Well, good news and bad news. Good news: my laptop is back and I have a ridiculous amount of free time. Bad news: I lost everything prewritten while my computer was gone. Thank God I have a ridiculous amount of free time.
Blackbird Fly
Chapter Sixteen
Isolde and Sirius were released from their beds in the Hospital Wing on the first day after the full moon; it had been three days that they had lost due to their midnight romping around the Hogwarts grounds. It was, surprisingly enough, the usual practice for Madam Pomfrey to hold all of the Marauders (and now Isolde) for the duration of the full moon, with the exception of the night. It was dangerous for the three, now four, Animagi to rejoin their classmates until they were well-rested and fully recovered from the extreme physical and mental exhaustion that they faced each month, while Remus was kept for an extra two or so days, just as a safety precaution, according to both Professor Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey.
Their only real visitor during the long few days was Lily, as she was the only other Hogwarts student to know the secrets the Marauders kept, and she was happy to come and sit with each of them to chatter for however long she could stay, making sure to visit each bed when she came. The whole room just brightened when she was there, and she was more than happy to give each of them a hug or a kiss hello and good-bye, not that many of them could actually talk this time around.
Isolde had been the trouble this full moon, not that that had been a real surprise. The Jackal was unfamiliar to Moony, and he had taken a good few swipes at the poor girl before Sirius had convinced the wolf of her sincerity and friendship to the beast. Isolde had come out of the first night with great claw marks slashed across her side badly enough that she was unable to return to her true form until given permission from Madam Pomfrey, as the wounds would not be easily healed on a human, but rather an animal due to the same principle that protected Animagi witches and wizards from the bite of a werewolf while in their animal bodies. Either way, Isolde, and by extension, a very stubborn Sirius, remained jackal and great black dog during their three-day incarceration, Sirius remaining wrapped around Isolde's jackal-body as both of them slept softly, occasionally covered with a thick fleece blanket by Madam Pomfrey; the hospital matron had in her time befriended a few select students, Severus Snape and her Marauders among them.
"Let me change that bandage one last time before you go; you can take it off in a few days once it really stops itching, alright? Just don't, for heaven sakes, open them back up," Madam Pomfrey lectured, fetching some bandages to rewrap Isolde's torso. She hated what these poor kids were doing, but you had to admire them, oh yes. Werewolf wounds, though, are especially tricky to deal with due to the toxin in the bodily fluids of werewolves that cause the infection to be passed on. Isolde wasn't a wolf, but she would have an interesting scar story for Muggle bars, if she ever wound up in such places.
Isolde nodded slowly, gritting her teeth and inhaling sharply as the fabric touched the sensitive wounds. Madam Pomfrey applied the bandage with a firm Sticking Charm, reminding her to use an Impervious Charm to keep the bandage dry and clean. Isolde's arms were crossed, covering her breasts as the cloth wrapped around her a few times. Sirius entered, toweling off his hair as he came in from his shower, dressed in a large sweater and tailored trousers. He goggled at the possible sight of Isolde's breasts, as she had refused to become one of the trollops he had previously dated, not that he had gone "all the way" with every one of them of anything like that. Sirius Black might have dated whores, but he certainly wasn't one; he was just well-loved by the opposite sex.
Isolde rolled her eyes when his mouth began to repeatedly open and close. "Sirius, I know we're not dating because of your extraordinary verbal abilities, but do try to step it up. You'll catch flies and they don't taste very good." She paused for a moment, blushing slightly at the raised eyebrows. "My brother told me it was a chocolate covered raisin."
Sirius wrinkled his nose, deadpanning, "You like those?"
"Not anymore, no."
They both burst out laughing, causing Isolde's bandage to stain slightly as the muscles of her abdomen squeezed, making her to bleed again. She rested a hand over the wound, able to feel the indentations of the claw marks, long and deep and a sharp angry red against ashen skin. She pulled on a loose fitting black tank top and bra that she had brought to the Hospital Wing, though the top had been stretched out a bit on the recommendation of Madam Pomfrey. Sirius had been happy to donate a pair of boxer shorts with a huge black dog on them.
Sirius helped her off the bed, wrapping his arm gingerly around her waist to steady her. They each received a hug and an admonishment to come and see Madam Pomfrey, even if they just wanted to say hello, before leaving for the Slytherin Common Room, only two floors away; Gryffindor Tower was six floors away and neither of them were up to the trip.
