By the next morning, Peter still hadn't shown up to Potter Manor, which worried everyone except Hermione.
"You aren't even the slightest bit worried about what might have happened to him?" James asked her the next morning over breakfast.
Her packmates had been up for ages, but they'd only just arrived in the sunny breakfast room, brooms and practice jerseys in tow. She'd been pleasantly surprised to feel a deep sense of calm wash over her when they joined her at the table, as if someone had thrown a blanket fresh from the dryer over her shoulders and was giving her a hug through it. She relaxed into the feeling and chalked it up to the pack bond being weird.
She shrugged one shoulder in answer to James. "He's a big boy, and not a muggleborn. He can take care of himself."
"I don't know, Hermione," Lily said between bites of toast. "I'm not sure Peter can even wipe himself without help from these three. Do you know he tried to cheat on his transfiguration study guide? It wasn't even graded!"
Mr. Potter folded his copy of the Daily Prophet. "Why don't you three boys try sending him another owl while I firecall his parent's house? Surely they know where their son is."
The three boys immediately took to this idea and abandoned their quidditch gear and breakfast, eager to find some parchment, ink and quills to hunt down their missing friend.
"Hermione and I could help too, sir," Lily piped up.
"I'm sure you girls could," Mr. Potter said. "James tells me you, Hermione, are so talented at defense they had you substitute teaching it this past year, and that both of you fought off death eaters over Christmas break. But you won't have time to track down young Pettigrew. Your morning has already been spoken for."
Hermione and Lily looked at each other, silently asking if either one had already made plans, when Mrs. Potter glided into the room.
"I've been waiting sixteen years for my son to bring a girl home, and now that he has, and two girls at that, the three of us are making up for lost time."
"Ma'am?" Lily asked.
Mrs. Potter smiled over a cup of freshly poured tea. "I've never had a daughter, and as neither of you are interested in spending the next twelve hours playing with brooms and quaffles, we're going shopping."
Again, Hermione and Lily froze, looking at each other. Hermione was the one to explain. "That's very kind of you, Mrs. Potter, but I'm not sure we'll be able to. Neither of us really has… that is to say, Lily's family is… I'm an orphan, and I earned some money this year working as a substitute, but-"
Mrs. Potter waved her hands, shooing away the very idea. "Not only have you both kept my son and my nephew safe despite a harrowing year, but I have the sneaking suspicion you'll continue to do so in the future. Consider it my paying off a debt and investing in the future."
"I'm not sure you want to employ us as bodyguards," Hermione said, sourly. "We don't have a great track record of keeping our friends alive."
Mrs. Potter looked shamefaced. There was a beat of uncomfortable silence before she said, "I am sorry for your classmate. I don't mean to put more pressure on you. But you mustn't be so hard on yourselves about Miss Brown's death. It's the role of adults to keep a school safe, and they are the ones that failed you."
Hermione wanted to mention that technically she was an adult and far more responsible than Mrs. Potter knew, but instead she changed the subject. Lily looked ready to cry.
"I didn't know Sirius was your nephew."
"Great nephew, technically. His mother, Walburga, is my niece."
"I'm sorry," Hermione automatically said, then covered her mouth, shocked at her own rudeness.
Mrs. Potter just laughed. "Yes, that's the most typical reaction. I'm sorry you've met her acquaintance."
"Mrs. Potter?" Lily said, "I'm grateful that you'd think to take us shopping, but we really couldn't impose on you like that. Plus, for every time we've kept James and Sirius and Remus out of trouble, we've gotten them in twice as much."
"You prank my boys back, you mean?" Mrs. Potter asked, one eyebrow raised. "Wonderful. They need to have their egos taken down a notch every so often. For that, I'll have to take you shopping twice." She lifted her chin and smirked like the cat who got the cream. "I'll hear no argument."
Mrs. Potter- no, Dorea, as she'd asked the girls to call her- had a private floo connection set up between the Manor's foyer and Madame Malkin's, so they'd been able to avoid the ridiculous Sunday noontime crowds for the time. Lily and Hermione were both wearing muggle clothes, and had initially given the Madame a bit of a shock. She'd gotten over it though, and then the pair of them had been measured and pinched and turned this way and that. An hour and a half later, both girls had walked out with three new, formal dress robes. Both of them had protested that they'd never need such things, but Dorea waved them off, saying "you never know when a society engagement might crop up."
"I highly doubt that any society engagement which requires such fancy robes would be interested in inviting two muggleborn witches to their soiree, never mind on three separate occasions," Hermione had said. "Plus, the last time I went to an event with formal attire, it was crashed by death eaters. The one before that, I hid from my date behind the curtains all night. I really don't have good luck with wizarding parties."
