Chapter 160: Vitality
'Meeting tonight?' Sirius asked Remus as he caught Hermione's hand in his again, his thumb stroking over her wonderfully warm skin.
Remus nodded.
'Merida is trying to reach Brian through the Leaders' Notes,' he said. 'But we'll have everyone in regardless.'
'Merida?' Harry said, surprised.
'She has access to Kingsley's copy,' Remus said. 'As he is on watch, she's assisting us.'
Loudly, startling them all, Molly burst back into tears.
'A-all of you-hoo!' Molly wailed. 'S-so young! After s-something so dread-dreadful – and you're a-all right b-back at it! W-what have I l-let you be-become?'
What they'd become could be named easily, but Sirius didn't. He did have sympathy for Molly's point. Ideally, it'd be nice if people not yet twenty weren't handling shop talk around a near deathbed.
Hermione's hot chocolate finished, Poppy replaced the mug with a bottle of ginger beer. Quietly, as Poppy also handed her a tiny dose of Neural Regeneration Potion, Hermione asked whether she'd be able to walk again in time to use the toilet, a prospect that was imminent, considering the second bottle of ginger beer Poppy had ready.
'I doubt it,' Poppy told her bluntly. 'But we need to get your kidneys working. There's plenty of by-products of hypoxia to be removed from your bloodstream, and those kidneys have been working on starvation rations.' She patted the hand Hermione was holding the Neural Regeneration Potion with. 'It will keep your blood pressure up and dilute this too. The regeneration of neurons is always better with plenty of blood, energy, and fluids.'
Dismayed, Hermione pulled a face.
'Considering everything,' Sirius said to her, 'you're really that down about needing help to pee?'
'I'm worried,' Hermione hissed at him, 'that I don't have the control to stop myself peeing the moment I need to.'
'That is very possible,' said Poppy, dismaying Hermione further. 'But Neural Regeneration begins at the top and works its way down. Drink up.'
Hermione, propped up once again against Sirius's knees, looked down at the potion.
'This won't… hurt the baby, right?'
'Not at that dose,' Poppy said smartly. 'It is the dose for a twelve week old foetus.
'Every three hours, on the hour,' Poppy instructed, taking the glass back once Hermione had drained the potion. 'Until you and your baby are right back to where you were before this… incident. That being said, it's time for you to get to bed, Hermione. You will be sleeping in three hour shifts for a time.'
'Good practise, I suppose,' Hermione muttered as Sirius shifted to scoop her up. She took a firm hold on her blankets and hooked an arm around Sirius's neck.
Poppy turned back from packing up her bag and snapped, 'What do you think you're doing, Mr Black?'
Sirius paused, one leg poised to push himself and Hermione up, an arm behind her back and the other working its way under her knees.
'Er…' Sirius raised an eyebrow at Poppy. 'Going to bed? Like you ordered…'
Poppy tutted at him.
'Not like that you aren't! I'm not risking both your lives on the stairs.'
Sirius got his arm properly under Hermione's knees. The strained muscles in it shivered somewhat, but he was hardly going to drop her.
'I'm perfectly capable with stairs, thanks Poppy,' he said dismissively.
'I don't think you are,' Poppy countered, laying a staying hand on Hermione's knee. 'Not yet, at least.'
'What?' Sirius asked, exasperated. 'I'm fine. I wasn't injured.'
'Sirius,' Remus had laid a similarly staying hand on Sirius's shoulder. 'Have you tried standing up yet?'
'What?'
Remus considered Sirius. He got to his own feet and gave Sirius's arm a tug.
'Stand up,' he commanded. 'Without Hermione,' he specified.
Sirius stared up at him. For Merlin's sake, he was fine! Tired, yes. Worn out. A bit of a headache. His legs still ached and his knees were fucked. But he could carry his own blimin' family up to bed. The worst he'd gotten was a Cruciatus Curse. And he'd sprinted miles, fought on, and whatever else after those plenty of times before. They weren't on either the Aurors' or the Order's list of "excuse from duty" spell effects.
Remus gave him a hard look.
