By the time the aurors arrived muggle police sirens blared in the distance. Petunia stood shell-shocked in her dress and wrapped in her cooking apron. She stood next to Hermione and her nephew looking out her bay window at what had been her front garden. The part of her property not protected by Flitwick's shield had been torn up, large divots with their dirt and grass and bushes blown into the street. Scattered figures thrashing, bound, and strewn across the road. There were nine of them. One of the aurors went around lifting their sleeves to expose bare arms. Standing by the window with Harry and Petunia, the other two didn't know the significance of those bare arms lacking inked skulls, but Hermione did.
"Trash!" A bound woman screeched from her prone position on the ground. "How dare you protect HIM. He killed my family and you protect him."
Hermione felt dread pooling in her. She watched the aurors search them, opening robes and rifling through pockets. As the outer wizard robes were stripped the clothes beneath were searched next. Laying there some of them looked as if they might live in Privet Drive were it not for the discarded wizard wear. Underneath it revealed four of the nine were dressed impeccably as muggles, or those who'd grown up with them. Muggleborns she realized. One even had a metro pass pulled from his pocket in the search. Hermione's back stiffened, her mouth going wet, then dry as she stared at them through the Dursleys' window.
The very people she'd want to protect, the people she might have felt closest to, some of them had tried to kill her little brother. In a muggle neighborhood and they'd still come wands blazing and ready to... In a muggle neighborhood. How many people would they have hurt to get to Voldemort's soul, just because they happened to be there and too close to the spell fire? Muggles who didn't do anything wrong and should be left out of this pissing match. This very well could have been her parents house. If they hadn't found Harry here would they have checked her home next? The thought of the closet her dad was readying for Harry. Her nice, unsuspecting parents with absolutely no protection around their home. This could have been Hermione's street just as easily as it was Privet Drive.
She watched the bound wizards, their discarded outer robes being packed up with the rest of their confiscated belongings. Aurors prowled the property like wraiths. Their red robes bleeding easily into the darkening night. Two going to the intersection to head off the approaching police. The muggle neighborhood glowed the softest orange from the still burning gasoline fire. An auror had thrown up a barrier to keep it from spreading beyond the neighbor's driveway, but it burned tall and hot, covering everyone in Petunia's ruined garden in that soft orange.
"Vile scum! You are the worst sort of-" The bound woman's screech cut off when the auror next to her raised his wand and stunned her with a jet of red light.
Next to her the teenager said, "Usually I do something before someone tries to kill me. We haven't even started the school year yet."
Petunia's face twisted, aghast at the gallows humor or still reeling from her destroyed roses Hermione wasn't sure.
Harry continued, "For once a teacher saved me."
Hermione choked out a cry which sounded like a laugh. So she told him. Told him about the rat. Told him about the trial. Above them Petunia stood rooted like an unwelcome and terrified specter. Her hand at one point had moved to grip Harry's shoulder and the aunt's spindly fingers clenched tight as the story went on.
"Dumbledore knew Harry. He knew Pettigrew was the one who betrayed them. He didn't look for him. He didn't say anything when they went after Sirius. He was one of the Order of the Phoenix to arrive in Godric's Hollow, to your parents' home after it'd been attacked. The room you were found in reeked of the worst magic and you were injured with a terrible burden and he wrapped you up and sent you away like a parcel to storage."
Harry looked down, his eyes watery, she hated seeing him like this. She wanted people to be happy. Why couldn't she just make everything better? Hermione's lip trembled, her own eyes filling with tears enough to blur the two in front of her.
"Pettigrew saw their deaths. He saw Voldemort's attack. Your mum Harry was so brilliant. She must have been the smartest woman from her class, the way she used runes, she was so sure and brave and knew what she was doing. That sort of array wouldn't have worked if she didn't love you with all of her heart."
Hermione's cheeks were wet and her nose started to leak. Petunia's other hand rested on Harry's head and stroked his hair once, twice, and the boy between them broke in on himself, his shoulders shaking.
"I think Dumbledore knew. I think he knew what happened the moment he saw you. He suspected when Voldemort's presence hurt your scar and he knew for certain the moment you spoke Parseltongue. Part of Voldemort's soul, his spirit, broke off and clung to you. It's why you get pains there and the Goblin specialist said it'd affect your behavior and emotions, that these sort of things always affect people when they're near."
