Chapter Eighteen

The early morning light was filtering into her office on March the third, and Helen Magnus bent over her desk writing a letter to the Head of the Cairo Sanctuary about some rumors of uplift near Giza suggesting Sand Ray breeding, authorizing them to investigate and if necessary, contain the young when they were born to minimize the population growth in the area. It took hundreds of years for a Sand Ray to reach full maturation, so for at least half a dozen decades, the young could easily be contained at the Sanctuary, and in fifty years or so they were likely to have better options for relocating the species to a larger facility, or an alternate site that had much less human traffic.

Her gaze lifted from the page when her Dear Friend entered the room. "Yes?" she asked.

"You have a guest," he said. "The Mage."

"Hermione is here?" she asked, surprised. "I wasn't expecting her."

"I assumed you would have mentioned it if you had been," he drawled. "She looked as though she had not eaten or slept. I sent her to the Library, and I thought I'd bring you both tea there, and a light breakfast for her."

"That sounds fine," Helen said, standing.

Exiting the office, he went left toward the kitchens, and she went right toward the Library. A few minutes later, she walked into the massive room housing a lifetime or two worth of books on all subjects, surprised again to see that Hermione was not already scanning the shelves. Instead, the formidable woman was just sitting at one of the tables, rubbing her temples with her eyes closed. She cleared her throat to announce her arrival.

Hermione's eyes opened and she sat up straight. "Helen," she greeted, voice weary.

"You look dreadful," she admitted softly. "What's wrong?"

"Last night… I finished my Potions Mastery," the younger woman explained. "I'm fully awakened, now. The experience was more jarring than I anticipated, and I find myself in need of a bit of seclusion. Do you mind if I stay here for a few days?" She paused, and laughed a little, bitterness in her tone. "Or maybe a month? Just until I can think about the things I can't fix without wanting to bloody cry?"

"Sanctuary for all, Hermione. You need not make excuses to come here, if you require a place to be for a time," Helen replied after a pause. "That said, I may not have known any other Mages personally, but that does not mean I have not done my research. The experience of becoming fully awakened should not have put you in this state. Therefore, I'm inclined to inquire what really happened last evening, other than what you've already said."

Hermione scowled. "I considered going to James' place, you know, but I was certain he'd figure it wasn't just the awakening. I suppose it was wishful thinking you wouldn't easily deduce it as well. In any case, I also wanted to be far enough away that Sirius couldn't feasibly get to me."

"Did you argue with Sirius?" Helen asked.

"No," Hermione said, looking at the table, shoulders slumping. "I cheated on him."

Now Helen understood the desire not to go home to her husband. "Ah," she said, sitting down across from her guest. "May I inquire with whom?"

"Can I trust you to keep it in confidence?" the Mage asked, meeting her gaze.

The Head of the Sanctuary Network nodded. "Of course. I'm not here to judge you, Hermione. Merely to be an outlet. You clearly need to talk about this with someone, and I'm here, willing, and able."

"And you understand that sometimes love transcends outward appearance," Hermione supposed, tilting her head to the side.

"Very much so," Helen agreed, wondering what that had to do with it. She already suspected Hermione was bisexual. Did that mean her lover was a woman?

"Melok," the younger woman confided after a pause. "I was with Melok last night. Gods know it's been building that way for a while now."

Her Dear Friend took that moment to walk in with their tea and Hermione's breakfast, causing both of them to pause their conversation for a moment while he set things on the table without a word, only stopping to order Hermione to eat before he offered a curt nod to his employer and then left. This gave Helen a few minutes to wrap her head around the notion of Hermione being involved in a love affair with the Goblin. Melok was the perfect gentleman, and as she understood things, just as married as Hermione was. What Helen knew of Goblin culture suggested that they took their oaths very seriously, so for one to step out of their marriage was very strange indeed, and would only have been done in an instance of very deep, nearly soul consuming love. He'd not have done it for lust. He'd not have done it on a whim, and Helen didn't honestly think Hermione was the type to break vows without greater reasons either. Of course, that didn't make it right. Vows were vows. It did, however, make it understandable.

