Disclaimer: "Harry Potter" and all other aspects of this fic that you recognize (unless they're from any of my other fics) all belong to J.K. Rowling, and not to me! The storyline and the ideas involved in this story, however, do belong to me!

Summary: A dark force haunts the trio. When the dead come back to life, can you deal with what they might have to tell you? This is a story about loss, damnation, and a dead man's second chance at redemption ...

.

.

Road to Redemption

.

Chapter Ten: Den of the Devil

.

.

.

It was a very subdued group indeed that gathered in Dumbledore's office not much later in the afternoon. Harry was staring darkly at the headmaster, his eyes demanding an answer and the truth; Ron looked a portrait of misery and fear; Fred and George clearly looked as if they were torn between wanting to know what had happened to Hermione and the deep desire that they were anywhere but where they presently were; Professor McGonagall was continually blowing her nose on her oversized handkerchief (and Sirius could have sworn it was the very same one she had had when she had made James clean Wormtail's bat bogies after James had pulled the prank in Transfiguration); and Sirius himself was pacing the length of Dumbledore's office, occasionally giving vent to his temper and yelling furiously at the top of his voice, before returning to the painful rhythm ... up ... down ... up ... down ...

Hermione ... gone ... Hermione ... hurt ... Hermione ... Voldemort ... Bad ... Picture ... That ... Conjured ... You ... Moron ... Hermione ... lost ... Hermione ... love ... Hermione ... kissing ... Hermione ... gone ...

Sirius swore violently and wanted to throw something against the wall – preferably himself.

He had never been more miserable in his life.

At last (and about time too, he thought angrily), a golden-red feather from Fawkes' tail landed on the desk of the headmaster. The effect this hand on the people was electrifying. Everybody bolted to attention and stared expectantly and worriedly at Dumbledore, who had (to Sirius's shock) gone rather pale. Dumbledore never went really pale. He was always in excellent control of himself.

"Yes," he said softly, sadly, "Fawkes has just confirmed what I feared."

There was silence.

"Well?" said Harry with a bite in his voice. "I hope you won't be offended if I'm rather rude, Professor, but this is my best friend and I would dearly like to know what you feared that has now been confirmed by your devoted phoenix!"

Professor McGonagall didn't even seem to have the heart to reprove Harry for his rudeness.

Dumbledore said, "Of course, Harry, I quite understand."

There was silence.

"WELL?" said Harry, Ron and Sirius together.

Dumbledore smiled ever so slightly at their furious desperation and strung nerves. "You must understand," he said in his soft and gentle voice, "That to say it aloud would make it final, would make it real, and that I would give anything not to make it real. It is not the situation at hand per say that causes me such pain, but the way it came about – and why."

"Exactly so, sir," George said, huffing slightly, as a pause ensued after Dumbledore's words, "But I'm afraid none of us understand what the situation at hand is, let alone the way it came about – oh, and why, of course."

"Don't be flippant, Mr Weasley." Unfortunately, the acidity was robbed from Professor McGonagall's tone as she had been obliged to blow her nose in the handkerchief.

"I'm afraid I am being tiresome, Minerva," said Dumbledore.

Harry looked infinitely pleased to see that Dumbledore had grasped this fact.

Sirius itched to fling a paperweight at the wall and wake them up. This was a matter of time, for pity's sake, and not for this wretched dillydallying! He wanted to find Hermione and get her away from the blasted Dark Lord! But of course, no one knew that.

"Hermione has been taken by Voldemort."

The shock of hearing this statement, even thought they had expected it, made everybody blink and just stare blankly at the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. After all the dillydallying in question and the roundabout riddles and the whatnot, it came as a greater shock to hear the statement put so concisely and succinctly – in a word, something Dumbledore could have said aeons ago. Instead, he had gone on chattering ... Sirius shoved his fist into his mouth, restraining the urge to scream because he might miss something important if he did. He was being rather unfair to Dumbledore. After all, the man had found an answer to the disappearance of Hermione is less than two hours, hadn't he?

"Hermione ... taken ..." Ron mumbled, as if he was a child that has just lost its mother, "No ... Professor, you can't be saying – she can't be gone – "

"She is not gone, Mr Weasley," said Dumbledore at once, reassuring and gentle, "By no means. We shall find Voldemort's lair and we shall bring her back – there is no question of that. Of course, there will be difficulties, but I am already working on it as there is also Miss Tonks and Mundungus Fletcher to rescue from the Dark Lord's clutches."

"So there's a chance?" Ron asked, his expression looking terribly hopeful.

"There is always a chance, as long as we hope."

Harry spoke up, his voice quiet and hollow, like a ghost's: "You said that wasn't what hurt you the most. What did hurt you? Why are you so upset, Professor Dumbledore? How was she taken?"