Hermione and Severus were both seated on one of the armchairs near the fire when Isolde and Sirius trudged through the Common Room, making their way to her room despite the whispered insults that followed them. It was a sharp jab from Bellatrix Black that brought them to their senses, Hermione seated on Severus's lap as they watched the fire burn and talked aimlessly about the Potions essay they had been assigned.
"Aww, look," she simpered as Severus nursed his aching ribs, "the Mudblood and my favorite family Blood Traitor together again, off for another round of rutting . . . like animals. Isn't that sweet?"
The future Death Eaters were crowded around her, sparking the first round of quiet laughter which spread to the rest of the Slytherins there. Hermione turned up her nose at the lot of them, taking Severus's hand as he did the same, both of them leaving wordlessly as they followed their friends to Isolde's room, their silence broken by a fourth year, who had piped up with, "Four-some?" much to the amusement of those around.
Isolde and Sirius pulled down a pile of blankets and comforters and pillows from her bed, collapsing atop them and sighing with the relief of it all; heaven was the soft and familiar bed they had made for themselves. Sirius pulled her up to his side, and her head rested on his chest, his heartbeat lulling her to sleep as her fingers played lazily with the ends of his soft, dark hair. His eyes closed and warm breath feel against the top of her head evenly, making her smile as her eyes closed too, the world becoming foggy and dim and everything fading away except for the warm hand that held her close to him and the soft breath as his heart continued to beat.
That was how they were found, vulnerable and asleep, Sirius's hand covering the clawed side of Isolde's stomach and caressing the bare skin there; the white of the bandage caught Severus's eye and he started towards them before Hermione pulled him back, warning him with a look in her eye. "Come, love," she whispered, "It's almost time for dinner. We should go." His eyes remained on the couple for a moment before she placated him by promising that if they were not awake by the end of dinner and a bit of homework (she was Hermione Granger after all, no matter how absurdly intelligent her boyfriend was), then it would be alright to wake them.
He nodded sharply before picking up her hand and squeezing it, pressing a firm kiss on the palm before they left Sirius and Isolde to their sleep and one another.
Hermione watched Severus eat rapidly, glowering at his plate a little that she hadn't foreseen anything like this. He noticed the angry glare she gave his food and smirked.
"It's not my fault you didn't plan for this, 'Lene. Oh and, by the way," he added, his smirk becoming a full grin, "I have only to finish the conclusion of my Potions essay and we both know that you've had the thing done since last week."
"You have other work don't you?" she asked pointedly.
"Nope," he replied, stretching in his satisfaction. "I finished just about everything with the exception of a . . . erm . . . the Potion."
"You mean the one for . . ." she trailed off.
"Yes, that one. I went to Madam Pomfrey to get it the morning after we first made love and she provided me with the formula. I know we didn't have it that first time, but there are always ways around that kind of thing and I can help you deal with it and now we won't have to worry because I'll be brewing it myself." He forced himself to stop rambling, feeling the heat rise to his face as Helene choked back a giggle.
"Severus," she laughed, touched at the thought of it, "you never had to worry. I use the Charm every day. I have since my first time, just to be sure in case anything . . . happened."
"You have?"
"Well, let me put it this way: my first time came after a huge upheaval in my life (she wasn't lying) and we didn't use any protection. Thank Merlin that nothing came from that, but I learned to become more careful. I had to be, if I wanted to be sure. And no," she added, seeing the insecurity in his eyes, "he wasn't good at all."
"Tell me," he said, casting a Muffliato before she told the story.
They'd only shared one kiss, brought on by her realizing how much he cared for the little things—the house elves—that mattered to her. It wasn't, Hermione realized later, a kiss borne of passion or lust or years' worth of sexual tension. It was a kiss of gratitude, of finally knowing that he understood her after all those years of friendship and fighting. She'd missed him when he had left her and Harry alone in the wilderness; they had been incomplete. They were meant to be a Trio, not a pair.
