Chapter 3. A Truth Unveiled
It was an endless argument. They walked around each other in circles, twisting words and pointed thoughts into snakes, poisoning the well deepening between them. Hermione spelled out theories of time travel, the dire consequences of trying to work around the Laws of Time, the risks and unpredictable consequences. Sirius tossed those off the table and spoke of his friends, who were due to die at the hand of one of their own in a little over two years, of love and loyalty and the duty of courage. The duty of what was right. Hermione would sigh and counter with her implacable logic—sharp words with ten-line long definitions in the dictionary, serrated sentences spelled out on the blackboard of her mind, underlined three times in white chalk, written in that illegible script of hers. She exhorted the possibilities, drew up the scenarios, arrows tying them into a neat bow. Sirius untied it, loosening the strands of her ideas, picking apart the fallacies in her morality, dismissing her as a little girl with a shallow understanding of life. That one hurt. It went beyond the implicitly agreed upon terms of their disagreement.
"That little girl resurrected you," she seethed.
"I'm not sure resurrection is the right word given that thing on my chest. I'm sure you'll perfect the technique for the next tosser out there, but, in the meantime, I'm here to pick up the pieces of that disastrous spell of yours. You could at least let me save my friends from certain death, child! You owe me as much after you've ruined me. You've overreached like an eager little know-it-all, and now, I get to decide what to do with my own life." Low blow.
Hermione had spent years training to keep her emotions in check. Hours upon hours in dark rooms, insults being hurled at her, boggarts popping out from nowhere and forcing her to face her darkest fears, months of counselling with an old bat from the Ministry. All to ensure she could keep a straight face in the face of danger, threats, and emotional turmoil.
Right now, that training meant nothing. Maybe because it was him. Maybe because they were in uncharted territory. Or, maybe, simply, because, deep down, she agreed with his assessment—that she had messed up. That she was still just a child, one who knew nothing of life, one who had only had a few kisses given to her by inexperienced boys, one who lacked in emotional fulfilment and growth.
Whatever it was, it broke the sturdy dam she had built in her mind, emotions flooding in a powerful stream until they poked at her surface. She blamed her earlier breakdowns on the physical and emotional shock of falling through the Veil, on the concussion she had since healed, on the guilt gnawing at her values and replacing them with regret. This one, though—this one was different. She was not breaking in the face of the unknown—she was breaking in the face of an argument. There were no tears, no sobs. Shock washed over her, stripping the layers of her growth, until she was nothing more than the self-conscious twelve-year-old walking the corridors of Hogwarts alone, mocked and insulted by all those around her. It was like she had been hit in the throat. Punched.
She ran out of the shack without saying another word, eager to breathe another air, to remove the contradictory thoughts piling up in the corners of her mind, yards upon yards of draft paper with handwritten notes on them. At the top, a single word was scribbled, one she had previously shoved at the bottom of a trunk, locked in the depths of her mind: "know-it-all."
The streets of London were quiet—it must have been late, maybe two or three in the morning. The cloak of night covered a shivering Hermione, whose mind was still reeling and racing, flipping through the events of the day, footsteps going nowhere—focused only on putting as much distance as possible between Sirius and herself. Right now, she could not fathom why she had made the decision to bring him back—it seemed ill-thought-out, poorly-timed, too grand for her, and unreasonable. Like it had been a game. She had a gambling hand with just a little too much confidence in the cards it was holding. She tried to gather the thoughts that had pushed her down the long-winded road she had taken in order to get there. A schoolgirl crush. A desire to prove herself. An unsatiable hunger for the secrets of magic and life and death. Perhaps it had never really been about Sirius—perhaps it had always been about herself. About her place amongst witches and wizards, in a world that had rejected her from the moment she had stepped foot into it. She stopped walking and stared up at the starless sky.
In that moment of clarity, it popped back up. Not in a mirror—not this time. Like a monstruous delusion, it appeared in the night sky.
