Looking Beyond: Chapter Forty-Six: Truths That Hurt


Sometimes Winter really was beautiful, wasn't it? It had a way of making the surrounding wilderness look pure and homely at the same time, if that was possible.

Hope gazed longingly out into the pure white picture of perfection that lay outside the window. In a few hours she and Hermione and Ron would be heading out to Hogsmeade for the last visit of the year, and Hope could hardly wait. Sadly, the twins wouldn't be joining them. Percy had, in a fit of rage, barred them from leaving the castle citing that they needed to make an attempt to study their OWLs which were tests all witches and wizards had to take during their fifth year. Apparently they made Hope's final exams look like a cake-walk.

George wasn't doing much studying for his OWLs, but even if he had been trying, he would have been very easily distracted by his girlfriend. So, basically Percy had to force her to leave (which she did looking a little miffed) him alone in order for him to study, but Hope doubted he'd be doing much of that. Still, it would give her time to search for a Christmas present for him without him snooping around.

"Hope, are you ready?" Ron called over to her, forcing her to drag her eyes from the sight and grin.

"Well, yeah, Weasley! What took you so long?"

Ron's ears burned a dark red. "Sorry," he said, "I lost my gloves, that's all."

Hope smirked. Somehow she didn't think that was the reason. "Alright, Hermione!"

"Coming!" a voice uttered from up the staircase as Hermione skipped down them, somehow managing not to trip (Hope would never have managed it, that much she knew). Hermione grinned brightly at the pair of them, to bothering to smother her glee at having both of her best friends with her for the Hogsmeade visit. She would never admit it, but she was a little jealous of George because of how much of Hope's attention he got, so she was going to enjoy this visit while it lasted. "I'm ready!"

Hope grinned and linked her arms with Hermione and Ron's. "Come on, I want to check out Honeydukes before it gets too packed and empty of sweets!"

"Hear, hear!" Ron said in agreement, making Hermione giggle, something that earned her a grin from the boy, which in turn made her blush a bright pink. Hope astutely ignored them and pretended that she hadn't seen a thing, but even that was difficult to do.

"I already got you guys your Christmas presents," she said conversationally, "I just need to get the twins something."

Hermione nodded in understanding and Ron grinned that she had already gotten them presents before his brothers.

Hope settled on Greek when they went into Dervish and Banges. George had gotten her a cartouche with her name in hieroglyphics for her birthday, so she decided to return the favour by getting him a leather strap bracelet that had the gamma (the 'G' in the Greek alphabet) letter dangling from it. It didn't seem very feminine to her, but she would have to see how he would react to it first before anything else. Fred would be getting a number of Dungbombs and some potions supplies that she had heard him grumbling about being low on. Ron's presents consisted of a number of sweets and a book on Chess strategy that she thought he might like. Hermione's was only two books (but ones that she had been practically begging Hope to get her in an unsubtle way) and some peppermint toads and sugar quills (which were her favourite).

"We should hit Honeydukes before Three Broomsticks," Ron said as they left the shop, his teeth chattering in the cold. "Come on! Please!"

His blue eyes turned big and enormous, the perfect puppy dog eye, if Hope had ever seen one, using his powers on his two friends. Hope and Hermione gave in, though they weren't much against the idea in the first place, so that helped.

Since they already had sweets gifted to each other, not that they knew that, they settled for merely looking around at all the varieties of snacks offered.

"Would you eat one of these if I dared you?" Ron asked Hope in a surprisingly serious voice as he held out a blood-flavoured lollipop.

"Is that how you see me, Ron?" Hope said with a sly leer. "A blood-sucking maniac?"

"On Mondays," Ron had to admit, making her laugh.

"Nobody likes Mondays, Ron," she said, wagging a finger at him, "not even Hermione." But that was mostly because a good deal of her classes were on Monday, Hope was lucky that she only had to go back in time to do Ancient Runes, because after their first week had concluded, the Study of Ancient Runes and Divination now occurred at the same time, and with Ron none the wiser, or maybe not.

Ron grunted in acknowledgement before holding out a jar of Cockroach Clusters.

"No, Ron."

He gave a small pout and Hermione giggled.

"I meant to ask you," she added as they drifted away from the Unusual Tastes section and to the Hot section, "what was that parchment you were pouring over yesterday?"

"Oh, that," Hope said with a grin, "that was a brilliant gift from Fred and George. It's a complete map of Hogwarts! It shows you where everything and everyone is! It's so cool!" Hermione and Ron couldn't be deaf to the obvious excitement in her voice.

