Please don't decimate me for starting another WIP when The Hunt is still in desperate need of a new chapter. I promise I'm getting to it, but my mind has been drawing blanks lately, so I wanted to explore this idea first.
Please heed the following warnings: this story features two adults with a considerable age gap and sexually explicit content. If you do not want to read such content, I recommend you stop reading here.
As for the others, please enjoy. I don't see this story going any further than maybe 10 chapters. No promises on an update schedule, I write it as I feel it and I do hope to complete Chapter 9 of The Hunt before uploading more to this. We'll see.
Chapter 1. Beyond the Veil
Time stood still in the Room where they kept the Veil—it mattered not the changes that had been brought forth in the past few years. It mattered not that the administration was anew, that the lobby had been renovated, that the Time Turners had been replaced and the Living Brains drained of their fluids, to be exchanged for newer, fresher ones. Because in that room, where the Veil of Death was anchored to a brittle arch, stones and grime threatening to succumb to dust with a single touch, time stood still. It bristled whenever it came close to the fabric dividing the realms, leaving those who approached it untouched by the tips of its fingers. One could spend years sleeping below the arch, living their every moment without ever leaving the stones behind—and they would not age. They would not grey or wrinkle or fall to dust. They would simply be…
if not for the treacherous voices; the call beyond the Veil. Loved ones whispering eerie little thoughts, barely decipherable, simple mementos of a world beyond. The voices calling for the Living to join the Dead, for the everything to become nothing, for a realm to dissolve into another—the eager hand of Death ready to pluck its next victim.
Hermione had denied the existence of this phenomenon—at first. When Harry and Luna had sworn up and down that they could hear whispers, she had urged them away. She had always been the image of reason, the picture-perfect example of logic and grounded thoughts—there was nothing in the beyond. You died and went nowhere. The whispers were a trap for those who believed, those who saw more to life than there really was.
And then, then—
Sirius Black had died.
Hermione didn't quite remember if she had heard the voices, then. It had been chaos—Death Eaters casting spells and Order members repelling them, children of Dumbledore's Army caught in the midst of it all, in a battle to save the prophecy, to keep it away from Voldemort.
But now that she was standing in front of it as an Unspeakable, ready to decipher its secrets, Hermione could hear something. It was faint, so faint it could simply had been a trick played on her by her imagination—but she knew it was there. A voice, soft, lost to the beyond, calling out to her, asking her to walk over the line she had drawn in white chalk around the arch.
She waved it off and lowered her gaze to the notebook she was holding in her hand. The assignment had been difficult to obtain—she was fresh out of training, and the Head of the Department of Mysteries, Averill Baker, liked to keep new recruits working in the Thought Room.
"Hermione, the Death Room is dangerous," she had sighed upon hearing her new recruit's request, shuffling files on her desk to find a requisition form.
"I know it is. But… I've been there when I was only sixteen, and I didn't fall prey to it. I think I can handle it. I completed the training with honours!" Anger, indignance. Hermione Granger did not like her skills and credentials to be questioned.
"Let me see what I can do."
It had taken seven weeks, a hundred and thirty-four release forms, and an additional twenty hours of personal training with a Senior Unspeakable for Hermione's request to be granted. Her motives had been questioned by more than a few—why would anyone as young as her be this invested in Death? Death was no concern for the youth—it shouldn't be. Rumours had spread around the Department—something Hermione found highly ironic from those whose entire mission was to remain tongue-tied.
She paid it no mind, because now, she was here. Alone. Ready to finally test out the theory that had badgered her for the past five years, the idea that had come barrelling down her mind after the Ministry battle, the thought that kept her up at night.
It had been nothing more than a whisper, at first. A vague dream spilling into reality. She had denied it, dismissing it as nonsense, rubbish. Hermione knew her magical ABCs—she knew it all, from the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law to the immutable truth of the laws of nature. She had done the due diligence required of her as a wand yielder—and, while she did believe some rules were made to be broken, she knew not to tempt the Fates.