"So. You understand, now." It was her, it was still her—but distorted, uncanny. A painting with the oils mixed together wrong—a representation, as close as possible to reality, but just a little bit off.
"What do you want me to understand?" Because she really wasn't sure that she did understand anything.
"There is no going back now, Hermione. You have tried to evade me for far too long. But I am here—I will always be here. And you can't escape me. I know you understand what you have to do now." The voice was cracked along the edges, like it was close to something, but could not quite reach it.
"You're just a delusion. There's nothing more to it. I will escape from this reality, and you will be lost with it." Hermione spoke like it was a wish she was manifesting into a tangible truth.
"You and I both know you're not naïve enough to think this is true. We met on the abandoned girl's bathroom, when you prepared that poison to knock Crabbe and Goyle out. We saw each other again when you wore that Horcrux, and many times before. Every time you made a decision you grappled with morally. And now that you've crossed the line, Hermione, I will never leave you again. Embrace me or be replaced by me entirely. This is the only choice you hold in your hands, now. Breaking mirrors and shoving me away will not accomplish what you're hoping. Pandora's box has been opened now—and you know how this one ends." The eerie Hermione smiled and vanished from the sky.
Embrace me or be replaced by me entirely.
It slowly came back to her, a chilly trickle spreading in her bones, tingling at her extremities. A vision. In the mirror above the sink in the abandoned girls' bathroom, on the sleek surface of her Time Turner, below the surface of the icicles gracing the walls of the Great Hall during the Yule Ball. Occasional glimpses in the reflection of Harry's glasses.
And on nights the nights when she wore the Horcrux.
That calculating, nasty, eerie carbon copy of herself had always been there, lurking in the shadows, waiting for her to snap, to cross the threshold of morality with all her will and all her might. She hadn't taken a proper look at it until now, hadn't quite noticed its presence or even made note of its uncanny silhouette. It was only manifesting itself to her now because she had done the irredeemable. She had never broken the rules for herself, for her own benefit, for her own gain. And she had done so with such depravity, with such corruption that it had ripped the fabric of nature in two, shedding only blood and despair betwixt its loose strands.
Hermione kept walking—the road ahead was as lonely as she was. Flickering lights on the side of the pavements cried for the loss of her innocence. A mourning had begun—with each new lamp she stepped next to, a piece of herself fell to the ground, shattering until it was nothing but dust. Old skin, shed and discarded, leaving room to new skin, to a new being. A new Hermione. One she wasn't sure she was comfortable with yet—but one she had to embrace, nonetheless. There was no turning back now.
So she walked on, always looking forward, even if it meant not knowing where she was going. She refused to take a break, to step back, to return to Sirius, who was undoubtedly growing frustrated with her absence in the midst of their fight. She didn't stop.
Until she saw strobing lights and heard muffled music from ahead, a bit past the upcoming curve in the road. There was somewhere to go to—somewhere with life and music and people and alcohol. Somewhere to forget herself—old self, new self, past self, future self. To forget who she was, who she had been, who she might ever be, who she was becoming, had already become. None of it mattered. The forgetting was the only thing she could count on in that moment, the only thing she wanted to focus on.
Hermione swallowed what remained of her guilt and ran with her heart beating through her ears and her breath growing heavy—she only stopped once she reached the lights and the sound and the buzzing of life. It was a nightclub. A few men were standing in front, cigarettes loosely held between their fingers, swarms of smoke travelling up the sky.
"Hey there, princess."
She should be scared—she knew she should. It was three men and her, in the dark of the night, near a seedy establishment, silence only surrounding them.
"Want a little something?"
She should say no.
"Sure."
The tallest of the group, hair redder than the sky at dusk and freckles spread like stars on his face, smiled smugly and opened his palm to show her a little white pill.
"You look like you need to relax."
She probably did.
"Come on, take it." He rolled it to the tips of his fingers and placed it in front of her lips.