Ron, however, couldn't help but be a little irked. "But I'm their brother!" he complained. "Why wouldn't they give it to me?"

"Maybe because you don't get into as much trouble as Hope does," Hermione said, rolling her eyes slightly at the pair of them, ignoring the indignant "Oi!" from Hope.

"I resent that!" Hope said as they purchased a good bit of chocolate before making their way into the harsh cold December wind, wrapping their scarves tightly about their faces as they battled to get to the Three Broomsticks. The pub was almost completely filled, and it was very noisy, but the trio had no problem with finding a nice seat and a few Butterbeers to sip.

"Oh, heaven," Ron mumbled into his drink.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's just a drink, Ron," she said in amusement.

"But it's the best drink in the world!" Ron claimed, raising his arms upwards as if he was exalting the Butterbeer Gods.

Hope couldn't smother her sniggers fast enough. "Alright, mister, maybe that's enough for you," she said, reaching over to grab the tankard, but Ron clutched the half-empty mug closer to himself.

"No!"

Hermione pulled a Hope, that is to say, she rolled her eyes, at Ron's ridiculousness. "Really?"

"It's good!" Ron said defensively as a gust of cold air blew across Hope's face and she glanced towards the door.

Professors McGonagall and Flitwick had entered the pub, closely followed by Hagrid and the chubby man she knew to be the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge. It was strange enough to see their professors outside of the castle, but Hope couldn't help but wonder why they would be meeting with the minister.

Apparently Hermione shared the same thought (a downside of being friends with Hope meant that there was a significant increase in one's curiosity), as she had whipped out her wand and uttered a spell. "Mobiliarbus!"

Hope didn't recognize the spell, but she didn't have long to wait as the evergreen tree that had been propped and decorated for the holidays rose a few inches from the ground and drifted to the side slow enough that no one noticed that it was moving, so that they were hidden from the sight of the table, leaving them to peer through the branches and shamelessly eavesdrop.

At first, it seemed like nothing unusual, with the ordering of drinks, but it soon became obvious that it wasn't. There were the typical complaints about the dementors and Sirius Black, and then the minister said something that drew Hope's attention completely.

"All the same," Fudge was saying in reference to the dementors that patrolled the square and thus made for bad business, "they are here to protect you all from something much worse...We all know what Black's capable of..." Hope couldn't help but wonder how they were supposed to protect them from something much worse if they kept getting sidetracked when she was around.

"Do you know, I still have trouble believing it," Madam Rosmerta, who was the woman who owned the Three Broomsticks, said. "Of all the people to go over to the Dark Side, Sirius Black was the last I'd have thought...I mean, I remember him when he was a boy at Hogwarts. If you'd told me then what he was going to become, I'd have said you'd had too much mead." Ron arched an eyebrow at Hope who frowned.

"You don't know the half of it, Rosmerta," said Fudge stiffly. "The worst he did isn't widely known."

"The worst?" Madam Rosmerta asked, "Worse than murdering all those poor people, you mean?"

"I certainly do," said Fudge and Hermione was frowning now as well; what could possibly be worse than murdering innocent people?

"I can't believe that," Rosmerta disagreed. "What could possibly be worse?"

"You remember him at Hogwarts, Rosmerta," Professor McGonagall said in a calm voice. "Do you remember who his best friend was?"

"Naturally," said Madam Rosmerta, a laugh echoed slightly from where they were sitting. "Never saw one without the other, did you? The number of times I had them in here - ooh, they used to make me laugh. Quite the double act, Sirius Black and James Potter!"

Hope's eyes widened and Hermione had to slap a hand to her mouth to stop her from making any noise that would tell their professors that they were listening in on a very private conversation. Hermione just knew they'd lose mountains of points and get detentions for the rest of their lives.

Sirius Black...now she remembered where she'd heard the name! Her father had mentioned him by name in the letter he had left her!

"Precisely," Professor McGonagall agreed, giving a miniscule nod of the head. "Black and Potter. Ringleaders of their little gang. Both very bright, of course -exceptionally bright, in fact- but I don't think we've ever had such a pair of troublemakers—"

"I dunno." Hope could hear Hagrid chuckling. "Fred and George Weasley could give 'em a run fer their money. Or even Hope on a good day."

