A/N: This one-shot has been reedited as of 13 September 2017 for a few minor details and nitpicking grammar. The sequel, Harrowing, is also available now!
Beta'd by the wonderful BurningCrashingRaining
The last thing Hermione remembered was Bellatrix asking Griphook if the sword of Gryffindor he was holding was the real sword. She knew the torture she had endured had been bad but she wasn't sure what had happened after that. All she could tell from where she was laying back on something soft was that there was the slightest of aches in her chest.
She woke up hearing Sirius's voice. "Well, I was hoping not to see you so soon, Kitten."
Hermione opened her eyes to see Sirius Black's smiling face looking at her. He looked younger than she remembered. Or less haunted perhaps.
"What's going on?" Hermione asked though she felt stupid for asking such an obvious question. She knew he was dead therefore she could conclude that so was she and thus they were in an afterlife of some sort.
"Well, it's… You died. As Ron was apparating out of Malfoy Manor, Bellatrix threw her knife at you," he said softly.
Hermione reached up and touched the ache in her chest. She glanced down to see herself in a jumper and jeans she didn't own but not covered in blood like she thought she would be.
"It's just a phantom ache. It will ease soon," he said. "So I suppose you want to know where you are. Umm... Ever heard of Dante's Inferno?"
Hermione felt a bit shocked, surely she hadn't been that horrible of a human being, right? "We're in Hell?"
"No, no! Sorry, that was the wrong way of explaining. What I mean is that there are different places that people can go. This one's an in-between sort of place."
"It's not the Inbetween," another voice said from her left. The sweet, smooth voice of a woman. Hermione turned her head and saw a pretty, young woman with radiant green eyes and straight, auburn hair. "Hi Hermione, I'm Lily Potter."
"This isn't the Inbetween?" Hermione asked, limiting herself to just the one question despite having dozens in her head.
"No. The Inbetween is where people go for only a moment or so when they die before the Fates decide whether a person will truly die or return to life," Lily explained as she sat down on the foot of the bed, tucking her flowery-patterned, blue dress underneath her.
"Like at the hospital when my grandmother's heart stopped and they restarted it?"
Lily tilted her head. "Something like that. Except..."
"These places are only for magical folks. There aren't any muggles in the afterlife," Sirius said.
"I'll never see my parents again?"
Lily lowered her head. "No, unfortunately not."
Hermione focused on her surroundings, using the pause they allowed her to both detail where she was and deal with the pain that unexpected revelation caused.
Hermione was in a small bedroom. The walls were a light cream and there were lace and pink floral accents. Beside the bed was a small nightstand painted white. Sirius was sitting in a white, wooden chair next to the bed.
"So where are we, if not the Inbetween?"
"Well, we're all truly dead, but—"
"Sirius, you suck at explanations," Lily fussed at him. "We're in Limbo. This is where those who died young, those who'd like a do-over or those who only wanted to watch over their loved ones come."
"I thought ghosts were..." Hermione started to ask.
"The only difference between coming here and becoming a ghost is that ghosts are scared of death. James and I weren't scared of death, but we stayed on instead of moving Beyond because we wanted to watch over Harry."
"What's Beyond?"
Lily smiled. "Those here still retain pieces of their former selves. If someone chooses to move Beyond, their soul merges with..." her brows furrowed. "Creation? The Oversoul? The Light? Whatever it truly is, we don't know. We just know that if you move Beyond, the person you were is no more. Have you ever heard that someone was 'born with an old soul?' People born with new souls come from there. People with 'old souls' come from here."
"What about evil people? Do we have magic here to defend ourselves?" Hermione couldn't help but ask. "If... no. When Harry defeats Riddle, will Riddle come here?"
"No. Riddle is a special case because he's destroyed his soul by separating it into pieces."
"So there are no murderers here?"
"There might be. Their souls were broken but kept in their body."
"So Bellatrix Lestrange could end up here?"
"That's enough heavy talk! Let's go meet people!" Sirius interrupted, standing up and offering his hands to help Hermione up. "I think we'll start with my family first and then on to some of our school friends-like Marlene, Em, and Pandora." Lily shook her head behind Sirius's shoulder in answer to Hermione's last question.
"Your family?" Hermione asked as she took the hand offered by Sirius and stood. Lily just waved at her and left the room. "I thought you hated your family?"
"Mainly my mother," he answered. He led her out of the tiny bedroom through a living room and out onto a wide, curving cobbled street. There were attached houses on both sides and they all looked the same. He walked confidently for several minutes passing the same set of five attached houses over and over again.
Hermione had stopped trying to count houses when they passed the twenty-fifth one. The street was never-ending. There were no markers to designate addresses and every front garden looked exactly the same. She thought they were walking around the same giant circle.
"Ah, here we are," Sirius said and flourished his hands at a house that looked exactly like the one they had come out of and all the ones they had walked past.
"How did...?"
"Once you're here for a while you'll get the feel of it. Come on, after this, I want to show you the pools."
