TW: Just a gentle reminder that this chapter picks up where the last one left off - it takes place in the Hospital Wing.
Together, the girls tore through the empty Hogwarts corridors. Hermione didn't even know if Poppy would know what the hell to do about a Muggle overdose. Was that a common thing in the Wizarding World? She had no idea. Her mind was rushing a million miles a minute. Anything to keep herself from feeling the fear that was gripping her heart. Anything to help her stay strong for Lily and Tracey and Mel. She could fall apart later. Once she knew Mel was going to be okay.
They burst into the hospital wing, out of breath, stitches in their sides.
"Where is she?"
"Is she okay?"
"How is she, Poppy?"
Madam Pomfrey didn't look away from Mel for even a fraction of a second as she cast a mad flurry of diagnostic spells over Mel's body. "Wait quietly or get out," she said calmly. Her wand flicked over her shoulder, summoning three wooden chairs. And then her focus was back on Mel.
The girls obediently dropped into the chairs and watched in silence. Lily sat in the middle. She reached out and grabbed Hermione's hand to her right, and Tracey's to her left, gripping them in a tight vice grip. "If she's—"
"She's alive right now," Hermione said firmly, though her heart was pounding its fear against her ribs. "And that's thanks to you, Lils. If she pulls through this, you saved her."
Lily bit her lip and nodded, trying to find comfort in Hermione's words, even as tears slipped silently down her cheeks.
Moments later, two healers in Saint Mungo's robes burst through the doors and swept over to Mel's bed, joining their voices to Poppy's soft murmurs.
"We should have made her talk," Tracey said suddenly. "We should have… we should have stopped this!"
Hermione could hear the anger in Tracey's voice. The rage that trembled beneath the surface. Hermione opened her mouth to say something, anything, but all she found to say was a quiet, condemning, "I know."
Tracey jerked her hand from Lily's and jumped to her feet.
"Tracey," Lily protested, but between the tremble in her voice and the tear-tracks on her cheeks, it came out as a plea more than an admonishment.
Tracey shook her head, her hair flicking around her face like Medusa's furious snakes. "I need to get the fuck out of here," she said, and despite the anger in her body, her words were numb, the feeling shut out of them. She didn't wait for a reply, but turned and immediately stormed out the door.
"Tracey, wait!" Lily half rose from her seat.
Hermione pulled her back. "It's okay, I'll send Sirius to find her. He'll know how to help."
"I don't think sex is going to help this particular situation, Hermione!" Lily said a bit shrilly.
Hermione smiled weakly. "Sirius is good for more than sex, Lily. He'll know what to do." She sent her Patronus to him, and then fell silent.
The next twenty minutes passed in relative silence. Mel made no noise as she lay on the hospital bed, and Poppy's exchanges with the healers were too low to make out. Finally, Poppy stepped back and came to were Lily and Hermione clung to each other, her expression grave.
Lily jumped to her feet and opened her mouth, but, miracle of miracles, no words came out.
"Miss Porter has been magically placed into a very deep sleep. The Muggles call it a coma." Hermione and Lily exchanged worried looks.
"Will she…" Lily's voice quivered.
Poppy heaved a sigh. Hermione wasn't sure she'd ever heard the direct woman hesitate before. "The healers from Saint Mungo's say it's too soon to know," she said gently. "They're the best qualified to make that call, and they say we must simply wait."
"Is this a common thing, then?" Hemione asked. "In the Wizarding World?"
"No, it's not," Poppy admitted. "But Healers—"
"But then, are we sure this is the right place for her to be?" Lily interrupted. "Shouldn't we get her to a Muggle hospital instead?"
Poppy's expression was pure sympathy. And that worried Hermione deeply. Poppy didn't believe Mel was going to wake up. Poppy didn't believe she was going to make it.
"I promise you girls both, that this is the absolute best place for Miss Porter to be."
"Can we talk to her?" Hermione asked.
Poppy frowned. "She won't hear you."
"She might," Hermione insisted. "There's Muggle research that suggests patients in a coma sometimes can hear the people around them. That it sometimes might help them pull through."
Poppy's frown remained as she looked from Hermione to Lily and back again. "Well, I don't see why not," she said finally. "As long as you respect curfew. The visiting healers are headed back to Saint Mungo's in just a moment, so do wait till they leave."
"Thanks, Poppy," Hermione said, even as her heart sank. The healers were leaving. That meant there was nothing more they could do.
As soon as the healers left, Hermione and Lily beelined to Mel's side. They sat in awkward silence for a long, uncomfortable moment, and then words began pouring from Lily's mouth.
"I'm so sorry, Mel. I should have been a better friend. I should have known. I did know. I just didn't do anything. I wanted to give you your space. I wanted to let you talk when you were ready. I thought I was doing the right thing, making myself be patient when all I wanted to do was jump you and make you tell us what was wrong, what you were thinking, feeling…"
And on and on, Lily talked, tears spilling silently down her cheeks all the while. Curfew came and went, and still she was talking. Hermione and Poppy met each other's gaze across the hospital wing, and Poppy promptly pretended to be incredibly distracted by something on her desk. Hermione smiled weakly. There were a lot of very good people in this castle.
