When Dumbledore stood to announce the news of the visitors' arrival, not one student dared interrupt him. He raised his hands in a gesture of silence, as if everyone was not holding their breath to hear him already.
"As you may all well know, yesterday we received into these halls, visitors from another world. You have already witnessed one being—a creature of magic, created purely from the will of a powerful witch—which spoke as their representative and now, you will bear witness to another. May I present to you, the Four Founders of the Remnant of Hogwarts: Victoria Granger, formerly of House Ravenclaw—"
He gestured to the side chamber, whose doors opened to reveal the aforementioned woman.
Granger wore an ankle-length dress of solid maple brown with threads of gold sewn through that sparkled like tiny jewels under the candlelight. She wore the same golden bangles on her wrists and the armband of blood-red and emerald. It had a plunging neckline and was sleeveless so all could see the defined muscles and hints of scars. As she walked—marched more like, with that brisk stride of hers—Petunia could see glimpses of those steel-toed boots her people seemed to favor.
She came to a stand in front of the pedestal where Dumbledore usually stood, himself, to address the crowd and where she now looked over the curious faces before her with a bland expression.
"Antigone Black, formerly of House Hufflepuff—" And several professors almost dropped their goblets of pumpkin juice, their heads jerking as they craned to see this anomaly before them; imagine that—a Black not Sorted into Slytherin? "Emery Weasley, of the House of Gryffindor—"
Two men, both tall and straight-backed, strode toward Granger. Stiff, they stood beside her and spoke not a word between themselves, the same bland expression on their faces.
Black, silver hair glinting, wore conservative black robes, one smooth line of richly-carved brass buttons down his left side. His only accessories were an armband, similar to Granger's, of blue and gold and a plain ring set with some dark-colored stone. Weasley wore muggle-style pants and a worn-looking shirt with the design of a fiery dragon just about to take flight; a flat, silver choker, tight around his neck; and a fang hanging from his ear.
"And Harper Evans, formerly of House Slytherin."
Evans glided out, as if he was literally slithering his way across the floor, eyes as hooded and dark as a rattlesnakes'. There was even a slight little twist of the hips that made it look as if he was swaying gently from side to side. He wore the same muggle-style pants as Weasley and a soft-looking sweater of dark green. His hair was tied back by a simple silver clasp, shaped in a vaguely serpentine manner. Like Granger and Black, he, too, wore an armband—the same colors as Granger.
The only thing of interest—of idle speculation, of schoolyard gossip—was the necklace he wore, of a lily set on a delicate gold chain, glittering like fire: Petunia felt, as she did before upon seeing that necklace, that it was somehow familiar to her.
"Thank you, Headmaster Dumbledore."
Granger bowed her head and motioned for her companions to do the same.
She spoke to Dumbledore but turned to address them all.
"We are pleased to be here, very pleased, indeed. You have offered to us, the Remnant of Hogwarts, shelter and sustenance, and we are grateful. We have come from a world, torn by war and the Aftermath—and to know that we have this safe harbor, this brief respite—means more to my people than words can say. Though instinct and experience and even history will tell us our peace cannot last, here in this new world, we will gladly try. You have brought us to new beginnings and we shall never forget this."
There was some nervous twittering when she drew her wand, but she carefully kept the business end down.
"We honor you, Headmaster Dumbledore. We honor you."
Some kind of signal must have passed between them because all four made identical gestures—all sharp angles and fluid precision. Smoke, light and sparks spilled from their wands to form a breathtaking spectacle. In between and in the air above them, their combined magic came together to create a miniaturized version of Hogwarts.
Weasley took a step back then, made a slight motion with his wand and a thick chain suddenly hung from the ceiling. As soon as it unraveled to reach the castle, Weasley made another motion and a dozen, more delicate chains shot out to clasp the castle securely.
"For four days and three nights, this castle will hang here for all to see and enjoy. After that, the chains will dissolve and you may do with it what you will. Accept this as our gift of thanks."
"Marvelous! Just Marvelous!" Dumbledore beamed at them with delight. "I am sure that both my students and staff will enjoy seeing this little castle during meal times. Now please, enjoy the dinner we have prepared in your honor."