She swallowed it without question, knowing this impulse went against everything she stood for, everything she was. She could not find it in her to care. She had left old Hermione on the doorsteps of the Ministry what seemed to be decades ago.
"Come with us," he whispered in her ear, a hand on the small of her back.
She followed him without a protest—he pushed her to the middle of the dancefloor, his two friends closely behind them. Whatever she had taken, it was acting fast. She could already feel it drip on her like liquid mercury, glazing her skin until she was nothing more than substance amid nothingness. The music resonated through her blurred mind, leaking out of her ears and dripping onto her shoes, forming a pool of liquid she thought she nearly slipped on. Her hand grabbed the stranger's waist to hold herself into place and she crashed into him, curvaceous lines complimenting his harsh angles. She looked up to him—spiralling moors of a deep chestnut brown staring back at her, a deep sea of soil in which everything was reflected. The colours of the people surrounding them blended together, a swirling kaleidoscope that moved and flowed until it flattened beneath them. It was just him and her, levitating in a rainbow. Everything was in part something else, as if her mind had entered a thick forest laden with sharp trees, obscuring her view and understanding of the world. She reached for the stranger's hair and meshed her fingers in it, amazed by the softness of the silk it seemed to be made of. He stared back at her intently, digging his fingertips into her ribs, his breath ghosting over her ear—she leaned further into him, time flying by in floating numbers, heat imprisoning her sense of self, the wrinkling of his clothes beneath her fingers keeping her latched onto the last shred of reality.
"Kiss me." It was a whisper, liquid hot in her ear, drumming against her skull, pulsing through her senses.
She obeyed, the vibrations of the nightclub still swirling through her like tides of colours and sounds—deep turquoises, velvety melodies, dizzying lilacs. His lips were firm as steel, welding iron fusing them together and eating her whole.
"I think it's time you let her go, mate."
The ground broke open and swallowed her up. What was he doing there? How had he found her there?
"She seems to be enjoying herself with me, mate. Plenty of other birds in here, why don't you pick one out for yourself?"
Hermione's drug-addled mind watched the exchange in awe, her feet firmly planted in the ground, roots sprouting from her boots and latching on to the colourful tiles. Before she could even think to react, Sirius had grabbed her by the arm and attempted to drag her out of the club. The red-headed stranger blocked his way.
"You're not leaving until she pays for the drugs." He paused and his stance softened. "Of course, if she doesn't have cash, I can think of other forms of payment."
"You're not getting those filthy paws on her, mate. I will only say it once." There it was. Sirius' uncanny ability to infuriate her and every other woman on the planet, probably.
"I can make decisions for myself, thank you very much." Yanking her arm from him, she stumbled back into the stranger's arms. The walls were sideways, the crowd having fallen flat on its face.
"Hermione, love, you're high. Just come with me, alright?" begged Sirius. The crease above his nose and the slump of his eyes were pleading for her to listen to him, for her to renounce the impulse that had eaten through her.
"I…" She remained paralysed. The colours were dancing in her eyes like looping little devils, refusing to let her think properly. "I don't…" The words died on her lips.
Sirius' pleading expression turned into a scowl. He reached for his pocket and tossed a wad of cash at the stranger. "That's for the drugs. Let her go now."
The tension between the trio was so tangible Hermione wished she could cut through it with a knife. The stranger's two friends stood idly by, their eyes peeled and their shoulders stiffened in case they needed to intervene.
But there was no need. The stranger released Hermione and pushed her into Sirius' arms. "Fine," he drawled, packing the wad of cash in his pocket. "She's not pretty enough to be worth it. Have at it, mate."
The words barely registered as Hermione was dragged away by a relieved Sirius. She stumbled onto the pavement, and he only let go of her once he was sure she was stable on her feet. He watched as her eyes swallowed the sky whole. Perhaps it was the drugs, but the stars above glowed large like streetlamps. Each one was more of a sallow yellow than a brilliant pinprick of white, their edges bleeding into the dark, mixing in with the titanium and the indigo. The edges of the buildings beneath lay forgotten, too minuscule and too manmade to be allowed to compete with the stars—it was as if Vincent Van Gogh himself had returned to paint it for her sake, for this night only.
