Disclaimer: Not mine.

The Chasm

Chapter 8

A Night at Sirius'

After bathing and dressing in the homespun tunics, Hermione and Ronald sat on the floor at the low table, watching as Mara knelt at the fire and pulled out roasted nuts and parsnips from the glowing embers. Lifting a joint onto a wooden plank, she turned and pushed it on the table in front of them, then did the same with the rest of the dinner. She stood and with a scowl at Hermione, said something in her native tongue and turning to the door stepped out into the darkness.

"What was that all about?" Hermione watched the woman leave, feeling Mara had just slighted and not knowing why.

"I don't know. Maybe she doesn't like another woman in her house. You would think she would be pleased to get out of here," Ronald said quietly, not wanting Sirius to overhear.

"Come on you two, eat!" Sirius grinned as he came in with Harry behind him. "We've never had company, at least let me feed you before we leave. It may be a while before your next hot meal."

"Shouldn't we wait for Mara?" Harry said grinning, studying the table as he sat on the floor. "Do we just…no forks?"

"No, use you hands," Sirius laughed, slapping him on the shoulder. "Eat. Go on. I tried to make some out of scrapes of drift wood we find on the beach from time to time but never could get it right."

"What of Mara?" Hermione asked.

"No, she'll eat later, come on now. I want to hear about everyone. Remus. What is he up to? I miss him you know. Did he ever get that…"

"He's dead." Harry said softly. "Lots of them are."

"Remus?" Sirius' face darkened as he looked from one to the other. "He was a good man. A good man. Gods, I…I never even considered that he would be gone."

"We all lost a lot," Ronald said evenly, watching Hermione from the corner of his eye. "When we get back we can show you all the Daily Prophet copies. I've got all of them."

"He's right, Sirius. Let's wait until we get back and talk," Harry agreed.

"No, I need to know," Sirius said softly, lowering his head. "Other then you three, Harry, who is left? Ronald, your parents?"

"We lost Fred." He did not elaborate, as he reached for the wooden plank holding the joint and pushed it in front of Hermione.

"We'll talk after dinner," Harry said, seeing Hermione stiffen. "I'm starving."

"The Headmaster," she said tersely, "Moody, Remus' wife…he was married to Nymphadora."

"Nymphadora? I always liked her…how are her parents? Andromeda was always my favourite…"

"She's fine, but she lost Ted, her husband. Her daughter, her husband…her sister. Bellatrix is gone…I know she was with Voldemort…but she was your family as well," Harry leaned his arms on the table and tried to smile. "It's been ten years since the war ended. We lost fifty in just that one day and so many before that. The thing to remember is that it's over. Voldemort is dead, this time for good."

"The Order was hit the hardest. Most of them are gone," Hermione said pointedly.

"We can catch you up later," Harry said, throwing Hermione a warning look. "Now tell me about you and this wife of yours."

"She is a good cook, that is if you like roasted mutton and fish," Sirius said with an edge to his voice, making Hermione look at him sharply.

"It looks delicious. I am surprised at how she can manage in just an open fire pit," Hermione said, watching Sirius rip a piece of meat from the bone and then did the same.

"Yeah," he laughed, smiling widely. "She's had a lot of practice. Oh, one thing, before you go…scratch your name…or at least an initial in the table…it's another one of her customs. She somehow thinks that the house its self will remember you as a friend if you leave your name in it."

"She'll be glad to get out of here," Ron spoke around a mouth full of mutton.

"She's staying," Sirius said, then slapped Harry on the back again, and squeezed his shoulder. "Gods, I have to keep touching you just to know this is real."

"Oh my god, Sirius, they are gorgeous," Hermione said seeing Mara walk in, a child's hand in each of her own.

"Ah, yes." Sirius opened his arms to the children who both ran to him and climbed up on his lap until he held one on each knee. "This fine boy is Wilhelm, five years old, almost six, and this beautiful girl is my Nada, going on four now. They are named for people in Mara's family, or at least as close as I could pronounce."

"Wait until they meet mine," Harry said softly, reaching to ruffle the girl's hair.