'Do it Sirius.'
'All right. Fine.' Sirius slipped his arms from Hermione and stood himself up, hands already held out for a solid reiteration of see, I'm fine.
He used them instead to brace himself on his knees, his head unexpectedly awhirl. The room was spinning, colours colliding into a fog of grey. Sirius pinched his eyes shut, swaying, as Remus grabbed hold of his arm again. Sirius became aware of his entire body shaking uncontrollably as Hermione stared, terrified, up at him. His breathing was coming in galloping pants. It took everything Sirius had, plus both Remus and Harry steadying him, not to fall over. Then the headache roared to new levels, thumping in Sirius's skull.
'There you go,' Remus said tartly. 'You're not up for it yet.'
'What –' Sirius panted. Aches were radiating from his knees right up to his head. 'The hell,' he panted on, his vision finally clearing properly, 'was that?'
The sensations were dimming away to tolerable levels. Shivering only slightly on unsteady legs, Sirius managed to stand up straight – doing it slowly, afraid of the return of that insane attack.
'Light-headedness,' Poppy informed him smartly.
That was light-headedness? Hermione hadn't had it that bloody bad when she'd "stood up too fast".
'And it means,' Poppy went on, 'you're off to bed too, Sirius. Off we go.'
With several practised swishes of her wand, Poppy Conjured Hermione a stretcher and transferred her onto it. Hermione paid little attention. She was frowning at Sirius; reaching out for him. Worrying about him.
Sirius grasped her hand and made himself stand tall. He went with her slow-moving stretcher, trying not to look stone-faced in front of her or at the funny looks the rest – all of them inviting themselves to come with up to their bedroom – cast him.
He'd doggy paddled the North-ruddy-Sea in far worse health than he was currently in, Sirius berated himself. Even broken-hearted grief couldn't top twelve years in Azkaban physically. Greif couldn't make him forgo his pride on the second floor for the sake of the handrail's stability.
He'd damn well better not actually be getting old.
'He'll be fine,' Poppy answered Hermione's worried question, this time talking about Sirius. 'He just needs rest.'
That was good to hear. Sirius wanted that reassurance.
'I think I'll need another potion for my knees, though,' he said ruefully, feeling their grating ache and twang as he made it up the last flight of stairs. His knees really were fucked. Hermione, knowing what it meant for Sirius to admit that, gripped his hand tighter and sent him a look that almost had Sirius glancing away.
Poppy assured him she'd leave him one of those awful arthritis potions. No one else commented or questioned it, though. Sirius supposed, rather cynically, all he'd had to do was wait until he was old enough – had been through enough – for no one to question why he had chronic knee pain.
Sirius's side of their bed was more accessible from the door. Molly pushing the bedclothes back, Poppy let Hermione down there. Unenthusiastic about the prospect of walking further, feeling much more manageably "lightheaded", but lightheaded all the same, Sirius sat at Hermione's feet. His heart seemed to be beating a mile a minute, and Sirius was pretty sure he hadn't breathed this fast since just post Azkaban.
'If I was dying of blood loss…' Hermione said slowly, having been informed of that, 'what… did stop that, then?'
Hermione had been propped against the pillows Poppy had stuck against the headboard. She frowned around at them.
No one answered. Sirius met Hermione's eyes. He didn't know the answer to that. Poppy was setting Sirius's bedside table up with the bottle of Neural Regeneration Potion, a glass with Hermione's dose demarcated on the side, and the second bottle of ginger beer.
'You couldn't have given me more Blood Replenishing Potion,' Hermione said, eyeing Poppy. She seemed significantly less ready than Sirius to just accept the miracle. 'Why would I suddenly just get better? … Poppy?'
Poppy was staring sightlessly toward the windows. Ginny was the one who broke the suddenly uneasy silence.
'Sirius…' she said, casting him a brief, odd look. 'He was… talking to you.'
'But –'
Ginny opened her mouth, Hermione breaking off.
'I donno,' Ginny said quietly, casting another strange look at Sirius. 'It was… weird.'