Gideon and Fabian came by a short while past curfew, and Hermione went to meet them at the door, away from Lily and Mel.
"What are you guys doing here?"
Gideon pulled a paper bag from behind his back with a flourish. "We scrounged you up some dinner from the kitchens."
"We heard about your friend and popped by the Common Room after curfew to check in, but your boyfriend—" Fabian grinned weakly "—said you'd never come back from the hospital wing."
Impulsively, Hermione pulled them into a tight hug, a clinging hug. She was tired of being strong for Lily. She wanted to curl up in a corner and cry and rage. A hot tear rolled down her face, and she immediately pulled back and swiped it away.
"It's okay to cry, Mione," Gideon said gently. "You don't always have to be strong."
"Of course I do!" Hermione scoffed. She couldn't tell them that's why she was here. She was here to be a soldier, here to end a war. Hogwarts had asked her to be strong, and she had accepted. "Lily needs me."
The twins scoffed right back in unison. "Lily doesn't need you to be strong," Fabian said, his eyebrows raised as if astonished she was such an idiot. "She needs you to be with her. That's it. She needs to not be alone."
"You guys are dumb," Hermione said with a small smile. They were right. She remembered how furious Harry had been with her when she'd done the same thing for him, after Sirius had died. How she'd tried to be strong, and it had only made him feel alone in his grief. "Yeah, alright. But you two had better clear out, or else it'll be on you to console me."
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.
Gideon waggled his eyebrows at her. "Oh, Mione, I thought you'd never ask."
Hermione almost laughed. Instead she punched him. "Clear out, you two. And thanks for the food."
Fabian's expression was serious though. "We're here if you need us, Mione. Don't hesitate, aye?"
"Thanks," she whispered, and off they went, leaving Hermione alone with Lily and Mel.
The night dragged on, and eventually Lily fell asleep, her head resting on the bed beside Mel.
Hermione had let Lily talk herself out. Now it was her turn. She leaned forward and took Mel's limp hand in hers.
"Hey, Mel," she said softly, not wanting to wake Lily. "I… I don't know what you're going through. I don't know what it feels like to want to die badly enough to try. But I do know what that darkness feels like. The way you feel totally, completely alone. The way hope dies away. The way… the way you stop believing in anything, stop believing in yourself." Hermione swallowed thickly. "I know the way that it consumes you. I felt that way, when I was younger. My first year at Hogwarts. Before I found my place.
"This world… it isn't easy to live in, Mel. I know that. I have seen… the most horrific things these past few months. The things I've seen, they eat away at you, little by little. And I'll be honest; I don't know how we heal those places, how we fill them back in. But here's what I do know…
"I know that we both have people who love us, Mel. People who want to help us carry whatever bullshit we think we need to keep buried. I don't know how we heal, but I do know we don't have to do it alone.
"So, listen, when you wake up, you and me, and Lily and Tracey… we're going to lock ourselves away in the dormitory and we're just going to talk and cry for an entire damned day. And after that?" a sound escaped her throat – something somewhere between a sob and a laugh. "Well, I don't know. I really don't. But I do know this… we're not going to stop. No more shutting each other out, you hear me?"
"I hear you," Lily said, with new tears glistening in her eyes.
Hermione opened her mouth to apologize for waking her.
"I hear you, too," came a whisper of a voice.
Lily's and Hermione's eyes widened comically. "Mel?"
Her eyes were still shut, but her lips were moving. "I'm going back to sleep now, okay? I love you guys."
"We love you too," Hermione whispered back.
Mel was already asleep again, but this time a natural sleep. Tears of relief streamed down Lily's face and past the enormous smile that lit it. "I'll go tell Poppy," Hermione said. "And I'll send a message to Tracey." Lily just sat there in silence, that big smile on her face.
Once Poppy had rushed off to check on Mel's vitals, and Hermione's otter had rushed off to tell Tracey, Hermione leaned against a shadowed wall in the hospital wing. Her body was shaking, she felt exhausted, she felt like crying. She knew it was just an adrenaline hangover - she got them after every mission – but they rocked through her like nothing else.
Hermione let herself slide to the floor and was taking slow, calming breaths when the hospital wing doors flew open. Hermione was immediately on her feet, her wand in her hand. "Accio invisibility cloak!" The cloak flew to her, revealing Sirius and Tracey.
"Thank Merlin," she muttered.
Sirius was looking at her in surprise, but Tracey was already at Mel's side. "How did you-"
"Just a guess," Hermione admitted.
Sirius frowned as he eyed her carefully, then he strode wordlessly across the space between them, and pulled her into his warm, safe embrace.
And she cried. She wasn't sure whether it was right that Sirius was her safe place instead of Remus, but things with Remus were so new… and Sirius, Sirius was somehow, inexplicably, a part of her. Her tears soaked into his black Muggle T-shirt, and he held her. When she finally pulled back, sniffling and wiping at her face, he pulled her down to sit side-by-side on the floor.