Either way, it had led them to the edge of the Lake, never separating from one another. Then he was touching her and she was touching him as she lay on the dew soaked grass, smiling lazily at her once-friend and now-lover. She was nude and he was trying to make it good for them both, but she was his first, too, and he was unsure. He kneaded the flesh of her body with unforgiving hands, causing her to cry out of pain, though he misinterpreted them for pleasure and lust.
Then he entered her, ripping away her maidenhood and just thrusting over her as she raised her hips, trying to feel something—anything. She wanted the things that she had heard of from Ginny and Lavender and Parvati.
Ron Weasley shouldn't have been her first.
"I'm sorry," Severus said. He felt like he shouldn't have pried into her life, like there was something secret and uncertain about it. He consoled himself with the knowledge that she hadn't lied to him.
"We weren't meant to be. And you have nothing to apologize for, you know. I would have asked too," she said, laying her head on his shoulder.
"It should have been you."
He smiled at that, especially when she tilted his head down to meet hers for the softest kiss they had ever shared.
Isolde and Sirius were still asleep when Hermione and Severus returned to Isolde's dormitory, Sirius snoring lightly as Isolde clutched him in her sleep, tense and curled and, from what Severus could tell, in pain. He went to shake her awake, nudging her gently and whispering her name until her dazed, sleepy-heavy eyes opened. She leaned up to hug him, her eyes moist from the pain. Severus laid a hand on her bandage, inspecting the rusty blood that stained it.
"What happened?" It was quiet but firm and Hermione understood why Professor Snape remained quiet when he was most upset. It put his voice at its lowest timbre, its silkiest and its richest. It as a weapon and he knew it.
"Give me a moment," she said wearily, waking Sirius with a whisper, her left arm wrapped around her body. Sirius woke quickly, drawing his wand and waving it lightly to hide their rapid conversation from prying ears. Sirius and Isolde seemed to have reached an accord and the enchantment dropped as suddenly as it went up.
"Before I—we say anything, you'll both need to swear that you will say nothing. A Wand Oath, if you don't mind." He looked fierce, like the passionate man Hermione had known before everything else had happened. She remembered one day that she had left Grimmuald Place in her fifth year to head into Muggle London for a quick shopping trip. Hermione had no recollection of what she had bought or if she had even bought anything, but she remembered Sirius coming along with her, a happy Snuffles by her side.
There had been one detour that he had been rather insistent on making.
"Snuffles!" Hermione called, shouting to the black dog that was currently bounding its way into a reasonably posh London cemetery, his eyes bright though his tail refused to wag.
Sirius looked back at her and whined, cocking his head in the direction of the cemetery and looking entreatingly at Hermione. She simply couldn't resist; when it came to Sirius Black, what woman could, even if she was only a scrawny not-quite-sixteen-year-old.
He loped through the headstones and various trees and benches and memorials until he came to a black granite memorial hidden beneath a flowering tree, alone and decrepit in the corner of the graveyard. It was like nothing she had ever seen before: a black angel seated cross-legged atop the large memorial, head hung and wings broken and tattered and downcast—a fallen angel.
Hermione knelt to brush the dust and leaves away from the silvery inscriptions, reading:
"She is asleep.
Though her mettle was sorely tried,
She lived, and when she lost her angels, died.
It happened calmly, on its own,
The way night comes when day is done."
There were no dates, no name to identify the soul that lay beneath the Black Angel. It was eerie and yet peaceful in a macabre sort of way, like a lullaby that played during a killer's nightmare. Sirius ran and snatched up a few of the dandelions dotting the grass on one of the nearby hills until a small pile of the yellow weeds had amassed.
Once his flowers had been carefully laid, he circled and laid down facing the stone as Hermione watched. Sirius whimpered quietly, covering his eyes with a paw and crying softly; it made her feel like an intruder, so she gave him his privacy, turning her attention to a few of the other headstones as her mind contemplated who Sirius was crying for.
There was a young woman in the cemetery with them now, her coppery hair fluttering beneath a scarf. Her dress was black like the scarf, and sunglasses hid her eyes; her pale hands held a wreath, elegant and simple. She placed it in front of a nearby headstone that Hermione and Sirius had passed for a married couple who had died in the late seventies. The woman in black ran her fingers over the lettering reverently before moving on, approaching the Black Angel with trepidation.
"Don't worry," Hermione said dumbly, "he's very friendly and well-trained."