But the dream had grown, flooding her thoughts in a steady stream of whispers begging for her to listen. She had walked across the country with Harry and Ron, wearing a Horcrux around her neck, holding the Deathly Hallows in her gaze, hunger and thirst and exhaustion and anger and pain working through her malnourished and tired form. She had let the spill become a flood, the whisper become a full-fledged idea, the rubbish turn into treasure.
And, so, she had figured out the only way to make that idea reality was to walk into the trenches of the Department of Mysteries. To become an Unspeakable. Harry and Ron hadn't been as shocked at the idea as anticipated—they had seemed pleased, in fact. As soon as they had heard it, it was like a puzzle being completed, the pieces of Hermione Granger falling into place for them, once and for all.
"That's actually bloody brilliant, Hermione. You're always so curious about everything!" Ron didn't always say the right thing—but this time, he had. He had finally understood who she was, what she was meant to do.
Harry had been more reserved in his judgment, trying to gauge the truth lurking behind her intentions, the reasons for her choice. But Hermione hadn't budged—of all the people she wanted to hide the truth from, Harry was the most prominent. He couldn't know—and he would never know.
"I'm glad we'll still be able to have lunch together, working at the Ministry and all," he had finally conceded, a lopsided smile sealing the deal.
And so, the idea had gone on its merry way, no longer facing any obstacles. It had kept her focused and level-headed during even the toughest parts of training—such as the Cruciatus resistance workshop. To this day, the name "workshop" rang false in Hermione's ears, who found it too trivial for what they had had to endure. Weeks on end of Crucio, litres upon litres of pain killing potions, hours and hours of mandated visits to mediwizards and mind healers, nights upon nights of restless sleep. Torture, all of it. Painful enough at times that Hermione, who had given up everything to become a child soldier in a war that had cost her the lives of many of her loved ones, had nearly thrown the towel and quit the training altogether.
And she would have, perhaps, if it wasn't for the thought pulsating through her.
The thought that, perhaps, there was a way to bring someone back from the dead.
It was simple, really—anyone who travelled beyond the Veil disappeared. There was no possible burial—there was no corpse, nothing left behind for the living to cry over and mourn and grieve. But Hermione knew that nothing could disappear without leaving a trace. Burning wood turned to ashes, liquids went down a drain, garbage went to landfills, corpses were lowered into the ground. Nothing disappeared entirely—the soil bore the traces of everything that had walked on it.
A body going beyond the Veil had to vanish somewhere, somewhere from where it could be reached, retrieved even. All manners of logic and rational thought told Hermione there was no exception to this.
Sirius Black could come back. He would come back. The lingering question, the reason Hermione had endured Unspeakable training for, was how.
She had long convinced herself that she was doing it for Harry—for him to have a family. She had nurtured and tended to that belief, letting it flower on the branches of her mind, hoping it would drown out the motivations that lay beneath, the treacherous vines and ill-intentioned creeping figs of her true desires—but flowers do not overpower vines. Flowers wilt—vines blossom; flowers die—vines stretch into infinity.
The creeping figs of Hermione's subconscious had strangled the orchids of her false beliefs until she had to admit to herself why exactly she was doing any of this.
She struggled with it still.
She had always been praised for her rationality, for her level-headed ideas and her cold pragmatism in the face of poisonous danger. She had revelled in that praise, grown to make it hers, to embody it at every turn. And, in doing so, she had attempted to bury the darkness within, the seeping and bitter liquid that pooled in the pit of her stomach every time she saw him, every time his skin grazed hers.
It had been, all in all, a useless endeavour. Because she was standing in front of the arch that had taken him, studying the Veil between their realms, seeking to bring him back. Not for Harry—for herself. To quench the thirst of her heart and satiate the hunger growling in the depths of her.
She wrote down a few notes about the arch and its structure before noticing the time on her watch. Nearly noon—she needed to head out if she wanted to make it in time for lunch with Ron and Harry.
"See you later," she whispered to no one in particular, her eyes lingering on the Veil, before walking out of the room.
