TW: Explicit violence, violence against a minor
Hermione was folding one of her favourite shirts to put in her trunk when she heard the familiar flap of wings. The window was open, so the gorgeous tawny owl easily alighted on the back of Hermione's chair before politely extending a leg.
The elegant script on the front of the envelope addressing the letter to Miss Hermione Granger was one she had seen countless times over the last few years on her Transfiguration essays.
Bemused, she carefully broke the seal and unfolded the neatly creased parchment.
Miss Granger,
I hope you have enjoyed your summer thus far, even as you have been busily learning under Mistress Lazarov. I have had the opportunity to speak with both her and the Headmaster in the last week about the matter of your continuing education at Hogwarts. As a result of your studies this summer, you have in all likelihood surpassed your current yearmates in quite a few subjects. (I would be remiss, I feel, if I did not note that many of the faculty have considered your skills beyond your years prior to this.) Because of this, we have seen fit to adapt your placement to better fit your true expertise.
While you will be required to take placement exams to better assess your aptitude, I have already spoken with Professor Snape, who informed me of the Domini Permutatio, or Master's Exchange, already agreed upon between him and Mistress Lazarov. Instead of taking Potions with other students, you will instead complete an individual practicum, where your knowledge will be taught and subsequently applied in short order.
This change will allow you to work with Madam Pomfrey during the blocks normally allotted to Potions. While she does not have the same certifications as Mistress Lazarov (being a Mediwitch rather than a Healer), she has decades of experience that I think you will do very well to learn under. Some things, after all, cannot be taught from books.
Based on the brief descriptions provided to me by Mistress Lazarov of the work you have been doing, I believe you will likely advance to sixth form for Charms and perhaps fifth or sixth as well for Transfiguration and Herbology. These placements, of course, will be confirmed by assessments we will ask you to come and take in the last few days of August prior to the start of term.
Knowing you, I expect you will be a mixture of excitement and apprehension due to being separated from Messrs Potter and Weasley in class. It is true that you will not see them as frequently, but I am certain you will be able to maintain your bonds outside of the academic environment.
Truthfully, Miss Granger, I think this new curriculum will suit you very well, indeed. I can speak for us all at Hogwarts when I say that are looking forward to what you, as the youngest Apprentice to walk the halls of Hogwarts in some decades, will do with yourself.
As always, I am proud to call you one of my own Gryffindors.
Minerva McGonagall
Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts
Head of Gryffindor house
Chief Professor of Transfiguration
Hermione exhaled slowly as she reread the lines of elegantly scripted ink to make sure she had understood it correctly.
To make such changes to her timetable must have required a truly monumental effort, given that it would span multiple years, include an individualized practicum with Master Snape, and add in time with Madam Pomfrey. The idea that her teachers thought so highly of her to be willing to do that made her breath catch and her eyes suspiciously damp.
It was also quite clear that all this had occurred because of Krasmira Lazarov, who had once thought of Hermione as a probable waste of time, saying something along the lines of, "I do not have the patience to train a girl who is only here to trail after men on brooms."
And yet, despite that harsh and unforgiving beginning, it had been Krasmira who had taken Hermione under her wing, encouraged her when she had faltered, given her a model to look up to, and demanded no less than her best.
That was far more than could be said about Sirius, who continued to disappear when needed, provided empty, convoluted explanations (loose ends? What loose ends?), and engaged in not only worrisome but also problematic behaviours. Over and over, Sirius had failed to provide what Hermione had needed, even at the most basic level.
How strange, she thought to herself, that she would embrace a witch who she had never met before the beginning of the summer when she struggled to do the same with a wizard that was embraced by those she respected and loved.
The timer she had set earlier in the day for the last batch of Polyjuice went off, high chimes singing through the air. After she clattered down to the basement, she cleared the timer and looked down at the brown, mudlike potion. Unstoppering the phial that held a lock of Magellan Quickfoot's hair, she wondered at what, if anything, she should tell Harry about Sirius, who had looked at the older wizard as though he were the moon and stars made flesh right before he made his daring escape on Buckbeak.
Even in Harry's letters to Hermione over the summer, it had been clear that the two of them were writing to each other, and that Harry was eagerly soaking up every word the wizard had written him. Privately, she rather thought it would break Harry's heart if Sirius were to be a disappointment as so many adults in his life had been before, so she thought, perhaps, to give him a chance at making a true go of it before saying anything.
And if she did tell Harry about all the things Sirius had (or hadn't) done, what if he didn't believe her? What if he grew angry and ignored her because she chose to warn him? As he and Ron had demonstrated before, if they disliked what she said or what she did, they could simply ignore her, at which point she would be largely on her own again.
