ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author of this story makes no claim to anything. The characters are either principals or peripheral to the Harry Potter novels authored by J.K. Rowling. Some characters do not appear in the Harry Potter novels and were developed for this story, but they owe their existence to the novels of Ms. Rowling, so the author claims no rights to them, either. Most locations mentioned are from Ms. Rowling's work or are in the public domain (London! Glasgow!). The author wishes to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Rowling for the gift of the seven Harry Potter novels and all the other features of the Potterverse. Thanks as well for being so kind and letting writers and readers of fan fiction enjoy a little additional recreational reading and writing. Respectfully, B.

Author's Note

The war is not over just because the shooting stops. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it is that. The twenty-first isn't getting off to a very promising start, either. The Second Wizarding War left Magical Britain in a state. The fortunate were able to pick up their lives and move on. Some of the less fortunate were in Azkaban, or had to live on without a loved one, or were so damaged they envied the dead. The war destroyed families, fortunes, careers and untold property. Still, humans are resilient. The students who had been attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at the time of the final battle would have had every right to seek out an island somewhere and devote themselves to rum and beachcombing. A few did. Most didn't. Some found themselves in a position to help others adjust to post-war life. It happens after every conflict. Those people do much more than they realize to get the rest of us back on our feet.

The following work features Harry Potter and Daphne Greengrass but it is not a continuation of any previous works by the author.

Merit and Inheritance

Chapter One

Pansy's Call

Pansy Parkinson materialized on the apex of a curve where an unpaved road climbed a small hill before dropping down into the depression between Pansy's hill and its nearest neighbor. Pansy was no stranger to the countryside. She'd spent much of her life at the Parkinson family's manor or one or another estate occupied by her magical childhood friends. Still, this spot struck her as being one too many steps removed from civilization, as she understood it.

British magicals, at least the ones coming from the more fortunate stratum of magical society, tended to love their estates. They built manor houses, restored castles, inherited abbeys they shared with regiments of ghostly monks. Formal gardens were grounds for competition between both sexes. Mazes of hedges and wedding cake follies were planted, shaped, built, ornamented, to be removed with a wave and replanted or rebuilt to record in three dimensions more and more elaborate and imaginative confections. One family of Pansy's acquaintance lived in a ruined Roman villa, affecting tunics and togas at home for everyday and ritually examining the entrails of any animal slaughtered for the table. They even invited a select group of friends and acquaintances to the family Saturnalia observance.

Pansy's mother admitted, after a third glass of red and a magical oath of silence, that she had attended one Saturnalia at the villa, in December of the year before she married.

"What happened?" Pansy asked. "What goes on at that damned party, anyway?"

Lady Parkinson giggled and wouldn't look Pansy in the face.

"Oh, it's just…fun, I guess," she said, finally. "Good clean fun, that's all."

"Perhaps I don't want to know," Pansy observed.

"It's a simple country weekend, really, Pansy," Lady Parkinson assured her daughter. "With a toga party."

Pansy had visited the villa, as a matter of fact, although she didn't dress as a Roman maiden. The matriarch of the family was working through a term of service as the Chief Vestal. In her own mind, she needed to see that the sacred rituals were performed to perfection, but mainly she concerned herself with the celibacy of every female that came within her sphere of influence. Less than an hour after Pansy's arrival she'd cornered her in the main room of the villa and was working as hard as she could to convince Pansy of the superiority of a career as a perpetual virgin, one with promotion possibilities that would culminate in Pansy's own elevation to Chief Vestal, with all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining.

"MUM!" shouted Pansy's classmate as she entered the room and overheard her mother's recruitment pitch.

She wore a long white gown and a pleated cap, the same as the Vestals shown in surviving Roman mosaics and frescoes.

"Come on, Pansy, gotta get you out of here," said the young woman.

She held onto Pansy's arm all the way to the villa courtyard and disapparated.

"Where are we?" Pansy asked, looking around.

"Outskirts of Penzance," said the girl. "Give me just a moment."