With a wave of his hands, dinner began and the students wasted no time eating, as even their guests were not enough to keep them from their meals.
Dumbledore motioned them to empty seats that popped up into existence beside him on both sides. Some of the others grumbled in annoyance but moved aside, including Petunia. They were all too used to the Headmaster springing sudden announcements on them to care too much about being forced to make space for their guests. Besides, Petunia knew that they were all eager to finally meet the Founders themselves, after that last Staff Meeting.
Granger and Black chose the seats closest to Dumbledore. While Evans sat beside Granger with a faint smile, Weasley took his seat next to Black with the barest hint of distaste.
Black was the first to eat: He sampled his simple dish of baked salmon, lightly seasoned by salt, with a delicate nibble. A flutter of his eyelashes—the only sign of his satisfaction—and only then did his companions began eating as well.
As Dumbledore enjoyed his own meal, he wondered if perhaps Black was testing the food for poison—or simply tasting to see whether it was up to his standards.
'Ah, well. If he was checking for poison, it would speak to the severity of their circumstances that they would not trust the food even here, a world away—and how far they have yet to go, to have a normal life once again.'
Professor Riddle decided that as she was the most amenable so far, even through her dislike of him, despite her efforts at seeming nonchalant—and whatever had his counterpart done, besides lead the enemy forces against them to have engendered such a degree of it?—to ask some of the more personal questions that had been niggling at his mind in a public venue she could not so easily dismiss his questions.
"Miss Granger, I have been wondering since I first saw you and your companions as to the nature of the armbands that some of you wear; is there some kind of special significance to them? Do they denote a higher rank among your people or are they simply statements of fashion?"
He noticed, as always, that she had tensed slightly at his presence—a far cry from the ready stance Evans or Weasley took but troubling nonetheless—as she turned guarded eyes toward him.
He heavily doubted they had anything to do with "fashion", since he didn't think Granger cared much about such things or valued it highly but it was always good practice to ask anyway, just in case. Sometimes the least likely possibility was the answer.
Petunia wasn't surprised that Riddle was the first to question Granger.
Behind her hand, she smiled. He would take the lead, wouldn't he? Riddle was usually content and seemed to prefer to let others do the questioning for him, but when it came to things that really interested him, it seemed that he didn't trust anybody but himself to do a good job of it. The curiosity gleaming in his eyes told her all she needed to know; something about the young woman or the people she presented had caught his interest, something beyond the very nature of their existence in the Professor's own world or the world they had left behind.
She turned to listen, as curious as he to know what the armbands were all about.
She expected the wry smile. She didn't expect the tender glance she sent Evans. Or the laugh, full of joy—the first happy sound she had ever heard the young woman make. When Granger laid her free hand on the table and Evans took it in his, gently caressing her fingers, she thought she knew what Granger was about to say. The way Evans looked at her, no attempt to mask the emotions in his eyes, was answer enough. She thought, glancing at the faces of her fellow professors around her—some shocked, some delighted—that they were thinking along the same lines as she.
"The armbands we wear have nothing to do with fashion or rank; they're marks of unity—proof of a lasting bond between two people—or more. Sometimes two people aren't enough to satisfy a person, are they?" Granger winked mischievously. "They perform the same function as a wedding ring, really. The colors signify the individuals in the relationship and mark their Houses, to show that their lives are entwined and as important as the work they do."
Sirius cut in to ask a question of his own then.
"I understand the symbolism behind it but wouldn't it be better to get a ring than an armband?"
"Better?" She asked, the shadow of some emotion flickering behind her hazel eyes.
Black slowly put down his fork and Weasley followed, his goblet of pumpkin juice set down just a bit hard on the table, both watching Granger carefully with trepidation in their eyes.
"Yes, of course," she said breathlessly, as if delighted by the conversation—and was anything but. "It might be better but with no dwarves willing to mine the stones for any wizard and the non-magical world in chaos, it was a bit—difficult—to have one made, much less bought. Luxury items like that went for the asking price of a few thousand galleons—or thirty years of indentured servitude among the Guilds."
