Chapter 33: Thursday, May 22, 1980

"There's enough grief in this world without getting into whose fault it is."

-Lisa Samson, Hollywood Nobody

Hermione sat with her shoulders pulled back against the chair at the table in the Order of the Phoenix Headquarters. She listened as Sirius continued to argue with Moody and Kingsley about how wrong they were. James occasionally piped in, voicing his concerns as Sirius continued to tell Moody that he's "fucking mad! You can't see what's happening because you've only got one bloody eye!" and slammed his hand angrily onto the table.

Marlene was supposed to have contacted the order by now. Well, by last week, actually. Peter had sent an owl, explaining that he was safe and would be returning the first week of June, claiming that he would be spending time with his family. Kingsley had returned three days ago, unscathed and back in place at the Ministry with nothing exciting to report. But Marlene was still silent. No one had heard from her, she hadn't been back home or to her family's home yet, she hadn't sent an owl or a patronus or even a floo call.

"You aren't listening! Are your ears missing too?! Marlene would have, at the very least, checked in with her mum to let her know she was safe! Even if she didn't send a bloody owl to us, she would not have let her worry!" Sirius shouted.

"It isn't the first time Marlene has been late coming back from an assignment," Kingsley tried to reason. "Last year she was gone an extra four days-

"Four days and a full week are a different thing! And last year she sent a fucking owl, letting us know she was on to a lead! She wouldn't abandon her post and not tell us why!"

"If there's any chance she's been captured, shouldn't we at least look into it?" James asked.

"Enough!" Moody growled, slamming his hands on the table, "We'll give her a week! If no one has heard from her by the next meeting, then we will start sending search parties out for her. Kingsley and Pettigrew were in the same area, and both are fine!"

"That doesn't mean-

"Black, I'm warning you!" Moody said, a fierce look on his face as the blue eye that was strapped to his face rolled around in the holster, stopping to stare at Sirius.

"Shouldn't we at least have someone check her house?" Lily asked, "Have someone stay near her mum? After what happened with her father…"

"I'll do it!" Sirius said, instantly.

"Black, sit down!" Moody said.

"But Lily's right! If there's-

"Sirius," Hermione interrupted. "We need a better plan than just going in wands raised! The last time that happened I had to keep you from bleeding out and Emmaline was tortured. There's no sense in storming the shores when we don't even know what shores to storm."

"I understand what you're saying," Sirius spat. "But it isn't like her family hasn't been previously targeted! We still haven't found her father! It was pure fucking negligence that we even let her go out on an assignment like this in the first place!"

"Watch your tone, Black!" Moody growled, "I am a lot of things, but negligent is not one of them!"

"Giddy and I can go take a look," Fabian offered. "We can pop over tonight, do a quick sweep of the area for any suspicious activity."

"It's not a lot of ground to cover, Fay and I can be back by morning and give a full report on any findings," Gideon agreed.

Moody looked at the Prewett twins, his eyes roaming back and forth between them for several seconds before his shoulders slumped forward a bit and he bobbed his head, "Yeah all right. Prewetts, you'll head out and report back by nine in the morning."

"I think we can manage that!" Fabian said, getting to his feet and straightening his jacket.

"See you lot in the morning!" Gideon said, giving a brilliant smile before following Fabian out the front door. Within seconds, two cracks sounded from the front and they departed.

"Thank you!" Sirius said, pulling his leather jacket off the back of his chair and slipping his arms into the sleeves. He pulled a small metal box from the inside pocket and plucked a cigarette out, placing the filter of it between his lips as he shoved the tin back into the inner breast pocket, "I'm going out for a smoke. Are we done here?"

"Nine tomorrow morning," Moody said. "We'll meet back here to see if the Prewett's found anything."

Hermione followed Sirius out to the front of the house, leaning against the bannister of the covered porch as Sirius lit his cigarette and took a deep drag from it.

"That's a really disgusting habit, you know."

Sirius snorted, taking another drag and blowing it out into the warm spring air, "Come out here to tell me to stop smoking?"

Hermione shook her head, "No."

Sirius sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Something happened. I can feel it. Marlene wouldn't have just left and not said anything to anyone."

Hermione braced her palms against the bannister, hopping up to sit on it and looked at him, "You're certain?"

