Resolutions
Sixteen
By Neurotica
Never before had Naomi appreciated the work her professors did were while she was in school, not until she herself had a stack of papers to grade taller than her head when she was sitting. It was proving to be rather interesting experience, teaching at Hogwarts, and she was enjoying it more than she thought she would. When Dumbledore first came to her and asked her to take on the Defense position that year, she was a little wary—she had no experience as a teacher, and what could she possibly teach Hogwarts students that would help them in the real world? But between the advice Remus had given her on lesson plans, and help from the other professors, she thought she was making a rather decent job of it. Most of the students seemed to like her, with the exception of Slytherin house, who didn't like anybody who didn't show favor to them exclusively.
Her lesson plans were mostly practical rather than bookwork—she knew from experience that students weren't too fond of teachers that had them taking notes every class period, and the chances of learning enough from books alone were slim. She was careful not to say this around Hermione Granger, though. She'd taken ideas from both Remus and Mad-Eye on what the students needed to learn, and had setup a continuation of the Defense group Mad-Eye had when he'd taught at the school. She taught the students all sorts of different defensive spells and charms during class time, some of which she had learned during her time as a Death Eater.
"Are you busy, Professor?" a teasing voice from her office door. She looked up and over her stack of papers to find Sirius grinning at her with Mira squirming in his arms.
"Hey." She smiled. "Come on in, I'm just grading papers..." She placed her quill on the desk and stood to take her daughter from him. "What are you two up to?"
"I've brought Mira to see her first ever Quidditch practice," Sirius said proudly. "I figure if we show her when she's young enough, she'll be a star Keeper by the time she's seven."
"Keeper, huh?" Naomi said, smoothing back the black hair on Mira's head. "She looks more like a Seeker to me."
Sirius shook his head. "Nope, she's definitely a Keeper. Do you have time to go out to the pitch with us or are you too busy?"
She made a face at the height of her workload. "I can probably go for a little bit," she said, laughing at Sirius' puppy dog face. "Did you bring a jacket and mittens for her? It's getting a bit cold out," she said, tickling Mira's ribs—the baby's face broke into a grin.
"Of course I did," Sirius said, retrieving said articles of clothing from his cloak pocket. "What kind of father do you think I am? Don't answer that," he added at Naomi's mischievous grin. Once Mira was bundled up, Naomi slipped her arm in Sirius'. "Come, my loves," he said pompously. "Let's go see how badly Gryffindor is going to crush the competition this year."
While the Blacks were making their way to the Quidditch pitch, there was another inside Hogwarts with bigger problems than just a stack of papers waiting to be graded. Anyone with a trained eye for such things could tell this person had been placed under a very well cast Imperius Curse, and had been for a number of months. Possibly the most dangerous part of this particular curse was that the subject had absolutely no recollection of being under someone else's control—the curse could be turned on and off at the caster's whim, as though the caster knew when the subject was in a position in which the curse could be detected by others.
The caster was nowhere near its subject, but was able to force its subject to do absolutely anything, which was, of course, the point of the Imperius Curse. New instructions were being delivered on this day, and this task was no better than the last, not that the subject had any inkling of what he was being made to do. If the subject had even a suspicion of what was being done to him, he would have gone to Dumbledore immediately. Unfortunately for him, and all those around him, the most likely scenario was that he would be killed at some point very soon by the people he never wanted to help in the first place. But not before he completed one last task...
With the full moon approaching—it was only a few days away now—Remus had to pick up his monthly batch of Wolfsbane. Since Slughorn had proved he wasn't trustworthy enough to prepare it—at least not in Remus' eyes—Ted Tonks had taken on the task of getting Remus his potion every month. After the first month of taking Ted's potion, Remus swore it tasted just a little bit better than it ever did when Snape or Slughorn made it, and when he asked Ted what he was doing differently, the Healer only smiled mysteriously and changed the subject to Emmeline's due date and asked if Remus was ready for the twins.
And of course the answer to that particular question was a definite yes. Every time he held Mira, Remus found himself more and more ready to hold his sons, but he still had a few more months of waiting. Emmeline was looking forward to the end of her pregnancy for other, different reasons. Carrying one child was difficult, but having two babies to carry around for nine months was almost unbearable for her. Naomi had gone through the swollen feet and sore back phase of her pregnancy towards the end, but Emmeline had been experiencing it since mid-September. She was getting sick after just about every meal and her emotions were completely unpredictable. Sirius had innocently asked her if she wanted a cup of tea one day, and she'd burst into tears.
