asked with a frown. Truth be told, she loved the idea, yet Marjorie also had to understand how important it was for a girl in her condition to watch what little was left of her reputation.

"Oh, I'm quite sure of it, Miss. If it'll be worn by who it's for." Marjorie blushed and cast down her eyes.

"And who is it for?"

"I'm not saying, Miss, even if you give me that look. I promise I'll alter it if you insist, but if you might just let me do until it's finished? Please?"

"Very well," Griselda answered. She straightened her spine, looked out of the open window to see how Pauline was advancing with her gurdyroot, and sat down in the chair opposite Bathilda to resume her needlework. She hated needlework with a passion, but it wouldn't do to sit idle while the girls were here.

It was a normal Saturday at their house. Soon after Griselda had moved in, sometime in the autumn of 1881, they had begun making lofty plans for a vocational school for girls. They'd seen too many girls in Marjorie's situation, too many spinsters depending on the kindness of brothers and the acceptance of sisters-in-law, and too many wives who didn't even think it fathomable for a woman not to be at the mercy of the husband who brought home the bacon. Someone had to begin teaching them, and it had to be for free, and it had to be close to where they lived so they'd never be far from home, should their presence be needed.

Bathilda's house was big enough for lessons. Her study and archive were in the basement, and the parlour was too spacious for two quiet women anyway, especially two women who had so few friends to entertain. They were generally liked in the neighbourhood, but it hadn't escaped them that their neighbours considered them a bit of a laugh and no fit company for merry evenings.

Yet thus far, the vocational school had remained a dream. Bathilda didn't earn much with her publications, certainly not enough to sustain both of them. That would have been a precondition, though, for one of them had to make money while the other one taught. And the teacher would have to be Griselda. The idea of herself as a figure of authority, teaching skills and morals to young, sassy girls, was scarier to Bathilda than all the cobwebs and mice and rats of her archive taken together.

Thus, from Monday to Friday, Griselda Flooed to London to work. Miss Bones hadn't rested until the Ministry made Griselda a better offer than Hogwarts, and Griselda was glad for it. As eager as she was to teach, she enjoyed the influence of working at the source even more. Meanwhile, Bathilda stayed at home, researching and writing and trying to supervise the servants. It had been part of their agreement not to use house-elves but to hire a widow from the neighbourhood to cook for them once a day, a part-time caretaker for the fruit and vegetable garden and small repairs, and a young orphan girl as a live-in maid. They couldn't pay much, but they felt that a roof and respect, as well as help and firm but kind guidance wherever needed, would go a long way to making up for the dearth of money. A sentiment that was not always shared by the maids and caretakers.

On Saturdays, though, Griselda and Bathilda taught. Their house was open; everyone could come as he or she pleased, and quite often, they had half the magical children of the neighbourhood around. They owned a football, a real, leather one, which they allowed the boys to use in exchange for a few lines of Virgil. They had books full of pictures of exotic lands, or stories about girls, and Nancy served a warm meal to everyone who came. The only condition was that no hand was allowed to rest idle, and no pointless chatter was allowed except over tea.

Griselda loved their Saturdays. She loved the sound of the clock ticking on the mantelpiece, of Pauline clipping twigs and watering flowers, and of Bathilda's soft, quiet voice reading to them of beings who fought for their rights, or of an unmarried nurse who became Headmistress of Hogwarts.

She let her needlework sink and took a careful glance around. Marjorie was busy with her dress, and Hypatia deeply involved in her sums. Baby Muriel, whose mother was out for the day, was sound asleep in her crib. They weren't nannies, but Agnes Prewett paid well, and the money could be spent on the lunches for working girls that Nancy liked to offer on weekdays.

All were busy. It was safe to take a moment and look at her friend.

Bathilda. Dear, sweet Don Quixote of Godric's Hollow. The grey was taking over on her head now, and for lack of exercise and Nancy's way with a spoon, the plain, brown dresses had grown a bit larger over the years.

Sometimes, she drove Griselda crazy, with her forgetfulness and her unpunctuality and the cobwebs and dust she never seemed to notice when she brought them up from the cellar. Sometimes, Griselda wanted to shake her when she'd again paid the milkman too much, when she'd submitted an article to Abracadabra Press without charging because she considered it an honour and anyway not her work because the history was made by others; she merely wrote it down. Sometimes she wanted to shout at her for her lenience when the caretaker came to work drunk again, when a soft "Griselda ..." admonished her not to scold the maid too hard for flirting with the milkman.

Most of the time, though, she wished that the world was full of Bathildas.

***

~ 1997 ~

Griselda placed the plate and glass on the table and sat down, waiting to see if Bathilda knew what to do with them. She wouldn't help unless it was necessary. She told herself that it was because it had always been their policy to let people do for themselves whatever they could, but she knew that there was more to it. It hurt to see Bathilda needing help for the most elementary activities. For Griselda, every little thing Bathilda could do for herself had become a relief.

And indeed, after a while, Bathilda took the spoon.

Looking out of the window, Griselda considered her options. Bathilda could not stay here by herself. Mary had left three days ago, and while Bathilda still had good days, it was too risky to leave her alone on the bad ones. Reg had been kind enough to look in, but she couldn't impose on him forever, and besides, he was a man. It wouldn't do. No other neighbour seemed to stop by, and Griselda thought that that was probably for the better. It hadn't been unheard of in witches in Bathilda's condition that what was left of their magic broke out uncontrolled if they thought they were being attacked.

Yet there was only one witch in Godric's Hollow who was both available and willing to look after a frail, old woman. Eliza Shunpike wasn't afraid of the smells or the bouts of aggression; she was strong enough to lift a hundred pounds of skin and brittle bones, knew how to administer a potion or a bath when the need arose.

And she had a Death Eater son to whom she'd always been devoted.

Well, that settled it, didn't it?

Griselda got up and Summoned a wet cloth from the kitchen. She wiped a bit of milk from Bathilda's chin, picked a crumb of scrambled egg from the front of her robe, another one from her lap.

"Not a culinary revelation, was it?" she asked as she eased the spoon out of Bathilda's hand and wrapped her arm around her. "Come, let's take a walk."

***

~ 1897 ~

The late April sun was shining over Godric's Hollow. Daffodils in full bloom nodded their appreciation in the afternoon breeze, and on the pastures outside the village, lambs were frolicking in the sun.

It was Sunday, and the Misses were taking a walk. As always, they had got up at eight, an hour later than usual, and had a long breakfast of tea, toast, and the Sunday paper. After that, and after church, Bathilda had sat down in the recliner on the terrace with a book, and Griselda had pottered around in the flowerbeds. She'd pruned the climbing rose and sowed black-eyed Susans in a sunny spot by the wall, weeded the herb garden and spelled the chalk off the clay pots she'd set aside for planting geraniums in the summer. Once or twice, she'd felt a shadow behind herself, a soft hand that wiped a speck of dirt from her cheek, and a pair of lips that stole a kiss in the shadow of the privet.

Now lunch was over; Nancy had been sent home with half the roast and the remaining mashed potatoes, and they had donned their hats and walking shoes. Arms linked, they walked up the dirt lane that meandered up the soft hills where the sheep grazed in the sun. Bathilda now carried a slim, wooden cane. She'd always had a limp, having been born with a too-short right leg, but now that she was in her sixth decade, she was feeling the effects more than ever. She tired easily, and despite all the potions and pills, the pain never quite went away. Her Sunday walk, however, was obligatory.

When they had reached the top of the hill just outside the village, they sat down on a bench in the sun and watched the goings-on on shepherd Matthew Pritchett's pasture.

