Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" and every one of its characters belong to JK Rowling! I own only this plot, and all the characters you don't recognize. The songs used in this chapter are "Tourniquet" and "My Immortal" respectively, and do not belong to me either; they belong to Evanescence.
Summary: In the future, Voldemort is no longer the terrible threat that begins to loom over the horizon. How can the survivors of the war believe the truth they have been told - a truth that condemns someone they loved and honored? A story of love, faith, loyalty and the legacy somebody left behind ...
Note: Set in the future. The trio are all 21 years old, and I think some of this story might be A/U.
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Stained Legacy
Chapter Three: Tourniquet
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London hadn't changed much in three years. Neither had Remus or Ron, for that matter. Hermione felt some of the pain ebb away as she exchanged anecdotes and laughter with her old friends, and saw the delight with which they and Sean got to know each other. They all ate lunch at Diagon Alley, just catching up, but Hermione couldn't feel as free as she might otherwise have had - not with Sirius's guilt hanging over her head, along with this questioning and the mess she'd made of her life.
She and Sean were staying at Harry and Ron's penthouse, a magically enlarged place with three guest bedrooms, one of which Remus was already staying in because his house was out in the country.
In the evening, Professor McGonagall Apparated in, expressed delight at seeing Hermione and Sean and immense disapproval at how thin Hermione had become. She commissioned Remus to the task of ensuring Hermione gained at least ten pounds ("Professor!" Hermione protested in horror) over the following week, because, she said, Harry and Ron were entirely untrustworthy in such situations. Then she packed them off to the Ministry, getting ready for an old-fashioned game of Exploding Snap with Sean, whom she was babysitting.
"Your interrogation's at seven," Remus said gently, looking at his watch. "We'll be in time."
Hermione sighed. "Interrogation - what a way to put it," she commented. "I feel like I'm on trial here, which I suppose I am. I can't believe this is actually happening."
"None of us want to believe Sirius was a murderer," Ron mumbled, "But if we decide he was innocent, we're left with that question: if Sirius wasn't the man with the Sphere of Pagnon, who killed Aberforth, then who did? And why would Scarlett Fetcherly make such a mistake?"
"Now isn't the time to be reasonable, Ron," Harry muttered, observing Hermione's distress.
She shook her head and glanced at Remus. "Harry said that this Scarlett says she knew Sirius at Hogwarts. Did you know her?"
"I remember the name," Remus mused thoughtfully, looking remarkably like a worn-out thirty-eight-year-old businessman. "But for the life of me I can't place her. I don't think she was a Gryffindor ... maybe a Ravenclaw, she looked very clever ... who was she?" He seemed to be thinking more to himself that to the others, but Ron refrained from teasing him about it as they reached the Ministry at that moment.
Hermione felt like she was living in a nightmare. She had to separate from the three men, and walked alone to the little waiting room where all suspects and witnesses were left before a questioning session. The moments ticked by, each feeling like a horrible eternity, leaving her prey to the thoughts and memories that London was bringing back to the surface. She felt like she was standing on a precipice, buckling to her knees, each step taking her closer to the edge, each blow making her want more and more for it to all end.
The lyrics of a Muggle song she sometimes listened to played over in her mind. She thought about the way she'd tried to escape her past by moving to Ireland, the way she'd missed those she loved, the way she ached for Sirius, the way her life was crumbling all around her. The song in her head grew louder, roaring in her ears, she whispered their plea desperately to herself.
But only brought more.
I lay dying,
And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal;
I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming -
Am I too lost to be saved?
Am I too lost?
Crimson regret and betrayal ... that about summed it all up.
"Hermione Elena Granger?"
The doors opened, and Hermione stood shakily to her feet. A wave of relief flowed through her as she saw Dumbledore standing in the doorway, waiting for her. She walked towards him, and he said, "Come in and take a seat, Hermione," gently, and briefly, she felt his hand on her shoulder, reassuring her. She walked to the little chair in the center of the room, glancing up briefly, desperately searching for Harry, Ron and Remus. Then she sank into the chair, and found herself facing the grand Wizenmagot. Terror struck her briefly, and she felt like a fly being put on an examining table and being dissected.