"Okay you two, go see Mum, it's almost bed time." Sirius lifted the children and set them on the floor. "Mara fed them while you were bathing and they have a long day ahead of them. They've never seen anyone but the two of us. We don't want them too excited."

"Here," Ron scooped up Nada and slung her on his hip, "you two need to talk and Mara hasn't eaten, Hermione and I will…"

"No," Mara grabbed the girl back, looking at Sirius tearfully. "Not now, it is still my time!"

"Ron," Sirius said softly, "it's her last night with them. She wants to do it herself."

"You can't be serious," Ron said, watching her take the children in to a darkened corner of the hut and pull the curtain closed.

"She can't leave," Sirius said tersely, avoiding eye contact.

"Why ever not?" Hermione gasped.

"Sirius? You can't leave her here… not alone."

"She can't leave, we've tried. I can pass through with the children, but…she cannot. We had planned that I would take them out when Nada was older and could make the trip easier. Mara understands."

"No wonder she hates us," Hermione said, putting her hand over Sirius'.

"We can find a way. You're not leaving her." Harry spat angrily. "She's the mother…"

"Do you think we made this decision today? Since the first one was born …Harry, what do you think his life would be like here? Not now, but when they are older? No friends, no…no chance to…to have a family…to…" his voice fell off as he heard Mara step back into the main room. "Eat, please, Mara spent all afternoon on this, eat."

.

.

After they had finished, Hermione went outside and made a bed with the coarse blanket Mara had supplied her and sat down, pulling off her boots.

"Hermione? Do you…may I join you?" Ronald asked.

"Sure." She moved over to make room for him. "They still talking?"

"Yeah." He flopped down on the blanket next to her. "She hasn't said a word, just sits on the floor tending the fire, watching."

"I can't imagine it." She turned to study his face. "He's right though. He can't leave the kids here, and he can't spend the rest of his life in this place. Ron, have you noticed how strange she is?"

"This whole place, yeah. Look at the house, strange that."

"I thought of that but then dismissed it. With the resources they have, they didn't have much of a choice, look around, not even many trees, but… the other things. Wilhelm? Her accent? The herbs she keeps throwing in the fire. How old do you think she is?"

"Old?" He grinned and waggled his eyebrows. "Don't look too old to me."

"You know what I mean."

"I figure she was born here. That may explain why she can't leave and why she seems so old fashioned."

"Do you think there are others here then? Family and such?"

"Why not? Not many, but if she was born here there would have to be. I can't imagine he would leave her on her own. We haven't looked beyond here and with Harry and Sirius, talking you can't get word in. Plus that, have you noticed every time we ask a question about her or the kids Sirius changes the topic?"

"We should make sure before it's what she wants before we leave."

"Sirius says we go at daylight. Hermione, don't go putting yourself between them. It's their choice."

"We need to find out what Sirius knows before we go charging off. He didn't come here right off. You heard him. He says he's been to all those other places. By the ages of the kids he's been here …what …seven years? Before that he …he was lost."

"I think he wants to get out of here, away from the house. He and Mara…they are having a row."

"Ron, she hasn't said a word."

"Exactly," he said seriously. "Whenever you got really angry you didn't either."

"That's different. I didn't know you were going to leave forever. She does."

"If you had?"

She studied his face playing back the night she had discovered his infidelity by simply turning on the answering machine and hearing a woman's voice call out to him and giggle mindlessly about their time together. She wondered what she would have done if she had faced him then, if she had been able to do more than concentrate on breathing as she had vomited into the toilet.

It had not even been a shock to her, or unexpected, she had somehow known it would happen. She had felt pushed aside, unwanted and abandoned for some time, the fact that he had slept with someone else just made it final, real, a reality she had not wanted to recognize until he forced it on her. They had not seen each other or talked in the several months before it happened. She had still waited for him and ran to the post every day in hopes that there would be a letter, a note, something, knowing there would be nothing. She had hidden her disappointment behind her work in the city, as he hid behind his travel and life in the Sudan, neither able to talk about what was happening.

"Whatever it was between us happened long before you left that night."