A sharp twist of her lips made for a cruel smile.
Black winced in anticipation of another, truly no doubt, horrifying circumstance of this strange and dark world their 'guests' came from.
"That's assuming, of course, that you're released from your Contract. If you're a good enough servant or pretty enough, they might be willing to risk a backlash on their magic just to keep you there for an extra twenty."
An ugly sound tore from her throat, something that sounded vaguely like laughter.
"There were some that said I was not good enough for Harry, that he could find someone better. Others even told me that I could do better—as if I could not see what they were really doing—as if they were not secretly hoping that I would leave him and they could take my place, comforting him about the heartless mudblood who threw him away."
Gasps of shock, sharp intakes of breath and the sudden clatter of cutlery were the only sounds at the Head Table in the charged silence after Granger referred to herself as a "mudblood".
Dumbledore realized that some of the students had noticed something was going on and cast a non-verbal privacy charm. They settled back in their seats with disgruntled expressions but already some of them were turning to their neighbors to gossip about what little they'd heard. And yet, he could do but little, if anything at all, about the situation among his own table.
"Tell me, Professor Black, do you think that if he only looked hard enough or spent enough, that he could have found someone better?" She asked and promptly turned the full force of her contempt and fury on Sirius.
Before Sirius could even hope to answer, Evans answered her himself.
"Of course not!" Evans brought their hands up between them and clasped them tightly. "There is no one better than you; no one who could match you in intelligence or strength or loyalty. There is no one else who could have stood by me in War and led an army to victory all on her own. There is no one else who could have understood so much, knowing so little."
He kissed her hands. "Who else could have loved a monster like me?"
At those words, all the fury that had burned behind her eyes suddenly left her, now too focused on proving to the man beside her of how very much he means to her.
"Oh, Harry…" She shook her head sadly, her tone conveying that this argument was an old one. "You're not a monster. You never were. It was everyone else who forced you to lead because they were too much of a coward to do it themselves who is the real monster. They were the ones who sold us out—who couldn't stand the reality of War—they were the monsters."
"The things I did—" He began to say, but she cut him off.
"Were necessary and if you hadn't done them, others would have—I would have."
"Never," he hissed immediately. "You should never have had to make those kinds of choices."
"Neither should you have." She countered. He opened his mouth to deny it. "No, Harry. Not even you."
In their own little world, Granger and Evans didn't realize—or care—that they were attracting attention, so focused was they on each other.
Black snorted in disgust and Weasley muttered "damn lovebirds" but they didn't interfere otherwise.
He stared at her for a few minutes until he nodded. "I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then." Then he chuckled amusedly and laid a chaste kiss on her cheek. "I was trying to make you feel better and here you are reassuring me. You're amazing, Hermione. Beautiful. Strong. And mine."
His kisses and the sheer possessiveness of his words left her—and quite a few others—blushing.
Then he turned to Sirius.
"Choose your words carefully, Sirius Black." Evans locked eyes with Sirius. "I knew you for a good man back in our world even with your ridiculous prejudices and insanity, but if you insult my Bonded, I will rend you into a thousand bloody pieces." A touch of something decidedly inhuman looked out from his eyes. "You may evade my wand or my blade, though I find it highly unlikely, but you should know that I was best known for the fangs I possess."
He opened his mouth wide to reveal the two large front teeth—fangs—that dropped down, glistening with some dark and viscous liquid.
'Did he alter his face surgically?' Dumbledore considered in an absent-minded manner, as his thoughts spun crazily at this new bit of detail came to light. 'Or is it just a very good cosmetic spell?'
"And there are poisons from my world that don't yet or will ever exist in this one, I'm sure. How certain are you that you would want to take the chance to find out whether your potions skills or diagnostic spells would ever find them?"
Evans stared with hunger in his eyes—Dumbledore wasn't sure if he was feigning or if he meant it and if he did, whether it was a very literal hunger that he saw there—and waited for the answer. Dumbledore was curious to see how Sirius would be able to get himself out of this situation. He would step in if things got any more tense but since neither Weasley nor Black looked the least bit concerned or worried—not on Sirius' behalf, at least—he would just watch for now.
