Wedlocked
Chapter 38: Seventy-two

Seventy-two.

Hermione stared at the number (72), wishing it to change (72) but knowing it would only grow larger as time passed. That number (72) would never get smaller. Death could not be undone. At least not on so large a scale. That many people could not possibly be under the protection of blood magic as Sirius and Harry were.

The Grangers had never been religious-minded. All things had a rational explanation. Magic had been hard enough to accept, but that it might be used to raise the dead was a topic wholly outside their sphere of understanding. Hermione had not mentioned to either Philip or Martha what truly happened at the train station; she kept that locked away along with all the other secrets she withheld for their protection. She never mentioned it, but she sent a silent prayer of thanks out to the universe, the gods, ancestors, spirits, everything and anything that might have had a hand in keeping those close to her alive and relatively unscathed.

The thought of walking to the church so sporadically attended during childhood had occurred to her, but she did not care to cross paths with Vicar Martin. No, organization and ritual did not a truth make, so Hermione kept to her own private rites, offering thanks every time her father raised the newspaper and the death toll grew larger as more bodies were pulled from the rubble or another Muggle died of crush injuries in hospital, every time a friend or Sirius crossed her mind.

As the week stretched on, she found an hour rarely passed without silent thanks entering her mind, generally with a thought of Sirius.

Her husband had been characteristically silent during her stay in Oxfordshire. He sent her no letters and made no effort to contact her via Floo Network. It was normal for them. They rarely spoke unless together face-to-face. Still part of her ached not knowing how he was coping with his return from death, at not being able to offer him comfort and succour. She had tried to stay angry at him for keeping secrets, but after that initial spark of rage it had passed into understanding.

"He's fine," she assured herself. "The others are there for him."

Despite her own reassurances, the ached persisted.

"Mum, Dad," Hermione said, her voice barely audible over the sound of her parent's chatter. "I love you. You know that right?"

Martha set her fork down and looked worriedly across the table at her. "Of course, Mimi," she said with a worried smile. "Is this about that husband of yours?"

"Yes, actually."

Her mother nodded her understanding. "I thought this was coming. If you choose to get a divorce, we won't think any less of you."

"What? No, I wanted to let you know I was going to go back to our house tomorrow." It was a struggle to keep her tone even and calm given the heavy weight of annoyance she was feeling toward her mother, but she did not want a fight to colour the last visit she may have with her parents until summer.

Philip, thankfully, stepped in before that happened. "Thought it was about time you stopped hiding here. You have another row with Sirius?"

"No, nothing like that. I just wanted to make sure you knew I was all right after that horrible gas explosion at King's Cross." She turned her eyes away so he wouldn't see the lie in them; they both believed the story conjured by the Aurors and experts called in by the Ministry of Magic; she did not want to undo all their work modifying memories and CCTV footage, not to mention all the effort she had put into keeping her parents blissfully unaware of the dangers of her other life.

"We know you're safe. We know you love us," her father assured her with a smile. "Now go tell Sirius the same. And remind him football club is Sunday."

Football. She wanted to laugh. Given all that she feared, her father was still concerned with the mundane work-a-day bits of life. It made her heart glad to know that such trivial things, such human things, were still so vitally important, that the seventy-two lives lost were not lost for nothing. They died so that others might continue with their quiet lives in joy and peace and football.

Diner was finished in a relaxed and companionable silence, followed by a pudding of equal comfort. Hermione could easily have stayed, but knew that her father was right. She had stayed away long enough.

"I'll come Sunday," she assured her parents, offering each a hug. "I promised a friend to take photos of Sirius embarrassing himself at football."

Martha laughed, but her husband sputtered indignantly. "Nonsense! A strapping lad like that, he'll be brilliant."

Hermione was certain he was wrong. Sirius might be very good at many things, but very much doubted he could pick up the nuances of a sport so unlike anything in the Wizarding world. She kept her peace and stepped into the green flames of their sitting room fire. The world spun and whirled and she swore she saw countless celebrations flash past before she finally landed in the sooty hearth of her husband's house.

"Thought the mud blood had left the master. Kreacher is ever so disappointed to see her again," the decrepit house elf grunted to himself as he cleared away the remnants of dinner.

"Hello, Kreacher. Are you well?" she said, pretending she hadn't heard his insults.

"Overworked as ever, Mistress," the elf said with a bow.