Alone, and lonely.
Really, it was all for the better that she be cautious about saying anything. Chances were that things could work out for the best without her saying a thing. It could be that once he was cleared of any wrongdoings and settled firmly into normal life in Britain that his strange, inexplicable behaviour and activities would cease.
No, she wouldn't say anything, not at the outset. She'd wait and see.
Just as she finished decanting the Polyjuice, she heard the sound of the floo activating and the sound of someone stepping out. "I've got your potion ready!" she called through the open door as she grabbed a few doses and clambered up the stairs. "You've got excellent...timing…"
It wasn't Sirius.
Instead, the two wizards she had met briefly awhile back were there, brushing soot and floor powder off their robes. "Mister Avery and...Mulciber, was it?" she asked politely, though she grabbed her wand and held it at her side. "What brings you here today?"
"Miss Granger," Avery approached her, an expression of concern on his face. "I wish I was here for a social engagement, but I'm afraid I have grave news. It's Sirius, you see."
A frisson of alarm ran down her spine. "Sirius?" She moved toward them. "Is there something wrong?"
Mulciber hesitated. Sympathetically, he said, "I'm not certain how to tell you this, but I'm afraid he's quite unwell."
"Unwell? Is he injured?" She glanced toward the basement where she kept her supply of potions that she had made for practice and kept in case she needed them. "Let me get my potions."
"I appreciate your willingness to come with us. He was asking for you."
"Of course," she responded at once. "He's my—" Her what? Her guardian? He certainly wasn't much of one. "Well. He's important."
They waited for her as she grabbed an empty bag from upstairs in her room before going down to the basement, selecting different phials of potions that she thought would be important and carefully placing them inside. It was truly unfortunate that she didn't have a proper potions kit, as it had separate, padded slots that would protect the glass phials from breaking against each other, but hopefully this would do.
Quickly alighting the stairs, she returned in short order. "I'm ready."
Avery offered his arm, all courtesy. "Are you familiar with Side-Along?"
"Yes. I'm a bit disoriented and nauseous afterward, but I've done it a few times before."
"Perfect." His lips curled into a satisfied smile. Glancing over at Mulciber, he asked, "Shall we meet you there?"
Mulciber nodded, and moments later Hermione was twisting through the air.
They landed with a thud, and she bent over as the now-familiar sensations of nausea and dizziness swept over her. Luckily, she wasn't sick to her stomach this time, and she straightened up a minute or so later.
They were in a large clearing nestled against the bottom of a cliff, a small waterfall crashing into the surface of a lake. Close to the cliffside, a strange arrangement of rocks were laid around some kind of...stone table. Maybe an old rock formation that had been repurposed as a picnic table? It was all very idyllic, but she was too busy searching for Sirius in the late afternoon light to pay too much attention.
"Sirius?" she called. When there was no answer, she turned around, looking at the two wizards standing there. "Where is he?"
Avery, who had yet to pocket his wand, flicked it at her, his expression placid. "Expelliarmus."
"Hey!" she protested as her wand flew out of her hand. "Why did you do that? I'll need my wand to help Sirius."
Mulciber laughed, the noise deep and rolling and very, very unsettling in its inappropriateness. "You won't need it, little witch. I promise you that."
"But I need it to heal Siri–" Stopping short, she closed her eyes slowly. "Sirius is fine, isn't he?"
Avery nodded, tucking a hand in the pocket of his summer coat like he was standing in a drawing room at a tea party. "He's right as rain. In fact, he'll be here in just a moment. We invited him to join us."
The realization that something was very wrong crawled up her spine. When Sirius had mentioned tying up loose ends, was this what he had meant? "Why am I here? And where is Sirius? Does he know about you bringing me here?"
"So many questions, Miss Granger. And yet...do you think you're deserving of them? Sirius has told us of how...curious you are." He said curious like it was something unpleasant. "Don't fret, my dear." He reached out and chucked her under the chin. "It will all become perfectly clear in just a moment. In fact...Diffindo."
A searing pain cut across her face, and she cried out. When she touched her face gingerly, they came away sticky with blood. She glared at the older wizard. "What was that for? That really hurt."
His cheeks creased as he gave a slow, smug smile. "A bit slow on the uptake, aren't you?" he asked. "That was the point."
Her pulse raced in her throat as she looked at Avery, who was staring at her with an unsettling gleam in his eye. Mulciber appeared largely indifferent to the events occurring: he had gone over to the picnic table and begun flipping through some kind of notebook and examining a clear phial.
"What do you want from me?" Though she tried to appear unphased, her voice cracked. "Please—I'm sure that whatever is going on, we can work it out. We can work together on it."