Now Ginny wasn't the only one giving Sirius funny looks. Sirius returned their glances with a questioning stare.
'What?' he demanded.
For a long moment, no one spoke. Remus was eyeing Sirius with a deeply thoughtful look. Sirius frowned back at him.
'Do you not know?' Remus asked Sirius.
'Know?' Sirius said. 'Know what?'
'I'd have thought you'd have felt it,' Remus said cryptically.
'Felt what?' Sirius turned his bewildered look on Hermione. She didn't seem any better informed than he was.
'Interpersonal Basal Transference,' supplied Poppy, quietly but significantly.
Not far off another "what?", Sirius stared at her. It did ring a distant bell in his head: basal transference. Not a loud enough bell to enlighten him, though. He went back to frowning at his oldest friend. Remus knew it. Sirius could see the werewolf sitting on the information.
'That…' said Molly slowly. 'That's never been proven possible.'
'You felt it though, mum?' said Ginny. 'All of you? Whatever it's called. Didn't you feel it?'
'I did,' offered Harry. 'You felt… really weird Sirius,' Harry told him, green eyes viewing Sirius in a way that was near wary. 'I moved away from you… Like… a radiating void.'
'A "radiating void"?' asked Hermione. She alone wasn't eyeing Sirius like he was something alien. She looked fascinated. 'What do you mean?'
'I'm not sure,' Harry said uncertainly. 'As though… he was sucking something out of the air… and blowing something different back into it. At the same time.'
'I felt it too,' said Dora. 'Like the air around him should have been warping in a heat mirage, or something. Did everyone…' She trailed off as her question was already being answered by unanimous nods.
'Powerful,' Leonora described shortly, still nodding.
'And the lamps were flickering,' said Ron. 'Or no, not flickering. Just… dimming right down, then flaring back up. All of them – synchronised.'
Sirius suppressed a shudder. The way they were describing it… It make him feel like he was something unnatural. Eerie. Hermione was the safe place to look. Her frown was merely curious.
'You didn't feel it?' Remus prompted Sirius.
Sirius glanced at him.
'I don't know,' he said honestly. 'I was feeling a lot at the time, Remus,' he added pointedly.
'But what is it exactly?' Hermione asked, persistent.
The room was silent for a long moment. Then Remus spoke up.
'An Interpersonal Basal Transference is the name provided to the theoretical possibility of one magical individual passing on their basal substance or essence to another – their life force,' Remus explained quietly. 'Their integral energy. To sustain them, or Heal them.
'It has been the subject of much hope, over the centuries. You can understand: everyone wishes to think it possible to save a loved one when there's nothing more that can be done otherwise. It's like a blood transfusion,' Remus told Hermione, explaining it to her that way. 'But of something more intangible and substantial.
'Many curious or desperate minds have searched, over the years, for proof it can be done. There have been accounts of such a thing happening, but none of them substantiated and all dismissed by scholars as either false claims made by alternative Healers to procure customers or hysterical accounts not based on fact. No spell purported to achieve a Basal Transference has ever been found effective.'
'I didn't use a spell,' Sirius pointed out. 'I didn't use any magic.'
Remus didn't even blink.
'Your energy, magic, and emotions are tied –'
'As are everyone's,' Sirius insisted, cutting Remus off.
'Sirius…'
It wasn't Remus who'd spoken, but Hermione. Sirius looked at her. She gazed back at him, brown eyes too clever and understanding.
'Did you use up your restless energy beforehand?' she asked softly.
Sirius stared at her. He opened his mouth to respond, then realised he had no words to respond with.
'You were angry,' she said knowingly. 'And you didn't use up that energy. Then scared…' She gave him a very pointed look. 'The way you use wandless magic, Sirius,' she went on, even more gently, 'is not the same as how it is usually used. You know that. And you know it drains you.'
With hindsight, Sirius saw every moment he could have used that wandless magic. He could have Healed Hermione's pelvis that way – could have done more right from the start. Why he hadn't… Sirius wasn't sure. Likely just that it still took him a moment to focus to use it, and he hadn't had a moment of focus.
