Disclaimer:Not mine, no money made. Thanks.
Author's Note: Much gratitude to everyone following this tale...Yvonnia, Pink Tribe Chick,Nynaeve80, Fallon Nicole and sharrahenley, thank you so much for the positive comments! I hope you continue to enjoy.
Summary:
"If we were alive today, we would never have met."
When the Order Of The Phoenix learn of Voldemort's latest plan to use the Veil to experiment with immortality, they embark on a mission to destroy it once and for all. Hermione Granger is nineteen, and in charge of finding the spell that will succeed in this task. But when the mission goes wrong and Hermione is pulled in, who can she possibly turn to for help now she's….well..dead?
Eight
The Heart Of A Lion
"Even in the desolate wilderness, stars can still shine"
-
The Keeper seemed to have forgotten his annoyance by the time they stood at the cottage door to leave.
"What do I do now?" Hermione asked the old man.
"The Crossing lies beyond the forest." he replied. "You," -he turned to Regulus- "Must see that she reaches it. There is much to be done in the world of the Living, still so much to be done. Take her back, and when you do, you will return the key I will give you to me here. Don't forget that…….the key works for only one soul."
Regulus nodded silently.
He took a small silver key from his pocket and placed it in Regulus' outstretched hand.
"Then go," Silas pointed a gnarled finger into the deep forest behind the cottage. "Stay on the path. Stay out of the dark as much as you can, find shelter as you need it. At the end of the forest you will find Cassandra's house. She will give you shelter and point you towards the gate that can be opened with the silver key. And remember, there is only one." he said. "To lose the key, you would also lose her. And…….good luck." The Keeper gave his unnerving crooked grin, and Hermione watched as Regulus' long fingers closed upon the little silver key.
"Shouldn't I keep it?" she asked, automatically, used to being in charge of Harry and Ron. Regulus tilted an eyebrow and smiled thinly.
"I have the wand."
Hermione was surprised herself at how upset she felt, being the one that couldn't do magic. She thanked the Keeper for his hospitality and his advice, and walked purposefully away from the two men, who seemed to have moved from the earlier hostility to an arrangement of grudging respect. She walked towards the high gates at the entrance to the black forest, too far away to hear the last thing the Keeper said to Regulus before he caught her up and unlocked the gates.
"You should tell her," the old man said, not meeting Regulus' eyes. "What you're hiding there, in your pocket."
-
The forest was darker, a lot darker, that Hermione had anticipated, and without a wand , they might never have been able to see their way throught the dense trees, around the boggy swamps and the stagnant pools of discoloured water. Staying on the path was difficult, for often the path was obstructed, necessitating a long detour and then a search for the path they had been forced to leave.
"What did the Keeper say to you?" Hermione asked as they trudged through endless undergrowth. "That he didn't want me to hear?"
Regulus rubbed his cheek with his bloody sleeve.
"He didn't say anything important." he answered, shortly.
Hermione wasn't sure that he was telling the truth, but the more pressing concern was finding a way through the forest. It was true that she was still sore about not having her wand , but with this, was the glimmer of hope that she would be able to find her way back.
The Keeper had said her memory of dying had been incomplete. She wondered if this had been why she'd wanted things like sleep and food at first, and supposed it must have been, because Regulus had never seemed to want to do either. At first it had been unnerving, but after a while it was wonderfully convenient, if she was honest, to never need to stop for those things. It would certainly be very helpful for studying.
She wondered if, when she arrived home, Harry and Ron would have already found the locket and defeated Voldemort. She tried not to think about the battle going the other way, returning to find them both dead and Voldemort ruling the Wizarding world. Returning to find her own gravestone would be bizarre. She wondered what her parents would say when their dead daughter walked in through the door. What would Harry have told them? How long had she been gone? Would it be possible to get home at all?
"There's no sense in worrying," said Regulus next to her, and Hermione realised that she'd been biting her lips, gripping his hand a little harder than strictly necessary. He'd held her hand to help her over a particularly boggy patch of ground, but hadn't let it go. She wondered if he'd been embarrassed when the Keeper had called him 'your boyfriend', but he didn't seem to mind. Sirius had never been embarrassed by anything, she recalled, realising, as she thought about Sirius the oddity of the situation. It was so strange to think that, although she had known Sirius first at the age of thirty three, Regulus had been in the year below. She'd worked that out from the tapestry, Sirius told them he was born in 1959. She calculated mentally, and laughed out loud.