She waved her wand down the length of her torso and the Vestal's dress was replaced by an outfit typical for a young woman of school age: white button-down shirt, maroon jumper, black skinny jeans and a pair of black flats.

"The madwoman has every vagina on the estate embargoed and the senator and the centurion and the slave from the vomitorium are all tumescent, all the time. You could have been seen as concubine material."

Pansy wasn't sure just exactly what that meant but she tried to remember some of the references so she could look them up as soon as she had the chance. She grasped enough to extrapolate, so she did the right thing.

"Oh, THANK-YOU, Love," she said, "You've saved me for what will come later."

Pansy also didn't know precisely what was to come later, but her own mother had been warning her to think about it for as long as she could remember.

"When you're convinced some young wizard is worth throwing it all over for, you just stop and remind yourself about what will come later, Pansy Parkinson," her mother would say.

Pansy had assumed she'd seen the range of magical country places, including a ruined Roman villa, but none of the ones she'd visited prepared her for what she saw from her apparition point. She studied the homestead from the road. There was no lane. She would have to use a stile to get across a fence, then follow an unimproved foot path through a pasture of mixed grasses, heather, and some plants she didn't recognize.

The cottage was built out of stone. It looked solid enough. The builders hadn't done anything to pretty up the material. It looked like it had just been hacked out of the bedrock. Pansy didn't think the stone showed any signs of ever having had any stucco applied, nor paint nor whitewash.

The roof was thatch. Someone had done a nice job on that.

The dooryard was swept. Some ivy climbed one wall. She saw what appeared to be a well, a circular stone structure with two upright posts and a windlass, with a rope dangling down.

Several expletives tried to escape but Pansy focused on her manners and they stayed put.

"Just go see who's home, tea only, can't stay for lunch, got to get back…"

"Hullo, Morag?"

Pansy stood a few yards off from the door and hoped she had the right place. A solid redheaded woman came outdoors, stopping before she got very close. Pansy wondered if she was holding onto the option of dashing back inside.

"It's Pansy," she said. "Pansy Parkinson? I've come to visit. To see how you're doing. Have you got time to chat?"

The redhead stood still, staring.

"Come on in," she said, finally.

Pansy walked on down the little slope, following the dirt path. She got close enough to reach out and raised her arms. The redhead hesitated, then leaned forward from the waist up. She touched Pansy with her hands but she didn't hug back.

"Tea?"

"Sure, thank-you, nothing like a cup of tea," Pansy said. "How are you? Country life agrees with you, I can see."

"Meaning?"

"Morag, you look fit, healthy, ageless…" Pansy tried.

"Thank-you," Morag said. "Sugar? Milk? There's no lemon, I'm afraid."

"Nothing," said Pansy.

"Yes, I'm Morag," said her hostess. "I don't think I ever confirmed."

She snickered a little, getting a smile from Pansy.

"Don't use my name much, way out here," Morag said. "Mum."

She gestured with her head toward an interior door. Pansy looked her hostess over. The clothes she wore were of good quality, well-kept, clean, yet everything she had on spoke of age and wear. The interior of the cottage was clean. There was a smoky scent that Pansy guessed permeated everything that could hold an odor—wood, textiles, thatch. What in the name of Merlin was a graduate of Hogwarts doing living out here on the edge of the world?

"Stroke," said Morag. She looked Pansy in the eye.

"Mum had a stroke. She lived here alone ever since Dad passed. I'd come visit her on weekends. Just one of those things."

"Oh, Morag, I'm so sorry," Pansy said. She lay her hand on her classmate's. Morag didn't move.

Pansy dropped her voice.

"How…?"

Morag just shook her head.

"Drink up," she said, "I'll show you around."

Pansy emptied her tea cup and stood. Morag led the way through the cottage and out a rear door. The back yard sloped down from the back of the cottage, ending at a stone wall. Pansy wasn't a mason but she could see the wall was dry-laid stone and it was perfect. She wondered if wand-work had anything to do with that.

Morag led her away from the cottage. There was a window in the area opposite the kitchen. Pansy guessed that was Mrs. MacDougal's room.