He shook his head, flinching when he noticed Molly watching him with that same weird look. Like he was something other.
'There has never been a witch or wizard quite like what you have become, Sirius,' Remus said, far from reassuringly. 'Basal Transference has been declared a pipe dream. Yet your magic is a pipe dream. You are still the only person known to escape Azkaban on your own. The only one known to survive so long in that prison. I've seen what you do with wandless magic, Sirius. It is not usual. You are certain you escaped that island simply with an Animgus transformation. I do not believe it,' Remus said frankly. 'I think you used further wandless magic, whether you are aware of it or not.'
Sirius's teeth had grit inside his mouth. He looked down at his hands. They lay on his lap, looking just as they always had. A bit thicker now he was older. And better fed. But they had the same length. The same tendons resting over his knuckles. The same two light scars on his right index and middle fingers. The same patterning of veins.
Sirius flexed them. The same hands. And yet, they suddenly frightened him. What else could they do?
'Hermione couldn't,' he said faintly, 'just have… gotten herself better?'
'I have seen willpower achieve many things,' said Poppy crisply, 'but a person is deluding themselves if they think to choose not to die is enough to live when their body is giving up.'
Sirius knew that from a different angle. He knew what it was like to be milliseconds from death, and be powerless to escape it. He had tried to fight falling through that Veil. It had not worked.
Yet this… There was always something on offer to mar his happiness.
'I have left you instructions,' Poppy told them. 'Every three hours,' she reiterated. 'I will leave a potion for your knees downstairs, Sirius. And sleep, both of you. Vitality recovers, but only with rest.'
The others thankfully took it as an instruction to leave. Remus stopped at the door. He lifted his wand, and removed the Silencing Charm on the room.
'If you need us,' he said, 'just yell.'
Then Remus shut the door behind them.
Sirius's eyes landed on Hermione. That was his happiness. Whatever else had happened, the small smile she treated him to… It was very worth it.
'You did it before, Sirius,' she said. She gave him another smile when Sirius frowned at her. 'I think you did,' she clarified. 'After the inquiry at the Ministry… I felt you then. When you were… inside me. It was like… I could use your spirit to live, not my own.' Her eyes had grown very affectionate. Very trusting. 'I thought it was just… remembering how much I loved you. But… it was as though that returned a lot to me, in one go.
'I can feel it in your wand,' she continued. 'When I touch it. It feels intensely powerful, when I feel weak. That's you, Sirius, and I don't doubt you kept us alive.'
It explained why she didn't seem more surprised. Sirius swallowed, reached over, and gave her shin a rub.
'Can you feel this?'
Hermione took a moment to respond.
'Yes,' she said, just as gently. 'It feels a bit strange, but, yes, I can feel it.'
She was still watching him, unswayed by his diversion.
'It's not that you don't believe it,' she guessed. 'It's that you don't want to.'
A quiet breath sighed out of Sirius. He rubbed his finger and thumb into his eyes.
'I feel like an alien,' he said quietly.
Hermione was silent for long enough that Sirius dropped his hand and looked back at her. She gave him a very loving smile.
'Oh,' she said, 'you're very human. Everything you do,' she told him, 'is for either survival or love – or fun,' she added, smiling more. 'What you are is extraordinary. And I'm fairly certain that's because what you found, living in insane condition after insane condition, was determination.'
It didn't so much reassure Sirius, as… validate him. His hand had tightened on her shin. He nodded his response as he lifted the blankets away from one of her feet. He touched a finger to her big toe.
'Try to move this one?'
Pursing her lips, Hermione concentrated on the toe. She tried harder, her face looking strained, then gave up.
'I can't,' she said, sounding dispirited. 'It's… oh it's scary Sirius, not being able to…'
It gave Sirius something to reassure her on, and that was easier.
'You'll get the movement back soon,' he assured her. 'The potions work.'
'I know,' Hermione said, and she had another smile for him. 'I'm just… I'm used to paralysis being a bigger worry.'
Sirius rubbed her leg, just feeling her skin more than anything else. She met his eyes when he looked up again.
