3
Calling

There were no words—English, French, Bulgarian, or Greek—to articulate Hermione's reaction to seeing Cedric Diggory standing in the Veil, looking as casual as if he stood in the entryway of the Great Hall. Hermione stood on the edge of the dais, arms akimbo and mouth agape. In all the years she'd worked in the Department of Mysteries, his had been the last face she'd imagined.

"Last time I saw you, your mouth was running a novel a minute," he said, his enormous grin dialing back into a wry smirk that was no less infectious. "Ghost got your tongue?"

Hermione's lip trembled as she stared at him, her heart stuttering in time with the trembles of her hands. She pulled her fingers up to her forehead, rubbing with the cold digits and hoping the movement would steady her in some way or at least cease the shakes. A part of her had hurtled back ten years, back to when things hadn't gotten quite so dark yet, when there were booming cannons, bouncing music, and excessive confetti. But the echoes of brighter times faded the longer she dragged her eyes over his grey hues and semi-corporeal appearance.

"Forget me already?" He cocked any eyebrow, smirk warming into a smile again. "I know we only ever had one solid conversation, but I thought I'd left a more lasting impression."

Hermione laughed thickly, rubbing the sting and wetness in her eyes. "I know who you are. I just—I don't understand."

"I was hoping you'd have the explanation, all things considered," he said. He gestured at her general appearance. "After all, you're the Unspeakable, and I'm the summoned dead."

Hermione cleared her throat and sniffled thickly, wrenching half her mind from the past so it could join the other half in figuring out what was happening, how it was happening, and if she could make it happen again in the future. "The summoned dead?" she echoed.

"You called."

Hermione blinked.

"So you…didn't call…" He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight onto one foot, narrowing his eyes at her. "Or perhaps you'd called the wrong person?"

"Right on both," she muttered, rubbing her lip now to keep it from trembling again.

Sirius—Sirius had been the most feasible goal. Why was Cedric…?

She had her suspicions that her earlier musings on the Hufflepuff might have summoned him to her, but it made no sense still. She'd spent hours thinking on everyone they'd lost—even Hedwig, for Merlin's sake. If she could summon people by thought and mourning alone, Sirius should've been spat out from the Veil eons ago. Whatever her train of thought might have meant to explain Cedric's presence, however, she kept to herself for the time being.

"You're not like the ghosts at Hogwarts," she said, finally getting a grip on her demeanor by focusing on the facts of the situation. "You can't seem to drift out of there."

"What've you been trying to do, Granger?"

"Neither are you like a separate entity either—you're almost like the Veil itself—"

"Granger."

Hermione took a deep breath and stepped forward, sending a quick thanks to a higher power that her knees didn't fully give out. "I was trying to bring back Sirius Black," she answered steadily, nearly missing his incredulous look as she did a slow circuit around the archway, observing the new phenomenon from all angles.

"The serial killer?!" he yelped, trying spin around and follow her course. "The Azkaban escapee?! The one who bloody betrayed the Potters?!"

"He was framed," she said almost offhandedly, waving off his shock. "His name was cleared. So far, he's the only one to have fallen through the Veil without having properly died—"

"So there's a proper way to do it now? File a few papers and whatnot?"

"—so I'm trying to take advantage of that technicality to bring him back."

Cedric shuffled, pulling on the hem of his jersey to straighten it out before looking at her carefully. "And, er, what exactly did you do that resulted in summoning me?" He kept his tone light and cautious, clearly still paying attention to her current emotional instability, but also wary of her response.

She should've paid the same amount of attention to the obvious cues from his serious expression. As she gave him the abridged version of her ritual, his face darkened until he was glaring so deeply that his frown seemed carved into his very skull.

"You threw out your life essence to the nether…as bait?" he gritted out through his teeth. His arms were crossed and she could almost see the grip he had on his own biceps the more the Veil billowed tighter to his form.

Hermione chuckled hysterically. "I suppose I did."

"You're not fishing, Granger!" cried Cedric, balking at her.

"Semantics, Diggory," she almost laughed again, the tears spilling out again, the truth and weight of what she'd done digging into her conscience again. "Technically, yes—fishing in the nether for a soul that doesn't belong because of a too-strong sense of justice and a bleeding heart that still strongly believes in bloodletting, apparently."

Cedric covered his face with his hands briefly. "You risked your soul on a fishing trip for a goldfish in the middle of the Pacific. You'll be lucky if I'm the only one that's popped up."

Hermione blanched at that thought.

"You're trying to haul what is, for all intents and purposes, an undead man through a window to another plane of existence."

Hermione's hysterical, tearful giggles hit a new peak. "A window?"

