Disclaimers: Dark themes, police state ideas, mention of spousal abuse (including rape) on and off-screen, death of minor characters, graphic imagery and violence, frank sex discussion, copious bad language, bashing the fucking Weasley's and Dumbledore, liberties taken with mythical history and the HP real-life timeline. Extra Disclaimer: mention of Harry's potential physical abuse as a child
It took barely an hour to set everything up. Enola and her mother worked quickly and Hermione watched in deep fascination. They identified the four cardinal points and placed a representation of each of the four elements at each corresponding point; a candle, a feather, a crystal, a sea shell with water in it. Then Enola drew a glowing circle with her wand to join them, while Arianwen etched out various runes with her stylus, pushing her power into them and making them glow in vivid colours. Then they held hands and chanted into the circle to complete the process.
When they were done, the circle teemed with magic. It made Hermione's hair stand on end.
"It's done," said Enola stepping back. "We've created you your own temporary circle within Harry's Ritual Chamber, as I don't know if you are quite ready to handle the intensity of the magic imbibed within this place just yet. Yours will last a few hours, but after that it will lose potency. So, what's the plan, why are we doing this?"
"I met with Amelie Flamel in Paris," Hermione explained as she tried to flatten a crease in her Ritual Robe. "She said that this is all about me, that if I want to fix the problems around me I'm the one who has to decide how. And I have."
"Care to elaborate?" Enola quirked. "What we are doing is potentially risky … I need to know as much as you can tell me in case I need to react quickly."
"That's fair," Hermione nodded in thanks. "I've decided that I need Harry to repair all of my damages. Not fix them for me … but with me. The potency of our power when we are together is the answer we have both been searching for. The rest of the world may not agree … and I know that you have your doubts, too … but, and try not to take offence at this, as far as I'm concerned everyone else can go and hang themselves if they don't like it.
"This is me and Harry we are talking about … and if we want to rely on each other for comfort and happiness, then that's just what we'll do!"
"Cant say fairer than that!" Enola grinned. "So what's the idea behind the ritual?"
"Amelie told me that to create a bridge to Harry I have to be the one who makes the first step," Hermione explained. "Lily, like you, said that the emotional foundations for the bridge have to be strong … but this is one of those complex bits of allegory that I'm only just beginning to understand.
"The bridge starts with me, but it also ends with me, too. It's a complete circle of wholeness within myself, I've just not seen it as a circular bridge before. But I got to thinking about what little Celesca said to me, about Harry having a cord that was reaching out from him for me, and I got to wondering if they were the same thing … that it wasn't so much a straight road I was trying to create, but more of a ring that I was trying to interlock with Harry's own."
"Interlocking rings?" Enola's quipped. "That sounds a hell of a lot like a Marriage Bond, Hermione!"
"Good! I'm glad you think so, too, because that was just what I thought!" Hermione beamed. "So if I can begin to push this cord of energetic love out of myself towards the one coming from Harry, it might be just enough to give him a route back into his mind. It's tangled up with my Marriage Bond to Ron at the moment, but once I tear that apart I can finally link with Harry's and seal it permanently … when Narcissa Malfoy joins us as husband and wife."
"So how do you intend to start?"
"By committing myself fully on every level," Hermione went on. "As much as I want to now, it's only in my conscious mind. Until I know everything that's going on, there will always be a niggle of doubt or uncertainty. It's only natural. And the way I'm going to overcome it is to fill in my knowledge gaps, by going into Harry's mind and seeing this mindscape you created with him."
"And how are you going to get into Harry's mind? I have my own link to it, but you don't. It'll be too dangerous to drill into Harry's head now to create a path for you, and I've never taken another person along my own conduit. What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to have this little cherub take me," Hermione revealed, smiling down at Celesca Lovegood, who was being held protectively close by Luna.
"Are you sure you know how to do that?" Enola asked cautiously, bending down to be on eye level with the little Seer.
"Oh yes, I can get in to Mister Harry's mind and take Miss Hermione with me," Celesca chirped, brightly. "My special magic can hold hands with the energy of other people, and I can take it with me when I go. And I've been before, see, so I know my way around."
"And what do you intend to do when you are there?" Enola asked, standing and addressing Hermione again.
"To delve deep into Harry, see what these horrors are that he carries inside, then make binding vows to return there and heal him of them," Hermione revealed. "Harry once said that promises made in this house will become actual bonds if you really mean them. Well, I really mean these ones … I mean them more than anything else I've ever sworn to in my entire life. And I'm hoping that if I make the promises so deep inside Harry that he will have no choice but to accept them into the very energy of his spirit, that they will act like a tether to anchor him back inside his mind when I leave it. I'm confident it will work."
"This isn't dangerous, is it?" asked Luna, who was holding onto Celesca from behind, pulling her motherly close. Hermione smiled fondly at them. Seeing them together now it was clear that Celesca was Luna's daughter, they looked so alike, especially now that Luna had all her hair back.