'Can you tell if you need the loo?' he asked.
'I don't know yet. But,' Hermione pulled a grimace, 'if I'm to sleep, I'd rather not wait to see if it wakes me up.'
Sirius nodded and eased himself slowly up, feeling decrepit.
'I'll Levitate you,' he said, taking Hermione's hand. She agreed, and Sirius flipped the blankets off her. Hermione slid her arms around his shoulders as Sirius swished and flicked, lifting her up, catching under her knees to keep her weightless legs from dragging on the floor. Though she couldn't move them, they looked normal. All of it felt almost normal: Hermione holding on around his neck as Sirius manoeuvred her.
It didn't help quench his worry, however. Once the worry was started, it found other things to worry about. Sirius pulled the bathroom door most of the way shut, and waited outside it. Worried. About what, exactly… There was too much to pick from.
That the Ministry had attacked them in the street. The question of how long they could remain in this house now the Ministry had. What the hell they were going to do now. Whether this would become just the first of many all-out duels… Whatever Sirius had done to keep Hermione and Monkey alive, he was pretty sure, feeling jittery standing on his feet, he couldn't do it every day.
He could still hear how her body had made that metal pole sing.
Boy did marriage, sickness, breakdowns, and starting a family make a person far more acquainted with bathrooms than they'd ever be otherwise, Sirius thought wryly. He moved away from the bathroom door, opened the other door for a meowing Crookshanks, then distracted himself with the instructions Poppy had left on his bedside table.
It was a more detailed list of what she'd told them. With a note on the bottom to flip the piece of parchment over. Sirius did. In bold letters on the back were two words: "No sex".
Sirius snorted and put the piece of parchment back down. He still had the image of Hermione's groin covered in blood stuck in his head. That was a sight far from arousing, and with the utter terror he'd hurt her more if he did anything less than gentle to her, the prospect wasn't enticing.
Having fetched Hermione from the bathroom and tucked her into bed, Sirius went to his dresser. He fought a groan as he bent down, his back and knees aching, and pulled the top drawer open. His alarm clock was older than Hermione, but Sirius was pretty sure it still worked.
'Are you going to get in with me?' Hermione asked uncertainly.
'Yes,' Sirius said, placing the alarm clock on the bedside table with her potion. 'Let me just…' Twiddling one of its feet, he set the clock for 9 pm. They'd have to get up for the meeting then anyway.
Then Sirius shucked his shoes and jeans, and slid into the bed beside her.
'Can I… rest my head on your chest?'
It was a request Hermione had never needed to make before. But it wasn't permission it turned out she was asking for. Rolling over was something so instinctual Sirius couldn't pinpoint what muscles he used to do it. It seemed, though, that legs were a big part of that.
Helping Hermione roll into him left Sirius more breathless than he was comfortable with. It wasn't him, though, that really felt the more helpless one. More than needing him to Levitate her to and from the bathroom, just helping Hermione turn towards him had Sirius worried about how little she could do right now.
If they needed to flee, she'd be doing it on a stretcher.
Despite that, somehow it wasn't bothering Hermione as much right now. She made her cheek comfortable on his chest, her arm slipping around his middle and tucking under his top to feel his skin.
'You're not going to sleep, are you?' she whispered.
Sirius swallowed. He had zero desire to see what lay in the darkness behind his eyelids. And he'd been wary of her being close when the nightmares found him before. Now, Hermione couldn't move out of the way.
'No,' he whispered back.
Hermione nodded a little. Her head was heavy on his chest, her fingers feeling his side. She was tired, Sirius could feel it. She was sinking into him as his arm around her kept her close.
'I'll watch over you later then,' she told him.
Sirius held her hand to him, a growing lump in his throat.
'Thank you, Sirius,' she breathed.
Sirius swallowed again, hard.
'You don't need to…'
'Then I'm sorry,' she said, rubbing his side more firmly. 'I'm really sorry.'
Sirius's throat was too tight to answer. It seemed he hadn't gotten all of the cry out before. He gripped her close, bent his head, and just rested his face against her hair, his eyes squeezing shut.