"Why, Miss Granger, I'm absolutely certain it will. Your participation is pivotal in the day's activities. In fact, you're the last thing we needed to get this ritual started."
"Ritual? What ritual?" Her heart, which was already thudding against her chest, began to race.
Mulciber put down the phial he had been holding and finally joined the conversation, his eyes dark and flat. "It doesn't matter, you foolish girl. You'll be dead all the same by the end of it."
"Dead?" She swallowed.
"Now, now Frederick, that wasn't very nice," Avery chided. In the same breath, he flicked his wand at Hermione, who flinched in reaction. "Incarcerous."
As ropes spun out of his wand and wound around her in punishingly tight loops, Avery locked eyes with her. "Unfortunately, Miss Granger, we required someone of your…purity. Pure of mind, pure of heart, pure of body. Based on what Sirius has told us when he's mentioned you, you seemed to fit those requirements quite well, indeed."
"How do you know?" she challenged desperately. "I could be impure!"
Avery nodded. "That could very well be true. But fret not. We have a little test for that." His mouth flattened into a small smirk. "It's almost like a ritual before the ritual. Let's get started, shall we?"
It was as he floated her struggling, screaming body over to the picnic table—an altar, it was an altar—that she realized that the chances of her getting out of this were slim to none. No matter how much she writhed and lashed out as they chained her to the flat, grey rock or how much she pleaded as they made shallow cuts on her torso and throat and collected blood as it seeped out, they didn't budge.
"Please," she pleaded. "Please, let me go. What can I do—"
"Perfect." Mulciber announced in satisfaction as the blood, which he had poured into the phial he had been preparing earlier, turned absolutely crystalline clear.
"Excellent." Avery eyed her like she was a pet who had just performed a very difficult trick. "Miss Granger, I can't tell you how pleased I am to let you know what a great service you'll be doing for wizarding kind. Once our Dark Lord has been summoned from beyond the veil, he will be most comfortable indeed in your body until we can make his anew. A more perfect vessel we could not ask for."
"I don't care about your Dark Lord," Hermione spat at him, "whoever he is. I'll stay in my own body, thank you very much."
Avery tutted. "Sirius would not enjoy hearing you say that. After all, it was because he introduced us to you that we thought of you immediately when we read the requirements. You have him to thank for this."
"No." She shook her head vehemently in denial. "No, he's not a part of this. He can't be."
Mulciber laughed. "You really are that naive. Unbelievable. Well, no matter. You can believe as you wish, though when he appears here shortly I think you'll see with your own eyes that your belief has been misplaced."
"He would never help you find a ritual for resurrecting some dark lord. He was put in prison wrongly for being falsely involved with another!"
Avery tapped his wand against her face, stuffing her mouth with a gag, as he replied, amused, "The same one, in fact."
The same...dark lord?
Avery's eyes, a light hazel, gleamed with good humour as he read the dawning horror in her expression. "Yes, Miss Granger. The Dark Lord we seek to resurrect is one and the same. It is Lord Voldemort who shall return this eve."
The wizard appeared ready to say something else, though his attention was snagged by something Hermione could not see. "Ah, Sirius. Good. You're finally here. It certainly took you long enough. Let's get started."
"Started on what, exactly?" Hermione would recognize Sirius's lazily amused tone anywhere, and her stomach sank. "I think I'm a bit late to the party it appears we're having. I had a damned hard time tracking you down."
The sound of his voice broke something within her. All summer, she had been helping him. All summer, she had been sacrificing things so that he could get Peter. And somehow, some way, he had been embroiled in this.
Had catching Peter ever really been his goal, or was it a smoke screen for something even more nefarious than Hermione had ever considered? Had Sirius played them all? Had he actually been part of Voldemort's side all along?
Responding to Sirius's question, Avery began, "Tracking us down? Didn't you get my message? No matter. We finally found the ritual—"
"No. Don't tell him, Louis," Mulciber cut in, his voice rife with distrust. "I'm still not certain that he's truly with us. If he didn't get our message, then why did he come to find us?"
"I've killed Pettigrew," Sirius announced blandly. At that, Hermione closed her eyes. It appeared Sirius had become the very thing Harry had wanted to prevent him from becoming back in the Shrieking Shack: a killer. "If I was truly just using you all to do that," Sirius went on, "wouldn't I be gone by now?"
"I still don't trust you." Mulciber retorted. "I need proof that you really mean it, that you're really intent on bringing the Dark Lord back."
The sound of grass being crushed underfoot alerted her to someone, presumably Sirius's approach. Reasonably, he asked, "Why would you send me a message if you didn't trust me?"