"So," she said calmly. "Melok?"

Hermione let out a sigh. "I didn't go looking to fall in love with him. In fact I did my damndest not to fall in love with him. I knew I'd been heading that direction with his counterpart in Beta, so when we got here, I did my best to keep him at a distance to prevent exactly this. It didn't bloody work, though. It's like he just looked at my carefully constructed walls, poked at them, and they crumbled like they were nothing at all. I feel like an absolute child for saying this, but it's not fair!"

"Love seldom is, Hermione," Helen replied with a bit of a smile. "Nor is love wrong, by itself. An affair isn't right - that's not fair to you or him or to either of your spouses - but the love you share isn't wrong. Take some solace in that."

"Tried that approach," she groaned. "We ended up shagging. Loving him and not touching him… how do I go back? How do I go back to pretending like I don't know what it feels like to have his lips all over my body? How do I look him in the eye when I know what his skin tastes like? How do I go to bed with my husband after this and not think of Melok while he's touching me?"

"Do you still love Sirius?" Helen asked carefully.

"Yes!" Hermione exclaimed. "I think that's the most frustrating part of all. If I didn't, I wouldn't feel like I was being torn in two, I wouldn't feel half this guilty, and I'd be standing in front of possible solutions instead of the probability of ongoing torture!"

"And the fact that he's your Master and you're his Mage means stepping out of each other's lives is inadvisable at best," the older woman mused, "and would undoubtedly be questioned."

"Correct," came a quick reply. "That's not an option. So what am I supposed to do?"

"You stay here for a little while," Helen shrugged. "You rest, you learn a bit more about the Sanctuary. That will distract you a bit. You get drunk some evenings - I have an excellent wine cellar. You cry a few times and let it out, because you know when you go home you'll have to hold it all in. You take the time to process what happened, you rebuild those walls, and when you've done all that, you go back with your head held high, and as you've always done, you endure."

"Endure?" Hermione asked, deadpan.

"We are leaders, you and I," Helen reminded her. "We are entitled to have breakdowns now and then. There's nothing wrong with that. Afterwards, however, we must look to the greater good, and yes, endure."

She scoffed. "Greater good. That's what they said."

"They?"

"The Fates. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. Evidently they're Mages, and the makers of the Veil," Hermione said scathingly. "They talked a lot about the greater good, and my duty to it."

Helen's curiosity was piqued. "I'm presuming this was in the course of your awakening. What else did they have to say?"

Hermione nodded. "Mostly they talked about the best and worst I could potentially be. They talked about the future of the Mages, and how they're on some evolutionary cusp, and that in the generations to come there are going to be more Mages born than there have been, and that it's up to me to ensure Melok's line survives and learns what they must in order to train that future generation properly. They also went on a bit about painful sacrifices that might need to be made along the way in order to pave a better future, including one I may have to make. I really didn't like the sound of that. Haven't I lost enough?"

Helen frowned. "What did they say, exactly?"

"That if I never learned the value of the greater good," Hermione recited, thinking back, "I'd become a version of myself who was Voldemort's successor, not able to make a sacrifice at the right time, forcing my will on others so those I care for don't have to suffer. Paraphrasing here, but that's the gist."

The older woman's eyebrow rose. "Well that's not a dire prediction or anything."

"Especially considering at the moment I find the very idea of the greater good to be a load of dragon dung," Hermione admitted. "All manner of atrocities can be justified by the service of the greater good. I hate that concept. That's the concept that left my brother to be raised in an abusive home, for Merlin's sake! It's the concept that created two generations of child soldiers!"

"From what you've said, these are all consequences of Albus Dumbledore's machinations," Helen pointed out. "Just because his execution of the greater good concept had such consequences doesn't mean you can't do better. You have the advantage of knowing where many of the chips will fall, Hermione. I imagine you can do much better than he could have dreamed of doing."