Hermione bit her lip, trying not to interrupt with the dozens of questions that were filling her mind. Sirius held open the door and Hermione walked in ahead of him. The inside of this house was different compared to the Potters'. This one looked like a sun-filled version of Grimmauld Place. They walked up the stairs to the front parlour and when they entered the room several people looked up.
The oldest, a man who looked to be in his 90s stood first, followed by all of the younger men. Sirius hooked her arm with his and pulled her in front of the man.
"Grandmother, Grandfather, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione, this is Grandfather Arcturus," Sirius said, and then gestured with his head to the woman still seated behind the elderly gentleman, "and Grandmother Melania."
"Pleasure to meet you," Arcturus said to her.
"Likewise," Hermione answered. Arcturus and Melania nodded their heads at her and Sirius pulled her a few steps to the left.
"Great-Aunt Lycoris and Great-Uncle Regulus," he offered introductions between them. The next several people he introduced her to were his mother's father Pollux and his sister Cassiopeia. "Their sister Dorea and her husband Charlus are Harry's grandparents," Sirius told her between introductions.
He then introduced Hermione to his uncles, Alphard and Cygnus. "Mother blasted Uncle Alphard off the family tree after he died for leaving me his entire inheritance," he whispered. "and Uncle Cygnus is nothing like... well, Bellatrix takes after her mother."
There were only three other men in the room. An older man, maybe in his late forties, and two teenagers. The older man was just as tall as Sirius, with a slight rounding of the belly that is characteristic in older men. "This is my father, Orion Black," Sirius said with pride in his voice.
Hermione smiled and said she was pleased to meet the man, still unsure as to why Sirius was amiable with his family and introducing her to them.
Sirius introduced her to the youngest of the teenagers next. "This is Cepheus, Aunt Lycoris's son, he was almost a Hufflepuff."
The young man rolled his eyes, "I don't see why that's such a big thing for you. Just because I listened to Mother and asked the Hat for Slytherin... How do you do?" he greeted her.
The last person in the room was a teenager and he resembled Sirius the most. He might have been an inch or two shorter with a slighter frame. He still had the silky, wavy, black hair and the striking grey eyes that most of the people in the room had.
"This is my younger brother, Regulus," Sirius said with finality.
Regulus nodded his head cordially, the same as all the others in the room had, but Hermione's reaction to hearing his name and seeing him in front of her was different. She hugged him immediately, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug and whispering, "You were so brave..." near his ear. He did not hug her back. In fact, he stiffened in her embrace and stood with his arms trapped under hers for the few seconds it took for her to realize what she'd done.
Everyone in this room was a pureblood, and according to Sirius, they had all been staunch believers in blood purity. Her eyes widened and she jerked back from the impromptu hug she'd just given Regulus. She squeaked out a 'sorry' and bolted from the room, down the stairs, and out into the street. She heard Sirius call her name a few times but his voice and his legs couldn't carry quite as fast and as far as she ran.
All she could think was she had to get to another Muggle-born to help hide her from her horribly awkward faux pas and the likeliness that the many people she was just introduced to would be out to kill her again for deigning to touch one of them. She didn't stop to think about where they were or why so many of his family were here in this strange place. All she wanted was the closest to normal she could get: Lily.
She turned and entered the next house on the right she passed, not entirely sure she wasn't making yet another faux pas and entering some stranger's house. Yet, the entrance and living room looked familiar.
"Mrs Potter?" she called and beautiful, red-headed and green-eyed Lily came out of the next room with a dish towel drying her hands and a worried look on her face.
"Hermione? What's wrong?" she asked, ushering Hermione into the kitchen to sit at the table. She busied herself making tea.
"I just did a really bad thing," she said and then explained how she'd hugged Regulus and embarrassed herself so badly. "Why did Sirius want to introduce me to his family anyway?" She asked rhetorically.
Lily just smiled. "When we wake up here, there isn't anyone in charge to explain what's going on. We have to learn from others by word of mouth. Some of the oldest among us remember the last Event, where most of the population of Limbo disappeared. There's no real explanation of what happened. Some say it was the Beyond purging those that had lingered here long enough. Others say a new world was born or a new dimension created and those people were all reborn into that new world. There are hundreds of people here, maybe even thousands, and the Elders—that is, the ones that have been here the longest, not necessarily the ones who lived the longest lives—they think that another Event will happen soon. Some of the Elders also talk about soul mates and soul bonds. I think Sirius was told that someone would be joining his family soon. Not two days later, you died and showed up here."
Hermione's eyes went wide again. "Sirius thinks I'm his soul mate?"
Lily laughed. "I don't know. Maybe."
"How do you know so much?"
"I listen," she said with a shrug.
"Lily! Sirius lost Hermione!" a man's voice called as he opened the front door and yelled.
"He didn't lose her, James, she's right here."
"Thank Merlin," Sirius's voice answered.
"Who's watching Harry?" Lily asked.
"Mum and Dad," James answered as he walked into the kitchen. Hermione felt starstruck when she saw the man that everyone said Harry took after so much. It was true. He was about as tall as Harry only with broader shoulders and hazel eyes. His hair wasn't just messy, it was curly and shaggy and he had a thick, black moustache covering his upper lip. Hermione wouldn't be surprised if he were wearing bell bottoms.