Avery, sounding a bit miffed for the first time, chimed in, "We had a difference of opinion, he and I. You learn the measure of a man when you maim and kill together, which we've done. He didn't quite have the same amount of trust in you as I did, however."
Sirius turned to Mulciber. "How can I convince you that I want his return as much as you do? I am here with you now, ready to do whatever it takes."
Hermione began to tremble. Whatever it takes?
"The girl," Mulciber said suddenly, malicious glee sparking in his eyes. "You can be the one to sacrifice her."
"The girl—?" Sirius's confused question stopped short, and only moments later, Hermione was greeted by the sight of him leaning over her, his black hair hanging in waves around his face. "Hermione."
When he reached out to touch her, she turned her face away sharply, a muffled sound of protest escaping her. An instant later, his fingertips lightly grazed her cheek.
"She's perfect for the ritual," Avery told him eagerly, "which calls for someone pure of mind, body, and spirit. We've already checked it."
"I still fail to believe that you found something that will do as we wish," Sirius replied doubtfully. "When I ran into Peter, he was in the midst of trying to procure a children's book about mythologies around the world and Bulgarian gods and goddesses, of all things. He had the misplaced notion that it held relevant information. I found that very hard to believe."
"Anything is possible." Avery carelessly waved a hand. "He was likely seeking information about the rumored sacred grounds of the Bulgarian deities, Morana, the goddess of death, in particular." His tone grew smug. "I found their location in a tome I acquired from a shop in Plovdiv, where I was a few weeks ago. This place, where we are right now, is where the connection to her is supposed to be at its strongest."
"This place?" Sirius retorted, disbelieving. "I'll believe it when I see it. Here, hand the book over. I want to see what it says."
The sound of pages flipping made the entire event more surreal. Had they truly been researching this, as if it were some kind of bizarre group project at Hogwarts? She renewed her struggle, the rough rope digging against her skin and agitating the cut down her sternum.
"Looks good," Sirius finally commented at last. The sound of a book being shut came moments before he handed it over her and back to Avery. "I can see why it's taken you this long to prepare. It's...complex."
"To say the least. The ritual circle was most difficult, but we've got it. Frederick's just gone and closed it, so don't do any magic within the boundaries. It could wreck the energy field." Almost drolly, Avery said, "Honestly, with the amount of magic that we've poured into it in the last week or two, it could kill us all if we're not careful."
"Of course. We wouldn't want that." Sirius peered down into her eyes again, his mouth pursed. "Say, Louis, just how intact must she be for the ritual?"
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Avery shrug. "Alive, though I would prefer to keep the physical injuries at minimum, as I'll heal them before the ritual so our Lord has a healthy vessel at the outset. The amount of magic that will be channeled through her would likely clear her of any magical injury, however."
"Magical injury, you say?" Sirius arched a brow. "Hm. I see. That's good, then. I'd like to take the time to... take some of my anger out on her. I'll keep it in the limits."
"If you must." Avery sighed. "You're so uncivilised. Just take her outside of the ritual circle."
"Actually," Mulciber said thoughtfully from somewhere around the edge of the altar by Hermione's feet, "the ritual feeds off magical energy, the Darker the better. If you are so intent on toying with the girl, make sure to keep it Dark."
Sirius huffed a laugh. "You never make it easy, do you? I should cause minimal physical injury, but I have to use Dark magic, and the stronger the better?"
"Don't act as if you haven't been doing things like this all summer," Mulciber snapped irritably. "Just Crucio the girl several times over and be done with it. You get to have your fun, I get help activating the circle, and we all win."
"A perfect solution," Avery piped up, apparently the mediator of this strange, twisted group.
"When the circle goes live, I'll have to let you back in," Mulciber went on. "But when I summon you, you must come immediately. The circle will be hard to hold long enough to complete the ritual as is because it requires so much power."
Agreeably, Sirius said, "As you wish."
A moment later, Hermione experienced the absolutely horrifying, jarring feeling of being petrified and lifted in the air as if she were no more than an inanimate object, Sirius's magic directing her body wherever he wished it. He'd left the ropes and the gag. She was truly, absolutely, at his mercy.
Not that there would be much mercy to receive, it seemed.
Just Crucio the girl several times over and be done with it.
Don't act as if you haven't been doing things like this all summer.
Things had never been so clear to Hermione as they were now. All this time, she had been aiding a monster.
Moments Hermione was placed down softly in damp grass. Sirius appeared a moment later, gently working the gag out of her mouth with long fingers.