Hermione begrudgingly admitted she was right. "Okay, fine, let's say I'm bound to do better. Whose life is it alright to ruin in order to serve this greater good?"

Helen raised an eyebrow again. "I'd be playing the odds, if I were you, dear. You've seen who falls on the side of Voldemort and who falls in with the Resistance in two realities now. Feel free to ruin the lives of those who fell in with Voldemort in both other realities. Everyone else - give them a fighting chance, because odds are even if you gave those others a chance, they would still choose Voldemort."

The other woman looked at her thoughtfully. "There are only two people who come to mind right off that make me hesitant to make a blanket rule like that. Two people who went dark both times, but for both of them, I feel like there is a good chance that with the right push, they'd choose differently."

"I'm listening," Helen offered, curious.

"At least you will," Hermione laughed. "Sirius would think I've lost my mind to consider either one of them. First is Peter Pettigrew."

"Isn't that the name of one of the boys who was friends with Sirius when he was a boy? Along with James Potter?" Helen asked.

The other woman nodded. "In both realities, Peter grew up and secretly joined Voldemort - why, we never really knew for sure - and because nobody knew he was a Death Eater, he was made Secret Keeper when James and Lily went into hiding, and then he betrayed their location. In both realities, he's the reason Harry grew up an orphan. The problem here is that if I do save him, I have to find another means for James and Lily to be betrayed, which is problematic. That said, on the surface he had everything going for him, and I feel like it is most likely that there was something happening in the background of Peter's life that just put too much pressure on him and made him feel he had no choice but to betray his friends. If I take that pressure out of the equation, he never has a reason to become a traitor, and more to the point, Sirius and Remus never have to live with the devastation of losing James and Peter all in one night, effectively. The four of them were inseparable from the age of eleven. Then in one night everything was destroyed. In Alpha, James died, Peter was a traitor who faked his death and framed Sirius for it and James' death, leaving poor Remus alone for thirteen years after having lost every one of his friends in one night. In Beta, Sirius was never born there, and Remus never lived long enough to attend Hogwarts, but Severus was part of that friend group. Severus lost James and Lily and Peter all in one night. Peter's betrayal, in any reality, destroys the lives of many, including his own."

Helen nodded. "That sounds like a complicated situation. I think it best if we talk about it with the rest of the group before making any sort of decision, as the consequences would be far reaching. I'll pin Sirius down if he's too much trouble."

Hermione grinned. "I may hold you to that."

"What about the other one?"

The grin faded, and Hermione's hand moved absently to the back of her left hand, rubbing it as if there was an invisible bruise. "Delores Umbridge," she whispered. "I'm not sure how much of my inclination is a desire to see her redemption, or find my own, to be honest. She… she wasn't a Death Eater. Not in Alpha or Beta. In neither reality did she work directly for Voldemort, although in both realities she was a horrible, horrible woman. I can't say there was much redeeming about her. She hurt my friends, and she hurt me, in Alpha. In Beta, she held a number of Witches and Wizards under the Imperius for an extended period to serve as her slaves so she could maintain a life of luxury despite the world being at war."

"What makes you want to save her?" Helen inquired.

"Part of it is specifically because no matter how wretched she was, she didn't join Voldemort, and she very well could have," Hermione admitted. "That makes me feel like she had an inclination toward survival by any means, rather than one toward outright evil. The other part is that, in Beta… Helen I'm not proud of it…"

"It's alright," the other woman assured her. "Go on."

Hermione sighed. "Like I said, we found her holed up using people under Imperius as slaves. I already hated her for what she'd done to me and Harry and the rest in Alpha, and when I saw what she was doing there, I just lost it. I saw red, and even though she'd dropped her wand, I slit her throat. I killed her in cold blood. I suppose a part of me wants to give her a chance at a better future as payment for that."