"I wasn't talking about that night. When I told you I wanted to take my job as a Curse Breaker, you didn't say a word. You didn't tell me that you would leave me if I …"

"I didn't plan on leaving you."

"You didn't plan on making the marriage work."

"How do you think I felt? You come home after three months and say 'Oh, did I tell you I've been offered a permanent position?' How do you think that made me feel? Then later, when you were gone months at a time…what was I supposed to do?"

"I thought you would be pleased for me."

"Pleased that you were saying you didn't want to live with me? That you were going to live in Africa without me?"

"That's not what I said, it's what you heard."

"Ronald, that's not fair," she sniffled, wiping at her eyes as she felt them fill with tears.

"Was it fair to talk to Frank about our problems instead of coming to me? You didn't once come to me, not once did you tell me how you felt yet you ran to him every time you had a problem, every time. You even celebrated your promotion with him. Not me, not your husband, you never gave me a chance."

She snapped her eyes up and locked them on his, seeing the pain at his confession that he had known about her friendship. "You never seemed interested in my work and I didn't have anyone else…I just…he was…just a friend."

"It hurt, My-own, it hurt more than you know. It's just me here now. Your can stop with your poor little me act, no one is here to listen."

She swallowed hard, hearing him slip back into his nickname for her, needing to change the topic. "We should get some sleep."

"Sure," he snorted a harsh laugh. "Whenever we start talking about your part in this you pull back and accuse me."

"He is just a friend. Who was I suppose to go to? Ginny? Harry? Your sister or your best friend? Who did I have to talk to? I don't have anyone that wasn't your's first. I don't have a …a family the size of a small country to run to, or one that understands what this world is like …just tell me…who should I have gone to?"

"Your husband," he said coldly, standing up, stepping off the blanket and walking away. "Get some sleep. We leave first thing."

"Who is running way now?" She yelled at his back, coming to her feet. "God damn you Ronald Weasley, you get back here."

"What for?" he spat, turning back and glowering at her. "So you can make some other comments about how I left poor little Hermione all by her self? So you can …"

"You son-of –a-bitch! You left me! You said you loved me then fucked her and walked away!"

"No," he snorted a laugh, "I ran. You want to fuck your boss go right ahead."

He felt Hermione's hand strike his face and caught it before she could pull it back. Yanking her into his chest, he fisted the hair on the back of her head, and pulled her face to his. Leaning down, he captured her mouth with his before she had time to protest and held her still until he felt her struggling stop and felt her lean into him. He released her, stepping back and looking down at her coldly. Hermione put a hand to her lips and looked up at him tearfully.

"I did love you, and Merlin help me, I still do. You decided your career was more important than we were. I never asked you to quit. I never asked you to follow me. Again, you heard what you wanted to hear, not what I said." He spoke calmly then grabbed her upper arms in a vice like grip. "Remember me? Ronald Weasley who hides his tempter, who avoids confrontation? Your husband that believed everything you said? Isn't that what you told Frank? What do you think I felt like when I saw you with him when you told me you were working? My friend died, he caught a curse meant for me. I needed you. I needed someone that I thought would understand what I felt like. What the fuck should I have done?

That night I came home. Like an idiot I thought you would be there…for once, you would be there for me, not with Frank. I never wanted to hurt you before, but that night…that night I wanted you to feel what it was like.

Don't pretend it was all my fault. I don't give a damn what you say to Harry, or the rest. Keep up your game in pubic if it's that important to you, but stop it. Stop pretending to me. You were never there for me."

Hermione felt she knees weaken and was aware that he was not only holding her in anger but also keeping her on her feet. She turned her head, unable to look at his face, unable to take a deep breath of air.

"What's wrong? Nothing to say all of a sudden?"

"It was a mistake. He was just a friend," she whispered. "I needed someone. That was all he was, a friend."

"Right, you made a little mistake and like a bloody fool I pretended not to know. That was my mistake. Maybe if I had done something then we wouldn't be fighting now."

"You…I…Ron, please," she stammered. "I swear…he was just a friend. It never went further than that."

