THE VEIL

Chapter 19

9th May 1988 – The Madness Within

Hermione was pulled back into the veil. She was pulled away from a moment where she had finally found a peace of sorts; where Remus had genuinely smiled for the first time since the last day of October 1981. As the colours faded to grey, Remus's resigned face was the last thing she saw. The whispering pulled at her, the breeze swept her. She felt almost like she was in a current, pulling her through the ever changing light and dark hues of the greyness. She slept and awoke the pull from the whispering seemed to still be there. Previously it had been a gentle breeze and a floating nothingness, except that very first time. She was very afraid of where she would end up, especially after last time.

She closed her eyes. She was so afraid. She wished she would come out at the end. But her logical mind said that she still had things she needed to see, things that she still need to do. Her heart hated her brain sometimes. The churning emotions didn't seem to calm and she tried with all her might.

When she opened her eyes for a second she thought that she was still in the greyness. The only difference was the grey didn't seem to move. And there was such a cold dread, one that she remembered too well, from when she was in third year. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. A square of pale grey was above her. There was movement just below it. A figure sat bolt upright. She didn't need the light to know who it was.

"Sirius?" She whispered.

"You're not real." Sirius moaned. Hermione's heart broke again, the voice she knew was but a fragment of what it was. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She didn't move. She barely breathed.

Sirius turned his head to the wall, "But she is sitting there, maybe she is."

"NO!" He shouted. Hermione jumped out of her skin. Sirius began to cry

"She should not have come! I told her no, do not come Princess. This is no place for fairies."

He turned back to her. "Why? Why are you here Princess?" Hermione didn't have time to move before he was upon her. The back of her head hit the rough stone floor, making stars appear in her vision. The stars cleared and a ragged face was staring at her. Hermione's eyes were white rimmed in fright.

"She smells new. New doesn't last. Must not let them hurt her. Must not let him hurt her." He looked to the door. So did she. A shadow moved just beyond the door. She whimpered. Dementors were so near. They felt her newness. They drew near. There was more than one at the door, shadows within shadows. She feared the daylight and what it would shed.

Sirius picked her up and pushed her against the wall on the farthest side of the room; his grip on her hurt where his fingers dug. She was still so weak it seemed. She shivered in the coldness. The dementors presence seeped its way further in. Sirius sniffed her hair and moaned. His hands grabbed her face and pressed his forehead to hers.
"Princess's should not be in caves. Caves are for bad little boys. Or good little boys? Both get punished either way. Why are you here?"

He let go suddenly, turning away from her,
"O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! Is it not monstrous that this player here," Sirius pointed to her. She realised he was quoting Hamlet. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit" He moved close against her, whispering, "That from her working all the visage wann'd, Tears in his eyes, distraction in his aspect, A broken voice, an' his whole function suiting. With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing,
For Hecuba!" He shouted the last line. Then began to pace.
"No. No. Not Hecuba. Hecuba with another woman's name. Her name. 'Mione. My princess."

Hermione watched him from the corner he put her. She a sob escaped her, and she put her hand to her mouth. The cold was in her bones now. She didn't know how far into the future she had been flung from the past she was ripped from, but it must have been several years. Sirius seemed to be losing his grip on reality. She watched the man who suffered at the hands of others all his life fighting for good despite the upbringing that could have turned him like his cousin.

The man she had fallen in love with was fading from her. He continued to move about his cell finishing the soliloquy of madness. He thought himself as falling as Hamlet had, into madness. He did not believe her to exist. The clouds that hid the slim moon disappeared. The pale moon beams lighting up the cell through the small square in his cell. Hermione looked at the walls. Scratches marked the cell. But what made her gasp was the wall directly opposite the window. It was a mural. A wolf, a stag, a dog, a doe, a fox, a cat and a fairy. At the fairy's feet, a dead rat.

Sirius sat on the floor and looked at it. Hermione lowered her gaze to the man. The shadow of the man. Beyond the silence within the cell she started to hear screams, laughter, and noises she didn't even want to put a name to. Her body slid down the wall as her legs could not sustain her from the fear and unhappiness that threatened to overwhelm her. She whimpered softly and drew her knees tight against her, tears unable to stop pouring from her eyes.

Her eyes snapped back to the other occupant in the cell as Sirius spoke quietly "I had hoped. At first. That you would come and be my light in this place. I have counted you see; the days and the weeks and the months and the years." He pointed to the wall by the door. Neatly etched on it were straight lines marking the days. Four lines and a fifth diagonally over the four. There were hundreds of them.

"Two thousand, three hundred and seventy nine days, I can almost hear you counting in the corner Hermione." He answered her wryly.
Hermione's brain whizzed through the number. Another sob escaped her when she did the math. Six years, six months and six days. He had been here already for over six years. He still had over five years to go.

Sirius moved slowly to her, so as not to frighten her. It fractured another part in her, that he would still be that tender even after all this time.
"Shh, Princess don't cry. Don't cry. I'm here. You're here. We can just be together for this moment and make it an eternity. And the eternity be in this moment."

Hermione hiccupped and took a steadying breath. She looked into the dark dank grey eyes. They had changed so much. Once they were mercurial, full of mischief, love and happiness. Now they looked tarnished, dulled, from the confines of his cell. Except there was still a spark. Small. Like a shard. Not of hope or love, it was a resolve.

She looked back at the mural. The dead rat. It was a reminder. The rest of the mural was as remembrance. She knew the Stag, wolf, doe were James, Remus and Lily. The fairy was clearly her. He drew her image in glorious detail. The dog was the man that he was no longer. The fox she realised was a vixen. Marlene. And the cat, she puzzled for a few minutes. Sirius looked at where she was studying the wall her forehead creased.

"Reggie. We are all victims are we not?" Hermione's eyes moved slowly back to Sirius. He looked hesitant. Like a frightened puppy.
"Would you sing for me Princess? Would you sing?" His voice quavered. He looked so much like a lost pup. She wiped her eyes and nodded.

"I will sing for you Sirius. I will sing your lullaby." She drew her breath and shut her eyes. And she sang to him. Her voice carried through the cell, as the sound bounced off the walls. Her voice carried down the corridors. As the prisoners heard it they grew silent. She didn't realise that she was singing to a prison full of broken souls, not just the one she sang to in this cell. In a place so dark it was the single most beautiful thing many had ever heard of in years. And some for the first time ever.

As she sang the last verses, she felt a whisper caress her softly. The veil drew around her, and she sang the lullaby through. She opened her eyes and she was back in the veil. The cold and despair evaporated as the shades of greys shifted around her.

Sirius sat and watched her fade and her song with it. The moment was shattered too soon as a scream echoed again through the night, and the noises began once more. Sirius sat staring at the wall, he began another soliloquy, this time Lear,

"No, I will weep no more. In such a night
To shut me out? Pour on; I will endure.
In such a night as this? O Regan, Goneril!
Your old kind father, whose frank heart gave all—
O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;
No more of that."

The clouds moved back across the sliver of moon and the darkness enveloped him again.

"Hermione?" He whispered to the darkness.