Dorea only laughed. "Well then I will have to throw some kind of get together and invite you. Merlin knows pureblood society could use some livening up."
"I wouldn't know the first thing about being at a pureblood event," Lily said, blanching slightly.
"Just remember that everyone is lying to you, all the time, and you'll be just fine," Dorea said, then pointed to a stationary store. "I need to get a few supplies. Why don't you girls enjoy yourself for a bit and I'll meet you at the ice cream shoppe by one o'clock?"
The girls nodded and went their separate ways, dodging people left and right as they wandered. Diagon Alley really was packed. A group of witches in light, summer robes and hats were huddled around the front window of Piggleton's Potions, Powders, and Products, oooing and ahhing over some new anti-frizz concoction. Some young wizards and one witch were clamoring to get inside Broomstix to see the latest model, a Thunderbird XL. And, as it had been every other time she'd seen it, the Leaky Cauldron was full to bursting.
Hermione fingered the galleons in her pocket, a combination of her hard earned substitute paychecks and Dorea's gift of 'spending money,' as they passed the apothecary.
"Actually, Lily, would you mind if I just went in here for a minute? I need, well, a thing," she finished, lamely.
Lily stood between Hermione and the door and crossed her arms. "Tell me to my face what you're going in for."
"I told you, just a thing. No big deal," Hermione said, pulling on the sleeve of her shirt. She hated wearing long sleeved shirts in the middle of summer, but she hadn't yet perfected the cosmetic charm to cover her cursed scar.
Lily glared at her. "Are you going in for more Dreamless Sleep?"
Hermione floundered. "No! Why would I need that stuff? I'm fine. I just need…" she searched for a suitable fib, "Peruvian instant darkness powder."
"That's not even a real thing, and you're a terrible liar," Lily said, before softening. "Hermione. That stuff is addictive."
"I don't know why you think-"
"It was months ago you told me you took it. If you're still going for the stuff, you're already hooked. I've done my research. You need a detox, and I'm starting you on it tonight."
Hermione started to panic. Images of battles and monsters and the many, many dead rose unbidden to the forefront of her mind. "Lily, you don't understand, I need dreamless sleep. You have no idea. If I don't take it…"
Lily's threaded her fingers through Hermione's. "Tonight, when you don't take it, I'll be right by your side. Remember those breathing techniques I helped you with when you came over for Christmas? I have a few more tricks to help you get to sleep after an awful nightmare."
"I'm not sure about this."
"Come on. Let's go to Flourish and Blotts. I'll show you a book that might help. It was written by a veteran of the last Goblin War, and it has some very fascinating ideas about-"
She was interrupted when a cry erupted from behind them on the crowded street. Hermione looked up and saw a familiar shadow pass over them all, and immediately went into battle mode.
But Lily got to her first, yanking on her arm and pulling her into a secondhand junk shop. Hermione tried to pull away, her mind narrowly focused on neutralizing the danger in the street, but it seemed like the entire population of the alley was trying to flood in towards the shop, and Hermione couldn't fight against a current that strong. Though she was bursting with adrenaline, she let herself be pulled into the piles of misaligned scales, broken wands, and rusting cauldrons.
Then she remembered a swimming lesson she had as a child on vacation to the French Riviera, about how to escape from a rip current. Against the flow of bodies pressing into the shop, she angled herself sideways and maneuvered herself into a corner where no one was touching her, where she pulled out her wand and apparated back into the street.
Hovering above the deserted street was the largest dementor she'd ever seen. It had to be at least thirty feet long, with its trailing, ragged-looking robe touching down from a story high. The cobblestones and window fronts had all frosted over, and a light snow was starting to fall. And, if she wasn't mistaken, it was actually Kissing someone.
Hermione steeled herself against the expected feelings of hopelessness and dread and gritted her teeth. "Expecto patronum!"
Hermione gasped at what she saw. In a swirl of misty blue light, a creature very different from her familiar otter ran bounded away to meet the dementor. A large cat, menacing and deadly, launched into the air. Hermione had never seen her own form, of course, not that she could remember. It was so big! It's hackles stood up at odd angles and its teeth and claws were leathally sharp. It made her cower more than the dementor itself.
The patronus, unaware of its master's inner turmoil, ripped into what would have been the dementor's jugular, if it'd had one. The dementor ceased Kissing the stranger (whose face Hermione still couldn't see), but only floated a mere few feet away from the bright guardian. Her patronus must not have thought that was good enough, and seemed to growl, crouching low as if preparing to pounce again.
The dementor, amazingly, held its ground.
Hermione gulped. "Finish it off, girl." She tried intentionally to think of her happiest memories with Harry and Ron, but instead, images from her first kiss with Remus floated to the surface. Deciding not to dwell on that thought, she flicked her wand.
