"Madam Lestrange, I presume." Theo was acquainted with the mad witch's handiwork. Hermione nodded. He reached a hand tentatively towards her and she allowed him to take her wrist and turn her arm so he could get a better look. "No cosmetic charm is going to cover it."
"All the variant Disillusionment charms we tried slide off it too. Bill brought over every unguent the dragon trainers use. No luck there either, and it burns through mundane make-up." She felt better for talking about it. Much better that he hadn't winced or looked away.
"Please take my word for it that even if the skin is flensed, the cuts will still be visible. The curse goes down to the bone." Releasing her wrist, he waited for her to ask how he knew that. She didn't. Instead, she opened her notebook and showed him a page, several pages, of words.
"I can't cover it up or make it go away but I can add to it." Hermione kept her voice steady. She had been thinking about this for a long time. "I can't curse myself. The cuts would heal normally."
Theo did her the courtesy of not asking if she was sure. He looked through all the words she had compiled that could incorporate the scar's lines. Changing a 'u' into an 'e' required some finesse but it could be done. An 'o' into a 'g' was easy. The kerning would be more difficult though an obviously hand-inscribed phrase gave some leeway.
"It took me a while." She needed to talk about it and he was listening. "I didn't want random words. Bellatrix was insane enough. I don't want nonsense on my arm. And the English language was no damn help at all. I thought about abstracting the lines, making them into a pattern but that'd be more obvious I was hiding something not less."
Mudblood
The word hung between them unspoken. He had never used that epithet to her face. Theo disliked the vulgarity. But he had thought it. She didn't know her place. Didn't keep herself decently out of sight. Too loud, too bold, too good.
Over too much firewhiskey, Draco had told him about that night. The girl they had both derided had done something neither of them had managed. She had defied the Dark Lord's most fanatic devotee. Weeping on the floor, cursed by a witch who had driven others mad with pain, she had not broken.
The last time Bellatrix had touched him, he had spent the night scrubbing himself red to get rid of the stink of his own fear.
"Medb log Enech, the honour-price of the Queen." His Old Erse was far from fluent but the translation of the Ulster Cycle he'd read had left in many of the more subtle phrases. "Queen Maeve doesn't seem a likely role-model for you."
"I thought of it more to remind me however powerful you are, however big a noise you make in life, small things can finish you." She lifted her chin to mimic Malfoy's sneer. "Ophelia will say the words remind her how to comport herself."
"Did Ophelia cut it herself?" Theo asked, hoping his 'sister' didn't mean to mimic her theatrical namesake.
"When our mother abandoned us to pursue her latest paramour, I wanted to give myself a permanent reminder to be no one's concubine." Hermione had given that part some thought. "You don't have a high opinion of your grandmother. If we model our putative mother after her, it'll seem plausible that we're alone in the world."
"I'm not sure what spell to use." He stared at the incised word. A slicing hex wouldn't give him the control he needed to shape the letters. There were other, darker spells. Telling himself it needed to be done did not spur him to do it.
"You won't need a spell. I have the knife she used." Her initial intention had been to keep the weapon out of the Death Eaters' hands. Then she had meant to destroy it. Now she wanted to study it. "It's old. Fascinating, really."
"I do not find myself intrigued." Theo protested, though he doubted she believed him. "I have handled similar daggers. I can activate the curse, albeit not as intensely as Madam Lestrange."
"I think we're both okay with that." Hermione licked dry lips. "Best to do it in the shower. Easier to clean up afterwards."
They went upstairs and had a determinedly clinical conversation. Hermione drew the alterations with the fountain pen for Theo to trace. The last 'd' was ragged enough that if the horizontal lines of the 'E' crossed the vertical it would be passable. Plausible too that towards the end her hand would've been shaking.
There was a lot of blood. The knife cut the skin with almost no resistance. Theo had to be very careful to keep to the ink lines and not slice wildly. Hermione sat ashen faced with her back against the wall, eyes squeezed shut repeating silently to herself that it wasn't as bad as the first time.
She wasn't on her back. She wasn't helpless. She had her wand in her hand. She could stop this whenever she wanted. She was in control.
"Granger." Theo dropped the dagger as soon as he was finished. He felt filthy, and a dirty, vicious part of him was aroused by the power and her submission. "Granger, it's done."
"I hate her." Hermione breathed slowly. "I thought that once she was dead the hate would go away." She blinked. The electric light was starkly reassuring she was not in Malfoy Manor.
"It doesn't." He sat down beside her, rubbing his hands on his shirt. Filthy. Disgusting. Tempting. "It's like a disease. It runs its own course regardless of the vector."
"Good analogy." She sucked in a deep breath then cast a coagulating charm. Easier to learn than a healing spell. Good for first aid. She had used it so often during and after the Battle of Hogwarts she could almost cast it wandless.
"Do you want me to be somewhere else?" Theo asked, watching her wipe sweat from her face with her sleeve. She shook her head and sniffed, gulping air again as she laboured through the shock. Draco had always wanted privacy. Crabbe and Goyle liked company. Zabini had been lucky never to be called upon to serve. Fence-sitting bastard.
"I'll be alright in a bit." Hermione waited for her heartbeat to calm from staccato to a more regular tempo. "I'm going to wear short sleeves and bloody flaunt it."
"Regulation uniform." He looked down at himself. "Which neither of us have."
"I unpacked all my clothes before going for a walk. I'd bought all new things." She was irrationally irritated about that. It seemed so wasteful, and she didn't like clothes shopping when it was necessary.