She was warm all along his body. Not falling asleep just yet, but gripping him back, her arm tightening around him.
'You did it Sirius,' Hermione breathed. 'You took care of us. You did everything, and we're still here. Both me and our little boy. You did it, and you did a fantastic job – everything you could do.'
It was exactly what Sirius wanted to hear. For all it wasn't a new promise it would never happen again, it lessened some weight inside him, knowing he had managed, this time, to keep them.
Worried, yes. He was very worried. But he wasn't hopeless. He felt whole.
'Not your fear entirely,' Hermione murmured on. 'Only a threat of it. You stopped it there.'
'I went blank,' Sirius hissed. 'Went completely blank – forgot how to Heal.'
'I'd imagine,' Hermione whispered back, 'that was the hardest Healing you've ever faced. Anyone would have gone blank in that situation.'
More validation. Though his teeth had grit, it didn't hold it back: Sirius did cry, clutching her close and huffing wretched little sobs. And when Hermione noticed, she pushed herself up, with effort, to see his face, and gave him a sad smile, her fingers trailing over his cheek, the wrinkles beside his eye, and into his hair.
'I'm so sorry, Sirius…'
She spoke on to him in little murmurs, held his head to her as he cried into the beautifully warm skin of her shoulder, scratched her fingers through his hair, and pulled his hand down to rest over the slight bump where his tiny son continued to live. It didn't make Hermione panic. It didn't make her do anything but caress him, hold him, as the day caught up with Sirius in a mute onslaught she seemed to understand perfectly without it being explained to her.
Sirius could still feel that alternate reality: the evening he'd avoided by the breadth of the sharp edge of a knife. It was still so close that it seemed he could sense his alternate self – the him that had split off into a parallel universe where things had gone far worse. The version of him that didn't have his entire life packaged up next to him, collected in his arms, reassuring him…
Sirius really heated up a bed, Hermione thought groggily, rubbing her face into his top. She tried to roll over, squirm up to lie flat, square, and face-down on top of his warm, rubbery length, but it didn't work.
'Mmh?' she said stupidly, coming more awake under Sirius's rubs and his murmured words. She stretched a hand out and found something hard knock into her fingers.
Squinting her eyes blearily, Hermione caught it and lifted it up. A clock. Hermione squinted harder.
It was 9 o'clock.
'Crap!' she exclaimed, dropping the clock and trying to scrabble up. Her arms did it, lifting her shakily over Sirius. But her legs did absolutely nothing.
'Wha?' she asked Sirius's face.
It was like some awful dream where she was late for class but couldn't move. But then… why was Sirius in her dream? He'd never been in her dormitory.
Then Hermione noticed the lamps were lit and the street outside was dark. That didn't work. It was never this dark by 9 am, even when it was stormy.
'You okay?' Sirius asked.
'Have 'ou ever 'een immy dormitory?'
'What?' Sirius's eyes had widened. 'Hermione, are you okay?'
'You never call me "Hermione" unless something bad is happening,' she accused him. Then she dropped herself down to lie on him again and tried to work out what was going on.
'I'm worried,' Sirius said, alarmed, gripping her arm. 'Do you know where you are?'
'In our bedroom,' Hermione replied. 'I'm just… hang on…'
It came back in pieces, the events of the day, her memory helped along by Sirius's prompting. She did remember it all, she kept trying to reassure him. She was fine, just disorientated and, from what she could tell, having had only about an hour and a half of a sleep that felt much longer. And she could have done without the alarm clock. If anything was going to make her feel she was back in school, it was being awoken by an alarm clock.
Squirming her elbows under her, Hermione pushed herself back up. For once, it was Sirius's eyes that were puffy. She didn't think they'd looked like that before she'd fallen asleep on him. It made her wonder if he'd cried more after she'd finally passed out, keeping quiet about it so as not to disturb her. The thought shot sadness through her.
Hermione could see the crinkles around his eyes, though he wasn't smiling. Could see a line between his eyebrows and others in his forehead. They weren't usually there, but Sirius's face looked tight with worry.