"No, it's fine, Mummy," said Celesca, looking up at Luna to pacify her. "Miss Hermione will be quite safe."
Hermione grinned down at her. "I think your Mum meant dangerous for you, sweetheart."
"Oh," Celesca frowned. "I'll be all right. Come on. Mister Harry needs our help."
"Luna, please … I'm begging you," Hermione pleaded. "We're all Harry has. I promise I won't do anything risky. If it looks like we're in danger, I'll have Celesca bring us out."
"Mummy, we wont be hurt in there, we cant be … because we are not Mister Harry," Celesca promised vehemently. "Please, let us find him and bring him home. He must be lonely and scared by now."
Luna nodded. "Okay, honey. But Cesc … don't do anything silly. Promise me."
"I promise, Mummy. I love you."
"I love you too, sweetie," said Luna, fondly. She turned to Hermione. "I'll give you an hour with her. After that, she'll be pushed too far."
"Thank you, that's more than fair," Hermione nodded, squeezing Luna's hands. "Don't worry, I have no intention of wasting any time in there."
"Then let's get to it," said Enola. "Ladies … please enter the circle."
Hermione switched to holding Celesca's hand and guided her through the wall of magic shimmering around the temporary ritual circle. It was like stepping through a giant bubble of oily light. Hermione shivered at it, as though all her skin had been tickled at once. Celesca grinned up at her.
"That felt funny," she said with a cutesy smile.
"How do we do this?" Hermione asked.
"Just close your eyes, try to relax, and breath deeply" said Celesca. "I'll find your mind with my special magic … then take you into Mister Harry's head."
"Okay," Hermione agreed. She sounded doubtful, but she sat cross-legged opposite Celesca and closed her eyes anyway, giving herself over to the power of the Seer.
"Just imagine an empty space," Celesca instructed in a calm, ethereal voice.
Hermione followed the direction and breathed deeply, summoning the magic of the circle as Harry had shown her how. It flowed gently around them and Hermione was loosely aware of an external presence lurking just outside her mind. It was soft, child-like, but also sorrowful. This was Hermione's first intimate connection with Celesca's psyche, and she immediately felt such pity for the tiny girl.
For she seemed like an old matron already. The things this poor child must have seen through the eyes of others … all the pain and the horror of a thousand lifetimes … Hermione railed against it. Life was just so unfair, it would seem.
Then suddenly she was in a brilliantly white room, lit so brightly that it was almost blinding. The initial shock passed after a few seconds and Hermione looked around, seeing for the first time the calm space in her own mind. She gasped. For she was hit with such a powerful sense of Harry's presence that she thought this might be over in minutes, that she'd found him without even trying. It was as if he was there, just out of sight. She reasoned that this was just his essence from the Potter ring again, or their innate connection rearing its head inside her own.
"Harry?" she asked out cautiously.
"He can't hear you, Miss, we aren't deep enough," said Celesca, who was suddenly standing behind Hermione, waiting patiently with her hands behind her back, swaying slightly on the spot. She looked eerily odd, jutting out from the complete whiteness as a shock of something different as she was. It was almost like a scene from a scary movie.
"But I can feel him," Hermione complained.
"Yes, I can too," said Celesca. "It's because we are close to him in your mind, Miss, but the barrier between us is massive. This is just the surface, like a reception bit. It's how your normal senses see your mind, the way it makes you understand it."
"I see … I think. And how do we get to Harry's?"
"This is called a Construct," Celesca explained in a patient air, as though she were the adult describing the complexities of finger painting to a five-year-old. "We aren't really here, you and me, but our minds are, sort of like a dream that we are awake in. So if I touch you, I don't do it with my fingers, but with my mind and my magic. Do you get it now?"
"Yes, yes I think so," Hermione replied, scrunching her brows as she considered it. "So if you take my hand here, it's actually you taking my mind in reality?"
"Yes, Miss, that's it!" Celesca twittered, happily. "And because I can see the way we need to go, I can take you so long as you hold on to me. So come on, it's this way."
Celesca offered her hand and Hermione took it. They walked on, down a dark, tubular corridor that Hermione hadn't noticed before. This was the link then, that Celesca had effortlessly created between her mind and Harry's. Her power was extraordinary, not to mention deeply fascinating. It went far beyond prophecy and prediction in ways Hermione might not have expected it to before. It was something worthy of further consideration later.
But for the time being, she had plenty to occupy her thoughts … because Hermione was just now stepping from her body and into Harry's own.
It was an odd sensation, to be leaving her own physical form. It was cold as she passed along the connection, as though all of her outside layers had been stripped away at once. She felt stretched, airy … somehow thinned out. This would take some getting used to. She breathed raggedly and squeezed Celesca's hand for reassurance.
"It's okay, Miss, don't be scared," said Celesca, gently. "I'll look after you."
It was the most bizarre feeling, to be so comforted by this child. But Hermione couldn't resist it. The girl just had something about her presence, a soothing energy that Hermione struggled to describe. She felt safe under her guidance and gave to her wholly.