"What?" Regulus enquired.
"I was just trying to work out how old we both would have been if we'd been around at the same time." she said.
"And?"
"Well, I'm nineteen now, so that would make you thirty eight."
"I don't feel thirty eight," he said dryly
"You don't look thirty eight."
Regulus smirked.
"Would you still like me if I did?"
"Who says I like you now?" Hermione smirked at him back and held his hand a little tighter.
-
"Tell me about the Horcruxes."he asked, satisfied with the slight pressure on his hand, the wordless answer to his question.
"What do you want to know?"
"How did you know about them, for a start? He, the Dark Lord, thought only he knew."
"Harry was told by Professor Dumbledore. He was your headmaster, wasn't he? Sirius said he was."
"Yes."
"He told Harry about them, the year after Sirius died. He'd been trying to trace them himself. Sometimes I wonder if he didn't know he would die soon, though, because he chose that year to tell Harry about them. He, Harry, went to find one of them."
"So he had more than one," said Regulus, very quietly, almost to himself.
"Dumbledore thought six, and we think he's right." Hermione answered, not noticing the odd expression ghost across Regulus' fine features at the mention of this. "They, Harry and the Headmaster, thought they had the locket, but it was a fake. Somebody else had got there before them."
Regulus drew in a breath, and stopped, as if he was about to say something, but a slight movement between the trees ahead of them halted further discussion.
He put out his arm, preventing Hermione from going any further.
"What was that?" she asked, whispering now. Regulus kept his right arm across Hermione, and drew his wand with his left.
"Don't know," he said, in a low voice. " I asked the Keeper if anything was in the forest, and he said he didn't know. He's never been through it, he says. Reckons people go in and never come out, so he sends letters with his Patronus."
Hermione pushed his arm away.
"He said that, and you never told me?"
"You want to turn around and stay here forever?"
"No, of course I don't, but….."
"Then come on. The quicker the better, I think, don't you?"
The journey through the forest seemed to be taking an awfully long time. Hermione kept glancing nervously upwards for the dark in the sky, but the pine trees were so dense and close-set that it was hard to see anything above them. Regulus seemed agitated, and kept looking around and behind them, rather like Mad Eye Moody, although, she reasoned, perhaps Regulus wouldn't go so far as to behave this way ordinarily, as Moody would do, according to Tonks, in shops and on beach holidays.
They had reached a particularly dense part of the forest. It was now difficult to even see the path, it was so overgrown and damp in this spot, and the forest was so dark. Regulus seemed to remember his wand at last; Hermione had quite forgotten herself that one of them could now use magic, and she breathed a sigh of relief. But the relief was only short-lived, as when he lit the wand, and they looked downwards, they realised they were no longer standing on the path, but on dry, hard earth. They retraced their steps for a few minutes, but this did not yield any success, and only left Hermione with the horrible, lurching sensation that they were getting more and more lost. If only it wasn't so dark; the lumos charm barely worked here, giving only enough light to see a little way ahead.
A slight movement between the trees to the left made Regulus draw in his breath.
"Is something wrong?" Hermione whispered loudly.
"I'm not sure yet," He sounded very worried, and this unnerved Hermione.
"The Keeper told us not to lose the path, and now I've put you in danger."
"I lost the path too, Regulus. Stop trying to blame yourself just to be chivalrous."
He looked at her seriously.
"Maybe it's about time I blamed myself for a few things." he said shortly. "The Keeper thinks you can get back. I was supposed to be looking after you."
"Do you think I can?"
" I hope you can, I suppose." he replied, though he sounded far from happy about it.
They tried to find their bearings, but the forest just seemed to go on and on, the trees now so close together that they had to walk in single file through them, Regulus having to stoop and the lowest branches catching on Hermione's hair as she tried to pass. Regulus held his wand aloft. They couldn't see much.
The trees here seemed to make a strange sound. Hermione had begun to notice it when the forest got thicker, and the light was all but excluded. She kept looking down, hoping to see the path and cursing them for being so stupid, but this forest seemed to have the curious quality of addling ones mind, preventing any kind of clear thought. The further they walked, the more she felt she couldn't think clearly , and it scared her.