The head wizard, Mr. Biggs, looked down at the young woman who had walked in, and studied her carefully. So this was the old lover of Sirius Black, he thought wonderingly. He saw a beautiful young woman, who had attractive, sweet features - if slightly tired and pale - and a wonderful body, if on the thin side. Her hair was silky and layered around her shoulders, and her eyes were wide and brown, staring up at him with apprehension and a hint of defiance. She was wearing blue robes over Muggle clothing, and her hands were knotted together in her lap, restless in their movements.
How much did she know, he wondered.
"Miss Granger," he began, taking pity on her and speaking kindly, "I am Mr. Biggs, head wizard of the Wizenmagot. You do understand why you're here, don't you?"
Hermione was surprised. The head wizard reminded her forcefully of the grandfather figure she'd always seen in the Muggle picture books she'd read as a child, and still read to Sean. With a slightly rueful tone in her voice, she said, "Actually, sir, I'm afraid I don't know exactly why I'm here."
There was a murmur of surprise amongst the panel, and Hermione felt Dumbledore's merry blue eyes twinkling in her direction.
"I was told," she continued, summoning every last drop of confidence, "That you summoned me here to ask me questions about anything Sirius Black might have told me about the Sphere of Pagnon. I'm afraid I can't help you - I don't even know what the Sphere of Pagnon exactly is."
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
Damn the reality those lyrics invoked inside her ...
"Miss Granger - " Biggs began angrily.
Hermione shrugged. "I'm telling you the truth, Mr. Biggs."
She could see that he was beginning to lose patience, and his voice was infinitely less kind when he spoke again. Warningly, he said, "Miss Granger, I can call witnesses who can easily tell me exactly how close you and Black were, and there are other witnesses who will tell me without doubt that if there was anyone in the world he would have confided his guilty secret to, it would be you. If you refuse to cooperate, I will have to charge you as an accomplice to plans to overthrow the current magical government and access great power."
Hermione stiffened. "I take it, sir, that you don't believe me?"
"No, Miss Granger, I'm afraid I don't."
Lost for so long?
Will you be on the other side?
Or will you forget me?
I'm dying, praying, bleeding, and screaming -
Am I too lost to be saved?
Am I too lost?
"Mr. Biggs," Dumbledore cut in at this point, his voice as serene as ever, only Hermione caught the undertone of steel. "Miss Granger has been an impeccable citizen of the magical community, right from her first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She has never been arrested or given a warning by the government and she played a large role in the recovery of the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort. Her knowledge of magic and its laws is wholly impressive and devoted, without her, Mr. Harry Potter would never have won the Triwizard Tournament and thus discovered the resurrection of Lord Voldemort, and certainly, without her, we would not have destroyed him and his army three and a half years ago. Are you seriously suggesting that a young woman of Miss Granger's past and calibre is an accomplice in a plan or evil?"
"Deception, Dumbledore, is not unheard of," Mr. Biggs said sharply. "Take the example of Sirius Black - "
"Sirius did not kill Aberforth!" Hermione burst out angrily. "How can you say that? He would never - he wasn't - after everything he did for the magical community and for us, how can you - he was not a scheming murderer and he didn't have the Sphere of Pagnon!"
For a long moment, there was intense silence. Then, Mr. Biggs said, "Your devotion is touching, Miss Granger. However, your sincerity has to be questioned. Give me the information about the Sphere of Pagnon that Black fed you. If you know its location, I want that too. Cooperate with us now, Miss Granger, or you will be charged. Or worse."
"Or worse?" Hermione raised her eyebrows, rather curious now.
Mr. Biggs sighed, and looked truly remorseful as he said sharply. "I believe you have a son, Miss Granger, and that his father is unknown. Magical Law states that a mother who does not cooperate with the law is not deemed a fitting maternal figure. I have grounds, Miss Granger, to have your son taken away from you. If you are unlucky, he may not even end up with his godfather, Harry Potter, or with his next of kin, your parents."
Hermione gasped, feeling as if the world was shattering around her. "You - you can't - "
"I can, Miss Granger, and I will if you force my hand. One word to the correct department about your uncooperativeness with the law and you will be deemed an unsuitable mother. Your son - " He consulted a file that he waved up magically, " - Sean Taurus Granger, I believe, his name is - will be delivered to magical foster care."
Not Sean ... I can't lose Sean ... oh God, what do you want of me? It's either Sean or Sirius here ... they're making me choose ...