She met with her friends in the lobby, and they walked to their favourite lunch place—a quaint little sandwich shop not far from the Ministry. As usual, Ron gulfed down pastrami sandwiches to his heart's desires, Hermione distractedly moved around tomatoes in her niçoise salad, and Harry picked the pickles out of his salami sandwich, despite asking for them to make it without every single time.
"Pickles don't even go with salami," he muttered, tossing the last of them in his napkin.
"Yes they do. They go with everything, you just don't have any taste," protested Ron, his mouth full and chewing at record-breaking speed.
Hermione smiled and jabbed a hard-boiled egg with her fork.
"So, how is it, finally being Aurors?" she asked after swallowing.
"Pretty boring for now," shrugged Harry. "Mostly filling out paperwork and helping out back office. We won't be sent on any missions during our first year. It's protocol."
"Yeah, but I'm not complaining. We've had enough excitement during our school years—I'm not against some rest," added Ron, who had finished his second sandwich and was now hungrily eyeing the third. "What about you, Hermione? Finally going to tell us about any of your secret missions as an Unspeakable?"
"You know I can't tell you anything, Ron. But," she pushed a tomato with her fork before stabbing it, "so far, it's fine. Lots of paperwork too. We need to seek permission for every single project." It wasn't quite true; it wasn't a lie, either. A half-truth.
"Come on, we've been at the Department of Mysteries before! It's not like we don't know what goes on down there," countered Ron. "I hope they're not putting you in that awful brain room." He shuddered and Hermione smiled.
"No, not yet. I guess it'll happen at some point. I still can't tell you what I do there." She paused to chew on the egg at the tip of her fork. "And you better not be telling anyone what goes on in any of these rooms, Ron Bilius Weasley," she added after swallowing, pointing her finger squarely at him.
"I would never! I swear on this pastrami sandwich."
Hermione let out a hearty laugh, her wild hair buzzing with joy.
She was glad they were still good friends—she had feared, for a time, that the end of the troubles that had brought them together would mean the end of their friendship. The idea that she could lose them, the only family she had left, had terrified and paralysed her so deeply that she hadn't found it in her to break things off with Ron immediately after the war.
Instead, he had done it for her. Between losing Fred and recovering from the wounds of his ego, he had grown beyond his years and finally reached the maturity she had so hoped he would one day find. On the day she was due to return to Hogwarts, minutes before she climbed onto the scarlet train, he had pulled her aside and asked that they speak privately.
"I want you to know, Hermione, that we will always be friends. But…" he had paused, knotting his fingers together, not daring to raise his eyes and meet hers, "I'm not sure I can go any further than that. I love you, just not… not that way."
Relief had washed over her—he had found the courage to utter the words she had been so desperate and yet so cowardly to say.
She had placed a hand on his, pressing her fingers into his flesh. "I feel the same way, Ron. I'm so happy we'll stay friends. There is nothing more I want in the world—you're my family. And you will always be."
They had parted as friends and reunited in much the same way. She would forever be grateful for that, because whatever remained of her world was uncertainty and grief. A path to nowhere.
After lunch, before they were set to return to their respective departments, Harry pulled Hermione aside.
"You're not going to be working on the Veil, are you?" There was an urgency in his eyes, which flickered above her, trailing the twitches in her face and looking out for any lie they may betray.
Unfortunately for Harry, Unspeakable training was as thorough in the art of deceit as Auror training, if not more.
"Of course not, Harry. At least not for a very, very long time. Senior Unspeakables are the only ones even allowed to enter the room." She stretched the corners of her mouth into a reassuring smile.
His gaze lingered on her, but there was nothing for him to find. "Sorry, I'm just… I want you to be safe," he finally said, pulling away from her.
"I promise you everything will be fine."
She noticed the glint in his eyes as they parted ways and guilt crept up her throat, eating her from within. She shoved it to the back of her mind as soon as the Veil appeared to her. Regrets were useless—she was too far gone. She had done too much to make this reality hers.