Other than random mood swings and losing just about every meal she ingested, Emmeline's pregnancy was going quite well. The twins, whose names still hadn't been decided, were perfectly healthy and developing just as they should be. Emmeline and Remus decided against having a charm done to see what their boys would look like in a few years—Emmeline wanted something in regards to her children to be a surprise. Sirius told her she would be surprised until those boys became of age in the wizarding world—they were Remus' sons, after all...
It took Remus a minute or so to remember that Sirius had taken Mira to Hogwarts to see Naomi and Harry—he'd been slightly disturbed by how quiet Number Twelve was. He found Emmeline in the kitchen, reading a letter with raised eyebrows. She didn't seem to have taken notice of him until he leaned on the counter in front of her and said, "Interesting read?"
She started and glared at him. "Don't do that," she said through gritted teeth.
He really did try to keep his lips from twitching... "So sorry, my darling, it will never happen again. Is everything all right?"
She shook her head slightly and handed him the letter he'd been reading. "My brother Michael has been arrested," she said.
"What?" Remus said loudly in surprise. "Why?"
"Apparently he was trying to arrest somebody he thought was involved in a werewolf attack a few months back, and the wizard ended up being the son of a senior banker at their Gringotts branch. Michael is being charged with excessive force and assault."
It took every ounce of discipline Remus possessed not to burst out laughing—he wasn't particularly fond of Michael Vance. "I hate to say this about a member of your family, Em, but he kind of deserves it."
She smirked. "Somehow I knew you'd say that."
"You just know me far too well, my love," Remus said. "Other than the shock of this oddly splendid news, how are you feeling?"
Emmeline raised an eyebrow at him. "Oh, just stupendous," she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. "I feel like I'm growing an entire village in my stomach."
"Sorry I asked," Remus muttered under his breath as his wife went to the pantry for something.
She stuck her head out the door. "What was that?"
"I said this potion is thick enough to be used as a mask," he lied smoothly, using a spoon to demonstrate the consistency of the Wolfsbane potion he'd poured into a cauldron to heat up.
Emmeline raised a suspicious eyebrow, but went back to whatever it was she was doing. "So I thought you and I could work on getting the boys' room ready," she said, coming out of the pantry. Remus was careful to keep a neutral face when he saw she was eating salt and vinegar chips with chocolate sauce as a dip.
"I thought we were going to put them in with Mira?" he said.
"Well, by the time the twins are born, Mira will be about seven months old and probably on a normal sleeping schedule. I see no real reason to put the twins in there with her when they'll probably wake up at random hours of the night—they'll just wake her up too," she said, sitting at the table. "Besides, if one day we decide to move out of here, the three of them will have gotten used to sleeping in the same room, and that will cause nothing but trouble."
Remus didn't miss that his wife didn't sound exactly overeager about the prospect of moving out of Number Twelve. He knew, though, that it was the living arrangements with Sirius and Naomi she enjoyed, rather than the old house. She'd be crazy to enjoy this house... he thought. "Whatever you think is best, love."
She smiled brightly and leaned over to kiss his cheek as he sat beside her. "Oh, you've got a little bit of a chocolate smudge," she said, using her finger to get rid of the offending smudge "There, much better."
He chuckled. "What would I do without you?" he asked.
"You'd probably walk around with chocolate on your cheek all the time," she responded. He was careful not to remind her that it was her kiss that left the chocolate.
Later in the evening, after a long, tiring Quidditch practice, Harry, Ginny, and Hermione were sitting in the Gryffindor common room working on homework—Harry and Ginny were catching up on all the work they'd not yet completed while they were at Quidditch, and Hermione was doing all sorts of extra credit assignments. Every so often, Harry looked up from whatever book he was reading to glare at Hermione's bushy head of hair as she wrote furiously on her parchment, wondering how she could possibly be so far ahead of the rest of the students. Ron was asleep in an armchair beside them; he'd been studying for a potions test for the next day, but due to the sleep Harry knew he'd been losing at least since the beginning of the term, he hadn't made it past the second page of the chapter on the Draught of the Living Dead.
Harry searched for more information to fill a roll of parchment for Naomi's (Professor Black, he reminded himself—it'd taken him half a term to remember to call Remus "Professor Lupin" back in first year) class—she was beginning to teach the seventh years the theory of Occlumency. After Emmeline gave birth to the twins (their due date was mid-February), if she was up to it, she was going to come to the NEWT level Defense class and actually teach the students how to block their minds from outside invasion. Harry was quite excited to hear this; it meant there would be something he'd get the hang of before Hermione, and he couldn't wait to see her face when she realized there was something somebody could do better than her on the first attempt.