There was a girl down there. She was trying to coax the lambs with a bundle of clover and obviously did not approve of the fact that the lambs preferred talking to each other. The girl was perhaps seven years old, tall for her age, with lank hair and bony legs, and dressed in a pink, frilly frock that somehow looked like a mother's last, desperate attempt at turning her daughter into a proper little lady.

When the girl looked up, Bathilda waved. "Hallo, Muriel!"

"Good afternoon, Miss Bagshot and Miss Marchbanks," Muriel shouted. She turned away from the lambs that weren't living up to expectations and skipped up the grassy slope, her skirt bobbing with her every jump. Bathilda must have seen the reprimand on Griselda's lips, for she placed a soft hand on hers and shook her head almost invisibly.

"Does your mother know you're here?" Bathilda asked when Muriel reached them by their bench. A Pureblood girl out-of-doors by herself wasn't exactly a sight often seen in Godric's Hollow, much less on a Sunday afternoon.

Muriel didn't take her eyes off the tips of her boots when she answered. "No, Miss."

"You ran off?"

Muriel nodded. "You see ..." She looked up. "Mother wants me to sit inside and do needlework. She says I did a lazy job with my last cushion, and so I'm to do it all over again, and she's out with Father taking a walk, and the sun is so nice, and the lambs grow up so fast, so I tricked the maid who was supposed to watch me and ..." The little voice trailed off. Quietly, she added: "I hate needlework."

"To tell you a secret, so do I," Griselda admitted. "But it's useful to be able to do it well."

"What for? I don't have to make cushions and tablecloths. I won't marry. I want to be a bachelor, like my cousin Bilius. And I can be; my brothers say they'll pay me a pension until I'm old, so I won't need to go on the marriage market."

"Gilbert and Finn will do that?" Bathilda asked. "How kind of them."

"Yes," Muriel said. "They say they're doing it as a service to mankind."

Seeing Muriel's earnest expression, Griselda and Bathilda made an effort not to burst into laughter.

"But why don't you want to marry? Perhaps you'll find a nice young man with whom you can be bachelors together," Griselda suggested.

Muriel huffed. "Boys! They always laugh at me because I'm cleverer than they are. Except Albus, who is cleverer than I but doesn't speak to me, and Aberforth, who isn't clever but never speaks to anyone."

"Well, we certainly can't have anyone laugh at you," Bathilda said. "And you must never pretend you're any less clever than you are. If a man doesn't speak to you because you're clever, then that is his problem."

Muriel shrugged. "I don't know. I've been thinking that it might be a scourge to be clever. Nellie Shunpike says it's unnatural in a girl. And if she must be clever, Nellie says, then at least she should do like you and not get married. Otherwise she'll be punished, like Mrs Dumbledore. Nellie says her mother says Mrs Dumbledore studied Arithmancy and the Philophorous Stone when she was young, and now she has a husband in prison and Ariana for a daughter."

Bathilda frowned. "Now, I don't know about that, Muriel. Certainly Mrs Dumbledore hasn't brought her hard lot upon herself by reading books. And what's wrong with Ariana?"

Muriel shrugged and picked a clover from the grass. "Nellie says she's probably mad."

"You shouldn't be listening to Nellie when she says things like that, Muriel," Griselda reprimanded. "Don't you know what they do to mad people?"

Muriel nodded. "Mother says they lock them up at St Mungo's and give them icy baths and put Stunners on them to kill the madness."

"You see?" Griselda asked. "And Ariana isn’t at St Mungo's, so she can't be mad." Muriel frowned as if trying to pinpoint the flaw in the logic of that statement, so Griselda continued quickly. "And we better not repeat rumours like that. We don't want someone from St Mungo's to come and take her away from her mother and brothers, do we?"

Muriel shook her head. "No. Aberforth is strange, but he likes her, and she likes him. I saw them play through the hedges."

"You look through hedges?" Griselda asked, suddenly finding it difficult to keep the edge out of her voice.

"Only because people never tell me anything!" Muriel protested. "And never through yours; that hole in the privet wasn't me!"

"Very well," Bathilda said quickly. "Now, off you go, and tell Nellie that Ariana really only has a frail health. She probably can't have visitors because she catches the flu very easily."

Muriel nodded and bade Griselda and Bathilda goodbye. Before she turned around to leave, she asked: "Will you tell Mother I ran away?"

"Hm." Griselda pursed her lip and looked at Bathilda. "I don't think we tell on our friends, do we?" Bathilda shook her head. "And who knows," Griselda continued, looking at Muriel again, "if you stop telling tales on Ariana and looking through hedges, perhaps another hater of needlework will find it in her heart to help you with yours, let's say, Saturday next?"

At that, the face brightened considerably. "Thank you, Miss Marchbanks! Goodbye, Miss Bagshot."

And as the girl skipped down the hill, her skirt bobbing harder than ever, Griselda and Bathilda looked at each other and smiled. She'd go far, Muriel.

The Dumbledores, though, that was another matter. The family had puzzled them for years. When they'd first moved to Godric's Hollow, Bathilda had tried to welcome them, but before she'd even had a proper chance to introduce herself, she'd found herself back in the streets, potted geranium, baked goods and everything. She didn't need the charity of the village spinster, Mrs Dumbledore had barked. The boys didn't speak much, either, Aberforth preferring the company of his goats and Albus that of his books. As for Ariana, they'd only discovered her existence after a late walk, one night in May. They'd gone out for some star-gazing and found to their great surprise that they weren't the only ones who cherished the privacy of a late, moonlit night.

Of course Muriel had been right, in a way. The girl was certainly frail from too little sunlight and exercise. But that there was also an expression of delicacy of mind in her face -- of that there could be little doubt. Her movements had been jerky, her speech brusque and abrupt, and her eyes hadn't seemed to want to rest on anything.

Griselda and Bathilda had heard of a Muggle who had opened a hospital for people like Ariana. One where they lived without locks and restraints, without ice water and Stunners, or whatever Muggles used instead. They weren't much different from wizards in their methods, Muggles, but this one was a revolutionary. His inmates even gave theatre performances that were rumoured to be not half bad.

Yet with neither of the Dumbledore family speaking to them, how were they supposed to bring up the subject? Officially, nobody in the village even knew that Ariana existed. And if they hadn't managed to engage the Dumbledores in five years, how were they supposed to do it now?

"Did you read the article the boy wrote in Transfiguration Today?" Bathilda asked after a while.

"The one about Trans-Species Transformation?" Griselda nodded. "Brilliant. Troubling, but brilliant."

"Troubling?"

"Yes." Griselda frowned. It really had been a remarkable article. Albus had succinctly summed up the state of research on the human will and the Animagus transformation and convincingly refuted Bovinius Bulstrode's hypothesis that forced interspecies transfiguration was possible without lasting damage to the animal. The troubling part was ...

"He must have experimented with live animals. There's no way he could have come up with all this on mere theoretical grounds."

Bathilda paused. "But isn't that going practice among researchers?"

Griselda didn't answer. Yes, it was. Still, Albus Dumbledore was a fifteen-year-old boy, not a professor.

"What if you wrote to him?" Bathilda asked. "You're a scientist; perhaps he would discuss with you what he did. And perhaps it would be a way to get to know him."

Griselda shook her head. "It wouldn't be proper. I'll take his Transfiguration exams in two months."

"Oh. Yes," was all Bathilda said.

Griselda's recent promotion to the Wizarding Examination Authority had been a bit of a sensitive point with Bathilda. At not quite forty, Griselda was young for an examiner, and there had been candidates with far more seniority. Not that Griselda wasn't more brilliant than all of them taken together, but when had the Ministry ever awarded promotions based on merit? 'Eleanor Bones likes you very much,' had been Bathilda's only comment.