After jotting down a few observations, Hermione regretfully left the room, choosing to head for the Reserve, where thousands of books and archives lay in wait for the Unspeakables. The darkest and most obscure tomes papered the room, accessible only to those, like her, who dealt with the fundamental questions of the human mind: thought, death, love, time, prophecies, and space. Access to the Reserve was restricted even to the trainees who, though they did sign a confidentiality agreement at the beginning, dropped like flies once the Cruciatus resistance workshop began. Hermione had entered the training with twenty-five classmates—of those, only two were left to complete it by the time it ended. The others were off to pursue less dangerous positions within the Ministry.
Hermione's fingers trailed the spines of the old tomes, the feeling of the rough fabric and gold embossing anchoring her to reality. She walked through the shelves for a few minutes until she reached the Conjuration section.
The tales of Ilmatar and Tsichtikano had been the first to bring her to the conclusion that this was where she needed to be; what she needed to research.
Creation from nothing, life borne out of thin air.
Ilmatar, Mother of the Waters,
birthing a teal bird from her thoughts,
a bird who nested on her knee until she could not stand the pain anymore
and broke the eggs.
The eggs became the skies and the stars and the moon and the sun
and when Ilmatar finally stopped gazing at the shattered remains of the teal bird's eggs;
she created.
She walked the Earth and left pools of fish in her footprints.
She waved her arms and unearthed beaches on the edges of the seas and the oceans.
Tsichtikano,
the Thinking Woman,
who fed the spirit-sisters and gave them seeds to plant—
seeds of plants and animals to cover the Earth—
seeds of the pine that broke through the crust of the Earth
and created a hole the two sisters widened
by giving a badger the gift of life.
Tsichtikano,
the Thinking Woman,
sent to guide the sisters through their creation,
the woman who thought and made the world anew.
Creation from nothing, from pockets of air,
from bits of nothing tossed into the void.
Hermione had then remembered spells from her youth, spells of Conjuration: Serpent Sortia and Avis. The creation of living beings out of thin air. It had boggled her mind at first—the five principal exceptions to Gamp's Law stated one could not create life out of nothing, much like food.
But what of summoning life from where it previously existed? The serpent collected from its den; the birds called away from their flock.
Sirius Black brought back from beyond the Veil.
Life returned to where it rightfully belonged.
Hermione scoured the Conjuration shelves for another few minutes, unsure of what exactly she was seeking. Tomes about resurrection all agreed that it could not be done—that Avada Kedavra was irreversible.
But Avada Kedavra had not killed Sirius Black.
She sifted through a pile in the far-left and dimly lit corner—tomes abandoned by previous Unspeakables, who had found nothing of interest in them and tossed them away. Abandoned the ideas they contained.
She was struck by the gold embossing on the one at the very bottom. It read Merlin's Dark Underbelly. Feeling a tug in the pit of her stomach, she pulled it from under the pile and set to reading on one of the tables set up in the back. Dust flew in the air as she dropped it on the table—she wondered for how long exactly it had been left there, away from prying eyes.
Trying to quell the excitement building up in her stomach, Hermione opened the heavy tome to the first page and began reading.
The moon was already high in the sky by the time she found something pertinent to her quest.
"Nimuë, also known as the Lady of the Lake, was a central figure in establishing Merlin's vices, in regards to women especially. Initially his apprentice, like many others had been before her time, she rejected his advances early on, eager only to imbue herself with his knowledge and to perfect her magical skill.
Though rumours have travelled history about the details of their relationship, the Resonat Legenda paints the most realistic picture of what likely transpired between them. According to the archives transcribed in the Resonat Legenda, Nimuë, having grown tired of Merlin's incessant advances, tied a noose around her neck and hung herself from the highest tree in the Brocéliande Forest, above the shallow grave of a druidess who had been tortured a few years prior.
Merlin, being inconsolable with the loss of the woman he deemed to be her beloved, crafted a spell that broke all Laws of Nature, the Resurrectio. It was intended to bring someone back from beyond the Veil—from death. The Resonat Legenda does not give any explicit directions as to how this spell was even used—likely to prevent others from following in Merlin's footsteps. It can be deduced from knowledge of his use of magic then that he placed something dear to him as an offering to the Gods of Death below the tree and then performed the spell, prompting the return of Nimuë.