"It's hardly necessary – " began Professor McGonagall, but Sirius growled so loud at that, that he wouldn't have been surprised if the reason she broke off was because she somehow sensed his fury in the very near vicinity to her.

However, it was Dumbledore who said, "They have a right to know, Minerva."

"Yes?" said Fred, his face extremely pale.

"Hermione went to the Hog's Head, I'm afraid. That was how she was captured, else she would be here with us at this very moment. The barman naturally recognized her, as he has been told to keep a watch out for her, and he summoned Voldemort's cronies at once to seize and transport her."

"But – but – " Ron floundered, "She wouldn't – she knew not to go there!"

Sirius was starting to feel sick.

"Hermione wouldn't have made a mistake like that!" yelled Fred.

Harry was staring silently at Dumbledore, a strange look in his dulled green eyes; like Sirius, he seemed to have realized the truth. The colour had all drained out of his face. He looked empty and very much alone.

"She didn't make a mistake," Dumbledore finally said gently, "She went there deliberately. She wanted to be captured, Mr Weasley."

"No!" Ron gasped. "I won't believe it!"

"Why the bloody hell – ?"

"She wanted, I believe, to precipitate Harry's killing of Voldemort to sometime very soon."

There was a long moment of deathly silence.

"Why?" Harry's choked voice echoed.

Dumbledore looked very sad, and as his blue eyes moved around the room, Sirius felt frozen as he saw the sharp gaze unmistakably rest directly upon himself. "I suspect," he said softly, his blue eyes still fixed on what was a blank, distant spot to everybody else – but was directly into Sirius's eyes to the shaken and broken Animagus. "I suspect that it all had to do with time. Innocent lives, you see ... and time."

And then Sirius understood.

"I don't believe this," George muttered.

Harry and Fred were silent.

"I can't believe she's gone," Ron said miserably.

Nobody in the room, whether in shock or in misery or in guilt, heard the sound of the strangled sob that echoed right up to the Golden Gates – but every single one of them heard and saw the crashing of splintered wood in the wall of Dumbledore's office ... as if a strong and violent, utterly invisible fist had just slammed itself into the hard and bitter wall.

.

.

.

Her head was throbbing and every muscle in her body ached, but Hermione knew she was alive the moment her eyelids flickered and she caught sight of a blurry ceiling above her.

They had not exactly been cruel, because their master had wanted her unbruised (for a not exactly unfathomable reason, of course), but she had kicked and struggled so hard (so as not to make them suspicious) that they had been obliged to knock her out in a rather old-fashioned way. She didn't know how long she had been unconscious, it could easily have been days by now, because her head really throbbed – but she only knew that she was awake now and that the Dark Lord had not come to claim his prize just yet.

The thought made a shiver run down her spine, and made bile rise in her throat. She had never even faced the Dark Lord before – Harry was the one who had looked at him. She didn't even know what to expect, and her mind was filled with images of a different, black-eyed, black-haired Animagus ...

Whom she had indirectly betrayed by coming here at all.

It was still impossible for Hermione to know whether she had done the right thing or not. Had she really made a terrible mistake? Her head throbbed. She was about to succumb to the weariness and the sorrow of what she had had to do, and sink back into the numb bliss of darkness, when a soft and worried voice made her force her eyes open again.

"Hermione? Oh, Hermione, can you hear me?"

That voice ... that voice was familiar ...

Damn it, whose voice was that? Hermione forced her head to stop swimming, and turned slightly on the hard and uncomfortable bed she was lying on.

A pale, heart-shaped face surrounded by violet hair looked down at her, concerned.

"Tonks ..." Hermione said, and she smiled.

Tonks exhaled a sigh of relief and sank back against the chair she was sitting in beside Hermione's bed. There was another bed on the other side of the room, Hermione noticed. It was not a particularly nice room, being rather cold and bare and haunted with the presentiment of evil – but it was not the dark and grimy cell she had pictured. In fact, this didn't seem like a prisoner's dungeon at all, although they were both undoubtedly locked here. Hermione looked at Tonks, relieved to see that she was unhurt. But there were shadows under her eyes, and she looked wan and miserable.

Hermione's heart was wrung. Poor Tonks had been here for a little over a week. It couldn't have been happy or pleasant or even remotely comfortable to be in the presence of Voldemort for over a week, and not have any escape or any knowledge if someone would come to save her.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

Tonks blinked. "What for?"

"I'm the reason you and Dung were captured, and Emmeline Vance k-killed."

"Is that so?" scowled Tonks, her old, bossy self again, "Well, you listen to me Hermione Granger. The three of us volunteered to be your Guard. Dumbledore may have found anybody else if he really needed them, but we chose to be. So you can put those ideas of blaming yourself out of your head. If anyone's to blame, it's me – an Auror – for getting captured and thus, allowing you to be captured."