"How much did you know about the MacDougals when we were in school?" Morag asked.

"Not a lot," said Pansy. "You were a serious student, I recall."

"Mm-hmm," said Morag. "I didn't run in the same circles you did. I didn't run at all. My situation wasn't known to more than a few faculty and two students. Harry Potter and Blaise Zabini. So, Pansy, before we go any further, will you please tell me what in Hades you are doing here? And I'll tell you right now, if I even suspect you are lying, or just shading the truth, you might as well apparate out of here and never bother me again."

Morag meant it, from the look on her face and the hard set of her eyes.

Pansy sighed.

"Harry wants to know where everyone is," said Pansy. "He…it's going to be ten years since the…the Battle. He asked for help putting together an update."

"It's going to be ten years, almost three years from now. So, you're his secretary, administrative assistant? Who am I talking to, Pansy? You? Harry? What brought this on?"

"You're talking to me. I'm just a witch that Harry asked to check and see if we could locate one of our number we hadn't heard from in a while. Harry likes to know everyone is well, that they aren't in need of something that the rest of us can help out with, that they aren't…being neglected."

Morag stopped and thought over Pansy's statement, then she nodded.

"There's a bench over here," she said, leading the way to a wooden bench underneath an arbor covered in morning glory vines.

"After things settled down, I worked with tutors and took my NEWTs," Morag began.

She'd done well. Five NEWT Outstandings and two Exceeds Expectations were sufficient to apply for a mastery program in healing. Morag completed the course and took a position with a Ministry-supported clinic in a magical village a little way outside Glasgow. Then Morag's father died.

Morag's father was her mother's third husband. Morag's parents were both well-advanced in age when Morag came along, her mother having made it to two hundred by the time she had her stroke.

"I tried to keep working, but she needs someone full time," Morag said. "I took family leave. The Ministry was very generous, but they couldn't carry me forever. I looked for an attendant, but she wants me here. That's our status, at the moment."

"Any chance of her improving?" Pansy asked.

"No," said Morag. "She'll never be able to get up from her bed and step over to her chair. I can understand a bit of what she says, but I think I just know her well enough to get her what she wants when she is acting like she wants something."

"I've heard…of a few cases…ah, problems with her magic?" Pansy asked. She tried to be delicate, but it sounded to her like delicacy had slipped her grasp.

"No, thank Merlin," said Morag. "I live in fear she'll initiate something catastrophic, like a fire. So far…"

Morag rapped her knuckles, twice, on the wooden bench.

Pansy thought over what she'd learned from Morag.

"Is this the best place for someone in her condition? At her age?" asked Pansy.

"It's where she lived with Dad," said Morag. "No, to answer your question. It's what she wants, though, and she gets so upset if she doesn't have it. There are charms at work. Keeping it in conformance with her expectations."

Pansy took a long pause to think over her next words.

"So you aren't able to plan…" she began.

Morag closed her eyes and shook her head. She took her time answering.

"I owe her," she said. "I came too late. A century too late. She'd done her duty. My brothers and sisters are much older. Still, I wouldn't be here, if not for her, and Dad. How in the world they managed to get me started, and raise me. Even with magic."

Pansy burst out laughing.

"Sorry, sorry," she tried. "The way you said that, I just…"

Morag didn't seem to mind, because she started to laugh herself.

"Oh, Merlin," Morag said when she got control of herself.

"Well, you're a professional woman, using your education and taking care of an aging parent," said Pansy. "Can I offer you anything? Visits? Caregiver's respite day? A jar of chicken soup? Or would you rather be left alone?"

"Don't you have to go back and report?" asked Morag. She sounded a little aggressive. Pansy let it pass.

"Beyond saying I found you and you're the picture of health, no," said Pansy. "There have been one or two cases where I exercised some discretion."

Morag heard something in Pansy's comment and changed direction.

"What exactly is your job? What does Potter pay you to do?" she asked.

The question hung in the air. It seemed to have Pansy stumped.

"Watch and learn," she said.