Petunia spun away, it seems her mothering tendency couldn't take the tense moment any longer. Hermione thought this woman had likely been affected too. How couldn't she be? The proximity of a horcrux living in your house and close to your person was supposed to whisper to you and prey on your worst insecurities. Taking your thoughts and worries and twisting them against you in your dreams and haunt you while you're awake. Hermione watched the woman go. Not quite sympathetic, but putting together how twisted and vile a person's naturally bad tendencies could become under manipulation of a malicious and insidious presence living in their house. Petunia had 11 years of it without a break.
The cupboard. The story from the twins about the locks on Harry's bedroom door, a door which had since been replaced and now looked so unassuming. It could never justify child abuse, but the fact a dark magical entity had been placed with a family and neighborhood who were completely unaware and unable to combat it... That was a level of cold calculation and brutality she hadn't encountered before. She hadn't ever been afraid of her Headmaster before, but she probably should have been, Hermione realized.
Was it acceptable because they were muggles? Was it acceptable to kill an innocent or leave a lure in the middle of a neighborhood knowing someone would come to kill them some day? Because they didn't have magic it was ok? The idea Albus or anyone thought they could do terrible things to people who were lesser, knowing those people would be locked up and too powerless to do anything. Thus the treatment would continue. For the greater good, they justified, to make a better world they argued. Hermione's hand shook. Her tears burned out from an internal and unquenchable heat. She was so angry. All she could do was keep talking and simply be there for her crying friend.
"So if you're feeling angry or sad or anything that's ok. We understand and we're going to help you. Sirius, he's got some sort of specialist doctors and people who know about how to remove these sort of conditions. It'll be hard they think, but they're really smart. We'll get that piece of Voldemort out of you."
"That's why they attacked here. They were coming to deal with it," Harry looked broken and made of lead as he said the words.
Hermione supposed it was one thing for a single sociopath to want you dead, but another for otherwise upstanding citizens to blatantly hunt you. To believe the world was better off without you. Well, Hermione doubted how upstanding this section of humanity could be if this is how they were persuaded to act. There wasn't anything civil or humane about it. She reached for him.
Harry slung his arm around her waist and it was less of an embrace and more of a hold to keep himself upright. He shook as if a deep deep cold had grabbed him and clung. She steered him away from the bay window, away from his aunt, out of the house. They got as far as the front steps before his legs gave out. She lowered them to sit with their feet on the driveway. Their seat cold and uncomfortable, the unforgiving concrete steps dug into Hermione's legs. The lights from the streets dotted along the neighborhood, at odds in their normalcy to the car the aurors were allowing to burn next door. A rose bush which had been thrown in the first onslaught of Flitwick's shield lay between them and the boot of the Dursley's car.
Hermione overheard an auror informing Sirius, "The family might need protective custody. The Governors got the school records, they're speaking with Bones and Fudge and half the Minister's Office staff tonight. That one's a low level admin," the Auror pointed at the reedy one knocked clear across the street and laying prone and unconscious on some unfortunate daffodils.
"I was there with Bones for the start of the briefing." He explained, "This address and their names are printed on those records. You said you're taking the boy? Make sure those adoption papers are filed. Even send the office a copy tonight and have someone speak with them tomorrow. I'll send a copy of my report to add to Potter's file there."
He then stepped into the house. His blue eyes and lions' mane of hair slicked back. He actually wore a suit which wouldn't look odd in any upper income neighborhood. Smart of him, Hermione thought. It meant he wouldn't have to change regardless of where he'd be called. Petunia watched him step inside her house with wide eyes.
However, his voice was low and soothing, "Mrs. Dursley I am Rufus Scrimgeour from the Ministry's Magical Police. I am in charge of relocating non-magicals who've been targeted. It hasn't been common for a few years, but we're afraid the attacks are about to pick up again. Your family in particular may be vulnerable. If you and your husband are willing my deputy Kingsley Shacklebolt will help you move to any town of your choosing and help set up security around your new home. Would you be willing to sit down and have tea with us to talk it over?"
A tall man who must be Shacklebolt followed through the front door and Petunia, still wide eyed, shakily led them back to the dining room.
The other aurors helped the Ministry obliviators line the neighbors up, under a gentle mass compulsion spell, and under the pretense of collecting their witness accounts proceeded to obliviate each and every one of them. Hermione's brows came together. Something was wrong about this, but there had been so much wrong about the day she didn't quite have the capacity to process what she saw immediately.
Once they'd had their memories extracted, documented, and stored in one of the auror's wooden cases full of glass vials the muggles walked back to their homes calm but confused at why they'd come out when a faulty car battery had blown up. Hermione watched them go, thinking this protocol to be incredibly short sighted. The UK Ministry was lucky none of these Privet Drive residents had thought to bring out a camcorder. Almost every family had one now. Erasing the evidence from their minds might have worked in the 1930s, but muggle technology had so far surpassed this she wondered if the wizards even had a clue. Perhaps not if the current state of Muggle Studies at Hogwarts remained so inaccurate.