Yet the thought of engaging Albus Dumbledore into a discussion on science intrigued Griselda. "There's no reason why you shouldn't do it," she ventured. "You're much more of a scientist than I am."

"I could do that," Bathilda said. "Yes, I think I will."

***

~ 1997 ~

The sun had begun to sink over Godric's Hollow when they came back from their walk. Bathilda's limp had grown into a veritable hobble over the years, but she loved her walks more than ever. She'd grown restless of late; more than once had Mary sent Griselda an Owl when she'd found Bathilda on the pastures or by the river, or in the old church, rocking back and forth in their old pew by the painting of Ruth and Naomi.

She'd have to get that replacement. Eliza seemed reliable, and she needed the money. Her son was a Death Eater, but would Bathilda have minded? Would she have missed a chance to help a woman whom every other witch and wizard in Godric's Hollow shunned because of her son's taste in friends? And yet ...

And yet, and yet.

"There, my Dearest. Sit down."

Griselda had Summoned the armchair from the window and positioned it next to the fireplace. It was August, but the evenings this year were as chilly as the days were drizzly. A flick of her wand up the chimney Vanished some soot and chased up a nesting pigeon. Then she lit a fire.

On the mantel, there was a book. Smack in the middle, propped up against a picture frame. A glossy hardcover, more of a taunt than a present, given who the recipient was, with a lime-green ribbon tied around its middle.

Griselda Vanished the ribbon and opened the book. Something was written inside, in slanted handwriting and green ink. Dear Batty, it read. Thanks for your help. Here's a copy of the book, hope you like it. You said everything, even if you don't remember it. Rita.

She thumbed through the coarse pages, careful not to break the virginal spine because that was owner's privilege even if she'd never do it, and cursed the cheap ink that left smudges on her hands. She'd read the book at home, of course she had. Devoured it in a single night. She'd clenched her fist as far as her arthritic joints would allow her for Rita Skeeter's shameless admission to having used Veritaserum on Bathilda, cursing the fact that she couldn't even indict her for it. Veritaserum wasn't illegal anymore, not since Snatchers were roaming Wizarding Britain to hunt down dissenters and Muggleborns for rewards that were given no matter how the proof had been obtained. Where and when Bathilda had found that letter of Albus's that Rita had copied, and at what point she'd read it, Griselda didn't know. Bathilda wasn't one to break the seals of people's letters, not when they were still alive.

There was a photo section in the middle of the book, with jerky pictures in sepia tones. Griselda had recognised many from Bathilda's archive, and somehow, it failed to surprise her that Rita had obtained them. It was no mean feat, given that the cellar was locked and the key was safe in Griselda's vault at Gringott's, but there were rumours about Rita Skeeter, and contrary to what Griselda would have everyone know, she never dismissed rumours out of hand.

Her eyes fell on a picture of two young men in waistcoats, arm in arm, laughing, and as handsome as two teenage boys could be.

If it hadn't been for them, Griselda sometimes wondered, would Bathilda and she still be together?

If it hadn't been for Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald, would they still live here, with a cat, perhaps, and a cook and a full-time nurse? Would Eleanor Bones have been an episode; would love have been stronger than the fear and the anger that her Dearest was withering away in a world from which she would never return to warn Griselda what it would be like, should the turn one day be hers?

Perhaps not. They'd had their differences, and little cracks had appeared here and there over the years. Bathilda's insecurity, Griselda's impatience. The dust of the cellar and the overtime and the handling of drinking caretakers. But no crack was as big as the one left by Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald. They had proved what Griselda had long suspected and Bathilda would not believe even forty years later -- that, with their belief in the reformative powers of kindness and education, they would always be fighting an uphill battle.

Griselda had never told Bathilda that she had indeed discussed scientific methods with Albus, after the O.W.L.s. She had decided to spare her the account of how the boy had argued, eloquently and confidently, as if the brilliance of his teenage mind could not fail to outweigh the caution and the moral principles of a Ministry witch twenty years his senior. She'd made her peace with him later on -- there had been no choice; they didn't have anyone who could do what he could -- yet he'd been the first to make her aware that as reformers of minds whose weapons were the textbook and the voice, the Griseldas and Bathildas of this world would always be weaker than its Albuses and Gellerts.

It was a matter of who created the facts, she supposed.

***

~ 1899 ~

It was midnight in Godric's Hollow, far later than their usual bedtime. The August night was stifling, too warm for sleep, too warm even for the nightingales. That, however, was not the reason why Griselda and Bathilda were still up.

"They're burning the midnight oil again," Bathilda said as she loosened the tresses of Griselda's hair, still curly and resilient, but dark and limp from sweat around the neck.

Gellert Grindelwald had been their guest for a few weeks now, and Griselda couldn't say that she had got used to his presence.

She disliked the boy. She had tried to make herself like him, for Bathilda's sake, but she'd never managed. They had followed his school career closely, from the brilliant start at Durmstrang and the first pranks that still looked like innocent mischief to the increasingly frequent reprimands for defiance and, finally, the expulsion after a duel with a third-year in the corridors. There had been those who had suspected that it had been an attack, but the verdict on that had never been spoken.

Bathilda's niece, his mother, lived in the conviction that Durmstrang was the homestead of hordes of incompetent slave drivers who didn't recognise genius when its golden locks gleamed right in front of them. Exasperated by yet another letter that spoke of the injustice done to her boy after an innocent schoolboy brawl that had inadvertently led to some alleged injury in a house-elf who was probably as keen on a few days off as they all were, Bathilda had decided to take the matter into her own hand and write to Gellert's form mistress.

Theresa Bagshot had married a Pureblood from the Continent, some twenty-five years ago. Odilo Grindelwald was a stiff-collared man with a large estate and a dozen house-elves, and a golden sign on the door of his Ministry office. High had been her hopes when Theresa became Madam Privy Councillor; she'd seen fame in her future, servants who lavished her with attention, lady friends who envied her, and cavaliers who would keep her husband on his toes. She'd seen diamonds and silken robes, and gratitude for the many children she was going to bear him. Soon, however, she was to find out that marriage to Odilo Grindelwald was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a life term in the golden cage of a tyrant, whose temper wasn't exactly softened when years went by without Theresa bearing him the promised heir. When the child who had arrived at last was old enough to go to Durmstrang, Bathilda had written to Theresa, visited her, entreating her to come and live with them in Godric's Hollow, trying to convince her that yes, she could earn her own keep, writing articles on Continental fashion, perhaps, or as a ladies' companion, but it had been to no avail. Theresa Grindelwald had resolved to give herself over to her fate and pile all her hopes for love upon her golden-haired son. Living for the rare occasions when Gellert fulfilled them, she spent her remaining days alternately weeping behind closed curtains, writing letters about the wonder that was Gellert, and firing servants.

And thus, with Theresa's letters useless and Odilo not considering his wife's spinster aunt worthy of a reply, Bathilda had decided to take charge. She'd written to his teachers, argued on his behalf when things turned serious, even Owled Hogwarts to arrange for a transfer. Yet nothing had helped. Gellert was expelled, and, convinced that no school had anything to teach him, decided to cultivate his genius by roaming the world and paying heed to nothing but his own leanings, like the heroes of the Muggle novels of old.

It was at that point that Griselda and Bathilda had had one of their fiercest quarrels in almost twenty years.

It had been an early summer evening, a bit chilly for the season. The sun had long gone down behind the hills, and they'd been sitting on the terrace, a small fire in a cauldron by their feet and a glass of sherry in their hands.

"I'd like to invite Gellert for the summer," Bathilda had said.