Propping her torso against his, she reached up to smooth them.
'I'm okay,' she said gently. It seemed an endless battle: to make up for those long hours she'd worried him most, when she hadn't been able to reassure him. She'd seen it, since the moment she'd recognised his face again. More than it had when he'd stepped out from behind it, it looked like Sirius had seen beyond the Veil.
She wasn't quite managing to erase the lines of his worry, but she was reassuring him somewhat.
'You'll start going grey if you keep worrying like that,' Hermione told him. That one worked: the lines between Sirius's black eyebrows and across his forehead disappeared as, just slightly, the ones around his eyes deepened. 'Did you want to check on Monkey?' she asked. 'I'd like to make sure…'
Sirius did, but he got her the next dose of her potion first. Readying it on the side table, he climbed behind her on the bed, hooked his arms under hers, and hauled Hermione up to sit upright against him. It made her feel useless – stuck with her legs like weighted lumps she couldn't wiggle no matter how hard she tried. The moments she'd spent trying to squirm herself up with just her hands, a spot in her lower back twanging with dull pain, had filled her with a deep unease that threatened tears. And it was an unease that didn't go away at all when Sirius did it for her, Hermione limp and incapable between his arms.
She'd been here before, him needing to help her with simple things. She'd felt weak and useless just days before. But this was worse.
Yet Sirius felt stronger. His arms had jittered, before, when he'd helped to move her. It had made him out of breath. Though Hermione was certain he hadn't slept, it seemed his vitality was returning to him rather a lot more quickly than hers was her. The way he'd pulled her up to sit had felt to take far less effort than it previously had.
It made Hermione swallow the threatening tears back down. Made her bury her disquiet. Maybe it was something Sirius wouldn't like to know, that she was hiding it for his benefit. But there was nothing else she could do, right now, to make him feel better.
And, anyway, she told herself, it was only temporary. Hermione swigged down the small sip of the potion that would fix it. It fizzed uncomfortably in her mouth, tasting acidic, but it would work. Slowly.
'Did you want to avoid looking?' Sirius asked, once Hermione had spread the gel across her belly.
He was being understanding – considerate. But Hermione shook her head, not looking away. There was something about nearly dying – or, perhaps, it was part of whatever Sirius had transferred to her to keep her alive – but her fear of seeing Monkey felt a lot smaller than her worry about the baby.
The remembered fear was there, though, as the Reveal started to appear on her skin. Hermione swallowed hard. It wasn't overpowering, however. What was greater was the relief of seeing a Reveal that was a lighter yellow than the alarming amber it had been.
Hermione sighed and rested her head more comfortably on Sirius's chest. He couldn't touch the skin that showed Monkey's little body, not without messing up the gel. But his fingers slipped near. They were warm on Hermione's side.
And neither that, nor the sight of the tiny baby, made her panic. Much more than she had been able to the last time she'd looked, Hermione could really see the little body. A head, miniscule limbs… Monkey was in a moving mood, right then. His arms seeming to wiggle. And it did make Hermione want to copy Sirius: want to rest her hand over the baby, and tell him she'd do her damnedest to keep him safe. Now.
'I've really risked him a lot…' she breathed, the remorse painful. 'Too many risks…'
'… I don't think he'd be trying to grab his own amniotic sac if he wasn't going to be okay, Mione.'
It did look like that was what Monkey was trying to do. Hermione sniffled, the tears not as well swallowed as she'd hoped.
'Sorry, little one,' she whispered, feeling stupid for any second she'd worried she wouldn't be able to love him. Of course she did. However frightening the thought of what was inside her… however frightening the future –
'Well,' Hermione muttered, 'I suppose the future can't get any more uncertain.' Not after today. Not with the Ministry proving that they were ready to flagrantly break their own rules. Hermione trailed a finger near the edge of the gel. 'We'll try, though,' she promised the baby, 'to make sure everything will be all right.'
She didn't think the baby could hear her, or understand her at all, but he seemed to give her a wriggling twitch in response.