Helen frowned. "Hate is a strong word, and not one I've heard you use. What on earth did this woman do to you to make you feel that way?"

The younger woman's left hand clenched, and then with a quickly uttered word, a glamour fell away from the back of that hand, and Helen could suddenly see words carved into the skin, not unlike the Mudblood scar on the opposite arm. 'I must not tell lies.' this one read. "How?" Helen breathed.

"Something called a Blood Quill," Hermione said curtly. "You write with it, and it draws your own blood out of you, carving what you write into your own flesh. The more times you write the same thing, the more prominent the scarring. Umbridge used Blood Quills to have students write lines in detention when she was teaching Defense, our Fifth Year. Harry and I had the worst of it, I think, although we were far from the only ones. Later that year, she nearly killed Minerva. Five stunners to the chest. It was a bloody miracle she survived it. In retrospect I almost wonder if she survived because we'd had a Transfiguration lesson earlier that afternoon, and there would have been some harmonic crossover. My magic would have amplified hers, potentially offering her some extra protection. Huh. Never thought about that before. I wonder if she realized."

Helen smiled. "If Minerva is half as smart as you keep suggesting, then I'm willing to bet she did."

"She's brilliant," Hermione said, grinning a bit. "To give her further credit, she's wiser than me by kilometers."

"You're still young, Hermione," Helen said softly. "Wisdom comes with age and experience. Of course the Minerva you knew was wiser than you. I imagine the Minerva you know now is less wise than you, because you have the upper edge of experience. As for Delores Umbridge, did you have any other good reason for wanting to make the attempt at turning her?"

Hermione looked thoughtful. "She can cast a corporeal Patronus in the presence of twenty Dementors without any apparent effort, and held more than a dozen people under the Imperius simultaneously. She's an incredibly powerful Witch. That much I admittedly have to respect about her. My thinking is that if it's possible to keep her on our side, to turn her as a force for the Light, then she'd make a hell of an ally."

Helen nodded. "See, that's a logic Aberforth and Cedrella are going to be swayed by."

"What about Sirius?"

"I'll pin him down if he's too much trouble," Helen said dismissively, shrugging.

Hermione laughed.

It was a month today. Sirius was trying to focus on work - a bill at the Ministry ensuring the scholarship fund at Hogwarts be available to Muggleborn students, which he knew from Peter's experience had not been true in his era of their own timeline, although he wasn't sure if that had changed by Hermione's era. In any case, this time around, Muggleborns would have the same right to that scholarship a great deal sooner. His focus was lacking, however. It had been a month since Dobby had appeared at his bedside, nervously informing him that Hermione would not be home that night, and would likely be gone for a few days. Three days later Dobby had come back and informed him Hermione's abrupt vacation would be extended a full week, and at the end of the week, he'd come back to say it would be a further week after that. It had been the same at the end of the next week, and the end of the week after that, and the week after that. He expected the same at the end of this week, although his heart ached to think of it.

He'd lasted ten days, trying to be patient and not wanting to be nosy, before he'd showed up at Melok's looking for answers. All the Goblin had told him was that the process of becoming fully awakened had been more taxing than they'd anticipated, and while he was surprised Hermione had not given him more of a clear idea of where she was or how long she'd be gone, he wasn't terribly surprised she'd taken some time for herself. Sirius had gone to Aberforth after the end of the third week and Melok had proved unwilling to offer any more information than he already had, and the barkeep had only been able to add that Melok had feared Hermione would be upset when she woke up after the fifth core seal was set, but that he hadn't disclosed why.

It wasn't a lot to go on, and neither of Hermione's mentors were giving any more information. Melok was outright dodging his Floo calls at this point, and Sirius had already determined that Aberforth simply had no more information to give. He'd been there for the ceremony, but not when Hermione woke back up. Whatever had caused his wife to flee, Melok was the only one who was likely to have any real clue, and he was holding his bloody tongue. On one hand, Sirius was frustrated as hell. On the other hand, he had to respect that Melok was respecting his wife's privacy. It was the mark of a good friend. James would have done the same for him, as would Severus have.