"We're here, Miss Hermione. This is it," Celesca whispered, lowly.
Hermione blinked. The tube-like corridor had opened up onto something entirely different. They were now in a long hallway, poorly lit by dirty ceiling lights, half of which were spluttering in and out of life. Faded, emerald green wallpaper peeled off the walls and there were distant noises that Hermione couldn't quite pick out, behind a number of doors with angular, irregular frames set into the left-hand side of the hallway. The whole place was dense with a sweet, rotting smell, as though something had died and nobody had bothered to clear away the corpse.
Hermione quailed as the sounds rose in volume the closer they got ... for all of the noises were those of obvious, terrified distress.
"I thought you said it looked like a building with lots of floors," said Hermione, perplexed and quivering from the chill of the place.
"It does, for me," Celesca explained, as she looked around curiously. "But this is how you see it. Or maybe how Mister Harry sees it. But it's the same place."
"And what are we looking at, exactly?" Hermione asked in a shivery voice. She couldn't explain the sensations crawling over her shifting skin, as though it wasn't just the cold that was chilling her, but the very ambiance of the place. It was thoroughly creepy down here.
"This is where Mister Harry buries all his bad memories," Celesca elaborated. "All the nasty things he's known and seen, they are all down here. The awake bit, the part we all know and talk to and things, that's the part stuck inside you. But I should tell you, Miss, that this is the last chance you'll get to change your mind about this. The things you might see in here are really terrible and horrible … and you wont be able to unsee them once you have. So you'd best be sure before you go on."
"I have to do this, I cant let Harry suffer alone," Hermione replied stoutly. "I want to see, so I can help him."
"You don't want to see … believe me, you don't. You'll see in the end that I'm right. Just know I told you not to."
"Whatever happens, it wont be your fault," Hermione reassured the Seer. "So where do we start?"
"Look down there."
Celesca pointed along the dank, angular corridor. There were six doors that Hermione could see, but the corridor went on way beyond them into a blurry sort of fog with an eerie red light set high against the ceiling.
"That's what I see on the lower floors when I come here on my own," said Celesca, nodding at that weird mist. "We wont be able to get through there, I bet. It's where the pretty lady dug too deep last time. Only Mister Harry can reach it now."
"And what's down there?" Hermione asked.
Celesca shook her head and frowned. "I don't know, Miss. I can't get to there, but I can see into it."
"What do you see?"
Celesca turned her pity-filled eyes to Hermione. "You, Miss … and the horrible gingerbread man. I know … I know about the bad things he did to you."
Celesca's ethereal voice was comforting and sympathetic, and as those watery eyes fixed firmly on Hermione, her breathing hitched and surprised tears stung her eyes. She felt Celesca's tiny hand slip into her own and give it a gentle squeeze. She choked her breath out to regain control, then they moved off together along the corridor.
"What am I going to find here, Celesca? What can I expect?" asked Hermione. "Have you been into all of these rooms?"
Celesca nodded. "Yes, Miss Hermione, but for me they are like floors, like I told you. I walk up and down a big staircase to reach them. You should know … all but one of these places are bad … really bad. You wont like what you see in any of them."
"Why? What are they?"
"Mister Harry's bad memories and thoughts … all playing out again and again," said Celesca in a fraught little voice. "All his pains and fears and worries become real things down here, Miss. It's a horrible place, it really is. I feel so sorry for Mister Harry to have to carry this inside. I'd like to help him … but I don't know how I can. His monsters are very real down here, Miss. And very scary."
"Can I interact with them?" asked Hermione. "Can I get rid of any of them?"
Celesca shook her head. "No, Miss. These are Mister Harry's memories, his darknesses. We are just watching. Can only be part of it when Mister Harry is here. They come properly alive then … and it's so frightening, I can't tell you."
"How? What happens to Harry when he's here?"
"He goes back … into the memory," said Celesca. "He becomes that Mister Harry again, like he was when it happened in the first place. He lives it all over again, and tries to make it better like that."
"Does it work?" asked Hermione, horrorstruck.
Celesca shook her head sadly again. "No, Miss, it wont ever work. If he knew how to beat it, I don't think it would be here in the first place, do you?"
Hermione gasped aloud. "No, I suppose not. But how can he be helped? What can we do for him?"
"I don't know, Miss Hermione," said Celesca, quietly. "I really don't …"
Hermione fought a strangled sob. Poor Harry. Her poor Harry! Hermione's heart broke at the very concept. She had to find a way to help, to get rid of … whatever she was likely to find down here. She took a moment to compose herself … then she took the handle of the first door and opened it with fierce trepidation.
And slammed it closed again almost instantly, clutching at her now colourless cheeks.
"D-dementors?" she panted lowly. "Thousands of them!"
"Told you it wasn't nice, Miss," said Celesca, piously. "Come on, I won't let them hurt you."