"Don't be silly, Tonks," said Hermione with a faint smile. "You don't know what I've done."

"Well, don't tell me!" said the Metamorphmagus cheerfully, smiling at her as Hermione pushed herself up into a sitting position in the bed, "I'm so clumsy, I'd probably spill the beans to the first person who asked anyway!" Her expression softened. "I'm so glad you're awake. You've been unconscious for two days now, and I've been trying to revive you in the old-fashioned Muggle way, but it hasn't been working."

"My head throbs," Hermione muttered, and then said, "Thank you."

"Oh, I had nothing else to do, did I?"

Hermione looked around, and suddenly she grabbed Tonks and said, "Dung! Tonks, where's Dung?"

"He's in the next room," said Tonks, jerking her head towards the wall and looking surprised, "I think he's ridiculously happy there. I imagine the room isn't any worse than the squalor he lives in. But gee, Hermione, I didn't know you were that interested in Dung – "

"Get that idea right out of your head, Nymphadora!" Hermione said, appalled. "But he's alive? He hasn't been killed in any sort of way?"

"No ... he's all right."

"Well, that's one life," Hermione murmured under her breath, but she found little pleasure in the fact. The thought that she was risking other lives with her little stunt – lives that meant so much to her – was a very sobering thought indeed. She looked at Tonks, who was studying her with a slightly puzzled and thoughtful expression, as if she was trying to work something out. "Yes?" asked Hermione.

"Well, you see – it's just that I always thought you liked my cousin – "

"Which one?"

"Sirius, of course," said Tonks, smiling.

Hermione sighed. "No."

"Oh, I really am tactless, aren't I?" said Tonks, her smile fading, "I'm so sorry, Hermione, I know it still hurts to know he's – you know. It's just that I haven't had a chance to talk about him to anyone since he – you know. I miss him, too. He was my favourite cousin, and Remus and Harry and everybody else just don't seem able to talk about him because they haven't yet gotten over the fact that he's – you know."

"Dead?" Hermione said gently.

"Well – yes."

Hermione looked at the miserable Metamorphmagus, one of the few people who (like herself) had missed Sirius for months since he had been gone and nobody had ever realized how much they had because nobody had ever known how much they cared. She could sympathize with Tonks; there had been many times when she had wanted to talk about Sirius, but Ron had always made shushing noises and Harry had looked at her like a hard block of stone or simply walked over. She hadn't had the heart to push the topic and hurt him anymore. And now, ironically when one person wanted to talk about him, she could no longer do it. She knew how Harry felt now, and it would hurt her terribly to even think about him and what had happened. She knew the meaning of pain.

Yes, she knew the meaning of pain. But, fool that she was, she had also caused so much pain with her deeds and actions and decisions. Insufferable know-it-all ... Snape knew her better than she even knew herself, she thought bitterly. 'After what I've done, why shouldn't I suffer a little more? Tonks needs to talk about him. What right do I have to hurt her by refusing? It's the least I can do.'

"You're wrong, Tonks," Hermione said slowly, in as careless a voice as she could manage, "I would very much like to talk about him. I've wanted to for a very long time now, and if you're willing to – yes, I would like to."

Tonks reached forward and impulsively hugged Hermione. "I – I'd like to."

"Yes, we have nothing else to do for the rest of the day, do we?"

And so they did.

They talked about the things he had done and the way he had been. Tonks told Hermione stories she had never heard or known of before, and Hermione gave Tonks the exciting little details of such events as Sirius's escape on Buckbeak, Wormtail's return, Sirius coming to Hogsmeade to meet them during their fourth year. For nearly two hours – during which a sullen guard brought a meagre lunch and departed again – they simply talked about Sirius. Hermione didn't let the hot tears she felt in her chest flow, but merely found small inkling of joy in the way Tonks' expression lightened after each story and each memory that they had both cherished for so long.

"Do you think Sirius will go to heaven or to hell?" asked Tonks suddenly.

Hermione started. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, you're Muggle-born, are you? My dad used to tell me that when people die, it's their Judgment Day and there's all kinds of stuff to decide where you go." Tonks shrugged and grinned. "I wonder if wizards go there too, and if they do, where Sirius has gone. He's not a evil person at all – but he's much too much of an anarchist and rebel to be considered pure and perfect. Yes, it's a very interesting problem."

"He might have struck a balance between the two," murmured Hermione.

"Very likely! I wonder what happens then."

"Perhaps they would give him a task and send him back to earth as a sort of ghost to carry out his task, thus earning entrance into heaven," suggested Hermione dryly.

