Wedlocked
Chapter 31: Tempest in a Teacup

A localised storm was brewing. One so isolated it did not reach past the room in which the cup of Helga Hufflepuff sat. A swirl of gale-force winds and steely clouds blew up from the vessel of the cup as if it contained the entire atmosphere of the earth inside and was expelling it all at once. From the maelstrom, a shape formed, slowly at first but growing steadily more substantial. Soon, the swirling mass of clouds was an arm, a torso, a head.

It was a woman.

It was Hermione.

Looking at the vision, Hermione could not believe that the woman was meant to be her. She was far prettier, verging on beautiful, than Hermione ever thought she could look, but, unbelievably, it was her.

"Disgusting waste of space," the woman said, her voice distant but still piercing through the thundering winds. "You're nothing but an animal."

Hermione frowned, certain that she was hearing things wrong; the woman in the storm was beautiful, surely her words should be as well. The voice was hers, but the words sounded as if they ought to have come from the portrait of Walburga Black. The girl looked to Dumbledore, but he was fighting fruitlessly against the winds, looking like a mime walking in place. She and Sirius were nearer the cup, the eye of this small, strange squall, and were unaffected by the strongest of the weather.

"Sirius, what…?" she began, but had to stop as the woman spoke again. Her voice was growing louder as if the distance between them was diminishing, though neither she nor they had moved.

"Look at you, Sirius," she smiled down at him. Her tone and smile were sweet as if she were speaking endearments, but her eyes were hard and as she continued it was clear she had no love for Sirius, "How could I ever find my peace in you?"

Hermione could not understand where this woman had come from with her unrealistic beauty and wildly inaccurate opinions.

The woman's animosity was focused solely on Sirius despite Dumbledore being barely two yards away; the old wizard was by far the more powerful opponent. Whenever he gained enough ground, his magic would have her back in the cup in seconds. If anyone deserved the attention it was him, not Sirius. Hermione searched for another reason for the woman to attack the one man instead of the other. It was not proximity, because she was just as close to the cup as he was, and the woman was paying her no mind at all. She was not worth bothering with because she was no threat to the woman, nor was Dumbledore. Only Sirius was trying to harm the cup from which she had sprung.

The storm, the woman, the words, it was all the cup protecting itself. It was trying to scare him, hurt him.

It appeared to be working.

The sword dropped from Sirius's hands, clattering against the stone floor. He did not move to retrieve it. He was incapable, shaking even as sweat trailed down his face. He stared, glassy-eyed and slack-jawed at the woman in the tempest, entranced. There was no spell holding him in thrall; just as she recognised the woman as herself, she recognised fear in her husband. Sirius was absolutely terrified of the woman and every word that left her full lips.

"No…" he said, barely a whisper.

"Yes," she replied. "Pig. You think I like having you touch me? You think I enjoy having to spend time with you?" She leaned forward, her delicate hand reaching out and caressing his colourless cheek in a mockery of a loving gesture. "You think you bring me pleasure? Sad, old fool."

He fell to his knees, looking as if he might throw up.

"I scrub myself raw after every night I spend with you," said the woman.

"Stop," Sirius begged.

"I cry myself to sleep every night thinking I'm stuck with you for the rest of my life."

"Please."

"Till death do you part," she said in a hard voice.

Repeating her words lifelessly, Sirius gripped the sword with his shaking fingers.

'Yes!' Hermione cheered in her thoughts. He was breaking free of that siren's song. He would rise up and cut the woman down. He would show her just how wrong her words really were, that he was strong and brave and practically perfect.

She was wrong.

He drew the sword closer, grasping the hilt in his hands and positioning the point for the kill. Just not the kill she anticipated. He twisted the sword in his hands and pushed the point of the blade against his stomach, pressing with enough force to slice through a nacre button and the wool of his waistcoat. The fabric grew darker around the sword as blood flowed from the wound he was inflicting on himself, and Hermione cringed at the pain she felt. Her stomach throbbed with a dull ache, the blood magic transferring a fraction of the agony he felt to her own body.

"Sirius," she said, but her voice was lost to the storm.

"You are an obligation," the false Hermione continued mercilessly. "Old and useless."

He grimaced from the pain and her insults, "I…"

"You are pathetic," the woman talked over his weak protest, her voice still so sweet as if she were doing him a favour telling him all these hurtful lies. "I'm ashamed to have you touch me."

"Sirius!" Dumbledore called. He had to shout against the storm. "Do not listen to it!"

"But it's true…" Sirius gasped.

"Yes, it is," goaded the woman.

"No, it isn't!" Hermione shouted. "He's wonderful! I like being married to him!"

"'Like'?" the woman laughed. "The best she can manage is 'like'. Even as your life hangs on her feelings, she can't say she loves you because she doesn't. She can't. She never will."

Hermione froze as the woman turned those familiar brown eyes to her. Sirius held his painful position. He kept the blade pressed into his stomach, terrifyingly close to making himself into a sheath for Godric Gryffindor's sword. He was going to kill himself because of what that woman thought of him? Sirius never cared what anyone thought. Foolish confidence what part of his genetic make-up. What did it matter what some fake woman said?

Slowly, too slowly considering Sirius was one muscle spasm away from dying, she realised what the woman was. It was not some false vision created by the cup. Something pulled randomly from the void could not have crippled Sirius so effectively. This vision was Sirius's and his alone. His fears made real to taunt him.

That beautiful woman was, impossibly, what Sirius saw when he looked at her.

Those horrible words where what he thought went through her mind when she looked at him, kissed him, touched him.