The only difference was that were the roles reversed, Hermione would have beat the information out of James, and cajoled it out of Severus. Sirius knew full well that while Melok might be physically smaller than him, he was a magical powerhouse and could probably kick the crap out of him magically, and in a verbal sparring match, Sirius was clearly losing the battle there as well. Dobby was the only one who knew, honestly, where Hermione was and that she was safe, but the House Elf was loyal to his wife, and not to him. He knew better than to even attempt getting answers that way, so for now the best he could do was wait.

Soft footfalls interrupted his train of thought. He didn't bother to look up, well used to Lycoris' hovering at this point. She'd been quite the mother this last month, making certain he ate and slept while he worried about his missing wife. Still, at the moment, he wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry, and he didn't want to talk about it. "Go away, Cor," he said softly, not even looking up.

"Sirius?"

His head whipped around. It wasn't Lycoris. "Hermione," he breathed, almost choking on her name. He was up out of his chair in an instant, pulling her into his arms and kissing her fiercely. "Where have you been?" he demanded, letting her go after a moment.

She detangled herself from his arms. "Helen's place. Old City."

Well no bloody wonder he hadn't been able to find her, despite looking all over the United Kingdom. She was one of the few places that was completely out of his damn reach. "Oh. Why? What the hell happened that required a month, Hermione? A month away to sort out in your head?"

Hermione came the rest of the way into his office, and took a seat on one of the arm chairs by the fireplace. "It wasn't that the awakening was physically or magically taxing, as such," she admitted. "When it happened, though, I had a vision of sorts. I saw the Veil, and I met those who created it."

He took a seat in the chair opposite her, and raised an eyebrow. "And meeting the makers of the Veil? That's what was so taxing?"

"Not so much the meeting," she replied. "It was learning who they were, what they do, what they've done, and hearing what they had to say. They were three sisters, Mages born many years ago in an era when Mages were only born once every half a millennium. Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis. History and mythology call them the Fates."

He knew that myth. "You're fucking with me," he said, eyes wide.

"I wish," she laughed. "In a nutshell, when we left Beta… we never had a real chance to get back to Alpha. They were in charge of where we ended up. As they put it, our destination had less to do with what we wanted, and more to do with what we needed, and they thought we needed the chance to build a future with no child soldiers. They also made some insinuations about how not all time loops are restricted to a single reality, suggesting that my older self may very well have been watching my younger self at a discreet distance as she was born, grew up, and eventually tumbled through the Veil to meet you in Beta. That would imply, however, that one day we make it back to Alpha. They weren't very clear on that."

"But…" his mind was exploding at the idea, "... but this is home now. I don't think I want to go back to Alpha. Hermione I know we've only been here a year and change, but this feels like home. We can make a life here. I never felt settled in Beta. I always felt like I was waiting for the chance to move on, but here? Here feels right. I don't want some fucking Mages from days gone by to tell you that someday we might end up back in Alpha, and that give you the idea that we shouldn't be happy and settled right where we are."

She nodded, seeming to understand. "I'm not getting that idea. I agree with you, and frankly, I'm not certain if we were ever meant to go back to Alpha in any case, or if it was just meant to be me, many years from now, likely after you died of old age. Mages can be very long lived, remember? And it's clear the Veil can transport through both time and space. I could very well outlive you by a hundred years, even watch Harry grow old and die, and then go through the Veil and back to Alpha, showing up when my younger counterpart has only just begun her journey. For all I know, I'm a function of my own destiny, and I unknowingly put things in place so that my younger self even made it through to Beta. I didn't come through on purpose. It was an accident. Or, perhaps, it was my older self making things happen as she knew they were meant to."