"Really?" Madam Rosmerta asked in surprise, but then it seemed she had to remind herself of who they were speaking about. "Black and Potter hardly left each other's sides; I almost mistook them for brothers the first time I met them."

"It would be hard not to," said Fudge agreeably. "Potter trusted Black beyond all his other friends. Nothing changed when they left school. Black was best man when James married Lily. Then they named him godfather to Hope. Hope has no idea, of course. You can imagine how the idea would torment her." Hope's eyebrow twitched at how he automatically assumed how she would react, and well as shock that the wanted mass murderer was her godfather.

"Not many people are aware that the Potters knew You-Know-Who was after them," Fudge continued in a tragic voice. "Dumbledore, who was of course working tirelessly against You-Know-Who, had a number of useful spies. One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James and Lily at once. He advised them to go into hiding. Well, of course, You-Know-Who wasn't an easy person to hide from. Dumbledore told them that their best chance was the Fidelius Charm."

Hope wrenched Hermione's hand off her mouth with a glare before turning back towards the conversation with interest. The Fidelius Charm was a very old spell that Hope had only read about once, but even that was only a reference in passing. It was some sort of protective magic involving the concealment of a location but other than that, Hope had no idea what it was, having missed what Professor Flitwick had said, so she would have to look it up later.

"So Black was the Potters' Secret-Keeper?" Madam Rosmerta asked with her voice barely above a whisper.

"Naturally," said Professor McGonagall, repeating Madam Rosmerta from earlier. "James Potter told Dumbledore that Black would die rather than tell where they were, that Black was planning to go into hiding himself...and yet, Dumbledore remained worried. I remember him offering to be the Potters' Secret-Keeper himself."

"He suspected Black?" Madam Rosmerta guessed.

"He was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You-Know-Who informed of their movements," said Professor McGonagall her voice turning much darker than Hope would have thought possible. "Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You-Know-Who."

"But James Potter insisted on using Black?" Madam Rosmerta pressed.

"He did," said Fudge agreed in a weighted voice. "And then, barely a week after the Fidelius Charm had been performed—"

"Black betrayed them?" breathed Madam Rosmerta.

"He did indeed," Fudge said. "Black was tired of his double-agent role, he was ready to declare his support openly for You-Know-Who, and he seems to have planned this for the moment of the Potters' death. But, as we all know, You-Know-Who met his downfall in little Hope Potter. Powers gone, horribly weakened, he fled. And this left Black in a very nasty position indeed. His master had fallen at the very moment when he, Black, had shown his true colours as a traitor. He had no choice but to run for it—"

"Filthy, stinkin' turncoat!" Hagrid said, loud enough that a good number of eyes turned towards the group.

"Shh!" said Professor McGonagall barely above a hiss.

"I met him!" growled Hagrid. "I musta bin the last ter see him before he killed all them people! It was me what rescued Hope from Lily an' James's house after they was killed! jus' got her outta the ruins, poor little thing, with a great slash across her forehead, an' her parents dead... an' Sirius Black turns up, on that flyin' motorbike he used ter ride. Never occurred ter me what he was doin' there. I didn' know he'd bin Lily an' James' Secret-Keeper. Thought he'd jus' heard the news o' You-Know-Who's attack an' come ter see what he could do. White an' shakin', he was. An' yeh know what I did? I COMFORTED THE MURDERIN' TRAITOR!" Hagrid roared loud enough that London probably heard him.

By this time, Hermione and Ron become startlingly aware that Hope had somehow disappeared.

"Where'd she go?" Ron hissed.

"I don't know!" Hermione moaned. "She was right here, I swear she was!"

Masked by the raucous that Hagrid had caused with his loud outburst, Hope had slinked out of the inn before anyone could notice her, turning her hair blonde and her eyes blue briefly so they wouldn't know it was her before reverting back to normal once she had reached the safety of the cold outside.

Her legs felt like jelly, so much so that she was surprised that she was still standing as she meandered with difficulty through the village and back to the castle, but she didn't go inside, where she knew that George would be waiting for her, she continued on. Her feet took her to her tree, the one that George had knocked her out of and caught her as she fell. She breathed in and out harshly as she sat down, an out of breath sound that had nothing to do with the distance or the weather.

She was shaking from something that had nothing to do with the cold.

The tears burned her cheeks as they slid from her eyes and all she wanted to do was cry. She cupped a hand over her eyes and bit her lip to both keep herself from sobbing and to keep it from trembling.