She pushed through the winds that tried to keep her from his side. His eyes remained riveted on her, the other Hermione, but not for long. Hermione reached out and slapped him. "You stupid git! You think I hate you? You think I call you old behind your back? You are a bloody idiot!"

He blinked and flinched as she hit him again; his despondent expression vanished as she slapped him again and was replaced by annoyance when she continued to assault him. "Stop it!"

"No!" she shouted and slapped him hard across his tear-streaked face. "You deserve it! Putting those words in my mouth!"

"What the hell am I supposed to think?" he roared and shot to his feet, towering over her. "You are brilliant and young and beautiful."

"And so are you!" she shoved him backward, refusing to be intimidated. "Last I checked thirty-seven-year-olds were not queuing for their pensions!"

"I'm old—"

"You're older. So are a lot of people. You think I want somebody my age? Have you seen the blokes my age?" she demanded. "Idiots, the lot of them."

"But has she said she loves you?" the woman interrupted, her cold voice a shadow of Hermione's true sound. "She likes you. She thinks so highly of you. But she doesn't love you. How could she?"

"Do you fucking mind? I am trying to have a conversation with my wife!" Sirius shouted and brought the sword down hard on the tiny chalice. The golden rim split under the force of his blow.

The woman shrieked and flew apart as the wind whipped through the office, tearing paintings from the walls and sending Dumbledore's strange devices tumbling off their pedestals. Hidden in the protective cocoon of Sirius's arms, Hermione felt the sting of the cup's dying wrath. She could not imagine how painful the storm must have been for the two unprotected men.

"Perhaps once more just for good measure, Sirius," Dumbledore said after a moment of silence filled their ears.

"Yeah," replied the man, a bit numbly.

He gripped the sword and swung down with all the strength he had left, cleaving the damaged cup in two. The second time there was not so much as a squeak or a squall. Whatever had been tormenting them, it was gone now. Sirius gave each half of the cup a tentative prodding with the tip of the sword, more concerned with the golden object than with the blood on the weapon, his blood.

"Where were we?" he asked, a lopsided grin taking over his wan face.

"Oh, shut up. Are you all right?" Hermione asked, pulling at his clothes to see what damage he had inflicted on himself. "That sword killed a basilisk, you know. It's probably still coated with venom. You need to get to the hospital wing."

"It's not coated in venom," Sirius said, still grinning like an idiot. "It's impregnated with it. Goblin-made."

"What?" she shrieked, sounding far too similar to the woman in the cup for her taste. "We have to hurry! You're dying!"

"You hear that, Dumbledore?" Sirius said, dropping into the only chair still upright after the storm. "She's worried about me."

The old wizard nodded and smiled. "Yes, if ever there was proof of how wrong your fears are, Mrs Black's concern would be it," Dumbledore said kindly. "However, I believe she is justified. Let us bring you to Poppy, shall we?"

Sirius's head lolled to the side, as if it was simply too heavy for him to hold up any longer. He looked up at her, unhidden hope clear across his face. "You'll stay?"

"Of course," she said quickly, as if it was a question he needn't have bothered asking. Because that was just the sort of question it was.

Trying to lift him was time wasted. He was too heavy for her and he was incapable of holding himself up. Like Remus that very morning, he was exhausted. Every ounce of his energy was spent in breaking free of the cup's thrall and wielding the sword to destroy it. He was tired to the core. She hoped that was all he was. If the blade had absorbed the basilisk venom, Sirius had been poisoned the moment it pierced his skin. Harry had described the feeling of dying, the searing pain of the venom and the dull, drowsiness that followed. Sirius was hiding his discomfort well, but the blood bond she had made told her that he was in unbelievable pain even as he smiled up at her.

"Come on, Sirius," she groaned and tried to pull him up from the chair again. She succeeded only in getting blood on her jumper.

"Perhaps another approach to this particular problem, Mrs Black," suggested Professor Dumbledore. One wave of his wand had Sirius floating as if on an invisible bed. A second wave had that invisible bed rolling across a floor littered with paintings, scrolls, books and the magical devices that still attempted to whirl and gyrate despite being on their sides. Hermione followed the Headmaster's swift pace through the castle to the hospital wing.

The door had been left open and a bed was already made as if Madam Pomfrey had been expecting a patient before the day was through. Although, if Remus had performed a similar task that morning, then perhaps she and Dumbledore had both known Sirius might need medical assistance.

"What's happened?" the woman demanded sharply.

"The usual," Sirius smiled as if he were drunk.

"It was worse than I feared," said Dumbledore. "One of your miracles might be in order, Poppy."

The woman shushed him impatiently though Hermione could see the pride on her face as she turned her attention to Sirius. The man groaned and complained lazily as she removed his shirt and examined the wound. Using the information she remembered from a Muggle book on poisonous snakes and the effect of their venom on humans, Hermione gathered that the wound was not infected by poison. Still it worried her just how many diagnostic spells Madam Pomfrey was casting over the single stab wound.

Finally, the woman applied a salve and bandaged his wound. "You'll be just fine by morning, Mr Black."

He toasted her diagnosis with the series of vials she handed him. "You promised to stay," he slurred a reminder.

"I will," Hermione promised.

"Then stay where I can keep an eye on you." He made room for her and patted the bed. Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips disapprovingly at her patient moving around so much, but said nothing against Hermione staying in the same bed.

Hermione really did not think it right, but she kicked off her trainers and lay down beside him. Considering that he had nearly killed himself over what she thought, she would not risk him doing something stupid just because she turned down his request. He pulled her to him, fitting her every bend and curve into one of his own until they were locked together like pieces of a puzzle.

It was barely noon, but exhaustion claimed them both.