Celesca took Hermione's hand again and led her inside the Dark Plain. Hermione's mouth fell open in shock, for as soon as they entered this gloomy space a blast of light shot out from Celesca and covered them both in a orb of brightness. Hermione felt utterly shielded from anything outside of this shimmering dome of positive energy. It was as if Celesca's very innocence was a power in and of itself.
And, with a shuddering jolt, Hermione suddenly understood just why the girl had been chosen for ritual sacrifice by Tom Riddle.
Hermione clutched Celesca's hand tightly, as if to try and protect her right back. Together, they walked forwards and Hermione looked around in awestruck horror. They were in a vast plain, dark and shadowy as far as Hermione could see in every direction. Angry, silver lightening flashed against a bruise-purple sky, casting a rutted, spiky landscape into stark and shocking relief. And there were Dementors everywhere, far more than Hermione could count. She could do little more than stare open-mouthed at their massive numbers.
And then there was the air itself. It was thick with oppression, coated in worry and throbbing with prickly anxiety. Hermione felt it sting her own skin. Her breaths were heavy, leaden. It was as if she was stuck in a fog of poisonous fumes, which settled acridly dry in her throat.
"All Mister Harry's fears come here," Celesca whispered. "Everything he's afraid of."
"And what happens to Harry when he comes in here?"
"He just loses his mind, really, Miss," said Celesca. "There's just too many darknesses to fight, even for him. I think he comes here on purpose, to try and deal with as many as he can manage, so he's better when he's back outside. But then he falls down, and the pretty lady has to come and rescue him mostly."
"Her name's Enola," said Hermione. And, she thought, when she got out of here, she was definitely going to have a long chat with her new friend. They had to find a way to help Harry. This place was devastatingly dismal and Hermione had hardly been in here any time at all.
Then Hermione screeched in fright. For the spectral form of Tom Riddle's head, pinned into the back of a turban, suddenly rushed past them. Hermione hauled in a shaky breath.
"He's a very bad man, isn't he, Miss?" asked Celesca, watching thoughtfully as Quirrellmort moved rapidly away from them. "He's here a lot, in lots of different shapes."
"Yes, he's a bad man," said Hermione, looking back at Riddle's retreating form with hateful disdain. "He's the worst."
They walked on, for ages and ages. Hermione lost track of how long they were walking for. She had no idea where they were going, but Celesca seemed to have a practiced route. Hermione almost wished she didn't, for the horrors she was seeing were cutting jagged slashes through her very heart … Sirius falling through the Veil, Harry's parents being cut down by Voldemort, Harry running from the basilisk in The Chamber of Secrets … all of his dark moments made flesh before Hermione's eyes.
Hermione hadn't even known that Harry had ever been frightened when he was down in the Chamber. He'd never mentioned it to her. She had been Petrified, after all, unable to help. But now she saw it, felt the fear from Harry's eyes and mind as he tried desperately to help undeserving Ginny Weasley ... as all the while his frantic mind was locked onto that spot in the Hospital Wing, where a young Hermione lay cold and unmoving, lifeless for all intents and beyond any aid that young Harry knew how to render. And the knowing of that made him wild with panic.
For it seemed that, even then, a part of Harry had started to love Hermione, and the thought of her in pain or danger was enough to drive him to the most reckless of actions to try and make her safe and better.
Hermione's heart broke and bled and broke again … and then.
"Wow. What the hell is this?"
For she was looking at herself, half transfigured into a cat.
"Mister Harry hates this part, Miss," said Celesca. "I think it's one of the worst bits in here. He cries so much seeing you like this, but I think it's more because of how sad it made you rather than about him. He worries when you aren't happy, I think."
"Oh, Harry …" Hermione breathed in sorrow. She'd never known, he'd never told her about this, either.
"You'd better do your spell here, Miss," Celesca advised. "Mister Harry comes to these parts most often, and I reckon this is about the middle of it. Best to do it here, in the heart of darkness."
Hermione swallowed hard at that use of phrase, then she hesitated. For as much as she intended to come here and fight for Harry, she had no idea how to form these tethers she'd mentioned to Enola, hadn't thought that far ahead.
Luckily, Celesca was a Seer for a reason.
"Remember, Miss, this isn't a real place and you aren't really here, only your mind and magic is," Celesca reminded her gently. "You can make your promises in whatever way you like in here. That way, you'll know how to find your way back. Think of it as your own personal trail of breadcrumbs."
Hermione grinned at that. But what could she use? What symbol would Harry recognise as safe when he was here, one that he would associate wholly with her? He always said that it was her mind that thrilled him the most, that it was her intelligence that he found as rousing and attractive as any of her other qualities. And there was only one, rather simple, object that embodied this the most blatantly.
"A book?" Celesca quirked, scrunching her nose. "You're making your promise with a book? Why?"