Sirius, Flitwick, Harry, and herself stayed until the Dursleys had been packed up and left under Auror guard. Harry, to the surprise of everyone received a hug from his cousin. The boy who was chubby but growing out of it then held Harry at arms length, "I'm sorry. I really never understood did I?" Dudley shook his head and stepped back, back into the waiting arms of his mother. With all of them touching that fence post, which Flitwick had flicked and now was a portkey, the Dursleys disappeared from Private Drive.
It was 3:30 in the morning by the time they arrived at Arcturus' old Manor. Flitwick came with them, the short man's step springing and energetic. Hermione imagined it'd been a long time since he'd had reason to throw anything at anyone outside her own training sessions. Though his serious expression as he addressed the Goblin curse breaker and healer belied the energy. Apparently he was pleased with what transpired in rapid Gobbledygook.
After Flitwick turned to Hermione, "Would you like me to apparate you anywhere or are you going to remain here at Mr. Potter's side?"
With one look at her friend she stated, "I'll stay with him, maybe for a few days if he wants me to. Do you think my parents will be targeted because of how close I am to Harry?" Targeted by muggleborns, her own kind, the thought made her nauseous. It held her on edge.
"I'll stop by on my way home. I'll put a proximity ward and a surprise or two. We'll work something more permanent out soon. You were well publicized today, or should I say yesterday, and when all this settles I have no doubt they'll remember you. Muggleborn best friend of a horcrux and Speaker of the darkest leaning house, I have no doubt there will be something from that. Rita Skeeter will have a field day."
The witch grimaced. She'd been reading that woman's articles since she'd started paying for each morning's prophet. The thought her appearance in a gossip column could get her parents attacked made her ill.
"Hermione, you did the right thing. Those boys are lucky to have you. I won't leave you or your family vulnerable."
Her lip started trembling again and she clamped it firmly between her teeth. He looked at her with kind eyes.
"It's been a long night. I believe that 13 year old might be happy to have you here. Do you want me to stay longer?"
Hermione closed her eyes considering his offer. Hermione's underage trace lifted with her birthday, but she'd never been in a wand fight with someone who truly wanted to harm her.
Her lip pulled from between her teeth, "No."
She opened her eyes to find herself under unconvinced scrutiny. Her guardian would stay all night and all the next day if she wavered and asked him to. It lit something warm in her chest and made her want to protect him just as fiercely. This is what chosen family did.
This time her answer was sure, "No. You checking on my parents will help. I'll be fine. Thank you Flitwick. It means the world to me. Everything you've done."
She felt herself loosening slightly. The tautness holding back how tired and how scattered she really felt, it was slipping and she needed something to replace it. Just for a little bit she needed to forget the gravity of this. How messed up it was. So she slipped a sly little smile on her face, the wicked and inappropriate amusement reminiscent of Snape. She wasn't bothered by the shared mannerism, not when she needed it so badly to keep everything terrible at bay. Flitwick saw the shift and gave her a sharp little smile in turn. He had always enjoyed the dour man, she shouldn't be surprised he took to the expression.
"You went above and beyond," Hermione drawled. Her chin lifted to deliver her backhanded compliment, "For a guardian acting in only a few months."
Flitwick chortled, "You think you're free of me? Please little girl. Always getting yourself in over your head, the gold would bury you if not for the dragons."
The short man could be sharp and comforting at once. How he swung that she hadn't quite figured out. Hermione supposed it was some kind of emotional attachment and the man, she suspected, knew it. When he teased the bond between them vibrated the air, thrummed like the battery she'd likened it to.
Flitwick bumped her with his shoulder and his smile sharpened further when she bounced a step to the side in the pristine Black Manor receiving area. The contact zinged and settled within her. Her magic hummed, content to have company. A sense of togetherness that promised they'd be there to rush the field and slaughter anyone daring to hunt them. The Goblin magic hummed along with her own fiery inclinations. Yes, yes they would. He was short, but he was a force unto himself and he was here.
Flitwick informed, "You may be of age but the bond doesn't leave unless it's broken. Just visit me regularly so I can renew your shield, regardless of what you decide about your studies, I'm available if you need me. Severus has always been protective of the boy, has saved his life more than anyone knows. If you can't reach me, speak to him."
"I will." Her lips turned into a tired smile, "Goodnight, I'll write you soon."