Speaking of his friend, she was frantically digging through her school bag for something. "What're you doing, Hermione?" Ginny asked with a carefully controlled face—she wouldn't want Hermione to see her looking amused.
Hermione was currently tossing books out of her bag and looking under piles of parchment. When she got on her hands and knees to check under the table and Ron's armchair, and only found Crookshanks asleep, Ginny repeated her question a little louder. "I can't find my Runes book," she said frantically, looking on the verge of tears. "I must have left it out of my bag on the Quidditch pitch when I was watching your practice."
Harry glanced at his watch—it was a quarter of nine. "Well, you'll just have to wait until tomorrow, won't you? Or we could get a professor to get it," he added hastily at the look Hermione was giving him. Apparently the very idea of waiting until morning was criminal.
"No, I have to have it tonight," Hermione insisted. "My extra credit assignment has to be turned in no later than tomorrow's lesson..."
Harry bit his lip hard to keep from saying, "You mean, you didn't have it done two weeks ago?" or, "What will this bring your grade down to, a hundred-eighty percent?" Either of those questions would have surely gotten him hexed. "I'm sure Sirius will get it for you. He's patrolling tonight."
"Or I could just go out and get it myself," Hermione said distractedly, still searching around their table.
Harry's jaw dropped. It was against the rules to go out on the grounds after dark, and Hermione hadn't broken a school rule since she became Prefect in fifth year. Ron was, of course, an entirely different story, being Harry's best friend and all.
"You sure you want to risk detention?" Harry asked with a grin before he could catch himself. "Honestly, Mione, what kind of example would you be setting as Head Girl if you got yourself thrown into detention?"
"The same kind you set when you were caught throwing dungbombs at Mrs. Norris last week," Hermione retorted.
Harry's grin only widened. "Sirius dared me."
"And if Sirius dared you to jump of the Astronomy tower, would you?"
Harry thought for a moment. "Probably," he said. "Would there be gold involved?"
Hermione rolled her eyes, stood, and put on the cloak hanging on the back of her chair. As she grabbed her wand, she said, "I'll ask him at breakfast. I'll be back shortly; I want to finish this before we start our rounds, Harry."
Harry's grin disappeared when he realized Hermione was actually going out onto the grounds. "Hermione, wait!" he called as she made her way to the portrait hole. "At least let me go with you."
"No, you've got to finish your Defense paper, and Ginny's got her own work," she added as the redhead opened her mouth.
"What about Ron?" Harry asked quickly. "I'm sure he'd go with you."
"Ron needs to sleep," Hermione said, grabbing Harry's arm as he turned to the sleeping wizard. "Besides, he's not going to wake any time soon; I sort of slipped a Sleeping Draught into his pumpkin juice tonight at dinner..."
"What?" Harry said loudly, startling some first years by the fire. He continued in a lower voice. "Are you sick or something?"
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you," Hermione replied loftily. "Now if you'll excuse me, I really need to get my book. Stop worrying, Harry, I'll be back in fifteen minutes."
Before Harry could get his mind around the fact that Hermione spiked Ron's pumpkin juice, she pushed open the portrait and climbed open the hole. "There's something very ominous about someone saying, 'I'll be back in fifteen minutes…'" Harry said as the portrait closed again, turning to Ginny.
Ginny sighed. "Well, you know Hermione; when there's a book involved, she's more stubborn than Ron. C'mon, you do need to get that essay done."
Harry rolled his eyes. "What is it with all the women in my life and ordering me around?"
"It's what we do best. Besides, it's fun." Ginny shrugged, pulling him by his arm back to the table.
Every few minutes, Harry glanced at his watch, and every minute that went by, his stomach was filled with a sense of foreboding. He tried to concentrate on his work to make the time go by faster—Hermione will be back when I finish this paragraph, he kept telling himself. But when he looked at his watch again and found a half-hour had passed since Hermione's departure, he found he could no longer work on something so mundane as school.
"Something's wrong," he told Ginny quietly.
She looked up with raised eyebrows and turned his wrist around to check the time. "She probably just stopped off to talk to a professor or something," she said with a slight shrug. "Harry, we're at Hogwarts, what can happen to her? There are Aurors all over the place, teachers patrolling the corridors... Hermione is fine."
But Harry knew all too well what could happen at Hogwarts, regardless of the protections. And the Ministry had been crawling with trained witches and wizards too, but Malfoy had still gotten in and caused Mr. Weasley's death—Harry didn't dare mention this to Ginny, though.