The woman said nothing, merely turning her head and looking at her, the red painted lips forming an "o" of surprise. She recovered herself after a moment. "I'm sure. His former owner?" she asked, indicating Sirius.
"I-I'm not sure. He wanted to come in here; I don't know why."
The woman knelt carefully and scratched him behind the ears as Sirius ignored her. "I had a dog like this one when I was a girl. I loved him like he was my family. I called him 'Puppy.'"
Sirius's ears pricked as the woman stood carefully, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress. Hermione couldn't resist asking, "Do you know who this is?"
"This angel has quite a history, you know. She protects the memory of a girl who killed herself after a Great War came. Her will said that she didn' t want anything to remember her by—memorials are for the living, you know—so they never put her name or anything on there. Never found her body either; they just got the memorial. This poor girl," she added, stroking the angel's wings, "is rather notorious, you know. A few vandals tried to destroy her a few years ago; they all died in a car crash on the ride here. They also say that you will be driven to madness if you look in her eyes."
"How odd," Hermione whispered thoughtfully to herself.
The woman said her good-byes and gave Sirius, who was now at attention and watching the woman carefully, another scratch behind the ears before walking off, lighting a cigarette as she left.
Hermione's brow furrowed; she hadn't noticed the three pairs of eyes—one a startling red, one an intense grey, and the last, pure black—on her, watching her with confusion.
"'Lene, Severus just took the Wand Oath; will you?" Isolde asked, laying a hand on Hermione's shoulder.
"What? Yes, yes—I'll take it."
Sirius stepped forward and administered the Oath. It was a basic, no-frills, ordinary Wand Oath, the same one used by most employers. It wasn't a matter of a huge, lifelong commitment but more to obtain loyalty or to trust the word of another wizard completely.
With both Hermione and Severus under the Wand Oath, Sirius began.
"Severus, I believe you already know the first part of what will be said here: Remus Lupin is a werewolf. (Hermione did her best to feign surprise.) James, Peter and I refused to allow him to suffer alone in the Shrieking Shack and therefore we learned to become Animagi in fifth year."
Severus was unfazed. He knew that Sirius had potential and the power, not the work ethic. "Prove it."
Sirius inhaled slowly through his nose and exhaled through his mouth as his body changed from that of a handsome young man to a huge and shaggy black dog. He trotted around for a few minutes and cocked his head at Severus before shifting back, breathing heavily.
"The trouble is that after a full moon, we're all just about magically and physically exhausted. Zelda and I remained in our forms for days."
Isolde jumped into the conversation. "I couldn't change back to my body for the duration of the full moon. Moony—that's Remus as a wolf—didn't know me or anything, and he found me unfamiliar and dangerous. The first night, he clawed me; that's what the bandage is, and Sirius decided to stay with me as a dog."
"You were the jackal I saw then," Severus said matter-of-factly, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I wanted to tell you," Isolde replied, hanging her head.
"We were so worried!" Hermione burst, her eyes brimming with tears. Severus leapt to his feet and held her as Isolde and Sirius stood numbly.
"Don't you understand why we couldn't?" Sirius asked, taking hold of Isolde's hand. "It wasn't safe for us and we didn't want to burden you with such knowledge."
"I respect and love both of you so much," Isolde added, resting her other hand on Severus's shoulder, "but I—it wasn't my place to tell." She reached forward and gave Severus a clumsy hug before embracing Hermione. "You know that you're my best friends, but the Gryffindors and I get along too. I don't want to be torn apart, okay?"
Both Severus and Hermione nodded as Isolde returned to Sirius, wrapping her arms around his waist. She reached up and kissed his cheek as Hermione's eyes widened, remembering the cemetery Sirius would one day take her to and who the Black Angel was for. She pulled away from Severus before kissing him soundly on the mouth and saying, "I have to go and get some work done for a . . . independent Arithmancy project for Professor Vector."
She bolted from the room as a gob smacked Severus called after her, "But we have that class together and Vector never assigned anything like that!"
He shook his head, turning back to Isolde and Sirius. "I'll never understand you women."
Isolde laughed. Sirius agreed. "I don't even try anymore, mate."
"Well then," Isolde said, after giving both boys a light dunce slap, "anyone else hungry?"