Griselda had frowned. She'd never been comfortable with the boy, always had a suspicion that he might be more than Bathilda could handle with her trust in the good in man that only wanted to be brought out. Had the people at Durmstrang not tried just that for years? Had Professor Litwina not offered the boy extra assignments, discussed Magical Law with him as an equal when she saw how good a grip he had on paragraphs and statutes? And had that borne any fruit? Any fruit at all?

Griselda had argued. Having a boy like Gellert around, handsome and eloquent and too confident by half that he could do anything and get away with it, could do more harm to their charges, to the Olivias and the Marjories of Godric's Hollow, than it could possibly help make him reconsider his ways. What could two ageing spinsters teach him that he had failed to learn in the most renowned magical school of the Continent? What did he have to gain, and what did their girls have to lose in turn?

Bathilda wouldn't hear any of it. He could meet Albus, for example. They didn't make people like Albus on the Continent; everyone knew that, and having a true peer, a boy two years his senior who was on a much better way ("Except that he uses his brother's goats for research!") might achieve what his classmates and teachers had not.

They took the argument inside to spare the neighbours, they took it upstairs when bedtime arrived, and they took it to the bed in which they never lay down that night, sitting on the mattress until the sun sent its first rays through the window. They'd Summoned their educational literature, corroborated their points by examples from treatises and novels, stabbed their fingers at articles and cited from experience, and got no further than where they'd been hours before. And when all arguments had been exchanged and Griselda knew that Bathilda wouldn't be convinced that she was biting off more than she could chew until she saw it, she got up, looked out of the window, and said: "Very well."

He'd been here three weeks now, two of which he'd spent mostly at Albus's. They always met over there, never at Griselda's and Bathilda's, but that was in order. With Kendra recently having passed away, it was good for Ariana to have company, and when Albus and Gellert were there, the burden on poor Aberforth was a bit less. And while Griselda still wasn't convinced that the boys were good for each other, she also had no grounds to believe it was otherwise.

Besides, not having him around too much was also a relief. Her worst fears hadn't come true, for Gellert had little interest in their girls and rarely showed his face at their Saturday gatherings, but she had noticed more giggles among the girls, hair that had been done with more care, cheeks that seemed to have been pinched for more redness, and she did not approve. The girls clearly didn't mean anything to Gellert, but he enjoyed their attention, paid them back with casual shows of chivalry that the girls were bound to take more seriously than they should. Who knew just how far he would take the casualness? No, it was better not to have him around too much.

"Seems they've hit it off nicely," Griselda said as she handed her hairbrush to Bathilda for their evening ritual. She tried to keep a neutral tone on the subject. She had acquiesced to Gellert's presence, and she would not nag, no, she would not nag.

"I sometimes think they see more in each other than just friends," said Bathilda as she began running the handle of the brush through Griselda's curls to untangle them. "He's always so enthusiastic when he goes over, and did you notice the late-night owls they're sending each other?"

"I can hardly fail to. Philippides isn't exactly a colibri."

"I remember when you and I did that," Bathilda said. She laid down the brush and kissed Griselda's neck. "I still have the synopsis of Eloisa Montelozzi's standard work on teaching Squibs that you sent me, just a few hours after you'd left my house one evening. Did you know that it still smells of you?"

"I did my best to make it so," Griselda smirked. "Charms may be my weak spot, but I can do it if I put my mind to it." She brought her hands up to the cheeks that were growing soft with age and placed a kiss on Bathilda's lips.

"Do you think they're like us?"

"The boys?" Griselda asked. "Do I think they do things like this?" She freed the remains of Bathilda's bun that had survived the day and began unbuttoning her robe. "As beautiful as this?" Sliding her hand under the dark blue linen, she caressed the heavy breasts and felt for the hooks of Bathilda's corset. It was one of the sensible kind, the modern ones that allowed a woman to breathe and move. They didn't lend as much support as the old ones, but Griselda liked that. If anything, the less elevated breasts reminded her of what they felt like under her hands when the curtains were drawn and the lights were out.

"Well," Bathilda answered with a smile. "I don't think they do quite something as beautiful as this." She turned the wheel of the petroleum lamp, extended her hand, and pulled Griselda between the sheets.

They had shared this bed from the beginning on. There was always so much to talk about, and they loved discussing the events of the day before falling asleep, so they never found a reason to buy a second bed and equip the small guest room on the other side of the house. As winter arrived, they also discovered that they liked just a bit of each other's warmth when the lights were out. An embrace, a kiss on the cheek, on the lips, even, when they were feeling tender. Just how warm this warmth could get, however, Griselda would never have fathomed until one night, emboldened by cold weather and a little port, Bathilda showed her. Dear, shy Bathilda had learned a thing or two from her books, it seemed. As she knew, and as Griselda was to find out, history wasn't all about great deeds of great men. It was also about unusual deeds by very unusual women.

There had been a time when they went for months without doing this, though. Griselda remembered it well, and she remembered what had caused it. Bathilda wasn't the jealous type, but while she knew the merits of her brains and heart, she was acutely aware of her plain features and quiet temper that she was sure didn't make her the most exciting lady friend on earth. She was also aware who had all the qualities she lacked. She never complained, but Griselda knew how it stung Bathilda to see her Dearest walk out each morning to spend hours on end with Eleanor Bones. And truth be told, there had been moments when Griselda would have wanted Bathilda to hold her back, shout at her, perhaps even go as far as to smash a teacup. She'd tried to make her do it, Merlin knew she had, and only Merlin and Griselda knew that, given some of Griselda's thoughts and dreams during that time, scenes of jealousy wouldn't have been half as unwarranted as they might have seemed.

Yet after a few months, the crush went past, or at least was subdued, and a holiday in Scotland had helped rekindle the flame and convince Bathilda that indeed, she didn't have to shirk the comparison. Which hadn't been a lie. Griselda knew that she could never have with Eleanor what she had with Bathilda. Too different were their backgrounds, too similar their tempers. There could be no common project, nothing to build from scratch as equals. Eleanor Bones was her own project.

Still, Eleanor's transfer Level Two had not been unhelpful.

"What are you thinking?" Bathilda asked.

"Nothing." Griselda propped herself up on her knees and placed her lips on Bathilda's as she unfastened the ribbons around the neck of the loose, white nightgown. She felt Bathilda's hands on her hips, sensed a little moan more than she heard it, and slowly began running her fingers up and down the muslin of Bathilda's nightgown. She continued across the swell of her stomach, down the legs, and when she pushed up the fabric and trailed the insides of the parted legs with her hand, she found her Dearest soft and warm, ready to welcome her touch.

Their moans were subdued, barely more than breaths. They always were, what with Olivia sleeping in the garret right above them. And somehow, their restraint had become so much a part of the excitement that they never even considered speaking a muffling spell -- regardless of the fact that muffling spells, too, could fail. Certainly, the secrecy was a burden most of the time. They had to maintain it at all costs; with the rumours one heard about Muggle suffragists, it was vital to stay beyond reproach. But at night, when the lights were out and the hair had come down, when the flesh was freed from its corsets and the lips and hands could do as they pleased, the enforced quiet between the rustling sheets and on the untrustworthy bedsprings could sometimes add tremendously to the joy of the unusual deed.

Besides, Griselda needed no words and no moans to know when Bathilda was close to her pleasure. She knew what she felt like, how she wound herself in her arms, she knew her scent and her softness, and it wouldn't be a first for Griselda to feel exactly the pleasure Bathilda felt just from giving it to her.

Griselda's pulse quickened when a stifled gasp told her that the moment had almost arrived. Bathilda arched her back with a soft, whispered "yes", and she gripped Griselda's nightgown so tightly that Griselda's breath became short. It was a most delicious sensation.