Flitwick gave his sincerest grin. With a jump of energy the half Goblin spun away with a light crack. Hermione stared at where he'd been, absently processing whether or not jumping reduced the resistance of mass traveling and lowered the expulsion of sound. With Flitwick gone, she and Sirius turned their attention to Head Elf Tillam, who awaited them and turned to lead them away from the elegant manor, through the garden and across some thick soft grass which looked as if it had never once been trimmed but never grew higher than the tops of their shoes.
None of them spoke yet. Amidst the silence they moved or she and Sirius did. Hermione's eyes did drift to Harry when he had taken a moment to move, then jolted into a slack walk and stuck next to her side. He looked even more tired than she felt, like the energy had been drained straight out of him and now he was left with nothing but to follow an ex-convict and his crazy best friend as they walked across an expansive and ridiculously expensive lawn.
Head Elf Tillam looked stately in his uniform as he informed, "The Goblin specialists, upon arrival, went straight to the ritual space without tarrying."
Hermione recognized the tiny man from earlier that evening, yesterday evening, some 6 or 8 hours ago. Her brain was a little fuzzy but she recognized Head Elf Tillam. Sirius called him earlier in the conclave, then asked for the tiny man to escort the Goblins to, "The ritual space."
Now Tillam made his report Hermione realized the specialists must have been there for hours making preparations. She'd never seen any pictures of a ritual space before, especially not one from such an old family, so Hermione was completely unprepared when Tillam led them to a massive circle of standing stones.
Overgrown greenery had been pulled and piled atop the center sacrifice slab, apparently awaiting to be set on fire. An additional series of runes had been recently drawn in between the stones protecting the border of the ritual space from the rest of the lawn. The fact they had a set of standing stones all to themselves bothered no one but Harry and Hermione. She looked at her friend, who through their shoulder slumping exhaustion shared a confused and incredulous look respectively.
His eyes remained rather glazed as Harry mouthed, "Standing Stones."
Hermione's eyebrows shot up as they walked closer and saw just how massive the Black family obelisks were. As tall as the four story Manor itself and each as wide as the front door of Hogwarts. There was no way they'd been dug up with anything but magic. They were made of the same dark stone used in the lower levels of the Ministry. Their surfaces entirely carved to ground whatever magic would be completed within them and to prevent magical interference from the outside. While Harry and her gawked the curse breaker moved towards them.
"Mr. Potter, if you would step in the middle, we'll make adjustments."
Harry looked at her and she shrugged. Clearly the two who'd been raised in muggle suburbs had little background in what happened in such ritual spaces. Hermione muttered, "It's probably important."
Harry stepped forward out the floating lights the Goblins had been working under. He looked at the Goblin who was busy writing notes on a stone tablet. To Hermione's surprise, when the Goblin tapped it with his finger the numbers rearranged, processing the input numbers as a computer would do. Hermione stared at the stone. Goblins had a form of computing. This seemed incredibly important, Hermione just couldn't remember why right now. It was unlike anything she'd seen wizards use.
The specialist instructed, "Please watch your step to avoid the runes. Once you're inside we have to calibrate the array to your magic's frequency."
The obelisks looked like pillars holding up the night sky. When Harry passed through them the Goblin curse breaker weaved a complicated activation sequence and the rune circle inside the obelisks lit up around Harry. Hermione could feel something old, something deep, coming off the obelisks in waves. It frazzled for a bit before snapping into alignment and the wafting magic changed to match what she could see coming from Harry.
The curse breaker turned his hands, physically pulled some of Harry's magic apart, and for the briefest moment she could see two different magic's coming from her friend. One floated ominously around his head, the rest flowed naturally from him. It only lasted a second before they snapped back together. The Goblin specialist lowered his hands and bent down to inscribe the last few runes which would complete the inner circle. They were carved into the ground then filled with a filament of some kind.
"Thank you, you can come out now. That'll be similar to what we do tomorrow. By tomorrow afternoon we'll have everything the ritual can tell us about your situation. It's why we have to spend so much time tuning it to you before we start."
Harry hustled back to her side, she reached to wrap an arm around him. He felt cold. She held him tighter. The specialist went on to explain.
"Tomorrow's ritual, the first we'll have to run, is just a diagnostic. After we run it we can be certain what we're dealing with. How, eh, tightly tethered it is to Mr. Potter until it's complete. At that point we'll be able to start pulling together theories on how to remove it without, ah, killing the container as is the normal way to do this with an inanimate object."