"So did I." New raiment for new endeavours. "You hold the purse-strings." Theo was not comfortable with relying so completely on someone else's charity. When they returned to their own time, he could pay his debts. Until then, he was a pauper.
"We can keep to the basics. I expect Orpheus and Ophelia had a feast or famine upbringing. So we'll get a lot of coordinates from Oxfam." Hermione nodded to herself. Organise, that's the ticket. He was looking at her expectantly. "Oh, that's a thrift store chain. They work to relieve poverty."
"We, the twin siblings, are pure-bloods." Theo was carefully specific. Arguing with her right now about heritage and politics would be more confronting than he wished. As much as he did not want to sound like his father, the words often came out of their own accord.
"Would you rather buy cheaply where no one knows who you are or keep to the magical world and be judged like the Weasleys?" She stood up slowly, starting to clean her arm gingerly. The bathroom would need quite a bit of work too. Two dentists would be able to identify bloodstains in their grout.
"We'd be resentful either way. We have to have some proper clothes. Maybe in older styles." Wearing someone else's trousers was not appealing. "I'm not suggesting bespoke, just unremarkable."
"This is a lot easier in movies. You see a shopfront with a mannequin, there's a montage and the protagonist walks out stylishly camouflaged." Hermione pulled a first aid kit from her little bag and dressed her arm. She swallowed a painkiller then began with the cleaning charms.
"I understand your words not the concepts." Theo joined in with the tidying. It made him feel much better not to see blood on the tiles.
"Never mind." Harry had grown up with Muggles and Ron with his Muggle-obsessed father. They at least could follow her references. The truly cloistered pure-bloods were clueless. "If we're stuck here long enough to need entertainment, the first Star Wars movie comes out in 1977. That ought to confuse you thoroughly."
They discussed their options as they picked over the house, checking they had left nothing out of place. Both agreed the closer to the truth they kept their lies, the better. The priority was to secure their entrance into Hogwarts.
While it was more practical to have clothes, school supplies and a detailed life history, that implied forethought on the twins' part.
They had not anticipated arriving years before they were born but they could play that as an asset. It was a riskier strategy than the detailed planning they both preferred, however the wizarding world was paralysed with fear. And fearful people liked simple answers.
Which was why Theo and Hermione found themselves back in Hogsmeade, in the Owl Post Office sending a crisply polite letter to Professor Slughorn. They waited in the Three Broomsticks enjoying a large brunch and wrote continuously in their notebooks. Winging it would only get them so far.
Horace Slughorn met them within an hour of their letter's dispatch. Theo's assessment of his character was proven accurate; on producing the document supporting their identity the Potions Professor fell over himself to assist them.
Affably, he escorted them to the Headmaster's office and introduced them to Albus Dumbledore, who genially offered them candy. Hermione sat rigid as Theo lied to the old man who she had respected for years. Until she learned he had feet of clay.
"I am sorry to hear of your circumstances and hope you will find refuge in Hogwarts." The platitude was smoothly delivered and seemed so genuine. There was twinkle in his eye. He was so much the perfect kindly father-figure that Hermione wanted to grab him by the beard and shake him.
"Thank you, Headmaster." She smiled tightly, trying to convey aristocratic hauteur rather than simmering outrage. If he had only told Harry the truth from the beginning! They'd have had years to prepare. They could've saved people. How dare he sit there smiling like it wasn't all his fucking fault.
"Of course, there will be some adjustments to be made. I expect your schooling was quite different to what you'll find here." Dumbledore's gaze drifted lightly from Theo to Hermione then back to Theo.
"Mother provided us with the best of tutors, when they were available." Theo said coldly, hearing the unspoken critique of their education. Not unreasonable, he told himself. It still stung. He prided himself on his Outstandings.
"Nevertheless, it would be remiss of me to throw you unprepared into your NEWTS." The elderly wizard smiled, helping himself to a lemon drop. "I think it might be best if we put you in with the Sixth Years. More time to fill in any gaps. I'm sure you both want to do well."
Theo and Hermione shared the same incredulous look. The Sixth Years? Wasting their time repeating a year when they had already been denied their seventh year once? The age gap would be even worse and they would be under far more supervision. Which, each cynically guessed, was rather the point.
"As you say, Headmaster." Theo gave their acquiescence courteously, both their faces studiously neutral.
"Good, good." The smile was still there, though perhaps more knowing than before. "You can stay in Hogsmeade and gather what you need for term then join the other students on the platform when the Express arrives. I'm sure you'll speedily make friends."
The Headmaster dismissed them and Slughorn escorted them from the castle. They didn't say anything until they had booked a room at the Three Broomsticks and both cast a Muffliato. Then there was some swearing.
"He suspects something." Theo asserted once he had quelled his profane exclamations. His sixth year at Hogwarts had been excruciating. He did not want another. "Or is he usually like that?"
"Yes, to both." Hermione sat down on one of the beds and kicked off her heels. She had copied one of her mother's dresses then transfigured her shoes to better conform with conservative wizarding fashion. Theo had done the same with one of her father's blazers and ties.
"What will he do about it?" That was the crux.
"Nothing overt. We'll be watched and he'll drop hints we should confide in him." She rubbed her feet, grimacing at the surveillance not her sore soles.
"Do you want to?" He had noticed her tension in the office. Her fingers had been clenched tight on the arms of her chair.
"I'm very angry with him." That was a masterfully controlled understatement. "He kept so much from us. He had his own agenda and we were pawns." Hermione looked up from her toes to her unlikely comrade-in-arms. "I expect you know what that feels like."
"Absolutely." Theo confirmed grimly.