"I'm sorry," he whispered quickly as he did so, his expression agonised. "I'm more sorry than you'll ever know. But I've got to do this. I've got to set things right for us."
"For you, you mean," she spat. "Is this what you meant by tidying up loose ends?"
"No!" He exclaimed in horror, as if this entire thing were something he hadn't been party to, as if he hadn't told them about her over the summer, as if he hadn't planted the idea of using her as a sacrifice in both Avery and Mulciber's minds. "I would never have done—"
He stopped, cursed, and straightened. "Dammit, it doesn't matter. I can't say much more. I don't have the time. I have to do this so they believe me, but I promise, I'll do it for as little a time as I can."
"Oh, because just a little bit of the Cruciatus makes it more bearable," she retorted caustically.
"There is nothing, not ever, Sirius Black, that can make this right."
"It will all work out." His own voice was shaking as he tried to reassure her—or was it himself? "After all this is over—I swear, I'll explain everything, and you'll forgive me, and things can all be as they should."
Her mouth trembled, tears spilling from her face as she watched him draw his wand and point it at her. "I don't care what explanation you have for this." Her voice fairly vibrated as the words fairly wrenched themselves out of her throat. "I've only ever tried to help you. This whole summer, you've used me all along and it seems very clear to me that you're going to use me right up until I'm dead. There is nothing, not anything, that you can tell me to make me forgive you."
He pressed his lips together. "I'm going to make it up to you. Somehow, I'm going to make this right."
The pale ash of his wand caught the light of the dying sun and glowed gold as he softly breathed, "Crucio."
At first, she thought nothing had happened. There was a strange howling noise in the background, one that sounded like an animal who had been caught in a trap screaming in pain, but it was distant and far off. She waited to feel something like the textbooks had described, to feel like she was dying, like her bones were being crushed and her mind was being pulverized, but it was strangely absent.
That was when she realized the animalistic screaming was coming from her mouth, and then a wave of electricity, raw and jagged and sharp pulsed through her and lit up every nerve in her body, so severe, so crushing, so obliterating that she didn't even have the wherewithal to wish that she were dead.
It felt like it went on forever, like she would grow old and die here under the tender mercy of Sirius's wand and his whispered Crucio. Her bones were being ground to dust and her muscles stripped to ligaments under the unrelenting whip of fire and heat and pain, her mind folding in on itself until all that was left of her was a gibbering grey mass—
She was floating in pitch blackness, not a flicker of light to be seen. It was soft, almost, a tender mercy that enfolded her. Idly, she wondered if she had died under Sirius's ministrations. It might be better if she had, so that she wouldn't have to face whatever was coming for her.
But slowly, stars of light winked into existence, stringing together to form a hazy mirage of reds and yellows and golds. For a moment, she stared, uncomprehending, before realising she was staring at the sunset as it spread out above her. And that feeling of softness that had cradled her body? It was the grass underneath her, though each blade felt like a needle to her overstimulated nerves. And the voices, dim and distant in her ears...She knew what voices did. They cast spells that brought pain and suffering and hurt and noshedidn'twant—
Hermione didn't realise she was screaming again, a high, thin thread of sound, until Sirius slapped her cheek lightly. She flinched away from him, her entire body quivering, as his face crumpled.
"Merlin." His voice was tight and raw as if he'd been the one screaming. "Please. Please, you've got to stop. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." As he apologised once more, he masked his words by pretending to check the tightness of the ropes binding her. "I'm going to explain everything one day, when I'm free and you're happy and we're all back home. You'll see, then, why I had to do this. It's not what you think, I swear it. It's for the future. For you, for me, for Harry."
She had to work at remembering how to speak, her tongue thick and uncooperative. When she got it to work, she whispered, "Doesn't...matter. Won't...forgive...evil."
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he next spoke, his voice shook the slightest bit. "You'll understand. You will."
Hermione didn't know if he was trying to convince himself or her of that. Either way, she doubted anything would explain away what just happened, let alone what else he had been up to over the last few months.
Don't act as if you haven't been doing things like this all summer.
"For now," he continued, "I'm going to take this all away. You won't remember anything."
Behind them, Mulciber gave a shout, and Hermione felt the wave of magic, Dark and cloying, sweep over them. The field had been activated.
"Bring the girl!" Mulciber commanded, his voice tight with strain.
Sirius cursed softly and closed his eyes. "Fuck. It's all gone tits up, hasn't it?" When he opened them again, resolve hardened his gaze. "I'll get us out of this. I'm a survivor. I'll do what I must."
He brought up his wand, his damnable, horrible wand, so that the tip pointed between her eyes. As she shrank away from him, a pale, light began to glow. "Obliviate."