"You shouldn't have followed me," she said distantly, her head still swirling with the vision of the sky above her.
She expected him to respond any number of things. You could have hurt yourself; you should be thankful I did; I was just trying to protect you; these men could have hurt you; that was stupid of you Hermione; you acted like a little girl, and I came to repair your mistakes; aren't you glad I did?
"You were upset."
Clarity shattered on her skull, sending shards of glass flying in all directions.
"I was upset because of you."
He dithered, his long hair swayed by the cold evening breeze. "Yeah well I was a prat, then, wasn't I?"
His admission of guilt grabbed Hermione by the throat and pulled her gaze to him. "You were. But maybe you weren't… completely wrong, either." She wanted to be graceful, to remind herself that he had a right to his anger. Maybe he had taken it too far—but she had pulled him from the hands of Death without his input. He was not taking it out on her without reason. "I just… I get that I messed up. I wasn't trying to, but… I am sorry, for what it's worth."
He stared back at her. "I appreciate that. I'm sorry I acted like a prat tonight. I didn't mean any of it, Hermione." Her name on his lips softened her.
They were stubborn and prideful in equal amounts. He always dove headfirst, never thinking his decisions through, always leaving the consequences as an afterthought, a theoretical concept to be dealt with if and when he felt like it. She refused to acknowledge the failures in her ways, the motivations of her darker acts—she would think them through, plan them carefully, lay them down on paper, and circle around the ethical implications like they were mere obstacles she could think herself out of. Together, they were an explosion of contradictions, a festive buffet of the worst Gryffindor had to offer, in different ways certainly but always with an unparalleled intensity.
Admissions of guilt were neither's strong suit. And yet, here they were, in the middle of nowhere, staring at each other, their limbs unconsciously placed in defensive positions, letting vulnerability seep between the breach their respective apologies had just created. The stubbornness and the pride were discarded on the dirty pavements of London, ready to be picked up later, when their emotions would once again be running high.
"I'm going to go for a walk…" Hermione hesitantly broke their silence. "I have… some things to think about."
Sirius nodded and turned away without a word, signing with that gesture the agreement to let her decide her own fate. Part of Hermione wished he had insisted to accompany her, or that she return to the shack with him—but it was for the best. They needed some separation to truly navigate the implications of what they were doing in this time, and what should come next. What decisions should be taken.
Hermione walked in the opposite direction, trailing the buildings with her eyes like she was discovering London for the first time. In a way, she was. This was the town on the year she was born—it was years away from the moment she would first be able to drink it in, and miles away from the neighbourhood her parents had set up their home in. This was a new city, even to her, who had spent her life living in it.
Most of the establishments on that side of town were calmer than the nightclub, but she could still see life playing out through the thick windows: silhouettes dancing to music and chugging pints of beer, mouths kissing and whispering in hushed tones over the noise blasting through the speakers. Any pub along that street could have done the trick—any of those places could have been enough for her to sit down, drink, and think.
But she ignored them all until she reached a quaint little pub at the end of the row. The clientele was far removed from anything else she had witnessed—old men hugging their glasses close, moving their heads in unison to a football match on a small telly hanging up in the corner, an indifferent employee wiping down the counter. She felt a pull to this grimy little pub and walked in.
The barman acknowledged her with a nod, and she ordered a half pint, tossing the few pence she thankfully always kept in the back pocket of her jeans. She sat in a corner booth and pulled out a notepad from the inner lining of her jacket. The team on the screen marked a goal and the old men grunted in unison, prompting a smile from Hermione, who finally felt like she could regroup and gather her thoughts, unencumbered by the desires of others to butt in or otherwise intervene.
She opened the notepad to the last page and only managed to read three words until a somewhat familiar voice echoed through the walls.