"Oh, I am sorry. I'll have a word with Sirius about that. Where is he?"

He grunted in what might have been an appreciative fashion before gesturing to the door. "Master Black – bane of his mother's existence – has been spending his evenings drunk in the library."

Drunk in the library? Hermione didn't like the sound of that. It was too much like his nightly expeditions to the Three Broomsticks, where he would make himself so sick with firewhiskey he was incapable of finding his own way home. Perhaps she should not have spent the last three days at her parents' house but here with Sirius. If Kreacher was being accurate, then the man was not coping at all well with his return from the grave.

"Thank you," she said hurriedly and all but ran to the library.

She did not hesitate at the door but pushed it wide, mouth falling as she took in Sirius hanging off the side of a wingback chair. His own mouth was gaping, spit pooling in the corner and starting a slow path across his cheek toward his left ear.

"Charming," she muttered.

All her efforts to set him right in the chair proved absolutely pointless, for his weight seemed to have doubled in unconsciousness. She would have thought he would wake when she pushed and prodded him, or when the spittle finally made it into his ear, but all his did was grumble and grunt in his sleep.

"Well, just stay there, then," she said and stomped away, certain a hangover and wickedly sore neck would prove education enough for him come morning.

"Ah, Hermione!" Remus smiled and moved to give the young woman a hug, but stopped short when he saw the state of her jumper. "Been to see Sirius, I see."

"Has he been like that every night since King's Cross?"

"I'm afraid so," the man said. His face contorted in the way often did when he wanted to say more but felt he couldn't. She really had no desire for him to elaborate on what drunken exploits her husband had gotten up to over the past eight nights, so she pretended not to notice. "He'll likely be better now you're here."

"I wasn't away all that long."

"Three days, three years, doesn't make much difference to Sirius," he said, his pale eyes blazing with a subtext Hermione flatly refused to decipher. "I'm glad you're back."

"Hm," she said, watching him ascend the stairs, completely annoyed that he was more attuned to Sirius and his mood swings than she was.

With a hard shake of her head, she made her way up the stairs. All she wanted was to fall into bed and wake up back in the world she loved. Now that Voldemort was defeated, the fear that had so tainted it could be washed away like so much dirt and blood. She smiled to think she had played a part in the end of the darkest wizard ever known; if she had not been such a distraction for the Dark Lord and his followers, the Order of the Phoenix would not have been able to hunt down the broken pieces of his soul. She may only have been a decoy, but she had been important. Why else would Voldemort have gone through all the trouble of creating the Bloody Law? Why else—

All thought ceased as she stepped into the bedroom. If she didn't know better, she would swear there had been brawl. The mirror was shattered over the bureau, the drawers of which hung open, their contents scattered across the floor. The bed curtains were half torn down, the bedclothes laying more off than on the mattress. She knew it had not been an enemy attack because, last she checked, Death Eaters did not leave empty liquor bottles littering the rooms of their victims. So, it seemed Sirius had not been drinking exclusively in the library.

What was his bloody problem? She knew she'd be awake half the night trying to sort it out.

'So much for a lovely night's rest in my bed,' she thought before turning and stomping down the corridor to her old room. She hated that lumpy little bed, the strange stains on the ceiling and disquieting breathing that came from just outside the frame of the picture that hung on the windowless wall. How dare Sirius do that to their room? Wasn't it hers just as much as it was his? He had been the one to insist she sleep there, and now he was making it unliveable! The git. Her anger dropped off the moment she opened the door and saw the shabby little room.

It was neat and as clean as anyone would ever manage to make it. The two beds made up in crisp white linens with a thick quilt folded at the foot of each bed. The single, wide bureau stood where it belonged against the far wall, surface stained but polished and all its drawers in place. No, it was not the room. It was the bed, or rather what lay beneath it, that had her knuckles turning white as she gripped the doorknob.

A school trunk was tucked neatly under the bed she had once called hers.

She knew the trunk was hers. It had her name written on it. Tears stung at her eyes as she stared at the precise white letters spelling out her maiden name. That trunk should have been brought up and set in the closet in Sirius's room, in their room, but instead it had been shoved beneath the narrow bed she used to sleep in before they were married. It was a simple gesture, but the meaning was easy enough to grasp. She belonged in here, alone. The rings had fallen from her finger. Their marriage was over.

A/N: I promised more angst, did I not?