Bathilda's good leg had moved between Griselda's own, and Griselda buried her face in the curve of Bathilda's neck. She loved the moment just before those hips thrust forward, just before those legs closed in on her hand, before her Dearest rose from the cushions in a silent cry, only to collapse in Griselda's arms at last.

"Please," Bathilda whispered.

Almost there, almost. Both of them.

"AUNT TILDA!"

An Acromantula couldn't have made them dart up from the bed more quickly than the sudden noise of a door slamming and the windowpanes downstairs rattling in their frames.

"AUNT TILDA!"

Griselda was first to reach her wand and speak two, three quick spells to restore their appearances, straighten their nightgowns, cool their foreheads. Grabbing their dressing gowns from the hooks, they hurried into the corridor.

Griselda reached the parlour long before Bathilda. "What happened?"

The boy looked dishevelled. His blond hair hung down his temples in strands damp with sweat; there were a tear in his waistcoat, scorch marks on his trousers, and a gash on his cheek that was bleeding violently.

"Gellert!" Bathilda, who had arrived at last, limped forward, catching a wet cloth she had Summoned from the kitchen.

"Terrible ... terrible," he stammered between breaths that Griselda found a tad too heavy to be believable in a boy who wasn't agitated that easily, at least not by anything terrible. He dragged himself to the sofa, where he collapsed under the concerned gaze of his great-aunt, and panted: "Ariana ... I think she's ..."

"What, boy?" Griselda slapped the backrest of a nearby armchair in impatience. When no answer came, only pants and pained moans, she put a hand on his shoulder, fighting the impulse to shake it out of him. If only the girl hadn't done anything to bring up the madness rumours again.

"Dead!" he blurted out at last.

"NO!" She let go of the boy and made for the door, taking Bathilda by the hand, who seemed torn between tending to her nephew and following her friend.

"Aunt Tilda!" He held up a hand, and as Bathilda stopped, so did Griselda. "I ... I hope you don't mind if I leave right away. I can't ... this is ... you'll see when you get there. It's terrible. And Aberforth said horrible things to me. I'm afraid he may ..."

"What?" Griselda asked. "Come for you and hex you, perchance? What have you done, boy?"

"Nothing! I swear -- I did nothing! Please ... I'll take my leave now."

"You will do no such thing," Griselda stated calmly.

"But ..."

"A girl just died, you were there, and I work for the Ministry. You will do as I say and stay."

"You can't make me, Miss Marchbanks," he reminded her, still polite but decidedly firm now.

"Try me." Griselda approached him, hard put by now to keep the fury out of her eyes and voice. Whatever reason the boy had for leaving, it wasn't Aberforth the Monster Magician. Whatever reason he had was most likely a reason for her not to let him.

He got up.

"Don't, Gellert," she growled. He might only be sixteen, but she'd be damned if he hadn't learned a thing or two about Apparition before his time, youthful genius that he was. "I may be your mother's age, but I can still pull a wand faster than you can. I promise you that the moment you try to Disapparate will be a very painful one for you and whichever of your limbs may inadvertently escape my holding spell."

"Griselda," Bathilda said in a low voice.

"Miss Marchbanks ..."

"I warn you." Griselda approached him. "I don't trust you, Gellert Grindelwald. Don't think for a minute that I do." She turned around, Summoned cloaks for Bathilda and herself, and headed for the door. "Come along. Both of you."

"She's right, my boy," Bathilda murmured. "We'll go over there, all of us. If the girl really ... you should be here for your friend Albus at least."

Upon that, Gellert gave a submissive nod and followed his aunt.

It was a weeknight, and nobody was out in the streets. They hurried down Wool Market Lane as fast as Bathilda's bad leg would allow them and turned right by the pub. The Dumbledore cottage seemed dark and fast asleep, as always. Only as they approached it through the garden gate, past the barking pinscher that vanished as they walked right into it, did they see the lights behind the windows emerge in a soft shimmer.

The door stood wide open. Griselda first, they ventured in.

When Griselda caught the first glimpse of the sitting room through the gaping hole where once a door had been, she felt for Bathilda's arm. Her other hand still had a firm grip on the handle of her wand that she'd tucked inside her cloak.

In the middle of the room, amidst heaps of broken china and books that had fallen from the shelves, Aberforth knelt on the ground, rocking back and forth with his sister's limp body in his lap. His white face was distorted by pain, his shirt blood-stained where Ariana's temple had touched it.

Albus was sitting in an armchair, motionless, his head buried in his hands.

"Boys," Bathilda said softly. She took two steps towards Aberforth, knelt down beside him as best she could, and gently extended her hand. The boy didn't put up resistance as she began to ease Ariana's body out of his arms. The girl was light as a feather, hardly bigger than a ten-year-old. With what help Aberforth could muster, she laid Ariana on the sofa, wiped a strand of hair out of the white pixie face, and slid a cushion under her head. She nodded at Aberforth to close his sister's eyes and folded the girl's hands on her stomach. She whispered something Griselda could not make out, and withdrew in silence as Aberforth shook his head. He knelt down by Ariana's head, and Bathilda quietly sat down in an armchair.

Griselda still stood by the door, wishing she could disbelieve her eyes.

The room looked as if a Mountain Troll had passed through. A windowpane was smashed, and there were scorch marks on the walls. White, grime-rimmed spaces gaped where pictures must have hung a mere while ago. The floor was littered with the debris of a grandmother clock, picture frames, burned paper and smashed crockery. A bronze bust of Nicolas Flamel had fallen from a shelf, lolling on the back of the head as if it refused to believe what had happened. There was a bloodstain on it.

"Was that what did it?" Griselda asked. Albus seemed to know what she was looking at, for he nodded without raising his head.

"You fought, the three of you?" Another nod.

"I'll need your wands, boys," she said quietly. This wasn't the moment, but eventually, someone would have to call the Aurors. It might have been another accident, but two family tragedies in the space of two months -- not even the most incompetent administration could fail to see the oddity in this. She wouldn't call them now, though; there was no need to subject the boys to a horde of men with loose wands, hardened by years of dealing with burglars and murderers. The boys might need assistance, too; Merlin knew how quickly Aurors could jump to conclusions. Yet if she wanted to help them, she needed their wands.

"Yours, too, Gellert."

There was a hesitation and a defiant look, but a few seconds later, she had them all in her hand. A short one, plain and simple, worn from being carried in trouser pockets and lost time and again in haystacks and shrubs. A mahogany one that seemed to buck in Griselda's hand, like a powerful race horse that needed a firm grip. And an ebony one, longer than the others, slim and heavy, with no adornment and no handle, but with a gleaming polish. A wand that said that Magic wasn't for the weak.

"Come over to our house, boys," Bathilda said at last. "You shouldn't stay here tonight."

Albus and Aberforth only shook their heads. "Thank you, Miss Bagshot," Albus said. "I think we should start putting things in order. And we need to make arrangements for Ariana's ..."

Seeing Aberforth's expression, Griselda cut him short. "That can wait, Albus."

"Are you going to call the Aurors?"

"Yes, Albus. I wish I didn't have to, but I do. Not tonight, though."

He nodded, and Griselda noticed a quick look at Gellert, who hadn't moved an inch from the doorway, and therefore, neither had Griselda. "It was an accident."

"Then you have nothing to fear."

"What are you going to do with our wands?" Gellert asked.

"Nothing, Gellert. I'll merely keep them until tomorrow."

"Why?"

"You know why." Again, he didn't flinch when she looked into his eyes. He knew that she had deprived him of the means of Disapparating or Disillusioning himself, for at sixteen, not even Gellert Grindelwald was accomplished enough to do either without a wand. He also knew what else a wand could be useful for -- at least to an Auror investigating an unnatural death.