"Because it is a declaration of my intent," Hermione smiled. "I vow to leave this tome here. It is full of all the great moments in Harry's life, especially the ones he's shared with me. When he reads them his heart will be so full of joy that it will shield him from these darknesses all around, and show him the way home. Then, when we write the final chapter together, we will read it out loud … and banish these evils from his mind for good."
Celesca seemed to erupt in light at that, as the vow settled on the plain like a burst of sunshine. "I like that, Miss Hermione! I really do! And I think it's working … look!"
Hermione followed to where Celesca was excitedly pointing. For there, anchored into the ground by a bolt of lightening held in bizarre freeze-frame, the scarlet and gold tome was gleaning bright and beautiful against the black sand, held steady on a fine, golden chain.
"That's the first part done, Miss!" Celesca sang, happily. "I can feel a strand of Mister Harry's energy coming right close to here. I think you need to do that in every other place now and Mister Harry will know where to go … he'll follow your breadcrumbs right back to you!"
"Then let's go on to the next one!" Hermione beamed, astonished that her bridge to Harry would be made of book-shaped breadcrumbs … she had been expecting cement and steel at the very least. "So … how do we get out?"
"We just turn around," Celesca explained, brightly.
Confused, Hermione span on the spot … and her mouth promptly fell open. For the door they had entered by was still directly behind them, oddly stark against that imposing gloom beyond it. It was as if they haven't moved at all.
"I really don't like this," Hermione hushed, lowly. This whole experience was deeply unsettling.
"Me, neither," Celesca nodded vigorously. "See, I told you they ought not to have done this to poor Mister Harry."
Hermione couldn't agree more … but the next room didn't improve on things. Hermione fought against tears as she saw Harry fall fifty feet from a broom, get smashed in the face by a bludger - and later in the arm, too - then get kicked in the face by Draco Malfoy's angry boot. Hermione watched as Harry was next chased and gouged by the Hungarian Horntail he'd faced during the Triwizard Tournament, then had his flesh cut open by Peter Pettigrew's enchanted silver dagger and Dolores Umbridge's hated blood quill.
There were a hundred other woundings in here, some that Hermione knew Harry must have received in the years after his faux-death. There were simply too many to look at in one sitting. Then, one she knew all too well came to the fore, as she watched Harry writhing and screaming against the fierce, white-hot burning in his old scar, as his mind was furiously attacked over and over by Lord Voldemort.
And then, in a way that angered as much as shocked her, she saw her own memories, snippets of her vicious beatings by Ron … only with Harry in her place where he'd stolen the pain from her. A residue of it had clearly remained, despite Harry's insistence that he had passed it all on to Enola. Hermione thought she should have guessed that he'd have kept some for himself. She felt a sort of sickness she'd never experienced before and she roiled against it, as she watched Harry being beaten to a broken pulp under the fists and weapons of that ginger fucknugget she had been forced to marry.
But it was when she saw Harry's face, his beautiful face, getting ripped apart sinew by sinew from Tom Riddle's Avada Kedavra in the Forbidden Forest that Hermione could take no more.
"Get me out of here," she sobbed to Celesca. "Please, no more!"
"I will, but you need to do your spell first," Celesca cajoled, fitfully. She was white with worry at Hermione's suffering. "I know it's hard, but you must … it's to make Mister Harry better, remember?"
Hermione drew in a rattling breath. "Yes … yes you're right."
She hauled herself to her feet and conjured another large tome between her palms.
"With this book I vow to heal Harry, to create spells to rid him of any earthly pain. I will stand with him in sickness … and return him to health. When I am next here, this spell book will tell me how."
The vow settled with another flash of light, another lightening-shaped anchor secured the book to the plain, and Hermione turned and stumbled out of the door.
Back in the relative safety of the hallway, Hermione curled up into a ball on the ragged, moth-eaten carpet and wept helpless tears. Harry was so wounded … so, so wounded. How could she have allowed this to happen to him? How could she stand for it now? She had never felt so distressed. Not in all the years under Ron's boot, not in any time she could ever remember. She just had to help him. She would find a way, she swore it.
"Miss Hermione?"
Celesca's delicate question, phrased in a tiny voice, pulled Hermione back to the task at hand. She sat up and dabbed at her eyes.
"That was his Pain Plain, am I right?" asked Hermione. Celesca nodded. "So we've had Fear … and now Pain … so the worst must be over, then?"
Celesca looked doubtfully at her. "For you, maybe, but these are just the normal levels, the ones that most people have in their minds, even if they aren't separate like this. But the next place is the one that Mister Harry is the most scared of."
"I'm not sure I even want to know," said Hermione. "What's in there?"
"You need to see it yourself," Celesca mumbled. "Easier that way, instead of me telling you."
Hermione took the handle of the next door. The intensity of deep foreboding radiating from it was tangible. It was with a ridiculous amount of dread that Hermione began her search of this plain.
But, on initial appearances, it wasn't so bad. The air was fairly still, there was nothing to suggest what it was. But then, things began to appear. And Hermione's heart felt like it had actually shattered. She fell to her knees as the scenes flashed in front of her … for there was a common theme linking them all together.