Hermione stared defiantly at Mr. Biggs, no longer afraid. Her life was in shards, falling to pieces, but she no longer cared. It had been destroyed years ago anyway. Biggs didn't believe her anyway; all he wanted was for her to tell him something that would certainly prove Sirius's guilt and sell him out. If they took Sean away, she knew Harry and Dumbledore would fight tooth and nail to deliver him to Harry's care, so at least she might see him again. So if they took her son away -
Then she had nothing left to lose.
She would rather be sentenced to Azkaban than betray the man she loved ... even if he was dead ...
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
Closing her eyes for a second to quell the tide of pain, she looked back up at the Wizenmagot and said coldly, "I have nothing to say. I maintain that I know nothing about the Sphere of Pagnon. I will not feed you false information about an innocent man."
"Very well, Miss Granger," Mr. Biggs sighed in frustration and disappointment. "You are hereby charged - "
Hermione caught sight of a fast movement in the balcony, and guessed Ron had stood up in anger and Harry and Remus had pulled him back to his seat.
"Mr. Biggs," Dumbledore interrupted the head wizard in that steely voice, "I'm afraid you cannot charge Miss Granger. You have no proof whatsoever that she is involved in this crime, and you therefore cannot charge her. Innocent until proved guilty."
"He's quite right, Arnold," the witch sitting next to Mr. Biggs spoke up mildly. "Innocent until proven guilty."
Hermione breathed again.
"Very well," Biggs said grudgingly, "Miss Granger, you are free to go. But please, do keep in mind what I said about your son, because I meant every word. And, if we receive any information, any evidence, anything at all linking you to this crime - we will find you."
"I'll be waiting on the edge of my seat." Hermione said dryly, before standing up and stalking out of the court. The doors closed behind her, and she stood alone in the waiting room for a few minutes, her mind grasping the events that had just taken place, and quietly, she walked away to where the others were waiting for her.
She was alone in the penthouse. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall were working feverishly at tracking down the Sphere of Pagnon, which was seemingly unheard of. Remus, Harry and Ron had a day off from Auror-ing, and they'd asked her to join them at the magical carnival in Diagon Alley. She'd declined, and sent Sean along with them.
Now she sat, on her own, in the twilight. The entire place was eerily silent, and she was alone with her thoughts and her demons. Terrible swells of grief swirled and spun inside her, growing, diminishing, bursting, but never fading. She could not understand why she was still here, still walking around like any other human ... when inside, she felt anything but.
Slowly, she stood up and went to the Muggle stereo Harry had obviously set up in the corner of the living room. She found a CD, of a Muggle band, and turned on the stereo to the song she wanted. As the beginning tune began to play sadly, she tasted salt on her tongue and dashed the tears away bitterly.
Suppressed by all my childish fears,
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave; 'Cause your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone
She'd never been able to get past Sirius's death. No one could ever understand how deeply she hurt, how much she had loved him. No one else, none of the other men she'd tried to date over the three years, had been able to get even a tenth as close to her as Sirius had managed to. And now he was gone, and somehow, he'd left behind a stained legacy for her. How could he be a murderer? How could he have planned to access such dangerous powers. How could he have wanted to be greater than Voldemort?
How could she believe it?
Yet there had been an eyewitness ...
How could she not?
She wandered across the room to the table where Ron's authentic dagger lay. It had been a present that Hermione had given him long ago, after a trip to China, and she picked it up now and slipped the shining, deadly sharp metal with its carved hilt out of the sheath. Slowly, she traced it along her palm, watching, numbed, as a thin red streak appeared ... like magic.
This pain is just too real,
There's just too much that time cannot erase ...
When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears,
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
I held your hand through all of these years;
But you still have
All of me
She'd gotten far too accustomed to pain. So accustomed to it that she didn't even feel it now as warm blood trickled out of that growing slice across her palm. The salt was growing more intense in taste on her lips and tongue, and she stared at the gleaming steel of the dagger as she twirled it slowly, enticingly, towards her skin. It shone in the dusk sunlight, shining in a way her life never could.
Oh, Sirius, did you do it? Why did you do it? I won't believe you did it!
What have you done to me?