"You're right, Miss Marchbanks," he acquiesced, his eyes downcast. "The Aurors will find them useful evidence."

That was not the reaction Griselda had anticipated. Bathilda, too, seemed to be taken aback, but Griselda wasn't quite sure at what.

"A word, Griselda?" With a quick look at Aberforth, she got up from her armchair and headed for the door. Griselda followed her into the kitchen and was surprised when she heard Bathilda speak a muffling charm.

"Give me the wands, Dearest."

Griselda hesitated.

"Please."

"All right," Griselda said, and handed them over. Bathilda's hand didn't so much as twitch when their combined magic hit her palm.

"You want to do Priori incantatem, I take it?"

"Yes," Griselda said. "It's really for the Aurors to do, but I admit that I'm a little alarmed."

"Why?"

"Gellert was too confident by half. I want to see why."

"You think that he tampered with it, don't you? You don't believe that it was an accident."

"I don't know what to believe, Dearest. All I know is that there seems to be a strange tradition of children being harmed around your nephew."

"It was never proven that he was guilty of any of those incidents!"

"Which, given his charms and his talent for getting away with mischief, doesn't say much."

"Goodness, Griselda. Whatever happened to our principle not to pass premature judgement?"

"I don't know." Griselda turned away. "All I know is that this boy is more than we can handle."

"You've given up on him."

"No," Griselda said. "I merely think that he needs to start facing the consequences of his actions. I want him to know that he doesn't stand above his fellow men. But first of all, I want to know what the Aurors will find when they examine his wand."

Bathilda pondered this. Slowly, deliberately, with movements as meticulous as if she were rearranging porcelain figurines in a glass cabinet, she cleared a spot on the kitchen table that was littered with crumbs, plates, leftover food, books, and goat hair.

She sat down on it and looked out of the window.

"What if it wasn't him?"

Griselda snorted.

"Don't do that!" Bathilda snapped and turned around. "You saw what it looked like in there. What if it was the one of them who is least able to control his magic when he is angry? The youngest. The one who, perhaps, has most reason to get angry?

"Aberforth?"

"I don't mean to say that I'm convinced it was him. But what creates pressure waves big enough to make a ten-pound bust fall off a shelf?"

"Unfocused Stunners," Griselda murmured. "And ricocheting Unforgivables," she added after a pause.

She crossed her arms and slowly went up to the window. Deep in thought, she stood there until Bathilda spoke again.

"If you knew the last spells of those wands, could you make yourself not report them?"

Griselda took a breath, and then she shook her head. "I work for the Ministry."

"Not on Level Two."

Griselda spun around. "No," she said. "Not on Level Two. But Bathilda, this isn't a pregnant girl or a caretaker who came to work drunk one time too often. A girl just died. The boys need to feel that this must have consequences. Even if it was an accident, which I hope and will do everything to prove that I can, they must not forget that it was an accident that was provoked."

"And if they sentence them for negligence?" Bathilda asked. "They would still go to Azkaban. Only for a few months, perhaps, at their age. But what purpose would that serve? What of them when they get out? Would a term among the Dementors make them likely to swear off violence?"

Griselda said nothing. Bathilda had a point, and she knew it. They had both repeatedly bombarded the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with Owls expressing their concern at the conditions at Azkaban, quoting amply from their extensive library to support their argument that reformative approaches to sanctioning crime produced better long-term results and even came out cheaper.

"Besides, two of them already have their sentence," Bathilda reminded her softly. "What imprisonment could punish them more than the shock at having caused the death of their sister? And perhaps even losing the love of a brother into the bargain?"

Griselda placed her fingertips on the windowsill. She still did not speak. Yes, yes, yes, Bathilda was right. She was right if it had been Albus or Aberforth, and perhaps she was even right if it hadn't. Did she know for certain that Gellert wasn't capable enough to cover his tracks even in matters like this, when he'd been so good at it during his school days? Did she know he couldn't long have laid a false trail? And if not, did she know that a term in Azkaban wouldn't harden him further?

And yet, and yet.

"You need to take no part in it," Bathilda said.

Griselda understood. She turned around, looked at Bathilda, and gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. Then she pulled her cloak more tightly around her dressing gown and left through the door to the kitchen garden.

***

~ 1997 ~

The stairs creaked louder than ever as Griselda and Bathilda made their way up to the first floor, step by downtrodden step.

When they reached the bedroom, Griselda began to help Bathilda out of her robes. She could use magic, but she didn't want to. Not for undressing; it seemed too intrusive a thing to do.

She looked around. Not much had changed since she'd last slept here, ninety-eight years ago. The old bed still was the same, though the mattress had been padded and patched up repeatedly. Griselda flicked her wand, and the dents disappeared as the filling expanded, smoothing the surface under the yellowed, wrinkled sheets that Griselda replaced by fresh ones that smelled of lavender.

She'd come up here that night after returning from the Dumbledores'. She'd sat on that same mattress, its sheet still wrinkled from what they'd done in them just two hours before, and stared holes into the night for the better part of an hour. Then she got up, dressed, and Apparated to her office.

When she'd returned, it had been with a Portkey. She owned a key to the Department of Magical Transportation; all officials with frequent travelling duty did, and she knew how to use the Portclavification Cabinet. She opened the glass door to put in a cracked teapot of theirs, set the green dial to a time late next morning, and entered the coordinates of a tiny village in the Carpathians that she'd randomly picked from a leather-bound atlas of Eastern Europe.

That done, she carefully erased her traces and locked the door behind her.

She'd left the Portkey in the sitting room, with a note on time and destination, and went upstairs to try for some sleep that never came. And when she came down again after a few hours -- the sun was already up -- she found Bathilda in an armchair, the same in which she'd been sitting today, silently looking out into the garden.

The Portkey was no longer there, and neither was Gellert.

They never spoke about what had happened, and Griselda tried hard not to think about it. She tried not to wonder, not to debate whether Bathilda should or would have made it look as if the bust had accidentally fallen off the shelf, or closed the wounds and made it seem like a backfiring spell, or whether she might even gone as far as to give Ariana the appearance of Dragonpox or Spattergroit. She never asked, and Bathilda never told.

For weeks, Griselda had tried to force herself to believe that all of this could do nothing to them. She had wanted to believe that their love and their dream, their beliefs and their determination not to abandon them in the face of a setback, were stronger than the fear of having failed -- or worse, having allowed their dream to make a mistake that might have consequences they never foresaw.

She'd wanted to believe it when reports reached them that Gellert had moved to a remote place in the mountains, where he had opened a camp for young wizards who believed that freedom meant unrestrained power.

She had wanted to believe it when Gellert's fellowship increased, when they heard of power struggles and the mysterious death of his alleged second-in-command and found no words to discuss it.

She had begun praying that she still could believe it when their late-night discussions about the vocational school that they'd never stopped dreaming of were replaced more and more often by a simple "good night", and she even hadn't quite given up trying to believe it when, one afternoon after a meeting with the Hogwarts Board, she lay draped across Eleanor Bones's chaise longue, heavy hands gripping her under the robes and knickers they hadn't even bothered to remove, as she thrust her hips hard into the ever-quickening strokes of a thick leather shaft.

Yet some time that autumn, there came the day when Bathilda stood by the window in the parlour, watching the falling leaves as Griselda softly closed the front door behind herself, carpet bag in hand.

***

~ 1901 ~

"They're going to investigate the case of Godric's Hollow again," Eleanor Bones said.

She sat in her four-poster bed, the burgundy sheets pulled up just beyond her navel, and smoked a pipe, as always on Friday nights at this hour.