Beside her Harry's cold turned to trembling. Hermione wondered how conscious the bit of Voldemort inside of him was. Was the chill he felt only from pulling out his magic or was it because of the current conversation? She grabbed his hand. It was clammy and more slack than she liked.
The curse breaker looked from Harry to her to Sirius. He tried to sound reassuring, "We likely will need to consult the Egyptian Goblins. They are well practiced at disposing of Horcruxes, if it turns out to be one of those which is latching onto the lad, and not some other fragmented soul magic."
The curse breaker pulled out a pocket time piece for reference, "The circle's filament needs another few hours to set. Would you be adverse to helping prepare the outer circle? Anyone who has a basic understanding of reading runes should be able to help us look over the symbol options and freshly paint them onto the stones."
Harry, still cold and clammy, simply blinked at the question. From his side Hermione volunteered, "I will."
"Thank you. I will as well," Sirius stated and turned to his godson, "Harry why don't you go with Tillam and pick out a room. He was my grandfather's Head Elf and now ours."
Harry, still looking a little lost, followed after Head Elf Tillam. Hermione watched him go, worried. She didn't like to think how this all might have been dropped on him at a worse time, in the middle of some fight, with half the information, and few options. They were damn lucky they'd gotten to him so quickly. So lucky Sirius was rich enough to afford hired specialists to research it all, to give them options. Their earlier conversations made it depressingly clear that not many options existed yet. They'd have to make them. Which would take time.
Sirius came close, "I kick myself every time I see him, knowing I left him to someone else's care. That cupboard... I'll have to get him seeing a mind healer as well."
Sirius went quiet as the curse breaker came forward with supplies and instructions on what to do. He took them to the outer circle and gave an example of the runes they'd need and how to prepare them. Hermione listened and watched, her eidetic memory catching it exactly. Then she copied what they did. Sirius picked up a brush and began to paint next to her. The obelisk hummed with his proximity. Sirius' magic in kind reached out wispy fingers to mingle with the ancient stone.
Side by side they worked on the outer rune circle, reading the obelisks, activating the ones the Goblin directed them to, and painting on the same filament solution they'd poured into the inner circle. As the hours passed her mind got a bit fuzzy. Read the stone, activate, paint. Read the stone, activate, paint. The man working beside her had been so silent she hadn't wanted to disrupt their work under the floating lights. Only her mouth got the better of her again.
"Do you think Albus will try to get him? Or worse, come at the house himself or get the Wizengamot to sanction it?"
"He's too smart to openly sanction a child to death. But his favorite mechanism leaves his person out of the line of fire. They said he let Grindelwald go on for years before he stepped in to duel the man. Didn't even kill him. Apparently they were childhood friends sharing ideals. It was why Dorea Potter was always so leery of him. If he wants Harry dead it'll happen in a way Albus comes out looking shiny and untouchable."
As he said it the air around him pulsed. In all the times she'd ever spoken to Sirius she'd never seen him look darker than in that moment. The air around them had become heavy and potent, laced thick with magic leaking in waves similar to what she'd seen coming from the Black's ritual space.
Their matching robes looked fitting next to the massive standing stones. As if they belonged there. The magic inside her stirred, shifted, and settled with that idea. It liked it. She looked between them to the sun cresting above distant trees. They'd been wearing these robes for near 23 hours. Yet they didn't seem stiff, sweated out, or creased. They felt freshly washed. Another aspect of Gladrag's runes, Hermione mused. It was good, because if they'd stopped to change before getting Harry they might have been too late.
The sunrise had started to peak over the hills, reaching through the trees and reflecting off the dark obelisks. Around them birds had started to chirp, a pair of squirrels ran around a nearby tree, the large unplottable estate didn't feel so huge or empty in the morning sunshine.
It was as she watched Sirius' face graced by sunrise that she heard a noise. Sluggish, she turned to see it was Tillam who'd popped in, "Master Sirius we've made breakfast for you if you're hungry. The morning post is there on the table as well."
"Come," Sirius pulled her from where she'd been perched on a magically floating platform. His hands flexed on her sides. Looking down at him just then Hermione thought while this was bad, all of it an utter mess, she was sure they'd be ok. He set her down, her toes bare from when she'd kicked off her shoes. Her feet brushed that expensive, softer than soft, and never trimmed grass. Hermione wasn't hungry in the slightest, but she let him tow her along to breakfast as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Even if it was going to be in this huge, ugly, monstrosity of a manor. Hermione's lips quirked. Next time she'd take him to London for some simple huevos roto. That little Spanish shop had been so cozy and they'd look so strange in these clothes, but Hermione didn't care.