Hermione couldn't help it. One look at this man who looked so like her Harry but with that ridiculous moustache had her covering her mouth with her hand trying very hard not to start giggling. Despite trying to hide her giggles as she looked at Harry's dad, all three of the other people in the room looked at her strangely.
"What?" James asked her. Even his voice sounded like Harry's and it only added to the hilarious picture he made.
Hermione's other hand came up to help cover her face as her giggles gained intensity until she was gasping for breath and rocking side-to-side in her chair with mirth.
Lily, who was standing beside Hermione, gave her a look that said she wanted in on the joke. With one hand hiding her face, Hermione used the other to put a finger over her lip and wiggle it, showing Lily what she found so funny without showing the men. Lily started smiling and then looked back over at James and then she was giggling too.
What?" James asked more frustrated than before. He looked down at his clothes, brushing invisible lint or dirt from his shirt and then wiping at his face. "Is there something on my face?"
That's when Lily started belly laughing and Hermione fell out of her chair.
Sirius must have picked up on the joke because he smiled and canted his eyes at his best mate. "Yeah, you do mate, right about here," he said as he rubbed his hand over his own upper lip and neatly trimmed facial hair.
After Hermione fell off her chair, she didn't know what happened between the three of them. James had gone upstairs and Lily helped her off the floor. "Come on, let's go see the pools and look in on Harry."
* . * . *
The pools were large, round, concrete fountains with perfectly still water located inside the single curving street of houses where people gathered all around to watch over loved ones. There were smaller ones farther off, but Lily and Sirius led Hermione to one of the largest ones. When she got close enough, Hermione could see Harry and Ron sitting at a breakfast table. Bill Weasley was standing in front of a cooker holding a spatula. Fleur was walking back into the room with a sad smile on her face. And Dobby, wearing three hats and at least five different coloured socks, followed behind her. She walked over and kissed Bill on the cheek before walking to the icebox to pull a carton out.
It was a simple morning scene. If one didn't know they were at war, looking at this scene wouldn't tell anyone otherwise. Except, there were slight tells that Hermione picked up on that alerted her to something being wrong. Ron was staring at the table, dragging the tines of his fork along the wood grain. Harry looked angry. Both boys had red eyes and dark bruises below them from lack of sleep.
Bill opened his mouth and said something and Fleur answered, but there was no sound.
"Why can't we hear them?"
"It's part of the 'watching over them' thing. No one ever says 'listening over, do they?" Sirius asked, staring at the image of Harry. He had a frown on his face when he looked up at her and he looked all of his thirty-something years. "They kept vigil over you last night. Both boys refused to leave you. Your... funeral... is today. I don't know if you'll want to watch that. Lily said it's going to be a bit... different."
"What do you mean, 'different'? And how do you know?" She looked over at Lily.
"I've been here for quite a few years. I've learned to read lips and body language. Shell Cottage is on the beach, there's not... there's nowhere to bury your body. Bill called you a warrior and said you should be sent off like one, so they're going to..."
When it seemed like Lily wasn't going to answer, Sirius said, "Build you a pyre."
"They're going to cremate me?" she asked both somewhat upset and unnerved. "With what? I mean, if they don't have..." She was about to say driftwood but the scene in the pool followed Bill and Harry out of the house and down the beach. Once they had picked the spot Harry wanted, they started using summoning spells to gather driftwood and then using the Doubling Charm to multiply the bits of wood that they had gathered. It seemed liked hours later when the pyre was waist high and the two had stopped building it up. The scene changed only slightly to show Ron carrying her body, wrapped in white, with Luna and Mr Ollivander being helped by Fleur following behind. Dobby was weeping and using his many hats as tissues as he walked alongside Luna.
At first, Hermione just assumed she-well, her body-was wrapped in a bed sheet, but as Ron got closer to the pyre, she realized that it looked more like a gown with a hood. There were embroidered flowers on the breast and lace on the sleeves. Hermione's eyes filled with tears but she didn't let them fall. She looked over each member of their little group. Of all the little details that Hermione noticed about her friends while they put her body on the pyre and spoke quietly amongst themselves was that Luna's fingers were red and dotted and so were Fleur's.
Hermione glanced up at Lily who was watching the scene solemnly. She noticed the movement and looked up, raising her eyebrows to encourage Hermione to ask her question.
"Why are their fingers red?"
"Luna added the lace by hand and Fleur did the embroidery. Luna was the one who suggested transfiguring the sheet into something more befitting," she whispered.
Hermione looked back down at the pool just in time to watch all those with wands cast an Incendio at the pyre. She shivered and looked away. Lily put her arm around Hermione and walked back towards their house.
"You'll stay with us, Hermione. And hopefully, when the end of the war comes we don't reunite with the rest of our loved ones. And if the Elders are right and there's an Event, then there's an Event. Or we could all just move Beyond. What you do is your choice but you're always welcome as part of our family."