The werecat patronus became a wild thing, tearing off at a breakneck pace towards the dementor, who finally had the good sense to flee. The werecat didn't slow, though, and continued to chase the shadowed beast into the sky, until Hermione could no longer see either.
Hermione staggered a bit, not prepared for how much the spell would take out of her, but still she pressed forward to crouch beside the man the dementor had started to Kiss. She rummaged around in her pocket for a piece of chocolate, and found a single Cadbury Creme Egg a student had given her for Easter that she must have forgotten about.
"Here," she said, "Eat this. It'll help, I prom-"
The would-be victim was still passed out, but Hermione had rolled his shoulder over to see his face, and she'd frozen at the sight of telltale platinum blond hair. Hermione stood up and backed away, half convinced the man would rise up and summon the Dark Lord at the sight of her.
The street was starting to fill back up with shaking pedestrians, all whispering, pointing, and staring at Hermione and the carbon copy of Draco Malfoy. The man, Lucius, she thought with a snarl, was starting to come to in the ensuing noise.
"What the bloody-" he muttered, leaping to his unsteady feet. He was shorter than she remembered, though whether that's because she remembered him mostly from when she was a young girl, or because he was still a growing young man in this time, was uncertain. He regained his balance quickly though, and brushed off the offending alley dust from his impeccably tailored robes. Hermione felt a hand on her shoulder, and would have jumped if she didn't immediately feel a wash of calm, similar to what she'd felt that morning at breakfast.
"Mister Malfoy," Dorea said.
He stood straighter, glaring. "Missus Potter. I suppose I'll have to call you Auntie Potter soon?"
"You'll do nothing of the sort," Dorea said, then came to stand beside Hermione. Hermione saw Lily pushing her way through the crowds and opening her mouth, trying to ask what happened, but Hermione put a finger to her lips and motioned her over, more curious about how this interaction would play out.
"I'm sure you've thanked this young witch already," Dorea said, "It was a very brave thing for her to do, standing up to a dementor like that."
"Of course I have," he lied smoothly, "what kind of gentleman do you take me for?"
Hermione began to correct him, but Dorea shushed her and looked hard at Malfoy. "The kind to not recognize a soul debt when it literally kisses him on the mouth."
He blanched, and truly looked at Hermione, his eyes taking in her wild hair, the cheap polyester shirt, and the knees of her her jeans dusty from kneeling next to him. He scowled at Dorea. "You're joking. I was never in danger of losing my soul. This mud-"
"That beast was in the process of Kissing you," Dorea said, her voice pitched low as she looked around the once again crowded street. She took another step forward, now placing herself between Hermione, Lily, and him. "I saw. You most certainly would have lost your soul within minutes, if not seconds."
Lucius Malfoy scoffed and snapped his dress robes, also long sleeved, behind him. "This is over," he said, then side-stepped Dorea to look directly at Hermione. "You'd do well to forget this ever happened, little witch." And with that, he disappeared into the crowd.
"Come on girls," Dorea muttered, plowing through the crowds with a cross-me-and-die look on her face. Hermione and Lily hustled to keep up with her.
"Dorea?" Hermione asked when they finally stopped inside Madame Malkin's once more.
"Not now."
And so there was no more talk, save the floo call of "Potter Manor!" until all three were safely in the beautiful foyer once more. Dorea called for house elf Moony to bring all three of them some chocolate, and once they'd finished it, she spoke.
"I won't insult your intelligence by automatically assuming you don't know what just happened in the Alley."
"You said something about a soul debt," Hermione said.
Lily's head jerked up. "Oh, I know about those."
Both Hermione and Dorea looked at her. "You do?"
"What? Don't look so surprised. Hermione isn't the only one who lives in the library. I read about them in a book about wizarding bonds. I was trying to figure out why you and Remus clicked so fast. Now I know why, of course."
"What did this book tell you about soul debts, Lily?" Dorea asked.
"Not much," she admitted, "but I remember it said something about forming when one person was about to lose their soul, and then someone else saved it?"
"Precisely," Dorea said, then motioned for them to follow her upstairs towards the library James had showed Hermione and Lily the night before.
"Isn't this just the same thing as a life debt?" Hermione called, climbing after her, "I'm familiar with those."
Dorea didn't answer, just strode purposefully into the beautiful library. Her old-fashioned dress fluttered just above the ground as she made her way to a corner where there was an unusually shabby looking bookcase, out of place among the ornate, floor-to-ceiling shelves. She tapped her wand in a complicated pattern on the spines of the books, and in a little poof of dust, the case slid open to reveal a second library hidden behind the first.