Sirius' face had shuttered—one of the ways in which he masked his emotions—and spoke each word carefully. "I apologize for having offended you, Lady Granger. I was careless and it didn't occur to me that you didn't get a ring, not because you did not desire onebut because you could not. I never realized how war could change even the most common tasks into a trial."
He gave a deep bow, though he was sitting down and it should have looked awkward but as always, Sirius could make most things look good if he wanted to. Perhaps, some it was because of the way he was raised by his pureblood-obsessed mother; perhaps some of it was natural. Regardless, the respect he conveyed with that one gesture was good enough, it seemed, to somewhat appease Granger and, in turn, Evans.
When it appeared that Evans was no more inclined to utter threats and he had no more insulted Granger, he continued tentatively, unsure if he would once again be offering some kind of unintended insult but determined nonetheless, to make up for his foolishness.
"I have no idea why anyone would ever suggest that you are not enough for Evans—I know nothing of your history or what it means to grow up in war—but for what it's worth, and I understand it might not mean very much coming from me, I cannot see any fault in neither your nature nor your appearance to warrant such a thing."
He paused, as if he didn't know quite how to phrase his next words.
"Is there any other topic from which we should avoid speaking of, so as not to offend you and yours?"
Evans did not look away from Sirius but he turned his head to the side now to hear her response. His eyes, Dumbledore saw, had somehow changed from his normal dark brown to a pale golden color. 'Was it a natural trait or just another possible glamour?' He thought. They were also slit, like a felines'—or a reptiles'. Granger showed no signs of surprise or revulsion, though some of the teachers who had seen them had recoiled back, as if Evans would strike at them for merely looking at him. Dumbledore considered what he knew of Evan's nature so far and the actions he had taken, noting the ready stance and the eager expression on his face.
Perhaps he might have, if they had made any threatening moves towards the young woman he obviously cared about beside him.
"Unfortunately, I will have to warn you as you ask them; some things are obvious things to avoid asking about, such as the dead and the ones left behind, but others are things most people don't even think about consciously avoiding anymore, they simply do."
She sighed and relaxed her posture. Evans turned all the way back around to look at her and ignored Sirius, as if now that the matter had been deal with, he was of no more importance to him. Sirius twitched but made no other sign that he was annoyed by the clear dismissal.
Dumbledore knew how hard that was for a man like Sirius who was so used to having a lot of attention on him. But he wasn't made Head of Slytherin House for no good reason, despite being sorted into Gryffindor; he knew that any sign of displeasure now would be seen as a threat by Evans. Evans' threats of poison were to be feared for all the reasons he said; it was more than possible that some of the poisons he carried might not have an antidote in this world, either because it hadn't been invented yet or because there was no cure.
"It's become instinctual." She pulled her hands, still clasped to Evans', into her lap. "As long as you know that I may not be willing or able to answer every question, you may ask them. I'll apologize in advance now for being 'offended' later."
She added: "You also need not refer to me as 'Lady Granger'. Miss Granger is just fine. We don't use titles very much and don't see any point in them."
"Well then! Would it be quite rude of me to ask about that curious scar on your abdomen or is that much too personal a thing to ask, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore asked, eager to move on.
"I don't mind at all. A little thing like that is just another battle scar."
Dumbledore didn't know how you could call something that had to have inflicted massive pain 'just another battle scar', but perhaps among all the other wounds she'd received, it was just that: nothing compared to other, worse scars he hadn't seen yet.
"In the first battle within the castle, Nagini, Voldemort's pet snake, managed to bite through my armor—we were still using our school robes then, only spelled to counter simple curses and hexes—and it wasn't enough."
"It must have been painful," He commented.
Granger shrugged easily.
"There are worse things to suffer through than being bitten by a snake, even a snake as deadly or as insane as her master as she was."
Professor McGonagall asked, "Such as?"
Her tone implied there couldn't possibly be anything worse.
Evans answered for her.