Why was it always her? Why did it always have to come down to her? Why couldn't anyone stop trying to kill her for FIVE BLOODY SECONDS?!

She felt angry and sad and utterly confused all at the same time.

"Hey, I saw from the window," a familiar voice said, "why didn't you come inside?"

Hope removed her hand to look up and into George's bright eyes, the curiosity quickly switching to concern when he saw the tears on her face. "Hope? What's wrong? Did something happen in the village?"

He took her hands and pulled her upright, holding her ice-cold cheeks in his gloved hands as he crouched slightly to get a look at her. "Hope?"

But Hope couldn't seem to find the proper words to voice exactly how she was feeling, so she just wrapped her arms around him, hiding her face in his jacket, but that only seemed to make him more concerned, but he still led her back to the castle unaware of the pair of grey eyes that were watching them.

Sirius had wanted to step forward and play the part of the loveable stray, but she had looked so upset that he couldn't bring himself to do so. He couldn't help but be glad when the boy from before came along, doing his job for him. His concern was touching, but Sirius still wasn't sure about him, maybe that was just his overprotective nature talking, though.

A mournful whine escaped him lips as he dug a black paw into the pure white that lay across the castle and the grounds giving it the stereotypical Christmas look, but it was lost in the wind as he watched his goddaughter disappear into the castle once more.

It was very much later that night when George finally managed to get her to open up about what had upset her, and that was after she had spent the rest of the day feigning sleep and hiding behind her bed curtains until Hermione had gone to sleep. However, when she descended the staircase, George was waiting for her, and he steered her to the couch and all but forced her to talk.

"What happened in the village today, Hope?" George asked her, his voice barely above a whisper, and it didn't really need to be, since they were the only ones left in the common room. He was holding one of her hands loosely, his thumb tracing over the back of her hand slowly.

Her pillow-mussed hair was now a neutral brown with her eyes being a similar shade (she looked like she could have been Hermione's sister, now that he thought about it). Her eyes were only slightly rimmed with red, but it was still enough to concern George.

"Ron, Hermione, I went the Three Broomsticks," she finally managed to say, her voice coming out slightly croaky much to her annoyance, "once we'd done all of our shopping. Everything was fine until McGonagall, Flitwick, Hagrid, and Fudge showed up."

"Why?" George asked her, far more gently than he had perhaps ever spoken to anyone, but this was Hope.

"They started talking about how my dad and Sirius Black were best friends in school," Hope said, rubbing at her already raw eyes from how much she had wiped away the tears. She missed the completely dumbstruck expression on George's face as she did so. "They said he was the reason Voldemort found my parents and killed them, and that he's my godfather." She wasn't even sure which part was worse, but she couldn't help but feel like she was missing something.

That night on Halloween, before she'd blacked out, she remembered the distinct feeling that someone had caught her before she hit the ground. If that had been Black, as she and probably every member of faculty had thought it to be, then why hadn't he just killed her then? Quirrel would've, she had to think to herself mutinously as she recalled how hard the former professor or holder of Voldemort had tried to kill her. The closest attempt had only landed her in St. Mungo's, while Sirius Black's attempt had only sent her to the hospital wing for a matter of minutes.

George wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. Sirius Black, wanted mass murderer…Hope's godfather? He wouldn't have even thought that was possible, but then he remembered, this was the girl that was descended from Slytherin himself.

So, feeling as though there was nothing else that he could possibly do in a situation like this, George simply pulled her into his arms, just holding her and whispering into her ear as she finally relaxed and sleep overcame her, pulling her down into a numbing nothingness that she could appreciate just this once.

For a moment, he simply sat there holding her in his arms, but then, feeling a bit tired himself, he contended to using a trick that he would never divulge to anyone, George took her back up the stairs to the girls dormitory and deposited her gently on her bed, wrapping the covers loosely around her before leaning down to kiss her cheek gingerly and leaving the way he had come.

But Hope did not sleep easily that night. On a number of occasions she found herself waking up and unable to sleep until a certain amount of time had passed. It was only very early in the morning that she fell asleep for a good long while, and once she had woken up once more, she hardly felt well rested at all.

She couldn't even bring herself to flip through the album that she knew must have a picture of a younger Sirius Black within its pages. She was quite done with him and the damages he had caused. Now all she wanted to do was go to sleep and not wake up for quite some time. Maybe even in a world where Voldemort didn't exist and Sirius Black was just the name of a sweet-tempered stray.

Well, a girl could dream.