"Don't push me anymore, Mione. I am tired of being the person every one blames. I am tired of trying to keep up a front just to spare you. You didn't have to sleep with him to tell me it was him you wanted and not me. It ends today, now. You want to get into this? Fine, only I'm not pretending anymore. You want to drag this out in public? I'm all for it. Is that what you want?"

She shook her head, keeping it lowered, unable to face him and slumped to the blanket as he released her.

"I never wanted him that way," she whispered.

"I didn't think I wanted someone else either," he said flatly. "Not until you were gone."

"Did you…did you love her?" She looked into his face, tears streaming down her face.

"I didn't even know her bloody name." He looked at her with disgust evident on his face, then turned and walked away.

.

.

.

That night after Harry left to join Hermione and Ronald, Sirius reached his hand down to Mara as she sat by the fire and pulled her up, lifted her chin and studied her face. "They are good people. You shouldn't treat them like this."

"I don't like her."

"Hermione? Why ever not?"

"She already has two men, now she will have you."

He chuckled and leaned down, kissing her lightly on the mouth, sighing when she turned her head away. "It doesn't work that way. They are friends, nothing more and she is young enough to be…it is different in my world."

"She dresses like a man. Promise me your new woman will not…"

"Hey, don't." He said softly and engulfed her in his arms. "You made me a promise."

"Nada is not yet old enough, and Wilhelm just a boy. Your people will wait. We will build them their own place near the…"

"Mara, stop. Don't make this harder than it is for yourself."

"Then, sleep, sleep with your friends and the girl that dresses like a man," she pushed him away angrily. "Go to your people. Go to your soft woman and young girls that know nothing."

"This is our last night together, come to bed," he said tiredly, not wanting to fight on his last night with her.

"No, you don't need me anymore." She stepped back from him, shaking her head. "I was here. Nothing more. You said…it is nothing more."

"It's not like that, Mara," he said softly, taking a step toward her.

"You said you would leave. At the beginning, you said you would leave. Now go. I will live as I did before. I don't need you." She turned and ran out the door, running into the tall grass and away from the hut.

"Papa?" Nada called, peeking out from behind the flap and rubbing her eyes. "Mum cry?"

Sirius tore his eyes away from the doorway and turned to his daughter. "No, no she is just excited that we have company. Can't sleep? Come on, you can spend the night with your old Dad and tell your brother to stop pretending. He can come as well."

He took them to the bed on the floor that he shared with their mother, and once he had them tucked in, he went outside to find Mara. After he had searched the grounds, the house sat on, he went back to bed, knowing if she did not want him to find her, he could spend the entire night searching.

They left in the morning, after eating flatbread that Mara had grilled on the firestones the night before, and a jug of goat's milk that Sirius had collected while the three were making friends with the children. As they left, Sirius stopped in the doorway and looked back at the place he had spent the last eight years of his life. Seeing nothing to take now that Ron and Harry carried the two stone axes, and Hermione had one of the slings tucked into her waistband, he let his eyes linger on the bed in the corner before letting the flap fall and joining the others that were already walking up the slope.

"Where's, Mum?" Wilhelm asked, sliding his hand into his father's much larger one.

"She had to check on the herd," Sirius lied easily.

"Will she meet us?"

"No, she won't be coming with us. We are going to the sea. We will make a day of it. Maybe there will be time for a swim."

"Will we be home in time for dinner? Mum said she would put honey on the bread tonight."

"No, but soon you have something better than honey. Chocolate biscuits, shepherds pie, real tea."

"Hungry?" Harry laughed overhearing the conversation.

"You have no idea." Sirius grinned and swung the boy up on his shoulders. "You know what I miss? Soap. Soap that lathers, soft towels and toothpaste. I miss sheets. That's right, laugh at me…but I miss sheets."

"Soon," Harry laid his hand on Sirius' shoulder as they walked along. "How much further?"