"I'll have a bottle of Firewh… of red wine, barkeep!" He hiccupped, already drunk.
The man was small—no taller than Hermione herself, in fact. From afar, she could see thin brown hair roughly sprouting from his skull and hanging down the sides of his face, a hunched stature and a plain face. She furrowed her eyebrows in an attempt to place him in her memories—he was someone she had met, this much she was sure of. He did not seem like he belonged in the Muggle world (she was in fact certain he had been about to order "Firewhiskey")—and, even then, he did not resemble any of her parents' friends or elementary school classmates' parents. She flipped through the pictures of her mind—she had a hard time remembering exactly the early photographs of the original Order of the Phoenix and of the first Death Eaters. His plain face made it difficult for her to tell—she was practically convinced she had never seen him. And yet…
"A beer for everyone here! On me!" he shouted, his fist punching the counter.
A hooray dispersed itself through the old patrons, and one of them piped up.
"Celebrating something, lad?"
"Close enough! My old man died tonight. Murdered, if you can believe it! And I… well, I need a drink. Or three!" He emitted a guttural laughter, borborygmi popping out of him like bubbles tearing through his chest. "Cheers to you all!" He raised his bottle in the air while the barman aligned pints of beer on the counter for all the patrons to partake in the eerie celebration—or was it a wallowing?
Hermione carefully raised her own glass from a distance, too weary to be joining in on the emotionally charged effusion happening on the other side of the room. She knew that man. She had met that man. She had seen and talked to that man, in her present, in the late 1990s—so why did his name evade her entirely? Why did his face evoke nothing more in her than a vague wave of pity and tainted disgust?
She turned back to her notepad, trying to focus on the words written on the page, despite the nagging sensation that she was missing something major rifling through her mind.
She did not manage to make it more than a few minutes before a heavy clink on the table interrupted her stream of thoughts. She raised her head to see the man having taken a seat next to her on the booth, his thin hair drawing a curtain around the sides of his face, thickening the mystery of his identity.
Hermione curled her fingers around the notepad in a silent dread, the beating of her heart growing louder and pulsating in her temples. Her gaze scoured the room, looking for something, anything, to hold on to—anything that wasn't him. A slow tick lulled in the pit of her stomach, arguing with her nerves that she needed to leave and never come back, to run away from him. She straightened her back and tried to hush the alarm sounds her body was giving off—this was her best shot at figuring out who she was faced with and what was happening.
"I notice you didn't get your beer. It's on me," he said, all drunken amusement now gone from his voice.
"I'm not a big drinker. I'm sure someone else will appreciate it more than me." She parsed out the words like she was scared of spilling a secret.
"Well, I imagine you're right. It's too bad for me… The only pretty girl in here and she refuses a drink from me. Can't escape my shitty luck." It came out as a drawl—a threat draped in self-pity and glazed with envy.
"I didn't mean any offense…" she offered, discomfort lodging itself further in her gut. She shifted on her seat, unable to find a position that suited her.
"I'm sure you didn't. Everywhere I go, good things escape me. I thought having handsome and popular friends would remedy to that… but then, all they did was overshadow me." He snickered, the bottle of wine in his hands shaking with this body.
"I'm sure that's not true." She found it hard to offer anything other than empty words, common colloquialisms drowned in social politeness. The tick in her gut grew louder and drowned out the sounds from the telly.
"How would you know? You're just a pretty girl. Pretty girls get everything." The last word slipped out of him like a snake slithering out his trachea.
"You don't know anything about me either." Hermione's entire body recoiled, begging her to run out of there.
"Well, why don't we remedy that?" He turned to face her, extending his hand out to shake hers. His hair fell back, revealing the details of his face under the dim yellow light of the pub. A shiver spread along Hermione's spine. She knew that man. She could finally put a name to the face. And she realised she should have run the minute her instincts had told her to. "I'm Peter. Peter Pettigrew," he smiled.