Fifteen more minutes passed before Harry finally said, "I'm going to go look for her... It's been forty-five minutes, Ginny. I should have gone with her..." He reached into his schoolbag and retrieved the Marauder's Map—he carried it with him at all times now, since Sirius started staying in the school; Harry never knew when he could be targeted for a prank, and he preferred to know where his godfather was at all times—looked over his shoulder to be sure no one was watching, and tapped the old parchment with his wand. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he muttered under his breath.
The map must have sensed how urgent it was; the lines appeared in a fraction of the time it usually took. Harry scanned every inch of the castle for Hermione before moving his eyes to the grounds. He searched closely around the Quidditch pitch and entrance to the school, not finding Hermione anywhere on it. His heartbeat was loud in his ears, and it was a wonder that the whole of Gryffindor tower wasn't disturbed from their sleep or studying by it.
He released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding when he finally found 'Hermione Granger' on the map. Her dot was near Hagrid's hut. "Found her," he said, pointing the dot out to Ginny. His relief was short lived, however, as he realized the dot wasn't moving. Before his girlfriend could even take a breath to ask what was wrong, he'd dove out of the portrait hole, and started to run full speed through the Hogwarts corridors, down flights of steps, and into the entrance hall. He didn't even slow down to open the large stone doors—they burst open under his weight—and he flew down the steps. He continued to sprint in the direction of Hagrid's hut so hard that he nearly tripped over a dark lump on the ground. When he examined the lump closer, he was sure his heart had stopped beating altogether.
"HAGRID!" he bellowed in the direction of the groundskeeper's hut, falling to his knees and turning Hermione over onto her back. "Oh god," he murmured in a strangled voice. "Hagrid, HELP!"
Seconds later, light flooded the grounds as Hagrid opened the door of his hut, crossbow in hand. "Harry?" he called out unsurely. "What're you doin' out of yer common room? You know yer not supposed to be out 'ere this late!"
"She's hurt!" Harry yelled. Hurt was an understatement. Hermione's entire face was covered in blood, as were her torn robes. Harry wasn't even positive where exactly she'd been hurt—she was a complete mess. "You've got to help me!"
Hagrid dropped his crossbow, causing it to go off and shoot an arrow into the forest, when he realized what was happening and thundered over to Harry and Hermione. "Wha' 'appened to her?" he demanded, stooping down to examine her.
"Dunno," Harry panted—it was becoming really hard to breathe... "She came out to get a book, and she didn't come back, so I looked at the map, and found her out here, so I came, and this was how I found her..."
"Harry!" yelled a voice from behind him. Harry didn't even realize it to be his godfather until the Auror was right beside him. Everything after that was a complete blur. Someone conjured a stretcher and floated Hermione onto it. Someone else, or it might have been the same person, forced Harry to stand and walk back into the school. At some point in the night (though it was less than a few minutes at the most, Harry had no sense of time), they reached the hospital wing, and Hermione was taken away somewhere.
Harry vaguely felt someone turn him by his shoulders and saw Sirius' face. His godfather was saying something, his hands still on Harry's shoulders, but it was nothing but a roaring buzz in Harry's ears.
Hermione was dead... He knew it... It was all his fault... he should have gone with her for that book... A bloody book... It hadn't been worth all this...
He and Hermione were supposed to be doing their rounds, patrolling the corridors soon, but they couldn't because Hermione was dead. Who did this to her? How did they get on the grounds? Was it someone from within the school?
Someone handed Harry a goblet and he drank from it automatically, not caring if it was a fatal poison. He deserved to be poisoned for sending Hermione to her death...
Moments later, he felt something soft beneath him, and his eyelids closed.
Sirius stood beside his godson's bed, watching the boy's eyes slowly close. The potion Harry had was a light sleeping potion, only enough to make sure he slept for a few hours—Sirius had been afraid he was going to pass out by the way he was breathing and the lack of color in his face. The Auror used his wand to clean the blood—Hermione's blood, he knew—that covered Harry's hands and robes, mostly just for something to do—he didn't want to look down the room where Madam Pomfrey had pulled a curtain around Hermione's bed.
Ginny had run into Sirius in one of the fourth floor corridors. She said Harry had run out on the grounds after Hermione, and she was going out after him. Sirius sent Ginny to find a professor, and went to find Harry himself. He hadn't wanted to say anything to Hagrid, who was trying to look over Hermione's curtain, but the Head Girl's injuries, from what he could tell, made it look like some sort of animal had gotten a hold of her. But he couldn't think of any animals in the forest that would come out of the trees to attack a student. Unless it hadn't been an animal native to the Forbidden Forest...