Hermione raced back to her dormitory—her own, not the one she and Severus now seemed to share. It had been so long since she had last had a good Arithmancy problem—one with possibilities and variable outcomes and inconstant factors; she hadn't had this much of an intellectual challenge since the War, when she had worked to determine the factors that would make Harry most likely to succeed.
This was something different; she almost believed that she could change lives completely, perhaps change the future completely without affecting the future of the Wizarding World. It was something that could be (relatively) no-pressure for her.
Hermione Granger pulled out her parchment book and a few bottles of ink and her sharpest quills, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. She began by noting the absolute constants that would affect the life of Isolde Chase in some way or another: the first rise of Voldemort, Severus joining the Death Eaters, the 1981 murder of the Potters and the defeat of Voldemort . . .
Hermione also felt it important to make a few little assumptions based on Isolde's most probable actions in the future, especially concerning her place in the First War. There was no doubt in her mind that Isolde would take sides quickly, and that she would join the Order of the Phoenix. Her joining the Order and Severus becoming a Death Eater would lead to a schism between them, which would have a profound impact on Isolde's life, especially as, Hermione assumed, that Helene Fermier would most likely (and hopefully) be restored to her own time as Hermione Granger. Then, basing her guess on the theory that Isolde Chase would survive the First War, she would lose Sirius to Azkaban.
A little gasp escaped Hermione's lips, and her quill stopped flying across the parchment, blotting the edge of the perfect cursive in the last word she had written. Isolde would most certainly kill herself; she had to be the one for whom the angel was erected—the resemblance to her costume for the Masque was the clue. In order to verify this, Hermione knew she would have to establish some sort of precedence for self-mutilation. It would serve no real purpose, as her mind perceived the relationships and explored the possibilities she had derived from the certainties.
Setting her quill down, she tied back her hair and furrowed her brow. The best way to insert people, herself included, into an Arithmantic equation was to determine the element the corresponded out of either the classical elements (water, earth, fire and air) or using one of the less common disciplines. Hermione closed her eyes, feeling through the vast library of her mind for the books she had read and remembered, mentally pulling books of relevant subject matter out and scanning through them; her mind was focused and thoroughly concentrated on the matter at hand.
Having run through a list of the various possibilities, Hermione eventually chose to work with the Japanese interpretation of the elements: water, wind, earth, fire and void. For herself, she chose Earth, considering her logical nature and innocence and growth. She could change, yet stay the same person fundamentally, just as the Earth will renew itself after a fire, trees and animals returning to their home and finding it different and the same all at once.
Severus was elusive and transient and fluid as Water, and the way he could shift from himself to the icy shell of a Death Eater she had once seen in him could (and would, she swore to herself) return to the man she had fallen in love with. He was like a river through a battlefield tainted with blood and hatred; the dilution happened with time and patience and love, but he was still tainted. She would face that in the future, she knew, but she also knew that Water and Earth were corresponding elements. They were simply meant to be, even to the core of their being.
Sirius, she determined after careful thought, was his natural opposite: Fire. He was impulsive and intimidating and passionate in his beliefs. He was also nurturing and warm and kind, like the fire warming the hearth on a December night. He could become as dangerous and destructive as anything with little provocation, but he was also soft and warm and sweet. Hermione had never realized how narrow her perception of the Sirius Black she would know was, nor how deeply he felt.
Isolde . . . Isolde was a challenge. She had a creative spark that simply didn't manifest itself in the Wizarding World; Hermione had only ever heard of two Wizarding musicians: the Weird Sisters and Celestina Warbeck. Hermione then considered the mystery of Isolde's parents and the ring that she had been given on her birthday and the red eyes she was left with. There was something not natural about her—there was no other explanation for it, no matter how much Hermione cared for her. The extraordinary paleness, the apparent ease with which she'd become an Animagus . . . Isolde herself was something strange or extraordinary without knowing it, which was perhaps the root of her extraordinariness, according to Roald Dahl. Hermione classified Isolde as the element Void, an element which represented the heavens, the metaphysical and the unexplained.
Having made a few element charts and lists and the like, Hermione was, at long last, ready to begin plotting the equation and determining the course of events. She never got a chance that night, though, having worked until three in the morning and falling asleep with her head on her desk and her quill in her hand, ever a scholar at heart.