Cedric's frustration seemed to hit a new peak as well. "Nothing comes in or out, and what's already in there won't easily exit," he said, stretching out his hand and watching it fade as it crossed the threshold of the Veil.

"Especially if it doesn't belong there and even more if it's not an actual exit!" she exclaimed, wiping her hands down her face. "Overcompensation! That's why I couldn't summon him and why he couldn't come to me—none of it was enough! I was hoping it was more of a free-for-all, but—"

"Another thing—I've seen nearly everyone who's died since my own bucket was kicked, and Sirius Black isn't one of them. He's not around here."

Hermione nodded understandingly, biting her lip to contain an enormous smile. "I ascertained he'd be somewhere in limbo because of the circumstances of his death, somewhere between your plane and mine. I was hoping because of that, he would've been repelled like magnets of the same charge, but instead, he's more trapped than anything."

"Granger, are you all right?"

"Not even a bit, Diggory," she said, grinning. She used the longer sleeves of her shirt to wipe her face and take several unsteady breaths. "I can actually pull him out this time."

Hermione's gradual breakdown and epiphany was dramatically interrupted by two streaks of silver—a magnificent stag and a beautiful mare—that galloped around her before immediately bombarding her with Harry and Ginny's dichotomous reactions to her late-night disappearance.

"Oh, my dear Hermione, did you decide to take a nighttime stroll?"

"GET."

"In a torrential downpour?"

"YOUR."

"Without your coat?"

"ARSE."

"Or shoes?"

"HOME."

"Or your wand?"

"NOW."

"Was that Harry Potter?" asked Cedric, chuckling at Hermione's deep grimace.

"And Ginny Potter," said Hermione with a heavy sigh. She couldn't even remember having dropped her wand at any point, so fixated she'd been on following the voice.

"She sounds pleasant enough," chortled Cedric. "Harry, though—"

"Has suffered quite a bit of stress, thanks to me," muttered Hermione, raking her hands through her hair. "I need to get back. I don't know what excuse I'll give them for this."

On a whim, she pinched herself, right on her upper arm. And then she laughed when she looked over her shoulder and saw him still standing there—the manifestation of the inferno of her hope, blazing anew.

She turned around and looked up at the door, but then froze and looked back to Cedric. "How—erm, will I see you again? Is that possible?"

Cedric frowned for only a moment before his face cleared and he smiled at her, crookedly but no less warm. "Just call for me again. I'll come back, I promise. You and I still have a lot to discuss." He winked.

Hermione laughed thickly and wiped her hands down her face, trying to clear off the warm trickle of her tears.

"I'll—I'll see you soon then," she said, stepping just a little bit closer to the Veil, drawn forward by her own curiosity.

He grinned and saluted. "Definitely. Good night, Granger."

Hermione chuckled. "Good night, Cedric."

The Veil billowed forward, forcing Hermione back to keep from touching it. When it settled again, Cedric was gone.

Dismissed so abruptly from a conversation that'd been the last thing she'd ever thought to have with the last person she ever thought to summon, Hermione could only stand and stare, wondering if she'd really dreamt the whole thing even in spite of the pinching.

Hermione stepped closer to the Veil once more. She wasn't sure what would happen if she ever did touch the ethereal mist but still wondered if it would hurt. She reached out a hand with the intention of simply brushing her fingertips against it. Before she even made the barest of contact, a voice in her head commanded, No.

So she didn't.

Hermione pulled back, stepping away and looking around the dim, cavernous room—at the stone walls, the stone floors, the still and heavy air, the whispers that forever ghosted around the room and would probably echo in her mind long after she stopped working in the Death Chamber.

And then she left, her bare feet numb to the cold stone.

The door to the mint-green and cream examination room closed with a soft whoosh and click as Healer Draco Malfoy walked in, choosing to speak to Hermione's chart again, rather than to the woman herself.

"You're cheerful," he said, his tone edging disdain though still within the realm of common courtesy.

Forever the little storm cloud in a sunlit meadow, that one.

Hermione had arrived back at Grimmauld Place, doing her damnedest to appear relatively intact—at least, emotionally. It would've done her no favors to appear in the fireplace, weeping. She'd made up the lie that she'd remembered something about her research that she needed to find quickly and that she'd only gone to her flat, but Harry had been ready to raise hell.

Thankfully, Ginny had interceded. She formulated a compromise—Hermione would go for a check-up with her Healer to evaluate how well she was convalescing. If she planned any more late-night excursions, she would leave a note. If not, Harry could have every right and reason to raise the hell he wanted.