"Fine," he said curtly. "Three hundred years from now, have at it. I'm staying put. Tell Remus I said hey when you get there. Better yet, maybe make it so I don't go through the Veil until you do and I don't spend nine years in Beta without you. Maybe I can stop my best mate from getting knocked off by a damn Death Eater."

She laughed. "What has been, will be. If it's truly meant to be a loop, I won't be able to interfere once I get to that point, or I'll risk altering everything we did in this timeline. I'll risk changing both of us going through the Veil, everyone in Beta being saved with the downfall of Voldemort there, and this entire timeline's destiny which we've fundamentally altered."

"That's so fucked," he frowned. "Merlin, no wonder you needed time away to process. That has to be killer, realizing the fate of three timelines rests on your shoulders."

Hermione let out a heavy sigh. "Quite. That and the Fates seeing fit to tell me the best and worst outcomes of my own personal destiny. Evidently either I grasp the concept of the greater good or I become Voldemort's successor. Talk about pressure."

"You could never be like him!" Sirius exclaimed, horrified at the notion.

"I could be worse," she said quickly, voice sharp. "Sirius, I could be worse than Voldemort. He is neither a Mage, nor does he have foresight of things to come. If I went dark, and Merlin knows the potential is surely there, the world would tremble at my feet in fear with very little hesitation. It wouldn't look like Beta. I am not destructive like that, nor would I allow such destruction to come to pass. I don't think you quite comprehend my power, though. If a Witch like Delores Umbridge could confidently hold more than a dozen Witches and Wizards under the Imperius at the same time, how many do you think I could manage?"

He swallowed hard, getting a very clear picture of what kind of horror would be unleashed if his wife went Dark. She'd target those in positions of power and put them under Imperius, indefinitely. She'd have dozens, if not hundreds like that, and she'd have them putting others under Imperius, extending the control even further. There would be no battles. There would be no war. It would simply be an end to free will, plain and simple, everyone who didn't bow to her wishes of their own accord being forced by magic to do so for a generation or two until the entire population had simply been born into her service with no memory of ever doing otherwise.

"Okay," he croaked. "Let's not do that. Evil Hermione sounds like a really bad idea."

"I tend to agree," she whispered. "So I've been trying to wrap my head around the concept of the greater good. I admit I do so begrudgingly, as it tends to be a concept Albus favors and I loathe by extension."

"I'm sure he'd be happy to give lessons," Sirius offered cheekily.

Hermione glared. "Let's see how I can manage on my own before we resort to submitting me to actual torture, shall we?"

He smirked in reply, wincing a little as she sent a wandless, silent stinging hex at his stomach. "So, quick question, changing the subject a bit. Are you cross with Melok?"

His wife frowned. "Hardly. Why?"

"Well Aberforth said something about how Melok thought you'd be upset when you woke up from the whole vision thing," Sirius admitted, "and I tried talking to Melok about it while you were gone and he's been damn well avoiding me, so I sort of figured that maybe you were upset about it, maybe even upset at him, and that you'd had a fight, and that perhaps that was part of why you took off. I'm just guessing here. He and Aberforth weren't telling me shite after you left, much to my frustration."

"Well I wasn't cross with him until now," she grumbled, looking very annoyed. "Bloody Goblin. Sirius, love, I know I just got in, but I have to go bash Melok over the head until he sees sense. I will be back in a couple of hours, at most. I promise."

Then, with a quick kiss to his lips, his wife was gone again. Sirius let out a heavy sigh, and got up to move back over to his desk, hopeful to finish what he was working on before Hermione got home. With any luck, he was getting laid tonight.

He heard her as soon as she walked in the front door, her voice raised just loud enough for him to hear. Melok knew she was doing it on purpose. He knew she was making it abundantly clear that she was back and unlike him, would not be hiding. "Oh, I just got back in town and I wanted to touch base with Melok. You know, work things," he heard Hermione say to his wife.