"We can follow the water once we get to the river. It is longer, but it's faster going with the children. We bring them this way sometimes. It is the same beach I spoke of. I even tied to build a raft once." He tipped his head up and laughed. "That was a sight. The waves pushing me back and the damned grass sucking up more water by the minute. Lasted all of five minutes and must have taken me months to build it. Thought Mara would die laughing at me. I've never seen her like that."

"Will she be okay?" Harry ginned.

"She was on her own before." Sirius swung the boy down and shooed him off to walk with the others. "Harry, before I came here I wandered. I kept trying to get out, back, somewhere I didn't have to fight my way just to live. I even lived in a cave once. Never want to do that again. Once I made it this far the fight was out of me. I almost died, she …she helped me. It was the first safe place I found, so I stayed."

"Looks like you did more then that." Harry grinned, nodding to the children.

"I didn't plan on them," Sirius said quietly. "I would die for them, you have to understand that. I didn't … it's not as if I could run down to Diagon and pick up a potion for her. When I learned she was pregnant the first time you can't imagine what I felt like. Look around you. What kind of place is this to bring a life into? With the second she hid from me a full month. She says she was afraid I would make her…as if I could do that. I can't imagine life without Nada now. Look at her, Harry. Just look at her. She is my life."

"Do you love her? Mara?"

"It's not that simple, Harry. She…it's hard to explain her." Sirius muttered, watching the children walking ahead of him. "Have you seen this place or the one over the south ridge?"

"The south? So, there are three circles?"

"Yes, the one in the pasture I am afraid I've used up," he said, laughing. "This one has a few of the same stones. The others you may be familiar with. The third was already destroyed before I got here. Even Mara doesn't remember it whole."

"Hermione has a list, she can add the ones we've used and add them to yours."

"You were lucky to have found this place so quickly. Damned lucky. I kept leaping from world to world, foolish that. I thought I understood what the runes meant so stuck to the ones I was familiar with. That's why I cannot use the monoliths in the meadow, I kept trying to get Mara out, but if we come to the same shape, in a place I haven't used, it is open to me."

"So, you could come back? In a different way, but you could do it."

"For Mara? Perhaps, if we ever find a map. It's not easy to get back where you've been. I don't even know how many gates are still open to this place. Three of the stones in the Meadow have never opened. I think the ones on the other end are gone. I've seen it before, monoliths destroyed or underwater. I was bloody lucky that time," he grinned. "Now, come, I don't want Wilhelm and Nada knowing we are leaving, not yet. And, Harry, don't mention Mara to them. It's going to be hard enough when they find out they are not coming back as it is."

That night Sirius passed out slabs of cheese and bread to the others, only to have Hermione collect all but the children's and store them away in her jacket pockets and the sack she had tied to her back.

"We'll save it for morning," she said quietly. "Unless we know for sure there's food where we are going we better ration."

"Let's see what you have. Harry said you have a list of …the runes. We need to plan on how the hell we are getting out of here, and you need to understand it may be harder then you think."

"We have an advantage now. We have you." Hermione pulled out pictures of the forty-eight runes and listened as Sirius told her of the ones he had gone into, how far to the circle containing the way out, and the dangers they could encounter.

"We have three circles here. I don't know if that is typical or if some places are somehow different. I've seen places with more than one…but can't say they are all this way. I never stuck around most of the worlds long enough to find out. I can tell you this; many of the circles have been destroyed. This one will soon be gone. Each year the shore erodes a little more. Mara said when she first came the sea wasn't this close, now look…two of the stones stand in the water. It won't be long before the soil is washed out from under them and they fall. I wouldn't want to the one that steps though into a wall of sand. I've come out underwater before, and was just lucky there was a stone near by that I could get to."

"You think that the world they open into is gone as well?"

"Yes…yes I do. I've been to one that is drying up…like a desert. The third time I travelled through it, it was smaller. Took half the time to get across it."

"How many let you use magic?"

"None that I have found. Oh, there are places with magical…creatures, Inferi, banshees. I've seen tracks of things I couldn't identify, and don't want to. Inferi are made with magic, which is strange, but they don't use magic. I used to think someone brought them in."

"Inferi ?" Hermione's eyes grew large. "Harry, was in a cave…the one …I am sorry…Harry?"