For she, herself, was in every single one of them.
Here she was, Petrified in the Hogwarts Infirmary, crying in the girl's bathroom, sitting depressed and friendless at lunch, as Harry and Ron moodily huffed at her and talked loudly about Harry's confiscated Firebolt. Then she was dancing with Viktor Krum, and crying again as Ron cut her down. Then, the worst … she was kissing Ron, as Harry looked on, aghast, from a point behind them. And the emotion of the room snapped in pained anguish, as if Harry's broken heart was the very air itself.
"What is this?" asked Hermione in unremitting horror, massaging her aching chest.
"This place is all about you, Miss," Celesca explained. "All that Mister Harry regrets and doesn't like about things he's done or said to you live in here. He really doesn't like coming in here. I've seen him just sit outside sometimes, and bang his head against the door. He never wants to come in. For him, it's the very worst place he could go."
"What sort of book can I leave in here, do you think?" Hermione asked, fretful and keen to leave quickly. That image of Ron's tongue in her mouth was threatening projectile nausea. "I don't know of any spells that can undo regret."
"No, Miss, not much you can do about the past, is there, as it's already done?" Celesca mused. "But what you can do, is make sure the future is brighter. Make sure no more regrets can be made."
"That's brilliantly insightful!" Hermione exclaimed. "You really are such a clever little girl, aren't you? I make my vow in here in the form of a diary … blank, and ready to be filled with sweet new memories. We shall not regret the past, Harry, just pity it that it cannot be a part of our future."
The vow illuminated the place and Hermione allowed Celesca to lead her back to the corridor, as the light dimmed and fell away. She felt weak and shaky with emotion now.
Hermione closed the door with a little click and then rested against the hallway wall a moment. Her mind was pounding against the inside of her skull and she needed to take stock, to bring it under her control again. Of all the horrors, all the terrors she had imagined in this place, she had never quite appreciated that they would be quite so fierce, or quite so numerous and visceral. She knew that Harry had suffered greatly in his life, of course she did, and that he carried some serious scars both inside and out … but this … well, this was far beyond even the darkest of her expectations.
Hermione huffed crossly as she weighed them all up and tried to process each image rationally. Standing there, she made a firm decision. Screw the war, screw Riddle and Ron and every Death Eater fucker out there. She was going to heal Harry of this as a matter of urgency. That was her priority now, and the rest of the world could just kiss her pert little arse if they had a problem with it. But they were only half way through this jaunt through Harry's own personal purgatory, and Hermione had more anchors to lay before her foundation was complete.
"But just how much more can I bear to see?" Hermione thought, painfully. She felt emotionally exhausted by all this.
Then Celesca gave Hermione a shot of energy. "Mister Harry is so much closer now, Miss! I can feel him, and I think he must be able to feel us, too! We have to keep going."
Hermione took a deep breath and moved on to the next door, stupidly wary of what she might find behind it. But she halted as she stood in front of it. It was bland, nondescript. It didn't emit the same sort of foreboding as the others, nor did it have any of the frightening noises shrieking from within.
And it looked out of place. Whereas the others were all in crooked, jagged frames, like something from a sort of nightmare hotel floor, this was totally different. For a start, it was only half the height of the others. Hermione wasn't even sure she'd be able to fit under it. It also wasn't recessed as the rest were. It looked like a barn door or a horse gate, or maybe even ...
"A cupboard under the stairs?" Hermione breathed out, perplexed. "Why in the world …"
But Celesca was suddenly fraught, turning to Hermione with wide, frightened eyes.
"Shouldn't go in there, Miss, not this one … shouldn't … mustn't … best to do your spell outside this time."
"But why?"
"Bad place in there, Miss … the worst, probably. You'd be better off not seeing," said Celesca, darkly. "Come on … do your spell out here and let's go away. The next one is Mister Harry's quiet place … he likes it there, we can rest a bit if you want … come on, Miss Hermione, let's go …"
Celesca tugged fruitlessly at Hermione's robe, but she held firm.
She frowned at the plain door. "What's in there, Celesca?"
Luna's daughter looked up. She was so scared, so fitfully anxious that she was actually trembling.
"It's the worst place, Miss Hermione. "We have to go. You don't want to see in there. Come on, Miss!"
Celesca tugged hopelessly again on Hermione's robes, groaning in frustration at being unable to move her along. So she moved to her other side and tried to push Hermione instead, but to no avail. Hermione was determined … she had to see what was inside now that her curiosity was piqued. She knelt down next to Celesca.
"Honey, sshh, it's okay … tell me why I don't want to look in there."
Celesca shook her head furiously from side to side, so rapid in fact that her eyes became unfocused.
"Please …" Hermione prompted. "I have to know about all of these places. What's so bad about this one?"
Celesca sighed wearily in defeat. "It's Mister Harry, he's … he's different in here. He's … he's very," she said hoarsely. "Very young in that place."