She lit her wand to search through the dark, cobwebby stacks as Lily and Hermione gingerly stepped in behind her. The little room was pitch black and so much colder than the proper library that Hermione felt gooseflesh rising on her arms. Interspersed among the books were jars of mysterious substances, a skull Hermione didn't want to think was real, and a book opened up on a free standing lectern that seemed to be moaning.
"Ah hah!" Dorea said, finding a book on the top shelf.
"Oh thank Merlin," Lily said, making a beeline for the exit. Hermione followed her out, and together they waited on an emerald green chaise lounge by the window for Dorea to explain herself.
She came out muttering and running her finger over an ancient-looking table of contents, "Magical bonds, bonds of servitude, temporary bonds, debtors bonds, life debt, Ah! Soul debt!" She flipped the pages and pointed out the paragraph to Hermione. "That should answer your question."
Hermione took the book and began to read out loud. "Like a life debt, a soul debt is incurred when one person was at risk of losing their soul, and another person intervened to prevent it. The two instances when a person is most likely at risk of losing their soul is when they're about to be given the dementor's kiss, or when they're about to commit murder. Soul debts differ slightly from life debts, however. A life is a biological fact, a physical thing. A life belongs only to one person. When a person saves someone's life, they are in debt to that biological reality.
"A soul, meanwhile, is mysterious. You cannot measure one or determine where it starts and ends. Souls, unlike lives, can be shared. Souls intertwine for a number of reasons- romantic, friendly, familial, or pedagogical relationships are the four most common. In these instances, two people share bits of their souls, exchanging one bit for the other. Each person maintains a stable soul in this case, because there's not a hole in their heart, but a patchwork quilt of joined pieces."
"I remember this!" Lily exclaimed, grabbing the book from Hermione.
"How can you possibly have found a copy of Fordyce's Grimoire?" Dorea asked, stunned. "To my knowledge, there were only five or six copies left."
Lily shrugged. "You'd be surprised what kinds of books they're willing to interlibrary loan for prefects claiming to be doing independent research projects."
"But wait," Hermione said, interrupting Dorea's question of the term 'interlibrary loan,' "if people already share bits of soul with each other, how can there be such a thing as a soul debt?"
"Here, keep reading," Lily said.
Hermione cleared her throat and flipped the page. "Because of this, anyone who's currently sharing bits of soul cannot incur or create a soul debt, because part of the would-be victim's soul belonged to them in the first place, and so the act isn't entirely self-sacrificial. But if you have two strangers, or enemies perhaps, two people who share no soul in common, and one saves the soul of the other, a soul debt is incurred. It's so rare as to almost never happen, as strangers don't often prevent each other from committing murder or receiving a dementor's kiss."
"You have done a very rare thing, Hermione," Dorea said. "I say that assuming you'd never met Mr. Malfoy before?"
"We've met," Hermione said, shortly, "but we certainly have never swapped soul bits with each other."
"So can you do the same thing with a soul debt as you can with a life debt? Make people do things for you, I mean?" Lily asked.
"Read on," Dorea said.
"But there isn't any more," Hermione said, holding the book up, "The next page is ripped out."
"Someone mutilated one of my books?" Dorea seethed, taking the book in her own hands to gently run her fingertips along the tear marks.
"I'm sure I could get my copy back from Madam Pince at Hogwarts," Lily offered. "I'll send an owl to Dumbledore and-"
"No!" Hermione said, already thinking about how this new information sounded eerily similar to horcruxes. Plus, if Albus knew she had a death eater in the palm of her hand, what would he do to use that, use her? When Lily and Dorea both looked at her funny, she sighed, too tired to come up with a terrible lie. "I just don't want him to know."
"I can message Ms. Pince myself," Dorea said. "I often communicate with her about literary matters. She's quite pleasant."
Hermione couldn't see how anyone who looked that much like a vulture could be pleasant, but kept her mouth shut. Until Dorea was about to put the book back in her secret library, when she asked, "Actually, could I borrow that for a bit longer? There are some other things I'd like to look up."
Dorea gave her a level look. "There are pretty dark things in this book, if they haven't also been ripped out. Spells more powerful than the imperius and not illegal, charms to make someone forget their own mother, and some of the most powerful love potions in the world. Why do you want it?"
"I wondered if there might be anything in there on werepack bonds," Hermione said, giving a partial truth. "I've felt strange things all day, and wondered if they might be related."
"Well, it comes from the ancestral library of a Black," she said, handing the book over. "I doubt you'll find anything terribly complimentary or light."
Hermione nodded, staring at the dark, inky cover and sighing. "I'm counting on it."
A/N: Holy guacamole. That last chapter got more views than I've ever received from an update. Welcome, all you new readers!
Please take the time to review. Fanfic authors write for free, and reviews are the way you can tell us if you liked our stories! Whether it's a line you liked, a plot point you love, or a fun joke you heard today, I love hearing it.