Lily and Tracey were chatting quietly nearby.
He conjured them each a hot chocolate.
"She's going to be okay?" he said.
Hermione nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Poppy was running some tests, but she looked relieved."
"I'm glad. Really glad, Mya."
"Me, too." She stared into her hot chocolate, tears pricking at her eyes again. She cast a quick muffliato. "I never met her in my time, Sirius," she confessed in a whisper. "I never heard anyone talk about her. She was never in the Order." She took a long, shaky breath. "I think she died today, Sirius. In the original timeline. I was so scared all night. I didn't think she would live. I didn't believe she would make it. I thought I'd failed her."
Sirius was smiling, completely inappropriately. Hermione frowned. "I'm telling you something serious, you oaf!"
But Sirius' smile didn't waver. "You saved her, Mya," he said, almost in amazement. "You saved her. You're really doing it. You're changing things." He glanced up at Lily and lowered his voice. "You're going to do it," he said, with terrifying faith, terrifying conviction. "You're going to save them—us. Just like you saved Mel tonight. One by one."
Hermione didn't smile back. Sirius didn't know how long that list was. Didn't realize there was no way she could save them all. His words didn't relieve her. They weighed down on her till she felt like Sisyphus, like Atlas. It was crushing.
Sirius noticed immediately. "Aw, shit. Mya, no. NO. That was a shitty thing to say, okay? I didn't mean it like that. This is not all on you. It's not your job. It's not about you being responsible for saving everyone. It's just… it's about you being here, being you… The way you shift things, the way you move people.
"I know you have this list you run through in your head. Gideon and Fabian, James and Lily, Alice and Frank, Me, Remus, Snape, my brother, Narcissa… and on and on and on. I know. But we are going to save them, Mya. All of us, together. And we're going to do it because of you. Because you came back for us. Because your heart is the size of the bloody galaxy, and it changes everyone it touches."
Hermione sniffled through a laugh. "Sirius Black, I refuse to cry anymore tonight, so you had better stop now."
Lily and Tracey came over. "Madam Pomfrey says we have to leave now that we know Mel is going to be okay," Lily said. "She says we all need some rest. Especially Mel."
"We asked if she'd let us know when she wakes up," Tracey said with a scowl, "But she said absolutely not. That we're to sleep until we're rested and to come back tomorrow afternoon."
Hermione smiled. That was the Poppy she knew and loved. But she was basically an honourary Marauder now, and she wasn't going to take something like that laying down.
Hermione stood and snuck over to Mel's bed where she silently cast a charm, then crept back to her friends, who were waiting by the door.
"What did you do?" Lily asked curiously.
"Sidestepped Poppy's rules," she said with a shrug and the hint of a smirk. "When Mel wakes, my wand will let us know."
The girls responded with tired smirks of their own, and then they headed back to Gryffindor Tower.
The Fat Lady looked surprised to see them. "Is your friend alright then?" she asked with genuine concern.
Hermione smiled. "She will be."
The woman gave a little sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. Well, you lot clearly need some rest. Password?"
"Bubotuber Pus," Hermione said with distaste.
"Have a good sleep, dears," the portrait said as she swung open.
"Back atcha, beautiful," Sirius said with a wink.
Hermione could've sworn she heard the Fat Lady sigh dreamily. She rolled her eyes. Sirius could charm the pants off just about anyone.
Lily, who had climbed through the portrait hole first, stopped abruptly. "James?"
A black-haired figure jerked from a snoring slouch where he sat before the fire. "Lils!" He leapt to his feet and rushed over to pull her close. Hermione heard them murmuring quietly to each other as her own gaze fell on Remus' newly wakened self.
Tracey nudged her. "Sirius and I are off to bed," she said, as if daring Hermione to comment. When Hermione just smiled, Tracey visibly relaxed. "Well… let us know if Mel wakes up, yeah?"
"Of course."
Hermione watched as Sirius and Tracey, and Lily and James headed off for the boys' dormitory. Then she turned back to Remus. "I hope you know I'm not going up there with you," she said with the barest trace of a grin.
Remus smiled a genuine smile and patted the couch beside him. "Mel's okay then?" he asked, as Hermione took a still-awkward seat beside him. Was it supposed to feel this uncomfortable, sitting with your boyfriend?
"Yeah," she said tiredly. "It sounds like she's going to be fine. I don't think any of the healers thought she'd make it… I didn't think she was going to make it…"
Remus pressed a kiss to her temple, and pulled her close. Her head settled on his shoulder, and she let his warmth seep into her. For that moment, his arm felt like a barrier between her and the real world. Like as long as she rested there, she didn't have to worry about Mel, or Gideon and Fabian, or Sirius, or or or. As though, for the moment, she could forget all about Voldemort and his hideous war.
A part of her wanted to lean up and meet his lips. To spend the night escaping in his arms. Not sex, of course! She reassured herself. I'm definitely not ready for that. But already the rest of her was being lulled by the warmth of his body, and the patterns his fingers were drawing up and down her forearm, and before she could think much else, she was fast asleep.