"Sirius," said a voice in his ear, hands resting on his shoulder. "What happened?"
He turned to his wife and opened his mouth to speak, but the hospital wing doors burst open, and two bodies were floated in—one almost completely round, and the other thin and bony. The two bodies were being steered into beds opposite where Harry lay by Dumbledore and McGonagall. Sirius stood and followed Naomi over to where they stood, raising eyebrows as they identified the forms as Professors Slughorn and Sinistra.
"They were both found out on the grounds by the gates, which had been left wide open," McGonagall said, sounding a little choked up.
Sirius' mouth wouldn't even fall open in shock when it registered that neither professor was breathing. "Are they dead?" he asked in a horrified whisper.
"Yes," Dumbledore said. Sirius was almost as shocked to hear the uncertainty in the Headmaster's voice as he'd been to hear the professors were found dead on the school grounds. "It appears Aderyn and Horace dueled, but in the end, Horace was quicker. He cast a Killing Curse on Aderyn, and then himself. Had he not killed himself, I would have believed he'd been trying to escape the grounds.
"What?" Naomi breathed. "Why would Horace Slughorn cast a Killing Curse on anybody? He's an idiot at times, but he wouldn't hurt a pixie."
"There are a number of possible explanations, but I am not yet sure which is the correct one," Dumbledore said, moving his eyes from Slughorn's pained expression down the hospital wing. "Might I ask why you are here, Sirius?"
"Hermione was attacked," he said, wondering how it was possible for Dumbledore not to have known already.
McGonagall gasped. "Attacked? Not by Horace?"
Sirius shook his head darkly. "I highly doubt Slughorn could have done that to her," he said. He told the two professors and Naomi what was happening, and Dumbledore suddenly left their side to go where Pomfrey was treating Hermione. When he returned, Sirius wondered how it was possible to look even sadder than the Headmaster did at that very moment.
"I imagine Harry discovered her?" he said quietly to Sirius, glancing at where Harry was now sleeping.
The Auror nodded. "Yes... Albus, what happened to her?" he added very hesitantly, not wanting his theory confirmed.
"She seems to have injuries consistent with a werewolf attack." Sirius felt Naomi's hand slip into his and squeeze his fingers. "But as the full moon is not for another three days, there is only one other explanation that makes sense."
"Greyback," Sirius said in a hollow voice. "He was here, wasn't he?"
"But how?" Naomi asked at Dumbledore's silent confirmation. "How did Slughorn get the gates open? (I'm assuming that's how Greyback got in here.) It takes two professors to take down the charms, doesn't it?"
"It does," Dumbledore said, nodding. "The Imperius Curse is a possibility, of course, but it would have had to be a very powerful curse..."
"I'll contact my Aurors," Sirius said quietly. "We'll see what we can find. Will you contact Remus and sit with Harry in case he wakes?" he added to Naomi. She nodded and kissed him quickly before he left the hospital wing.
McGonagall sniffed heavily as her eyes moved back to the two dead professors on separate hospital beds. "Minerva, please go inform the other Heads of House, and bring Ronald and Ginevra Weasley here—their mother will want to know as well, I am certain, but I will handle that task," Dumbledore said to his Deputy Headmistress. The witch nodded, dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief as she collected herself, and followed Sirius' footsteps out of the wing.
Naomi glanced around the room from the area hidden from view that she knew Hermione to be, to Harry, to the two dead professors. When her eyes rested on Dumbledore, she found the Headmaster watching her. "This is just a nightmare, right, sir?" she asked quietly, hoping his eyes would start twinkling and he would tell her none of this was really happening.
Dumbledore only sighed sadly. "I only wish it were, Naomi," he said. "I am at a loss for an explanation. I believed I'd done everything in my power to prevent such a tragedy from occurring..."
Naomi swallowed hard. She wanted to say something like "everyone makes mistakes," or "you're only human," but everything she thought of was completely wrong. She settled on, "Is there anything I can do, sir?"
He smiled gently. "Go to your daughter and come back to sit with Harry for the time being as Sirius requested. If anything arises that you can help with, I will inform you."
Rather reluctantly, Naomi nodded—if Dumbledore said there was nothing for her to do right now, she would accept it. She quietly excused herself from the hospital wing and walked at a rapid pace back to her and Sirius' private quarters where one of the older house-elves was watching Mira. She didn't ask herself the questions most people ask themselves at times like these—the "what else could go wrong?" questions—because she knew that if she did, she would find out the answers far quicker than she wanted. Right now, all she wanted to do was to hold her daughter, and she would deal with everything else as it came.