Hermione felt her heart stop a moment. She blinked at Celesca. "Young? Is Harry a child inthere, is that what you're saying?"
Celesca nodded, still quivering as she did so. "My age, Miss, and a bit older. No more than ten at most."
"And what happens to him in there?"
"He gets hurt Miss, over and over," said Celesca, breathing rapidly in her restless anxiety. "By a fat man with a red face, and the skinny lady who looks like a horse."
"His Aunt and Uncle?" Hermione thought aloud in her horror. Then she sucked in a breath of comprehension, as she looked back in dismay at the door … "Oh, of course …"
"They kept him in a cupboard for eleven years … ELEVEN YEARS, Hermione … what the fuck is that about?"
Neville's words echoed in Hermione's mind and she froze. She pinned her eyes back to the door. This mindscape was where Harry siphoned off his negative memories, the wounds and scars from his life … including the ones pre-Hogwarts, from the time before Hermione had known him. These were the ones he'd never spoken openly about to anyone, not even to her. She shouldn't go in … Harry might never forgive her for violating this fiercely guarded privacy.
But she was already turning the handle … and she immediately wished that she hadn't.
For there was a swift whipping sound, followed by a sickening crack, that Hermione knew was a cruel back-hander to the face. Ron had given her plenty of those over the years for her to recognise the sound. But this wasn't Ron, and that pitiful, helpless yelp wasn't her own. She turned in time to see a carpeted staircase materialise in front of her and Harry, no more than seven or eight years old, came tumbling down it till he hit the bottom, where he lay in a tangled heap, quite still and motionless, as bruises and lumps bloomed all over his unconscious head.
Hermione tried to cry out, but the sound got lost somewhere in her throat.
The scene faded and then Harry was there, a little bit older, cradling his left wrist tenderly in the gloom. He was blowing futilely at an angry burn in the shape of a cooker hob grate, which was welting on his hand, and trying desperately to keep his crying silent, as his puffy eyes stared in abject terror towards the locked cupboard door; then Harry was cowering away from the hand of a doctor, as his Uncle talked conversationally about him stupidly hurting himself with a drill bit that he'd carelessly left out following a DIY project, and glaring into Harry's terrified eyes to remind him threateningly not to tell the truth about the 'accident'; and finally, Hermione saw a young Harry balled up in the foetal position, clutching at his stomach where cruel starvation was making him double up in excruciating agony.
"No more! No more!" Hermione shrieked, inconsolable against the images pounding into her. She was so upset that she turned and vomited profusely until she collapsed, totally spent.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," little Celesca cried, flopping down at Hermione's side. "I told you we shouldn't have come. I told you!"
Hermione was jolted back to cogency by Celesca's distress. She rolled over again, right into her pool of vomit, which Hermione appreciated on some level must have been in the form of some sort of mind plasma.
"It's not your fault, sweetheart, it's really not," Hermione tried to soothe her. She cleaned her vomit with a whispered thought. "See? It's all gone."
"Then we should go, too," Celesca insisted.
"We will, once I've thought of a vow for this place," Hermione promised. "But this is Harry's idea of family, of childhood … and it's totally broken. How do I fix that?"
"Maybe not with a book this time, Miss," Celesca suggested. "But maybe with an album … a photo album … one you can fill with pictures of your own babies … of the family you want to make with Mister Harry, to show him how it should be done properly."
"Absolute genius!" Hermione exclaimed. "You really are the brightest child I've ever met. Let's do that, then get the heck out of here!"
Then next plain was far easier. It was Harry's Resting Plain and Hermione did as she was told in here … and rested awhile. The anchor was simple too, a storybook of tales that they could read to each other and to their future children, the ones Hermione was now beside herself with excitement to think about.
Then they stepped back into the hallway once more. There was only one more door left … and Hermione fancied she knew what was behind this one.
"The Weasels," Celesca confirmed when Hermione aired her suspicions about its contents to her.
"Weasleys," Hermione corrected with a smirk.
Celesca frowned. "No, I'm pretty sure they are weasels, but you know them better than me, so maybe you're the one that's right. But the place is all about them, whatever they are."
Hermione laughed and clutched Celesca to her. "Maybe we can both be right. So, what's in here?"
But it wasn't Celesca who answered … it was a voice that seemed to speak from the very walls around them.
"My final anchor … and a place you don't need to see."
"Harry!" Hermione shrieked. "Where are you? I cant see you."
"But I can see you, and that's all that matters," Harry replied from wherever he was. "You've done brilliantly, Hermione, and I can see my way home now. And you, little Miss Lovegood, deserve a big hug when I get back in there. You really are a little star, you know."
Celesca blushed furiously and buried her head into Hermione's thigh.
"Hey, no flirting with other witches!" Hermione admonished playfully.
"Hermione … she's five!" Harry chuckled lightly.
"And a half!" Celesca corrected in a voice muffled by Hermione's robe.
"I don't care, I said 'no'!" Hermione teased. "Now, how do you get back?"