Tonks looked very much struck by this possibility.

Hermione smiled slightly.

Tonks would never know ...

After some time more of talking, and their topics drifted beyond Sirius and they indulged in what, under normal circumstances, Hermione would have termed 'girl talk' (certainly men and past flames were a vast topic of discussion), Tonks sighed and finished the last of the tasteless broth they had been given to eat with stale bread. She looked up at Hermione and said:

"Do you think we're going to escape this place?" she asked quietly.

Hermione squeezed Tonks' hand and said with utmost faith in those she knew: "Undoubtedly ... they will come for us, Tonks. They'll find us."

"Yes," said Tonks, nodding, "I believe they will."

"Tonks, can I ask you a question?"

"I'm suspicious of that tone in your voice. If it has anything to do with why they've given me three warning at the Auror office, I refuse to answer."

Hermione laughed, in spite of herself. "No, it's just – do you – er – like Professor Lupin?"

Tonks went bright scarlet. "Well – I – of course I like him, I mean – he's a – "

"How long ago was it that you fell in love with him?"

Tonks looked at Hermione in dismay. "Oh, no! Have I fallen in love with him? This is a catastrophe! A nightmare! Ridiculous! What on earth could he want with a clumsy, tactless, completely out-at-sea very young Auror like me? It was when Dumbledore first inducted me into the Order," she added in a slightly dreamy voice, "And Remus was the one who put me through my tests. He – he was – is – er – very understanding."

"Oh, quite," said Hermione, as seriously as she could in the face of Tonks' embarrassment.

"Are you sure I'm in love with him?" asked Tonks doubtfully.

Hermione smiled. "Believe me, I can tell."

"Well, I'll take your word for it. I'm rather gauche in matters like these – well, in all matters, actually, but particularly in romantic ones." Tonks sighed and shook her head. "Well then, that decides it!"

"Decides what?"

"I've got to flee, of course!"

Hermione did not see any cause for the 'of course'. She looked suspiciously at Tonks and said, "You most certainly will not flee! An Auror, a coward in the face of love? Don't be silly, Tonks. Why would you want to flee anyway? I would suggest you march up to him, tripping over the hat-stand on the way and allowing him to help you up in his quiet and gallant way, and you ask him to dinner."

"He'll faint."

"Men don't faint."

"He'll laugh."

"Professor Lupin wouldn't laugh."

"He'll refuse."

"Of course not!"

"He'll – wait a minute." Tonks blinked. "Why won't he refuse?"

"Because he's quite taken with you as well," Hermione said matter-of- factly, deciding that this could be the last good deed she would ever do on this earth. Perhaps that would cancel out the negative point she had received for what she had done, and maybe she too would strike a balance and come back to earth as a ghost.

Tonks looked so astonished that it was almost funny. "He does?!"

Hermione briefly reflected that this was not a very conventional conversation for two prisoners to be having in a cold and evil-atmospheric room. But she couldn't help smiling a little. "Yes, he does. It's as plain as pikestaff, Tonks."

"I've never understood why pikestaff is plain," remarked the young woman, "What is pikestaff anyway?"

"Never mind pikestaff," said Hermione hastily, "You haven't seen him since you were captured. He looks at least ten times paler and there are more shadows across his face. I think he actually looks forward to the full moon now – so that he can transform and forget all about you, and all about Sirius. No doubt," she added wisely, "He blames himself too. People have a tendency to do that. I know for a fact that Fred blames himself for Sirius's death. If you can give me one good reason why he is responsible for that ..." She shook her head, "The point is – Professor Lupin fancies you very much. You should really tell him how you feel, Tonks, as soon as you get out of here. Love – love doesn't come along many times in one person's lifetime."

"You're very clever, aren't you, Hermione?" said Tonks with frank admiration.

"No," said Hermione softly, "I'm not very clever at all."

They had just begun to relax and Hermione could say that her head and heart had stopped aching so much as they sat there and talked about romance and nothing in particular, but in a flash, the moment of brief relief was gone. They both the soft click that echoed through the bare room.

Both girls turned sharply to the door.

It slid open.

Hermione felt a cold chill seize her heart. A tall figure cloaked in black and hooded stood in the doorway, and even thought she couldn't see the white shell of a face that lay beneath, she sensed the stretching of thin lips into an evil smile. An evil, icy hand was squeezing her heart, choking her life out of her. Tonks' hand, suddenly very cold, clutched hers beneath the blankets of the bed.

"Well, well, Hermione," said a soft, cold voice that chilled her very blood, "I've been waiting for you."

.

TBC.

.

A/N: I had intended the next chapter to be the last, but writer's instinct :-) tells me that there may be two more chapters coming up. Please review and enjoy the story, and I shall update as soon as is humanly possible!