"Lots of things: being cursed to an endless number of Crucio; being raped then killed." He paused, and then continued in a thoughtful tone, "Being killed then raped—that's always a nasty one. Sometimes they brought you back just to do it all over again. Hell, some of them liked that sort of thing and with the War going on, nobody had the time or cared very much to guard every grave across England to protect the dignity of someone's loved ones—"
"Sick bastards, the lot of them." Weasley interrupted to say.
Evans chuckled.
"They would have said the same things about us, for some of the things we did."
Weasley snorted.
"Yeah, well, 'least we never fucked the dead."
"What about Greengrass and her Family?" Evans pointed out.
Weasley rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Mate, they're vampires. Long as they can think for themselves, I don't care if they sleep in coffins. They know what's going on—that's the important part—and you know it." He added, gazing at Evans with a knowing look.
Evans brushed it all aside, as if Weasley's words were nothing but some bothersome flies and continued.
"Anyway, as I was saying there are loads of things worse than being gutted by Nagini. You could be burned alive—oh, did I forget to mention that once the non-magical world realized what was going on, they got really angry and started burning any magical being they could get their hands on…?"
"You forgot to mention that part." Sirius replied, just the littlest bit snide, an expression of shock and disbelief just barely managed.
Evans looked at him as if just now remembering that Sirius had only moments ago inadvertently upset his 'Bonded', but a firm "Harper" from Granger had him waving his hands dismissively.
"You could be sold into slavery and be bound to some Family like house elves."
"Or transfigured into furniture and left out for the Rogues." Weasley chimed in. When everyone else but the four of them and Dumbledore continued staring in confusion, he looked at Black, as if asking permission to explain about it. Black pursed his lips—
"Is this one of those things you don't ask about?" Sirius asked when he saw Black's pained expression.
"Yes, but since I know you'll all ask Dumbledore—"
"Headmaster Dumbledore—"
"Since I know you'll all ask Dumbledore," he repeated, taking special care to tip his head the slightest bit toward Minerva—acknowledging her words but ignoring them completely, "I'll explain. I'd rather you hear it from me and not some sanitized version just because the old man there doesn't want to 'traumatize' someone. Or leave it for Weasley to tell and Weasley can't explain shite."
Black likewise ignored Minerva's scandalous, "Language!" and scoffed at Weasley's mutter of: "Poncy git."
"Rogues," he began, "were once men who served the Dark Lord. They loved Him and feared Him and believed in Him—even when he sacrificed their Families and their beloved heirs—the most important things to a Pureblood. Once. But that was before His darkness had consumed their hearts and all they thought of was Him."
Black spoke in a hushed, 'mysterious' voice, as if he was telling a bedtime story to an eager child and indeed, it might have been so, as Dumbledore watched in amusement as the men and women around him listened to Black with rapt attention. He had only begun but they were already spellbound.
Dumbledore considered briefly whether that was due to the story itself or the young man who was telling it.
"They breathed His name in their waking hours and thought of kneeling before His feet even in their dreams. When He called them to battle, like the ocean tides, they rushed toward Him. They murdered and raped and reveled in His name. They believed that He would never fall. But He did."
He paused then, as if their disbelief and anguish was his own.
Perhaps they were, thought Dumbledore. He remembered something about the Aftermath…His memory stirred and a line came to him then: Who were once Enemies or tolerated only for their skills became close Allies, even Family, as basic needs for survival overcame old feuds and enmity.
"Slain by the blade of His Enemy, He lay dying on the battlefield. His Enemies rejoiced and celebrated His fall, but they, too, would suffer as His followers suffered. For upon His death, the Mark they took in his name—branded upon their very souls—swallowed them whole. Their minds were lost and Hunger stirred within them. They were Wizard no longer but creatures of magic who hunted, ever searching to satisfy the Hunger which now ruled them.
"But they would never be satisfied, for the only thing which could sate them was the sound of their Master's voice—the feel of His Dark magic—but he would never return. His Enemies had seen to that; they had burned the empty shell which had once housed His darkness and scattered the ashes to the winds. And so they wandered—cursed for eternity to walk upon the Earth for a peace that would never be theirs.
"And that is a Rogue."
"Right," Evans chimed in, "So those are a few of the many, many things that are worse than being bitten by a snake. Any more questions?"