Unlike her, Genia's voice was low enough that he couldn't hear her response, so he quickly got up out of his chair and made for the front room, not entirely surprised to find Hermione holding a giggling Filius, lavishing her Godson with attention, much to his wife's bemusement. He cleared his throat. "Hermione," he greeted.

She turned at the sound of his voice, and smiled sweetly. "Hello Melok," she replied.

If he didn't know any better, he'd think that she was pleased to see him. The problem was that he did know better, and while there was a smile on her lips, there was a fire in her eyes that spoke of an inner fury that he'd never seen directed at his person before, and silently resolved to avoid ever having directed his way again, provided he managed to survive this particular occasion. "Shall we go talk in my office?" he asked, pulling at his collar nervously.

Hermione offered a gentle kiss to Filius' head and handed him back to his mother, bid Genia a kind farewell, and wordlessly followed him down the by now familiar hall. "I am not happy," she said, voice low.

He closed the office door. "I'm aware. Let me get the wards up before you start shouting at me, please."

She deigned to wait until he finished, waving his hand at her in consent for her to have at it, at which point she barrelled ahead. "Are you out of your fucking mind, Melok? Avoiding Sirius? Dodging his questions? You could have at least told him about what happened with the vision of the Fates! That would have satisfied him. I'm not suggesting you should have told him about what happened after, obviously, but you avoiding him had him thinking we were having a damn fight, which is the last thing he needs to be thinking right now!"

He crossed the room and pulled down two glasses from his sidebar and a bottle of Goblin whiskey, pouring them each a measure and handed one of them to her. "As it happens, we clearly are having a fight," he said stiffly. "In any case, what gives you the right to talk, Hermione? You took off! Not just for a day or two, either. That would have been fine. You were gone for a month! No wonder he was up my arse, poking around for answers. What did you expect? Did you honestly think your husband would just sit there like a good little dog and wait for you to come home, no questions asked?"

She sat down in her usual seat on the sofa, and Melok took his preferred seat next to her. It probably would have been wiser of him to sit anywhere else, but it was habit if nothing else. Besides, Genia had walked in on them sitting like this a dozen times, and it was ill advised for them to change routine now. The door was locked at present, but next time, perhaps, it wouldn't be, and they needed to begin to find a new normal.

"I'm sorry," she finally said after draining the whiskey and setting the glass on the coffee table in front of them. "I'm sorry I took off. Between what I saw after the ceremony and what happened after between us, I just couldn't go home and face questions from him. I knew I was too shaken for him not to see how radically changed I was, and I didn't know how to explain."

He finished his own drink, and set it next to hers. "I'm sorry as well. I was a bit caught up in trying to keep myself steady around my wife. I didn't think I could deal with keeping steady in front of your husband as well. It was too much. The only thing I have going for me right now is that Genia thinks I'm a better man than I am, and that I'd break my vows is the last thing she'd suspect. Sirius, I feel, is far more skeptical."

She snorted. "Sirius probably thinks I'm a better woman than I am. Merlin, what a mess."

Melok couldn't help himself as he reached out and brushed his hand along her jaw. "I still don't regret it," he whispered.

Hermione leaned into his touch, and then surprised him by leaning even further and moving forward to meet him in a kiss, which he returned on instinct. It wasn't rushed. It wasn't passionate. It was tender and affirming, as if to remind one another of the love they shared. Then, it was over, both pulling away gently. "I'll never regret it," she replied, voice soft. "Loving you is as easy as breathing, Melok. I know our way forward is hard, I know we can't…"

He nodded. "In secret we met, in silence I grieve…"

She raised an eyebrow. "Byron?"

Melok shrugged. "Even Goblins can enjoy Muggle poetry. Blame James. About a decade ago he decided I needed an education on literature. Some I liked, some I didn't."

Her eyes looked sad. "I hate to think that our love story is summarized by When We Two Parted," she admitted.

"For the time being, my love," he said solemnly. "That's how it must be. Perhaps someday things will change."

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