"Yes," Sirius said. "We have a… complicated relationship, but if she was gonna skip town, she would've owled. If not me, then her mum. She wouldn't have left her mum without a word. Not after her dad went missing!"

"I believe you, Sirius. Fabian and Gideon are clever, they aren't going to just gloss over the area without really looking. You know that if there's something to be found, they'll find it."

Sirius sucked at his front teeth, nodding as he took another drag of his cigarette, "Yeah. I know. Where's Moony? Honeymoon over since you shacked up together?"

Hermione chuckled at his less than flawless subject change, but respected his need to get away from the fear of what may have happened to Marlene. She was all too familiar with the feeling of fearing for a friend's life, she understood the need to talk about anything else.

"We're perfectly fine, thank you. He hung behind to talk to Kingsley."

"Not tired of his ridiculous organization yet?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, "That's called being an adult and cleaning up after yourself, Sirius."

Truly, Hermione had been enjoying her time spent at home with Remus. He'd only begun to bring his personal items over to her cottage a few days prior, but she liked having him around. He had insisted that he would stay in the guest room, as not to disrupt her personal space completely, but that had lasted all of one night. Well… a few hours of one night. Remus was proving to be a wonderful roommate. He was far cleaner than any other man she had ever lived with, and there were several. Not including her time in the tent during what should have been her seventh year at Hogwarts, living at the Shrieking Shack meant living with several other people. The only man there who seemed to have any civility when it came to their living quarters was Draco, and even then, he was nowhere near as organized as Remus.

Remus had a system. Everything had a place. Every book, every trinket, every quill, parchment, and item of clothing had a place that it belonged. He made the bed every morning, he cleaned up after himself, he baked. Remus even took it upon himself, while Hermione was helping Lily pick out a bassinet for the baby one afternoon, to organize her potions research. He color coded and alphabetized her notes, creating charms around key words that when spoken aloud, would pull up the exact article she was looking for.

That level of attention to detail and organization answered any questions she may have had about the charmwork that was involved in creating the Marauder's Map.

The domesticity of it all was nice. Spending their days helping James and Lily pick out baby things or brewing potions and researching ingredients. Evenings were for reading together on the sofa or listening to Sirius regale a story about another mishap with a muggle girl at a pub. And their nights… The nights were spent wrapped around one another, whispering sinful phrases and crying out prayers to Gods long forgotten.

Hermione was fully enjoying the normalcy of it all.

It was nearly four in the morning when Hermione's floo roared to life, Lily's voice calling out urgently from the fireplace. Hermione and Remus had been sleeping in her bed, still nude and wrapped in each other's arms when Remus yanked the covers off them, bleary eyed and disoriented. He quickly pulled his shorts on while Hermione pulled her bathrobe from the back of the door, shrugging into it and grabbing her wand before racing out to the living room.

"Hermione! Remus! Wake up! I'll come over, I swear! Herm- there you are! Finally!"

Hermione kneeled in front of the hearth, her brows pulled together as she tried to get her sleep addled mind caught up, "What's going on? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! You need to go to Dorcas' now! Take your healer bag with you! James and Sirius just left, I stayed behind to call you."

"What happened?!" Hermione said,her heart thumping in her chest.

"I don't know, but it didn't sound great. I'm going right now, hurry up!"

"We'll meet you there!" Hermione said.

Lily's face disappeared from the flame and Hermione turned around, craning her neck up to look at Remus, "We'd better get dressed."

Remus nodded, offering his hand to pull her from the ground. "Is your bag stocked?"

"Grab a few blood replenishers will you?" Hermione asked, "Everything else should be good."

Remus nodded, racing to the spare room to pull some of his clothes from the wardrobe in there and grab the phials of blood replenisher she kept on the stock shelves above her cauldrons that were brewing under stasis in the room. Hermione pulled open her drawers, pulling out the first items she laid her hands on and pulled her hair to the top of her head with an elastic before meeting Remus in the hall, her black medical bag in his hand. She slipped into her trainers and with a crack, she apparated to Meadow's Meadow.

When she opened the door, it was chaos.

Screams of pain filled the air as order members bustled around. Instantly, it was as if she slipped back into the mind frame she was so familiar with in her own time. The cries of pain coming from the back of the house nearly drowned out all other sounds. Hermione rushed past the others in the room, shoving open the door and zeroed in on the source of the screams.