"I need you to make room for me," Harry explained in his disembodied voice. "Sharing a body with one other mind should be impossible, I don't even want to attempt it with two of you in there. I want Celesca to return you to your own head, then I can follow your tethers and end up in my last plain, where the anchor Ennie set with Percy's energy will be enough to secure me in my body again. I want to finish establishing that link before I wake back up, to complete what we started when you took that Weasel's head off. They've had enough leisure time away from me as it is, I don't want them to think that this is an indefinite holiday."
"So when will you wake up?" Hermione asked, frantically. "I've missed you, you know!"
"I've missed you, too," Harry laughed. "But this ritual will drain you out. You'll need a good night's sleep yourself once you get out of here. By the time you wake up, I intend to be at your bedside, bringing you breakfast in bed. How do you like your eggs, boiled or scrambled?"
"Is fertilised by you and growing in my belly too much to ask for?" Hermione quirked, hopefully.
"What's fertilised mean? Andcan you really grow eggs in your belly?" Celesca quizzed, innocently, pulling her head up to ask. "That would be really handy, wouldn't it, if you wanted to make one of those … what does Mummy call it? … one of them hom-hell-ette things or something?"
Hermione chuckled deeply. "Come on, little Seer, let's get you back to your Mummy … maybe she can tell you all about it."
"Coward …" Harry whispered playfully with a laugh in his voice.
"Hush you," Hermione grinned at the air. "You just get yourself back to me, or I'll get very cross with you."
"Yes, Boss!" Harry agreed obediently.
A minute or so later and Celesca had led Hermione back along the cool connecting corridor and back into the stillness of her own mind. They reversed the process from before and in the blink of an eye Hermione found herself aware of her body physically again. Her arms and legs felt stiff, her eyes so sticky from sleep that she had to prize them open with her fingers.
And Hermione turned straight to her side as she did, to Enola who was sat with her in the dark, but not before clocking that she was back in her own bedroom.
"What happened? How am I here?" Hermione demanded.
"We brought you here after the ritual," Enola explained in a soft voice. "It wiped out poor little Celesca, and you as well. We thought you'd be more comfortable up here."
"Thanks, that was considerate of you," Hermione smiled back. "How's Harry? I think it worked, so he might be awake by now."
She made to get up, but Enola eased her gently back down.
"It did work, but Harry hasn't come around yet," Enola confirmed. "But we can all feel his presence back in his own body. Even the house feels a degree warmer. Whatever you did, it was stunning work."
Hermione sighed in relief, but still pulled herself to sit up fully.
"You knew," she breathed to Enola. "You knew how horrific it was … and you didn't warn me anything like enough."
Enola looked back nervously. "They aren't my secrets to tell, but would anything have adequately prepared you?" she asked in a tiny voice. "Harry … he … he said …"
"Harry was always going to say!" Hermione admonished, crossly. "You know what he's like ... he never asks for help, even when he's crying out for it."
"I'm sorry, Min," said Enola, guiltily. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you, should have tried harder to explain …"
Hermione wanted to rage, to explode. But Enola's distress was so acute that Hermione's fury ebbed away in the face of it. She took her hand and squeezed it comfortingly.
"Just don't keep anything like that from me again, okay? No matter what Harry has told you. We know what's best for him, you and I, so we have to stick together for his own good! Alright?"
Enola nodded vigorously. "Definitely. No more secrets, I promise. You know how terrible I am at keeping them anyway … it will be nice not to have to try anymore!"
"Okay," Hermione chortled. But her laugh was masking a tide of emotion that wanted to break over her skin. All that she'd seen, all that had implanted itself in her brain from Harry's mindscape, was straining to get out. She made a flimsy excuse about needing to rest and Enola left her alone.
And as soon as she did, Hermione let the floodgates open from her fragile heart.
Hermione couldn't believe she was so upset, in so much pain. She'd never hurt like this before. It cut to the very centre of her and she cried out in astonishment at the depth of her agony. The visions smacked at the inside of her eyes, and she fought in vain to push them away. But they wouldn't give.
How could Harry have endured so much? What sort of fucked up world would punish the boy she loved so very, very dearly, could have injured him in so many terrible ways? He was a man so full of good, who had done so much for others …. it was so many sorts of wrong in Hermione's mind.
She howled at the injustice of it, raged and swore vengeance against all those who had wronged him in his life. She vowed, there and then, that she would hunt each and every one of them down, and visit such primal revenge on them that books would be written on the subject, to deter any future potential enemies of the Potter Family, to force them to think twice before raising their wands against them in malice.
And her love for Harry would become the most terrifying weapon she could imagine. Merlin pity those who had ranged themselves against him … against her lover, her soul, her very future. She would bring fiery devastation down upon them all.
She curled down into her bedsheets, heaved and wheezed as the shuddering whimpers of her tears drained her of the last of her energy, then let the dark promises she had made cast her into a deep and lasting sleep.