"How far, d'you think, to the other side of the forest?" she asked Regulus, who did not talk much as a rule (another disparity between him and his older brother, Hermione noted) but now was worryingly silent, as if he was frightened. Perhaps he was. It was not a nice thought. Regulus did not seem the sort of person to be easily frightened. Sirius hadn't been either.
"I…I'm not sure.." he began, hesitantly. "Hermione….I think we've gone the wrong way."
He raised a stiff hand out in front of him, indicating something through the trees up ahead. It was then that Hermione caught a cloying stench from that same direction. She followed his gesture and what she saw made fear rise, sour in her throat.
"Oh my god………" was all she could manage.
-
In a clearing, up ahead, was a building. Like a ruined castle keep, it stood precariously by itself in amongst the dense pines. The crumbling walls were fashioned from stone. It shone wetly, black in the gloom, and one side of the castle was almost entirely missing. Moss crept up the slimy walls from the ground up, daubing the stone with a dirty dark green, but this was by far not the most horrifying thing about the place.
In a seething mass all around the ruin were the same dark shadows of spirits that had attacked Hermione the night she and Regulus had first met and he'd rescued her.
They swept across the ground in front, some corporeal, some no more than smoke, a wispy suggestion of potential evil.. But there were so many of them, the ground and air writhing; alive with darkness.
This must be where they live. Where they breed….. Hermione thought in terror. And we've walked straight into it.
"Get back," Regulus said sharply, putting out his arm to stop her going any further, and extinguishing the wand light. "Get back, and we'll try and get away before they sense us here. We might be able to get enough of a start."
"But it's the day," Hermione whispered. "How can they be active now? I thought you said…."
"It's dark in here, right? They need darkness, it doesn't matter how they get it. That's why fire keeps them away. If we can get out of the forest, we'll make it, they won't follow unless it's dark. Come -" He found her hand and tugged her away. "Quickly-"
"I can't see, Regulus……."
"Hold on to me, my eyes are used to the dark…."
Hermione gripped blindly to his arm, still surprised at how warm he was for somebody who was supposed to be dead, but this place didn't seem to follow any particular traditional rules on that state, at least, not any she's been aware of.
Afraid to run for the noise it would make, they had only made it a few yards away from the opening in the trees when Hermione suddenly tripped over a protruding low branch and fell.The branch snapped with an almighty echoing crack.
In any other circumstances, the impact would have broken her ankle. In these circumstances, the pain was brief and intense, so she screamed, but it was soon over in the sheer horror of what she had done.
The Malevolents in the clearing seemed to surge as one towards them when they heard the noise and registered the presence of something other than themselves in the forest. They moved as one, an undulating mass of darkness, fathomless black, emptiness and evil looking out through slits of amber-red.
Regulus held her tightly around the waist. She heard him draw in breath sharply, and draw his wand back, throwing a stream of fire at the mass of Malevolents coming towards them. He pulled her up, moving faster even than the black mass advancing on them..
"Are you all right?"
She nodded.
"Can you run?" Abruptly.
"Yes, I -"
"Keep in front of me, then. Let me fight them. Stay ahead. Go!"
"I'm sorry Regulus….." she began.
"We all fuck up sometimes." he laughed briefly, bitterly "We'll be ok. Just stay in front."
Perhaps it was the uncharacteristic use of the profanity that jerked her into action, but she began to run, trying desperately to find the way by looking up beween the trees. It was no good, so she had to work by instinct, and found herself heading off down a path they hadn't seen before, but a path, nonetheless. She glanced behind her to see if Regulus was following. He wasn't as close behind her as she would have liked, and he was stopping every few paces to throw more fire at the creatures pursuing them through the darkness of the forest. Hermione could hear the terribly familiar whispering and mocking laughter as he cast yet another charm.
This one made the forest floor catch, the dry bracken going up and would hold them, Hermione thought, for a minute perhaps at most. They needed to find a place that it was light, but a minute wasn't enough.
Blind and frightened, she ran back to Regulus, who was now not running at all, doubled over with the effort of a difficult charm cast over and over. Bizarrely, he laughed, his eyes unfocused.
"He said I wanted to practice," he mumbled. "Bloody hell…"
The other laughter got louder too, behind the rapidly falling curtain of fire that was their only protection from their pursuers, bent on increasing their own resources of power by leaving the two of them empty soulless shells.
But they'd got this far…..