Fabian was writhing on a cot, pulling at his face, chest and arms, screaming in absolute agony as his skin looked as if it were buzzing with magic. The whites of his eyes were bloodied with broken capillaries and his nose was dripping blood that ran over his cheeks. His gums were dark red, his teeth stained in crimson as his mouth pulled open, another scream tearing from his throat. Hermione fell to her knees beside the cot, waving her wand over him instantly. Muttering the incantation to show the symbols that would show her where to start.

His magical core was rapidly depleting.

His heart rate was a furious 190.

Blood pressure 164 over 95 and rising.
Oxygen intake at 90% and dropping.

Body temperature 41.8, 41.9, 42, 42.1…

"What happened?!" Hermione shouted, hoping someone would hear her to answer.

"We don't know," It was the smooth, low voice of Kingsley that responded.

Fabian screamed again, bloody spittle sprayed across his robes as he cried out, coating his chin and flowing down into the crook of his neck.

"Madam Pomfrey is on her way to help!" James called from the doorway.

"I need help now!" Hermione shouted.

Sirius was at her side in an instant, eyes wide and horrified, but wand out and waiting.

"Cooling charms, as powerful as you can conjure!" Hermione said, as she began digging through her bag. She pulled out a bottle of the blood replenisher that Remus had just stocked for her as well as a muscle mending potion. "He's bleeding internally, the blood replenisher isn't going to do anything if we can't mend whatever is happening inside of him! We need to get his temperature down and his heart rate level before he-

Hermione was cut off as Fabian began convulsing violently on the cot, his back arched and his neck cracked under the force of his head turning to the side. Hermione climbed onto the cot, knees on either side of Fabian's hips as she forced his mouth open,

"I have a potion in my bag, it's labeled relaxer, pull it out! Now, Sirius! I need it now!"

Sirius dropped to his knees, rifiling through the bag before pointing his wand at it, "Accio Relaxer!"

A phial of silvery liquid landed in his palm and he handed it to Hermione after yanking the stopper from it. With her hand half shoved into Fabian's mouth, holding his jaw open to keep him from clenching it shut, she poured a few drops of the potion onto his tongue before removing her fingers, letting his mouth slam shut. She shoved the phial back into Sirius' hands and waited until Fabian stopped seizing, his muscles relaxing completely into the cot.

"I need to know what he got hit with, where's Gideon?!"

"He… Hermione, I-I think he's dead." Sirius whispered, his eyes flitting to the cot on the other side of the room.

"Go check for a pulse!" Hermione ordered. While Sirius moved away from her, she schooled her features and tried to quickly figure out what the best course of action was. She had no idea what caused this, no idea what curses he had been hit with, but every second that passed, his magical core level dropped and his temperature rose, almost as if his magic was boiling him alive…

"REMUS!" Hermione shouted at the top of her lungs, "REMUS GET IN HERE!"

Remus was in the doorway in a flash, ducking low to keep from hitting his head and holding his nose shut to give some reprieve against the smell of blood and sweat, "What is it?!" he asked, his eyes wide and tone urgent.

"My journal!" Hermione said, "The thin black one. I need it, I need it right now!"

Remus gave a curt nod and didn't even wait to go outside before he apparated on the spot.

"Is now really a good time for reading through your journal?!" Sirius asked, his hands pressing along Gideon's throat, searching for a pulse. "Rennervate! Fuck! Come on! Rennnervate!"

"I've seen this curse before," Hermione said.

Hermione pulled herself off of Fabian, sinking down next to her bag again and pulling out phial after phial of different potions, searching for something that could help.

"Rennervate, Rennervate, bloody fucking Rennervate!"

Remus was back in the room with a loud crack, thrusting the thin journal into Hermione's hands. She opened the book, flipping through the pages before landing on a brutal curse she knew she had read in it's pages. Her heart felt like it had stopped, her throat going dry as she read the slanted scrawl.

Fabian was, essentially, boiling alive. The curse was simple latin words accompanied with complicated arithmancy formulas to build the wand pattern to get it to work. Fluere Intra Corpus, to melt the inside of the body. Hermione's eyes scanned the page, her heart sinking with every word. His own magic was attacking his vital organs to literally disintegrate them, the antidote was a potion that would take twenty-six days to brew and held a host of exotic ingredients that were both rare and expensive.

There was nothing she could do.