Friday was the day they always met. Friday after work, at Bones Manor, for dinner and then some. It hadn't taken them long to establish the tradition after Griselda had resumed life as a bachelorette. They would leave the office after no more than an hour's overtime, go home on their separate ways, and sometime around eight, Griselda would pull the rope on the bronze bell at Bones Manor.

It was an arrangement that suited them both. Griselda had no inclination to give up her room at Mrs Weasley's, which she'd rented again after she'd moved out from Bathilda's, and Eleanor never asked her to. She'd never even visited her, and Griselda, in turn, had never issued an invitation. Eleanor Bones could sleep in a different bedroom each month if she so desired. Griselda only had this -- her tiny garret with its creaking floorboards and walls lined with overflowing bookcases. If she shared this, she shared everything, and thus she didn't.

No, theirs wasn't a friendship of shared dreams and shared experiences, of negotiating weekend plans and growing to love odd habits. The friendship between Griselda Marchbanks and Eleanor Bones had its essence in dinners at eight, or a little later when Griselda so chose, in political talk by the fireplace over sherry and firewhisky, and, when a look through a monocle or a neckline sliding lower suggested that it wouldn't be unwelcome, in Apparating up to the main bedroom to continue the evening behind the wards of a privacy spell.

Rare indeed were the evenings that did not end upstairs. Sometimes they took their time, delaying the move, testing if they could bring the other far enough to give the signs first. Sometimes they could spend half an eternity kissing when the door had fallen shut behind them, undoing laces and buttons, rolling down stockings and removing cufflinks and hairpins. And sometimes, the silencing charm had barely been spoken when Griselda found herself with her cheek on the mattress or her back against the silk-covered wall. Whatever it was, and whether it was with her wrists pinned back, her hands clenching the silken sheets, or her fingers running through short, grey hair, Griselda didn't mind -- as long as there were Eleanor's flesh on her skin and voice in her ear, as hands and lips and sometimes leather pleasured Griselda in places as unspeakable as they were burning for them. Eleanor Bones did not believe in restricting the betterment of womankind uniquely to the question of the vote, and she was a woman who put her beliefs into practice.

She never let Griselda reciprocate, though. "Your pleasure is mine," she'd said once, in a tone that settled the matter. She was also forty years older and higher in rank, and she was, after all, Eleanor Bones. Thus, Griselda took their affair for what it was. She took it Friday by Friday, for as long as it would last, took it for the company and the excitement, for pleasures some of which she'd have thought impossible, and for an hour of pillow talk and a puff of the pipe in the wee hours, just before Griselda would Apparate back home.

It was during this hour that Eleanor had spoken.

"They're going to do what?" Griselda, who had lain with her head on Eleanor's thigh, shot up from satisfied half-slumber.

"The deaths at Godric's Hollow," Eleanor grumbled. "What with the reports from the Continent, Simeon Scrimgeour wants to send in his Aurors again."

Griselda took a pillow and sat up against the headboard.

A week ago, Bathilda's nephew had made British headlines for the first time. Wizarding Britain didn't take much of an interest in developments on the Continent, unless it was German Quidditch or the inadequacies of the French Ministère de la Magie. This, however, had caught even the Prophet's attention. Griselda knew that Gellert Grindelwald had gathered an ample following over the last two years, and that the makeshift camp in the mountains had spawned full-fledged villages in which he preached his doctrine of the supremacy of wizards over Muggles, beings, and, needless to say, witches. She had not known, however, that in a remote stretch of land, far away from any Wizarding jurisdiction, he had begun building up a militia.

Earlier that month, there had been a death in one of the barracks. A man had hanged himself, presumably after he'd fallen off the belief in Gellert Grindelwald's Greater Good. Before taking the rope, however, he had managed to smuggle out an account of what it was like in Grindelwald's cosmos. He'd written of plans to overthrow the Statutes of Secrecy and subjecting Muggles to Wizarding rule, of methods and power games, and of the increasing likelihood of people close to power meeting an untimely death on account of some backfiring spell or inexplicable disease.

"What are they going to do?" Griselda asked. As Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Eleanor would know, even if the actual deployments were the business of the heads of the Auror or Hit Wizard Divisions. Griselda knew that it was illegal for Eleanor to talk about it, but the fact that she had spoken in the first place, and the casual tone in which she'd done it, suggested to Griselda that Eleanor perhaps there was a deeper meaning to the conversation, and she wanted to know more.

Eleanor took another puff of her pipe. "Interrogate everyone again. Don't know what good it will do, with Albus being out of reach at that Russian Transfiguration school and Aberforth herding goats in Switzerland. And I can't imagine they actually believe that they can get hold of the golden-locked Wonder-Warlord." She paused and looked at Griselda before she continued. "Probably all they can do is question the neighbours again."

Griselda shook her head as Eleanor offered her the pipe. She rubbed her temples. The neighbours. What could this mean?

Back then, the investigation had been finished almost as soon as it had begun. The morning after Ariana's death, two junior Aurors had looked at the crime scene, and a bearded Patholowizard had examined the girl. An hour later, they had found the girl to have been mad and the death to be another sad and lamentable family tragedy, if one with a highly unfortunate timing.

And now, Scrimgeour. Simeon Scrimgeour, whose nickname was Mr. Veritaserum.

She herself should be safe. All she had done was make a Portkey. She had covered her traces, and the memory was nothing a bit of on-the-spot modification couldn't mask. A temporary spell could last up to an hour, by which time any Veritaserum would have worn off. A Legilimens might notice the tampering, but they currently didn't have one in the Auror Department.

She could also simply face her just punishment. In fact, she probably should. If only there wasn't the matter of Bathilda.

"Former neighbours as well, you think?"

Eleanor shook her head. "Not you, if you mean that. You're on the Wizengamot now, and they're not going to request lifting the immunity of the Head of the DME unless they've exhausted all other possibilities."

Which left Bathilda. Bathilda alone.

And destruction of evidence meant Azkaban. Not just a week or two, she assumed, not if the main beneficiary was a demagogue on the loose who was accumulating dead bodies along his path.

How much did Eleanor suspect? Her face betrayed nothing. There was no emotion in her face, not a warning twitch of an eyebrow or lip, just another puff of the pipe and a look.

It didn't matter, though, for Griselda already knew what she would do. Slowly, she lifted the sheets and got out of the bed. She reached for her chemise and corset and the dark blue dress with the lighter inlays and pearly-white trimming. She pulled up the stockings and laced up her boots, twisted her curls into a loose bun, and pinned it up with the hairpins she'd Summoned from wherever they had fallen to the floor earlier that evening. She did all of it with deliberate movements and took her time finding her glasses before she checked her appearance in the mirror behind the Chinese folding screen.

When she re-emerged from behind the screen, she approached the bed and put a hand on Eleanor's shoulder. "I'm not sure if I'll be returning Friday next," she murmured, her lips not an inch from the close-cropped, grey hair. Given to what use she was going to put Eleanor's information, it didn't seem proper. Eleanor probably had a fair idea, but still. No more romance with secrets, open or otherwise.

Eleanor took another puff of her pipe before she looked up and gave Griselda a pensive nod.

"Do what you must do," she said after a pause. Took Griselda's hand, pressed it firmly. "Do it well, my dear."

Griselda nodded and straightened herself with a deep breath. Slowly, she approached the fireplace and reached for the silver pot on the mantel. She already had a pinch of green powder in her hand when she turned around once more and murmured,

"Thank you, Eleanor."

Another nod was the last Griselda saw before she disappeared through the chimney.

***

The sun had not yet gone up when Griselda reached Godric's Hollow. She no longer had a key, but one didn't live in Bathilda's cottage for almost twenty years and not discover its weaknesses. She removed a thicket of ivy from the trapdoor to the cellar that Muggles would have used for coal, pointed her wand at it, and eased herself down through the opening.