"Quick, Regulus," Hermione urged. "We've still got time, we've got a chance…"
"No," he shook his head. "There's too many of them. I can't hold them off with the fire charms any more. The ones here have some kind of resistance, they aren't affected this close to their home…..you should run, Hermione. You should run."
"And leave you, you mean?"
"Yeah. Leave me. It's not you they're after."
It's the dark that she couldn't stand. It crawled into her bones.She couldn't bear the thought of him being taken, having his soul stolen away leaving nothing, and she couldn't bear to hear him scream. Not now. Not after all this….
"I'm not leaving you." Stubborn, unyielding.
Listen, you've got to go, run! Now! Don't worry about me, leave me. Just get yourself out, go back and live and be happy. Take the key, take it now…."
He took the small silver key shakily from his pocket and pressed it into her hand, closing her fingers clumsily over it, and this scared her more than anything; Regulus was anything but clumsy and now she really knew he believed what he said, he wasn't going to make it out of this.
"Regulus……please, no…." she whispered as her voice cracked under the weight of the words
"Take the key Hermione. Don't make me give up my soul for nothing. I felt as if I did that for someone else, when I was alive.One of us has got to get away, and I've decided it's going to be you. I had my chance years ago, when I was alive. You can make something of yourself."
"How could you be a Slytherin? " she asked him, tears wanting to come, but not doing so.
"I was a Slytherin because I asked to be." he answered. "Choices, you see. And here's another one. Go….and Hermione?"
"What?" came the shaking reply.
"Come here for just a moment," he said softly. She walked towards him, and in those last moments, he pulled her close up against him, wrapping his arms around her and pressed his lips hard on hers. The kiss was fierce and ungentle, and over all too soon.
"I wanted to do that now, in case I never got another chance." he said. "Now run. Please. Just run."
Hesitating, she turned and staggered a few steps, looking back at Regulus. He had his wand raised up ready to cast as they came at him again. He stood now, with a great effort, tall and proud, and Hermione hoped that was the way he had died, though she'd never asked him about it, and looking back, she wondered why. Perhaps it was that, by now, so many had died under that green light of Voldemort's wand that she could scarcely imagine another way. Now she would never know.
She heard the incantation yelled and saw the fire streak again from Regulus' wand, the Malevolents attacking, now over the barrier of fire, falling back, and then regrouping for another attack. Just one touch from them, she thought. One touch, and I lose him.
'The valiant boy who died so alone…'
The cracked, sinister voice of the Keeper revisited her mind and she knew she wasn't going to run. Wasn't going to let him go alone.
A clump of thorny yellow gorse grew stunted at the foot of one of the larger pines, and it was here Hermione managed to conceal herself, waiting for a chance, any chance, to help Regulus. But she hadn't been there long, parting the branches with bloodied fingers to watch and wait, when she heard him cry out, a low noise of agony, and her heart filled with dread. She didn't want to see this, but she had to watch, she couldn't look away.
Hermione watched in horror as the creatures launched another attack and Regulus' wand was flung out of his hand in a wide arc, landing close to where she crouched hidden. Regulus himself had hit the ground and was trying to get to his feet and failing. As the creatures advanced on him he covered his face with his hands.
He did not scream.
And Hermione made a decision.
All in one movement, it seemed, she had flung herself out from behind the bush and closed her hand on the handle of Regulus' fallen wand. She thought hard, of Harry and Ron and seeing her parents again, and she thought of the boy lying collapsed on the ground who had been prepared to give himself up to let her see them again. ..
It was a chance. Maybe.
"Expecto patronum!" she shrieked.
It happened in a moment. The otter, her otter, sprang forth from Regulus' ebony wand. Not as distinct as would have been achieved with her own, but the Malevolents fell back, fearful at the sight of the Patronus. The silvery otter advanced on them just as they had upon Regulus, and they surged back towards the ruined castle, their whispers urgent and afraid. Hermione followed bravely, Regulus' wand raised in her hand, to where he lay on the forest floor and dragged him to his feet.
"Regulus…" she said, her voice infused with panic; they were not safe yet. "Regulus, can you stand?"
"Thought I told you… to run."
"I'm not running unless you run too."
The look lasted just a fraction of a second, but all was there, and all was said. He nodded.
She handed back his wand.
"What's your Patronus? Quick, cast it after mine!"
Regulus hesitated .
"I haven't ever managed one, not yet." His face was ashen and his voice wavered.
Hermione bit her lip.