Fabian screamed out in pain and Hermione handed the journal back to Remus, "Get out of here. Take Sirius with you. Floo Dumbledore, there's no reason for Poppy to come."

"Rennervate! Come on, mate! Wake up!" Sirius was begging Gideon's limp form, jabbing his wand into his chest repeatedly as he tried to revive him.

"Get him out of here, Remus. Now."

Remus blew out a shaking breath as he stepped over to Sirius, grabbing his friend's shoulders and pulling him away from Gideon.

"No!" Sirius shouted, struggling against Remus. "Let go, Moony!"

"Pads, come on."

"No!" Sirius sank a punch into Remus' chest.

"Remus, get him out!" Hermione said, with more force behind her words.

Remus wrapped both arms around Sirius' torso, pinning his arms to his sides, as he pulled him away from Gideon, his wand dropping from his hand and clattering to the floor. Once they were out of the room Hermione waved her wand, snapping the door shut and locking it. There was nothing she could do to save Fabian, but she could make sure he didn't die writhing in pain.

Hermione went back to her bag, pulling out the most potent pain relief potion she could find and pulled the stopper off. She wrapped her fingers around Fabian's chin, pulling his mouth open as she dumped the entire phial into his mouth. Her blood-sticky fingers moved to close his mouth, massaging his throat to force a swallow.

In a few breaths, Fabian's screams died and a serene, vacant look overtook his face. Hermione slowly began packing the phials that had been dumped from her bag, shoving the journal inside of it and sat back on her knees, her feet tucked under her bottom as she held Fabian's hand.

This was not the first time Hermione couldn't save someone.

In the winter of 1998, when their original Headquarters at Grimmauld Place had come under attack, Hermione had been desperate to save everyone who had been hit. She had only just begun studying healing, her knowledge of it less than perfect, as she struggled to keep Roger Malone alive. She had been exactly how Sirius was tonight, desperate to save him, firing every spell she could think of that might help. It had been Harry's arms that had wrapped around her, pulling her away from Roger's body as he told her to stop.

"There's nothing we can do, Hermione. You tried. You tried and there's nothing more we can do."

"There has to be something!"

Harry had held her that night as she cried, sobbing against his chest as she came to the realization that she couldn't save everyone. Roger had been the first of many over the years that Draco and Hermione had been unable to save. As curses became far more brutal, more unforgiving than even a Crucio would be, they created new potions and pieced together healing charms to help. But even then, there were times that they were too late.

Hermione's hand curled around Fabian's as she sat on the edge of the cot. She reached down to his face, pushing his bright ginger locks from his eyes and she could see the fear in them as he struggled to keep breathing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, tracing the sides of his face with a soothing touch. "I'm sorry, Fabian. I can't stop this. There's nothing I can do, and I am so sorry."

"M...Molly," Fabian whispered, pain flashing through his eyes as he gave a weak cough.

"I won't let her see you like this, I promise. I won't let her see either of you like this. She'll have a long and happy life," Hermione closed her eyes, blinking back the tears that were welling. "The boys all grow up to be wonderful men. They finally have a girl! She's called Ginny, and she's absolutely amazing. Could give all six of her brothers a run for their money."

A weak smile stole Fabian's face as his eyes seemed to lose focus. Hermione waved her wand over him to check his vitals again. His temperature climbed higher, 43.8, 43.9…

"Say hello to Fred for me, would you?" Hermione whispered. "Tell him we miss him, but that George is getting along okay. I think Fred would be worried about him, but he's managing. And tell him Percy stayed, he never left our side again, he's been brilliant and has helped us accomplish so much."

She sniffled as she took in a shaking breath, her hand tightening around Fabian's, her other hand resting against the side of his face. His breaths came in jerky, gulping in takes, his eyes fluttered, struggling to stay open.

"They'll be okay," Hermione said, her voice soft. "Molly will be okay. I'm sorry, Fabian."

His eyes held her gaze for two more gasping breaths before they closed, the corners of his mouth pulling up slightly as his chest fell, his body stilling completely as his last breath left his lungs.

Hermione sat for several minutes, staring down at the red-haired man, a deep frown carved into her mouth. Finally, she took a slow breath, rising to her feet and began using her wand to clean the blood from his face and hands. She rolled him to his side, using Scourgify to rid the sheets of blood before rolling him onto his back. She cleaned the blood-matted hair on his head, and tried to get as much of the blood from his robes as she could. When he was cleaned, she moved over to Gideon.