So there she sat, bracing herself for an explosive confrontation with her former classmate and tormentor. But honestly, only a small part of her expected such a thing. The rest of her was just too excited about her discovery the night before.

"If you can get this over with quickly, you'll be rid of me and my cheerfulness that much sooner," said Hermione, folding her hands on her lap.

"If you hadn't decided you had more than enough blood to spare, we wouldn't be here in the first place."

Only the fact that he had yet to deliver a single derogatory word to her stopped Hermione from saying something about her blood and his prejudices against it. Instead of instigating what could be another epic row, however, she kept silent.

Malfoy continued about his business, still refusing to make eye contact. He waved his wand, casting diagnostic spells that made her feel warm and cool and made her tingle. When he finished, he stowed his wand up his sleeve again and referred to her file.

"Well, Healer Malfoy, your silence leads me to believe I'm in all good health," she said, clearing her throat again, fiddling with her sleeves.

"I can only gauge your physical wellbeing, not your mental stability," answered Malfoy evenly. "I can help you if you're bleeding out in the middle of the Death Chamber, but I can't stop you from going back in there."

Hermione froze, the excitement churning her stomach and shaking her fingers turned into a mild panic. She somehow managed to keep her face from shifting out of its uninterested expression. "Death Chamber?"

He waved his hand at her and flipped a page. "Yes, yes, I know. You've no idea what I'm talking about." He snapped her file shut and finally looked up at her, but his focus seemed to be somewhere behind her head—as if he was purposefully staring through her. "It's simple deduction."

Hermione's eyebrow rose. "Really?"

He took it as a challenge.

"According to your emergency contact, you've been keeping to yourself for the last couple of years and looking increasingly melancholy with each passing month," he said, tucking her file under his arm as he crossed them over his chest and leaned his hip against the edge of one of the white counters. "Judging from your moods, you're not working in the Love or Thought Chambers. Those are entirely too hopeful for you to be looking so close to despondency."

"Merlin forbid I be working on a project that isn't going my way," she said nonchalantly.

"Neither would you be working in the Hall of Prophecies. You bloody walked out of Divination."

"People's opinions can change after certain events."

Malfoy scoffed. "Yes, opinions can change, but you probably still think it's a quack subject in spite of your marginally-increased respect for it."

"Say what you want," said Hermione. She wasn't entirely sure how much the on-call Healer for the Department of Mysteries was meant to know as far as individual projects went, but she wasn't about to give him any quarter. "That doesn't change the fact that you're the one stating all this, not me. And if your theories hinge on my alleged melancholy, how would you account for your complaints of my cheerfulness?"

Malfoy shook his head. "In spite of its reputation for dreary weather, the sun does occasionally shine in London."

Hermione laughed. It was two parts disbelief, one part shock, and a dash of genuine amusement.

"You have the biggest bleeding heart I could ever possibly imagine, so the list grows thin," he continued. "You could be working in the Time Room, which would make sense. You feel that you are smart enough to be able to reverse the clock to bring back those you've lost. However, the odds and implications of such a thing would burden you, which could spur the melancholy and isolation."

"So would depression in general."

"You're not depressed, Granger," he said. "Though how you managed to escape that, all things considered, I'll never know."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, frowning.

"You nearly bled out," he replied, rolling his eyes and dismissing her question with a wave of his hand. "Judging from the placement of your wounds, you bled intentionally. None of the other chambers in the Department of Mysteries would demand something so macabre other than the Death Chamber."

She did nothing, giving him no quarter to analyze any minute behavioral tics.

"You're isolated and melancholy because you think you're so great and powerful that you've bypassed reversing time," he said, sneering slightly, "and went straight into trying to reverse death itself. And now you're realizing that you're wrong."

And there was the Draco Malfoy she knew.

"Just like how you think you can save lives to make up for those you took?" she asked plainly, her face impassive.

Malfoy froze, and she could see the tension quivering in his frame. His sneer darkened until he looked like the same bitter, spoiled little boy that prowled the halls of Hogwarts, seeking out targets to practice the abusive lessons his father taught him.

"As long as you don't pretend you know me, I won't pretend to know you," said Hermione, straightening back up and crossing her legs primly, her chin raised.

Malfoy finally met her gaze full-on. He nodded curtly and strode to the door. "Well, Miss Granger, do try to avoid death before you discover how to come back from it. It'd be an unspeakable tragedy."

Hermione smiled at him insincerely. "Why, Healer Malfoy, I think that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

Malfoy turned back to scowl at her one more time—with his mouth, his eyes, his eyebrows, his nose, and even his ears, if it was possible. He wrenched open the door with one hand. "It seems your parents failed to pass on the inclination for safety, so the task falls to me. Good day."