One had to know one's way from there to find Bathilda's desk in the maze of shelves, behind the chests and cupboards, the hooks that held maps and the cabinets that protected parchments and scrolls from dust and the effects of time.

Stifling a sneeze, Griselda reached into an empty space in the secretary top and retrieved a brass key. Then she made her way through more rows of shelves, and soon found the stairs that led up to the door of the cellar.

The house was quiet. On one of her frequent but not always welcome visits after she had moved out, she'd suggested that Bathilda get herself a dog for security, now that the smaller budget meant no more caretaker and no more live-in maid, but Bathilda wouldn't hear any of it. Dogs needed walks, not perambulations with a lame mistress.

Right now, Griselda was relieved for it as she tiptoed through the kitchen and the hallway and up the stairs, taking care to skip steps number four and seven and twelve, which answered back when one stepped on them. Up on the landing, she paused and listened for noises, and continued on her way when she heard soft snores coming from the bedroom. A greasing spell silenced the hinges before she carefully opened the door.

Bathilda lay in the bed, the moonlight illuminating her silhouette. She lay on her stomach, as always, her head turned away from the side where Griselda had always slept. She'd always done that, to spare Griselda the worst of the snores.

Griselda felt for the Public Service Portkey schedule of August 1899 in her pocket, reached for her wand, and took a step towards Bathilda.

"Forgive me," she whispered as she thought of a late summer evening in this cottage. Of doors slamming and a boy's voice screaming in the parlour. Of three people hurrying along the cobblestone lanes, of a room in ruins, a quarrel in a kitchen, and the long hours that passed until the Portkey was gone, and Gellert with it.

He simply came back to your house in distress and told you he wanted to go home the next day. So you arranged a Portkey, and that was the last you saw of him.

She closed her eyes as she straightened her spine and spoke the spell.

"Obliviate.

***

~ 1997 ~

Bathilda gave a near-toothless smile when Griselda tucked her in under the thick patchwork quilt.

"Where's Lily?" she asked.

Lily. Mary had said that Bathilda used to call her that, more often than not. She'd never bothered correcting her; it just confused her. Besides, she'd said, Miss Bagshot liked Lily, and wasn't it much nicer to have a friend around than a nurse?

"Lily can't come tonight, Dearest. She's with the baby."

"Dearest ..." There was something like a faint glow in Bathilda's near-blind eyes. "I once knew someone who called me that. She was my best friend."

Griselda reached for Bathilda's hand. She took it, squeezed it gently, and leaned forward to bring it up to her cheek. "She still is," she said.

"Dearest ..." Bathilda repeated.

Griselda unbuttoned her robes and eased herself out of them. She had to do it slowly, not least on account of the devilish arthritis in the left elbow that made its presence known especially in this weather, and especially during dressing and undressing. Not long, and she'd need a nurse as well.

She folded the robes over the back of a wicker chair, placed her shoes under its seat, and sat down on the mattress, in her chemise and socks. She was a hundred and thirty-seven; she had a right to sleeping in socks.

She would spend the night, here with Bathilda, in their old, woodworm-eaten bed. It wouldn't do to leave Bathilda alone. She'd stay the whole weekend, and perhaps Monday. They could do without her at work, at least until term started and the new regime of Hogwarts was set loose on the children. And tomorrow, she'd pay Eliza Shunpike a visit.

She still wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing. Yet Eliza was kind, a simple, straightforward, no-nonsense woman with an acceptable certificate from St Mungo's and a character that described her as helpful and honest. Honesty, that was important. Griselda could pay generously and regularly, but she'd have to be able to rely on the work being done. Who knew how frequently she could check on Bathilda as of next week? Who knew if she could even hold her position at the Ministry, or stay in Britain at all? She had friends at Gringott's; her stance on the Carrows and support of the late Albus Dumbledore were well known. What if she were the one writing grumpy postcards from Majorca to Gussie Longbottom before long?

"You'd hire Eliza, wouldn't you?" she asked the white head that came to rest against the muslin that covered the empty flap of skin that had once been her breast. "You'd hire a woman in need, even if her son didn't turn out as she'd have wished, much as she tried with what little means she had."

She put an arm around the frail shoulder and made Bathilda smile in the candlelight when she placed a kiss on her nose.

"What should they want from you, anyway, that Rita Skeeter hasn't taken already?"

After a while, Bathilda's slow, regular breaths told Griselda that she had fallen asleep. Griselda carefully withdrew her arm, for the limbs of a centagenarian weren't made for night-long embraces any more, and rolled on her side, her face just so that she could kiss Bathilda's forehead once more before she closed her eyes.

Yes, Bathilda would hire Eliza Shunpike in an instant. Did Griselda have a right not to?

Back then, she'd already taken a decision on behalf of her Dearest that Bathilda would never have agreed to. Griselda was sure that, given the choice, Bathilda, her Don Quixote of Godric's Hollow, would freely have given up her reputation and her career, her freedom and her sanity to face the consequences for her deed rather than have it erased from her memory. Griselda had been sure of it the minute Eleanor had told her, and that very minute, she had known that she wouldn't let it stop her.

She'd never regretted having taken what wasn't for her to take that night, but she'd never stopped being haunted by it, either. What you have in your head, nobody can take from you, they had always said to their girls. Well, that was wrong, wasn't it? She'd taken it from the one who was dearest to her in the world. And, as collateral damage, rendered the most faithful chronicler of Wizarding Britain unable to give a truthful account of even her own past.

But it hadn't just been that. There had also been the constant worries when Bathilda's forgetfulness began to increase, and the fear that it might have been the doing of her Memory Charm -- that she, never a natural at Charms, might have been so nervous or so eager to erase every last incriminating memory that her unsteady hand had done more than it should have. And there were the punches in the gut almost each time they met, later, when they'd managed to settle into an almost-normal friendship. When Bathilda brought up the tragic accident over tea or bad dinners, for example, or when Griselda commissioned her with a new schoolbook, one that didn't ignore witches and beings, and had to find words to explain to both Bathilda and the Board of Governors why it should cover nothing later than the Fourth Interspecies Conference of 1898. She'd mumbled something of the Seventh-year workload, and of a separate work on the Twentieth Century, what with it being so close and so important ...

No more of that, she thought as she blew out the candle and turned onto her side, her face towards Bathilda's back, relishing the warmth and the softness and the feel of the nightgown, almost like a hundred years ago.

Tomorrow, she would pay Eliza Shunpike a visit.

***

The moon was already high in the sky when Shepherd John Whitby returned from Paul Farnham's house.

He passed by the house with the overgrown front garden, where that old hag Miss Bagshot still lived. Poor dear, really, especially now that Mary was gone. Hopefully she got someone new to look after her soon; he didn't like her, but he didn't want her to end in a nursing home, either.

Ah, if she still could talk, she'd probably be a well of stories. She had to be ancient, perhaps a hundred years. Such a shame to let all that life experience go untold. It occurred to him that he'd never bothered to ask her what she remembered of the War, when he'd been a boy, or even the one before that. Too bad that she now was as barking as Holly at feeding time.

Well, be that as it might be. His mother had said that Miss Bagshot had rarely ever left the village. The war hadn't come here, neither this nor the last one. And not even she could be old enough to have lived when the region was still rich and vibrant, when the village was humming with families shearing, carding, spinning, weaving, and when wool merchants brought tidings from London and Land's End. If she had never left Godric's Hollow, perhaps she wouldn't even have much to tell.

After all, nothing ever happened in Godric's Hollow.

---

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