Gideon was pale and his skin cold to the touch. Looking at him, pressing her fingers into the flesh of his face, she could tell he had been dead upon arrival. That Fabian must have grabbed his body the moment he was hit with the curse and apparated them both back here. Gideon, she theorized, must have been hit with a killing curse. He showed no outward signs of anything as brutal as the curse Fabian had been trying to fight off. His eyes were still open, staring up at the ceiling, vacant cerulean. She pulled her fingertips over them, closing his eyelids and took a deep breath.

Hermione knew the Prewett brothers had been killed during the first war. She could remember Molly talking about it years ago, mentioning it here and there but never diving into details about what happened. Of course, they had all made their own assumptions. That Death Eaters had hit the twins with a killing curse during some sort of epic fight.

The reality of the situation was far more harrowing. The Prewett twins hadn't gone raging into battle, wands up and ready for attack. They had been on what was supposed to be a simple sweep of an area, to check for signs of struggle or dark magic before coming back to report their findings. They hadn't gone out on an assignment meant to capture and kill Death Eaters, they hadn't been planning to fight. They had gone out to look for Marlene after Sirius begged for someone to check the surrounding area for signs of the witch. They had been caught off guard, and paid for it with their lives.

Hermione collected her bag, doing a quick cleaning charm on her hands and clothes to try and rid any signs of the tacky blood she was covered in. She allowed her eyes to sweep over the Prewett twins once more before exiting the room, closing the door behind her.

Dumbledore and Moody were talking with Kingsley and James, Remus and Lily were sitting together at the end of the table, Lily looked as if she had been crying and Remus' arm was around her shoulders as her hand rested on top of her rounded belly. Frank and Alice were sitting together, across from Lily, both looking solemn. Dorcas was pacing the floor as Emmaline sat against the wall, her knees brought up to her chest as she cried into her hands.

Hermione stepped toward Dumbledore and Moody, she could feel all eyes landing on her as the room quieted, only the soft cries and sniffles breaking through the silence.

"Alert Molly and Arthur," Hermione said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Fabian and Gideon are both dead, there was nothing I could do."

Hermione's eyes pulled away from Dumbledore's as she looked at James, his face pinched in agony as the words left her mouth. He reached out, setting his hand on her arm, "Should we-

"Where's Sirius?" Hermione asked, interrupting him.

"He went outside," James said.

Hermione nodded, "I'll be outside, then."

She didn't wait for anyone to respond before she stepped out of the room, quickly walking to the front of the house and pushing open the door. The cool early morning air swept over her, creating gooseflesh on her arms. The smell of Sirius' cigarette assaulted her nose instantly, and she sighed.

"They're gone," she whispered, leaning against the bannister and looking out over the meadow that the house sat on.

"I… I tried to do what you said. The cooling charms and- and… Did I not do strong enough ones? Was there something else that I-

"There's nothing you could have done, Sirius."

"Bullshit!" Sirius spat, his tone quickly swinging from desperate to angry. "There's always something! What fucking good is it having magic if we can't even fucking save people we care about with it?! There has to be something more we could-

Hermione sighed, closing the space between them and wrapping her arms around her friend's waist, holding him against her in a tight embrace as she spoke into his chest, "Magic isn't a cure all, Sirius. I'm sorry, but they were already gone by the time they got here. We did everything we could do and it never feels like enough."

"It was my fault. I… I begged for them to send someone out there! If it weren't for me, they wouldn't have gone!"

Slowly, Sirius' arms found their way around Hermione, his fingers digging into her back as he buried his face into her hair. She felt his chest shake as he cried, his breath broken as he tried to hold it inside. She knew this feeling all too well, the absolute devastation of losing someone, of feeling like it was your fault. She held him, allowing him to cry into her hair as he tried to calm himself, her hands rubbing soothing circles against his spine.

"It wasn't your fault," Hermione whispered. "None of this was your fault."

.

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a/n: Another extra update this week? Yes. Because why the hell not? Also, before you cuss me out, this fic is a time-travel, war fic. Our babies have been at war since chapter one. And sometimes, fucked up shit happens. And sometimes, that fucked up shit happens suddenly.

Love you all, please remember to leave a review (even if you're about to cuss me out lol I still wanna see it.)

xo

Mimi