"Sirius, your brother, he…he," Harry swallowed hard, "he fought them…he…no, Sirius, listen, it's not what you think. You thought he had been killed fighting for that beast, Voldemort, but he didn't. Just the opposite. He found out what Voldemort was planning, he helped…he did…he stole a locket that held…."

"He went against him?" Sirius asked softly. "Merlin, all these years… all this time, I thought he…"

"No, he was helping Dumbledore, but no one knew it. We found a lot of that old stuff was wrong," Ronald added. "Snape was another one."

"Quite a lot was not like what we thought. The Malfoys turned to the good, and Snape even turned out to be nothing like what we thought."

"He was in the Order. I never trusted him, but for some reason Albus did. Even in school, he doted on Dark Arts and ran with Wilkes and Mulciber. From the first time I met him he was picking for a fight, as if he had to prove himself." Sirius grinned to where his children were playing. "I've never told them anything about my old life, not that part of it. Oh, they know about childhood pranks and what it's like to live in a real house, but nothing…ever about the war. Now they have an uncle they can be proud to call their own. I want them registered as Blacks. I want them to understand that even if that name will cause them problems they can change it. They can make that name something proud to wear again."

"We need to finish this," Hermione said, spreading out the pictures. "You guys need to memorize the ones we need to avoid."

"That won't always work," Sirius shook his head and tapped one of the pictures. "This one doesn't exist, and these two are blocked. However, the rest…we may have to go through one to get where we need. Look at this circle. I can eliminate six of them, and you claim that four are…"

"No, we think that one," she pointed to a tall grey stone, "goes to Brazil, to the real world."

"Not quite," he said with a chuckle. "It is empty of …people, so a good place to hide…for a while. Oh, there is food and water, if you can live with the snakes and lizards large enough to eat a house. You did well to move on."

"Prehistoric? Or like Dragons?"

"No, just unhealthy."

They spent the next couple of hours comparing notes, and listening to the horrors that Sirius had gone through, quickly scratching possibilities off their list and at the end finding only three that they thought would be safe. Hermione turned back to the monoliths not seeing any of the ones they had decided on.

"From here take your pick," Sirius said flatly. "Once we are through we find the circle and keep going until we find one we need. We move quickly, go as far as we can each day, and don't hesitate."

"I don't understand why we don't come out at a circle."

"Each world has a…an entrance. I always come out at the same place…the circle is like the exit point," Sirius said with a sigh. "Hermione, I am sorry not to be more help but I have never found a settlement, or…a place like what you were hoping for. The…the things and what few people are in here...that I know about...like your Rambo...don't adhere to any social norms. They are will kill you given half a chance. I'm surprised this woman that had Harry's throat under her knife didn't just slice his head off. Mara is the only one I ever found that seemed…real."

In the morning, Hermione gave each of the children more of the cheese and bread, and then offered some to the others, glad to hear their refusal. "We have to have something at noon," she declared. "We don't know how long this will take."

"Okay, let's get started," Ronald said, hoisting Nada up on his shoulders.

Seeing Harry take his son's hand, Sirius hesitated, turned back and swept his eyes over the valley, letting them rest for only a moment on the smoke curling up over the ridge, knowing Mara would be tending the fire. He could imagine her on her knees, feeding peat into the fire, getting ready for the coming day. She would seep bitter herbs in water, adding a drizzle of honey and have no one to apologise to for the lack of his proper tea. He knew she would walk to the corner, where the children had slept, and pull back the curtain, already missing them, and knew she would refuse to cry, refuse to admit even to herself that she was alone again and always would be.

He turned his back on the green sloping ground and the smoke that curled over the ridge determined that his children would have a life. Looking back at Harry, he tried to grin, his mind racing at the thought of her having no one. He could only remember how the sun lit her hair, how her eyes always smiled when he walked into their home, and how she could sit in prayer for hours by the sea a look of utter peace and acceptance on her face.

"Here we go, the longer we stay here the longer before we get back," he said in answer to Wilhelm's questioning look, wondering as he said it, if the boy believed him.