Chapter Thirty-Seven
February 13th, 1983
Sirius took Hermione home and led her into the bathroom where he helped her out of the uncomfortable dress Narcissa had assisted her into, turning around and offering her privacy as she slipped into comfortable Muggle clothes, Scourgifying her softly to take away the smell of smoke. Once he had her tucked into bed, he went in search of her cat and found the tiny kitten snuggled between several books on a shelf.
"A kitten for a kitten," Sirius said as he placed Crookshanks in Hermione's arms, smiling at the way that the half-kneazle instinctively knew its witch needed comfort.
Hermione found herself embarrassed over how she'd panicked. She'd fought Death Eaters, faced a mountain troll and a three-headed dog. She'd gone willingly to war and seen horrors within it. But there was something particularly horrible about sitting to dinner with a woman who wanted you dead, then tried to kill you, and watching as she burned alive like witches of old. There was something about seeing that purple flame come right at her . . . and now knowing what it was supposed to have done.
"Where's Dobby?" she asked, wanting to jump right back to being useful.
"I sent him to Dumbledore with the locket."
Hermione nodded, feeling relieved that they hadn't gone through it for nothing. It was easier than she thought, but the outcome . . . was nothing like what she had expected. "We killed her. She's . . . Sirius, your mother—"
"Not my mother," he said quickly, his tone suggestion that there was no room for argument on the matter. "And she did try to kill you first."
"I never . . . Gods, I can smell it," she said, exhaling as though she could rid herself of the smell and the memory. "And it would've . . . I would have died. I would have burned alive. I was only sixteen." She turned and looked up at Sirius, brown eyes wide. "Who . . . who does that?"
He frowned, suddenly understanding the real reason for her panic. "You were hit with that curse?"
She nodded, angrily wiping away tears from her face. "Dolohov. I . . . I silenced him. So it didn't . . . it was the same night that you . . ." She paused and looked up at him and then clenched her eyes shut, trying to forget that her life was different now. That her past was a timeline she'd erased and she was the only one that needed to suffer its memories no matter how much she'd revealed. Sirius was alive and right in front of her. Antonin Dolohov was in Azkaban and she would make damn sure that Voldemort never returned to break him out.
"And yet, here we stand," Sirius said with a small smile and put an arm around her. "She attacked you, Hermione. If she'd somehow deflected that curse and tried again, I would have killed her myself," he insisted.
"She was . . . your family."
He shook his head. "You're my family. James and Remus and Harry . . . Allie and Frank, little Neville. Hell, even Emmeline in a very inappropriate way," he said with a small laugh. "Narcissa is family. And she'll apparently get her sister back," he added as an amused afterthought. "Family takes care of each other."
She nodded thinking of Harry and Ron.
After several minutes of silence, Sirius cleared his throat. "Hermione . . . my brother?"
She tilted her head and looked up at him, seeing a vulnerability in his eyes. "It was true. He tricked Voldemort," she told him. "That's how I knew Kreacher had the locket. Regulus ordered him to destroy it but he didn't know how. Regulus swapped the real Horcrux with a fake one."
Sirius reached out and fingered the locket around her neck. "This? Where did you get this?"
She sat up and pulled the chain from around her neck, thrilled to have it off of her. It wasn't the real Horcrux, but the memory of the weight that came from the genuine artefact was heavy. Placing the locket in his hands, she clicked open the fastener revealing the note within.
To the Dark Lord,
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B
"Dumbledore. He went . . . he and Moody went to where the fake Horcrux was placed. We needed something similar enough without having to transfigure it because we didn't know if Kreacher could be fooled. We needed him to see it around my neck and worry that his copy had gone missing. That's how Dobby was able to find it. He followed Kreacher inside the house. Once Kreature had checked on the locket to make sure it had been stolen, Dobby waited for him to leave and then he took it."
"What . . . how did Regulus die? They never found a body."
She bit her bottom lip remembering seeing Kingsley the day before and hearing him complain about not being able to go on a mission alongside Moody. "I'm so sorry, Sirius. But . . . they might. A team of Aurors are there today. Where it all happened. He was . . . it was Inferi."
Whatever Sirius had previously thought had happened to his brother, it wasn't that. Horror was easily read in his eyes and he stood up, pacing around her bedroom for several minutes in complete silence, his hands shaking like he wanted to hit something. "I need to go," he finally blurted out. "I'm going to Floo Kingsley for you. You . . . you shouldn't be alone."
Before she had a chance to tell him that neither should he, Sirius was out the door.
Hermione decided that she fit very nicely in Kingsley's arms.
He'd shown up at her flat and, upon finding her in bed, went to the kitchen to fix tea for them both. He didn't ask what happened or try to get her to talk, instead just held her and eventually took her empty mug away, setting it on the bedside table.
"You need a telly in here," he said. "What happened to the one you bought?"
"Gave it to Arthur," she said.
Kingsley nodded. "When I was still in training, I was put on assignment with an older Auror, told to shadow him for a day. We ran across an Apothecary selling illegal wares. One had a history with Azkaban and didn't want to go back. He fought hard. Too hard."
"What happened?"
"Entrail-Expelling Curse," he said. "That's . . . as horrifying as it is to find someone who fell to an Avada . . . at least it's clean."
She nodded her head in agreement.
"He accidentally hit one of his own men with a Slicing Hex, and the bloke didn't take to kindly to friendly fire."
Hermione closed her eyes. "Walburga Black wasn't the first dead body I've seen."
He kissed the top of her head. "Didn't think so."
"Cedric Diggory," she whispered. "Voldemort had him killed. No reason. Harry brought his body back to his father, right in the middle of . . . everyone saw. That was when it really began—our war." Hermione leant against him and sighed when he tightened his arm around her. "There was a Death Eater . . . Hogwarts was attacked and . . . well, friendly fire, I suppose. And then . . ." she paused. "One of our professors was killed," she said and left out the fact that it had been Dumbledore.
"It wasn't your fault," he told her.
She nodded. "I know. I just . . . I don't know how you do it, Kings. I can't handle blood," she said, thinking of Harry dying in her arms. "And now fire is just . . ." She closed her eyes and exhaled. "I need to contact Dumbledore."
He frowned and pulled away from her. "What's up?"
"We need another way to destroy the Horcruxes. Fiendfyre is . . . I can't guarantee that I'd be able to control it." She thought of herself, summoning the Fiendfyre to destroy the locket, and imagined the great flame dragon turning on her, and panicking, unable to stop it from devouring her and anyone close by. Walburga's screams echoed in her head.
"We need to open the Chamber of Secrets."