She was going mad. At last, she'd finally slipped over the edge. She told herself that she hated Sirius for doing this to her, yet at the same time she loved him. She told him that she was going to fight for Sean and to do that, she was going to make up some rubbish for the Ministry, rubbish that she'd say he told her ... and at the same time, she knew that her loyalty to Sirius would never let her do anything of the kind.
"Damn you, Sirius Black!" She cursed over and over again, banging the dagger against the wall in her rage. A vase shattered on the table, an effect of her magical persona's anger. "Damn you for all you've done to me? Damn you for making me love you! Are you happy now? Are you watching me from wherever the hell you are and laughing at me? Hell! I hope you're in hell, damn you!"
Only she knew she didn't.
And that song on the stereo kept playing ...
By your resonating light;
Now I'm bound by the life you left behind.
Your face, it haunts
My once pleasant dreams,
Your voice, it chased away
All the sanity in me -
These wounds don't seem to heal,
This pain is just too real,
There's just too much that time cannot erase ...
She stumbled blindly through the room, the dagger shaking uncontrollably in her hand. As if from a distance, she felt like she was watching herself, and knew that she was going crazy. He had driven her crazy. He had left her, and with him, she'd lost everything that had ever meant anything to her. Her life was falling apart ... and she was powerless to stop it.
She didn't even want to stop it anymore. She just wanted the pain to stop.
"Look what you've done to me." She whispered brokenly. "No one asked you to be so damned noble and save my life, damn you, Sirius. It should have been me! I should have died that night, damn it! Me! Not you! How could you leave me behind, bearing this guilt, bearing this pain? You were everything! Without you - how could you expect me to go on?"
The tears were falling faster, harder, bitterer. Her knees buckled and she collapsed onto the rug, the cold steel of the dagger pressing into her skin, reminding her that she was still alive, that the pain was still real and that it wasn't going to stop.
He'd left behind only pain for her. And God help her, she didn't even blame him for it! All she blamed him for was giving himself up for her. She wanted him back so badly it hurt her physically. And the knowledge that he was gone ... that it was her fault ... her fingers tightened around the knife. He'd locked her into the life he'd left behind, chaining her to his love, to his memory, to his presence, to his guilt ... his guilt ...
Was he guilty?
Oh God, save me!
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears,
I held your hand through all of these years;
But you still have
All of me
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone -
But though you're still with me,
I've been alone all along ...
Eventually, the tears stopped tearing apart her body, and as she felt her sobs subside into silent grief again, she crawled up from the carpet, calm but shaking again. She looked down at the dagger again, watched as drops of blood leaked from her aching hand onto the ground, and wondered if it would be unbearably cruel to use the dagger she'd given wrong as the weapon of her final destruction.
Because she couldn't bear it any longer ...
"All right," she challenged him angrily, looking around wildly. "You saved my life once! Save me again! Save me from this pain, take me to you now! Why can't you do that? Harry and Remus and Ron will take care of Sean! They don't need me here, so why don't you save me and take me now, Sirius? Oh, Christ, why won't you help me now? I need to be saved ..."
She sank down to her knees again, and turned the knife so that its tip was pressing against her flat stomach. On the couch, she caught sight of her wand, the wooden stick staring back at her, almost like it was pleading with her not to give up. But it hurt too much, and she wanted to see Sirius again. Guilty or not, she needed to see him ... wanted him ... she loved him so much!
Hermione wondered whether it would hurt less if she used her wand and a self-casting Avada Kedavra curse, and then found herself laughing softly and bitterly. Hurt! Pain! It was laughable, and unreal as it seemed, she was laughing at herself. What did it matter what she used to end all this, because how could it possibly hurt any more than it already did?
Her grip on the blade tightened with determination, and a moment's pang of ecstasy shot through her.
Finally ...
My soul cries for deliverance;
Will I be denied?
Christ!
Tourniquet,
My suicide ...
It would be over any minute. Hermione inhaled sharply.
At last, it would end ...
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A/N: Haha, a cliffhanger! Let's see how this ends ... please, please review! The scenes with Hermione may be a little startling, but I'm just portraying the feelings someone would face in her situation. Let me know, all right, and thanks for all the reviews so far!
Just to clear up any confusion that might have occurred, the last verse of song is not from "My Immortal", as with the rest of the scene, but from "Tourniquet" again.
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