In an unfortunate turn of events, the Lady of the Lake was consumed with such rage at being removed from the limbs of the beyond that she immediately sealed Merlin into the Great Tree, where it is said his spirit still lies within, waiting for her return."
Hermione's heavy eyelids sparked up with every new word popping on the page. She had been right—it was possible. It was possible.
Dawn poked its head out the horizon—she closed the book, shoved it back where she found it, and headed to the Unspeakable cafeteria for some much-needed caffeine. She was not surprised to find it already in use—Unspeakables rarely followed a strict sleeping regimen. They were researchers, not simple Ministry employees. And researchers do not abide by the rules of a nine to five job.
She was amongst her people.
"Rough night, Granger?" asked Pansy as Hermione sat across from her, a steaming cup of black coffee in her hands.
She yawned in response. "Yeah. You?"
Her friendship with Pansy had not come naturally by any means—she had been surprised to see her even join the training, which was reputed for its difficulty and high dropout rate. By the time it had come to an end, she had grown close enough to Pansy that it did not surprise her to see the Slytherin stick it out until the end. Pansy Parkinson was ruthless in more ways than one.
They had first struck up a friendship during their law seminar—a mandatory class for any would-be Unspeakable worth their salt. They had been paired up at the very beginning by their professor, who had told them he could "not give less of a fuck" about their "bullshit school rivalry". Six weeks of constant Pansy Parkinson had Hermione convinced she would drop out there and then—but, as the days flew by, she found herself enjoying the raven-haired girl's presence tremendously. A feeling that was apparently mutual, as their disdain for each other progressively dissolved and turned into a friendly rivalry.
"Why do you want to be an Unspeakable?" had once asked Hermione during another one of their late-night library study sessions.
"To prove to my father I'm capable of doing more than getting married and breeding little Parkinson heirs," Pansy had responded honestly, not lifting her gaze from her notes.
That unwavering honesty, no longer draped by the false pretences of school, had been what had cemented Hermione's perception of Pansy as more than a simple mean girl. She wasn't nice per se—she simply cut through the bullshit with the razor-sharp knife of her mouth. And she had become a friend Hermione knew she could rely on in times of doubt.
"The fucking brain room, Granger. I wish I'd gotten an interesting assignment like yours." Pansy nibbled the edge of her cookie.
"I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it. But you're right, it is interesting." Hermione stifled a yawn and drank a few sips of her coffee.
"Still won't tell anyone what you're looking for?"
Pansy knew Hermione—she knew her aversion to death, to the idea of a beyond. She knew Hermione's rational brain and endless logic. She knew she hadn't asked for the Death Room out of a mere intellectual thirst.
"Don't even try, Parkinson. I may be tired, but I followed the same training you did. I know how to remain tight-lipped and tongue-tied," she smiled through her cup, enjoying her friend's curl in the lip and brooding eyes.
"I just thought I could help, but if you're so intent on doing it alone…"
Hermione chortled. Pansy really did belong in Slytherin.
"Nice try. I'll see you for lunch, yeah?" The chair scraped the floor as she got up.
"Not going with Potthead and Weasel?" Pansy's inquisitive gaze draped Hermione, goading her into anger.
Hermione did not take the bait. "I was thinking you might join us… and maybe actually talk to Harry instead of staring at his arse." She paused, raising her eyebrows. "Oh, did you think I didn't notice that's what we do when we leave the building?" She smiled innocently.
Pansy scowled. "Whatever, Granger. These two make for entertaining discussion, with how dumb they are. I'm sure you need the diversion. And that's the only reason I'm doing it."
"Sure."
She walked back to the Reserve with a smile floating on her face. On days where she felt the tug on her heart falter and swivel, she tried to create happiness elsewhere.
She was so close—
and yet so far.
She shoved that uneasiness deep within her, refusing to allow it to make her trip and fall so close to the finish line. To the one goal she had aimed for her entire adult life.
She rushed to the Reserve, picked up the book and walked through the door of the Death Room, refusing to give in to the creeping doubts blooming in the back of her mind.