"Well, try! " she urged. "It's not my wand, it won't drive them off for long enough for us to get out of this place. It has to be you. Think about being happy!"
"I don't…."
"Think! Please, it's our only chance"
He closed his eyes as the Malevolents circled Hermione's otter, and it began to fade into vapour, and a slow smile began to spread across his face. Hermione didn't have time to wonder what memory he was calling to mind, for in the next moment , there was a flash of silver light, a rushing noise. She shut her eyes against the bright light, and heard a triumphant bark of laughter, as a warm hand grabbed hold of her own.
"I did it," he gasped.
Hermione opened her eyes. A magnificent silver lion, teeth bared and mane flowing, charged through the trees into the dark seething mass of wicked spirits. They screeched, a high, ear-splitting noise, swooping back, cowering into the darkness of the crumbling ruin. The lion threw its head back, shook it's regal mane and roared, shaking the forest floor as the remaining spirits disintegrated into nothing but vapour and smoke in the space that they had occupied.
-
Light was filtering down through the trees. Hermione and Regulus walked in silence, the silver lion still circling by Regulus' side, not fading as long as he held his wand high; sometimes gambolling ahead of the two of them, sometimes pacing behind, but always there, protecting them.
The edge of the forest awaited, glowing in the half-light of the first real evening Hermione had seen since she had arrived in this place.
And it was beautiful. Relief made it all the more so; made her want to collapse onto the forest floor, hold on to the man beside her and let tears come at last. But Regulus was weak from his fight, and although he was making great efforts to hide this and remain strong, he was even paler than usual, the shadowed smudges under his eyes more pronounced and his steps sometimes faltered.
"Regulus…" she started to say, looking at him with concern in her eyes, but he waved it away.
"M'fine…" he mumbled.
"If we can't find the cottage," Hermione said decisively "Then I'm building a fire. Now. The Keeper should have told us what was in the forest," she continued. "I can't imagine why he never did."
Regulus looked up.
"The Keeper didn't know, I suspect," he said, faintly. "I told you, he said he'd never been in here."
"Still," Hermione looked about her. "Here we are."
She surveyed the landscape. The black forest stretched on behind them, treacherous and foreboding. The lane they were on, however, was actually a real lane, lined with lush grass and flowers, larkspur and hollyhocks and foxgloves bloomed in the hedgerows and the grass was a healthy green, turning golden in the evening light.
As they walked, the dust kicked up from the grit on the lane and Hermione was remeinded of family holidays and long walks in Greece; endless evenings, long and full of beauty. How she missed them, but there again, here was something too, that before she'd never known.
Regulus arm tightened around her as they walked together in silence. She waited patiently when he had to stop for a moment and he tried not to stop for too long.
When the darkness appeared in the sky, thet had only just spotted the outline of the house ahead of them.
As they drew closer, it appeared not to be the house they were looking for, and Hermione felt a faint clutch of panic in her chest. The Keeper had not said that it was a burnt wreck of a cottage, but this was what stood in front of them.
Most of the ceiling had fallen in, the glass in the window frames smashed. The grass in front of the cottage and most of the white-painted picket fence had been torched as well.
Curiously, though, the front door and the knocker were shining, bright and intact despite the blackened bricks and picture of devastation that surrounded them. Hermione eyed them suspiciously.
"Doesn't look like the place," Regulus was saying. "We'll have to….(he gasped a little ) have to camp. There's no more time."
But Hermione continued to look suspiciously at the house.
"Give me the map." she said eventually.
Regulus handed her the dirty, worn piece of parchment and she looked at it, looking back at the ruined cottage in front of them.
"The map says this is it. Burnt Cottage. That's what it says." she muttered slowly.
"I wonder…"
And to Regulus' utter surprise, she marched straight up the winding, debris strewn path and took the polished brass knocker in her hand, banging it down twice, hard, on the glossy red paint of the door.
Regulus watched from the other end of the path, idly holding his wand in one hand, and looking a little unsure as to what on Earth Hermione was doing.
There was a long pause in which he was about to tell her it was no good, that the place was abandoned and to come on before it got dark and dangerous.
But before he could open his mouth to say it, the painted door flew open with a clatter, and a woman stared out at them.
Quoted: Aoi Jiyuu Shoroi Nozomi
Next time : More memories, thieving old women and...shirtless older brothers. Among other things.
Comments welcome!