There was still a tantalising beauty to the Veil that knocked the breath out of her. An eerie wave of sadness that travelled the room like a melody, an enchantment that played the strings of her heart like a violin. Hermione swallowed with difficulty, an unease growing with the chant of the violin, and sat behind the chalk circle, opening the book in her lap back to the page she had last read.
"It can be deduced from knowledge of his use of magic then that he placed something dear to him as an offering to the Gods of Death below the tree and then performed the spell, prompting the return of Nimuë."
The spell wasn't the hard part—the offering was. Something dear to her… not someone. This was not a case of exchanging one life for another—sacrifice was not required.
The laws of nature worked within the bounds of an equilibrium. Every life returned was to be exchanged with something equal in value—another life. This was the essence of all deals made since the dawn of time—the price of war, of loss, of life. It seemed eerie, then, that all Hermione had to do was place an object of hers—no matter how dear—for a life to be handed to her freely.
She toyed with the pendant around her neck for a moment, her eyes searching the Veil for a truth she could not seem to find. It couldn't possibly be this simple—it couldn't.
Pressing the locket against her chest, she decided it couldn't hurt to try. It could very well be that nothing would happen—that she had been tricked by the book and would need to seek another path, one that satisfied her goal fully.
And, it so happened that the something that was very dear to her was just in her hand. The locket her parents had given her on her seventeenth birthday, roughly a year before she sent them to Australia under the alias of the Wilkins. It was the very last thing of theirs that was hers entirely—that belonged to the Grangers, and not the Wilkins. She toyed with it a bit more, her heart in her throat and her breath struggling against the walls of her trachea. She had never thought about it before—the locket was a given, a sacred treasure she had promised to cherish forever. To die with. To be buried with.
But it was just a memento. It was nothing more than glass and gold and printing paper in a heart-shaped frame. She had photos of her taken with it, memories gathered wearing it. And her parents were gone, forever—whether she liked it or not.
So there was no point in keeping it, was there? Not when she could bring back Sirius. Not when she could solve the riddle thrumming in her heart, punch the schoolgirl crush in the throat and be done with it. Not when she could bring Harry his only family back—Morgana only knew she couldn't do the same with hers.
Reluctantly, she unclasped the pendant and walked past the chalk circle, placing the locket in front of the Veil. She gave it one last longing look before pulling out her wand from her belt.
"Resurrectio."
A blindingly white light burst out of her wand. It soon formed a hand—it grabbed the locket laying on the stones and flew straight through the Veil.
Silence. Even the whispers from the beyond were gone.
Nothing. Nothing was happening. The light was gone. The locket was gone. It had all been for nothing.
Tears of rage trickled down Hermione's face, wetting her flushed cheeks and seeping through the corners of her open mouth; silent wails erupted through her, shaking her limbs, littering her body with tremors she couldn't contain.
"Hermione?"
That voice. She knew that voice.
Hermione lifted her gaze and was met with a naked Sirius Black. He stood tall, taller than she remembered him.
"S-Sirius?" she whispered in disbelief.
He looked lost, confused—but there was something else. Something that wasn't quite right. Her eyes searched his skin, barely registering his lack of clothes in their urgency.
And, just above his heart, she saw it. A black stain, stretching along the pores of his skin, eating him from within—a black hole, a dying star, draining the life she had worked so hard to return to him, an empty well of darkness.
"Hermione, I-I… I don't feel so well." His voice was strained, ragged. His eyelids fluttered, threatening to close. His body went limp and faltered, like death was inches away from him—again. Not again.
He was about to fall.
A dying angel.
"NO!" roared Hermione.
She was not ready to lose him, not again. Not when she was so close.
She rushed to hold him, crashing into him, the Earth falling onto the Sun, the burn of her heart pushing her, forcing her to go against every instinct she had ever known, every shred of logic she could muster.
Their collision was brutal, fatal. It was an avalanche in waiting, boulders of snow and ice quaking from disturbing heights, branches cracking under the pressure.
They fell together.
Through the Veil.
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