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A/N: I am so, so sorry that this has taken so long to get online! I have no excuse except that writing just got pushed to the side by life. Anyway, I'm back on form and will be posting far more regularly now :)
Chapter 7: Purgatory
Hermione entered the Death Chamber and was relieved to find that Griffiths' body had been removed, even if the bloody lettering was still scrawled over the dais. Harry touched her shoulder and urged her further into the room.
"Thank you for bringing me down here Hermione," He said as they tentatively made their way over to the Veil.
"Yes, well, it's a bloody good thing you're Harry Potter – the one and only – otherwise Robards would have skinned me alive for bringing someone into the Department," Hermione replied.
"We both know that as much as Robards would like to believe he is in charge, Kingsley is the one making the decisions," Harry said reassuringly.
"I don't see why you had to come and see it for yourself," Hermione muttered. She had absolutely no desire to be back in the Death Chamber with or without eviscerated colleagues.
"I felt like I needed to," Harry replied as he looked around the chamber. "If someone is trying to revive the death eaters then it feels like unfinished business," he said with a shrug.
"Harry, this isn't your responsibility anymore. No one expects you to..." Hermione trailed off as she noticed Harry staring at the Veil.
The archway glimmered and shifted and the longer Hermione stared at it, the more aware she became of a sound much like the rustling of leaves. "I can hear them," she marvelled, glancing at Harry.
"They sound fainter than before," Harry replied as he stepped towards the Veil.
"It has been years since..."
"Since we were here last. Since Sirius fell through," Harry finished for her with a stony face.
"This was a mistake," Hermione murmured as she reached out to prevent Harry from taking a step closer to the archway.
"Do you think his voice is there somewhere?" Harry asked, tilting his head and listening to the flurry of voices more carefully.
"I don't know," Hermione said uncomfortably.
"If we can hear them, do you think they can hear us?" Harry said in a voice choked with emotion. "Sirius?" He called questioningly.
Harry and Hermione both jumped and stumbled away from the Veil as a voice spoke up.
"Granger, shouldn't you be working on your new project?"
Hermione tried to calm the thudding in her chest as she turned to reply to Robards. "Yes, well, I was showing Harry..." She trailed off.
"I just wanted to have a look at the place myself, Robards," Harry interjected, recovering from the shock faster than Hermione.
"You are neither an auror or unspeakable, Mr Potter," Robards replied through gritted teeth.
"You allowed us in not half an hour ago, what has changed?" Harry responded, unfazed by the ex-auror's hostile stance.
"Simply that I feel my employee should be working rather than staring vacantly at an enchanted doorway – "
"It's a little more complicated than that, sir!" Hermione interrupted in frustration.
"And that you have had sufficient time to read a couple of words, Mr Potter," Robards continued paying Hermione no mind.
"Fine," Harry said. "Thank you for allowing me to view the crime scene, director," Harry said stiffly before he began walking away with Hermione in tow.
"And Granger, remember that you're in hot water if your research turns up nothing and I find out you've been pissing about with celebrities all week!" Robards called after them.
As Harry and Hermione reached a fireplace, Harry spoke in a low voice. "I don't like him, he's very suspicious."
"Oh for goodness sakes Harry, he's an unpleasant man but I hardly think the director of the department of mysteries and former head of aurors is disembowelling employees and playing dress-up with a group of pureblood fanatics in his spare time," Hermione scoffed.
"Well, just keep an eye on him," Harry muttered. "Anyway what's this research he was talking about, it sounds important?"
"Uh..." Hermione mentally cursed Robards. The last thing she wanted to do was get Harry's hopes up about her work with the Veil. "It's about arithmancy," Hermione said weakly.
"Ugh, spare me," Harry replied with a grin. "I'll see you around Hermione, I've got to dash to this practice."
Hermione gave Harry a brief hug and watched as he disappeared into the emerald flames. She supposed that she should get back to her work, herself. Desperate to be away from the mood that hung over the department, she threw some powder into the flames and stepped in.
o0o
Curled in a large armchair with a glass of wine, Hermione began to read through her transcription of the Veil manuscript.
Here begins a treatise on the plane of spirits and its connection to our own reality...
Hermione read until her eyes watered with concentration, memorising the words and forming a plan. The text seemed to imply that the carving around the outside of the Veil would activate when presented with the correct ritual, allowing one to pass in and out of the Veil unharmed. Frustratingly, the sparse instructions gleaned from the manuscript left a lot to conjecture.
Pulling a piece of paper onto her lap, Hermione began to trace out the basic set up for a ritualised runic spell, with concentric circles and runes scribbled in relevant places. If she could set this up in the death chamber and manage to hold the Veil open then there was a good chance she could successfully venture into the Veil.
She squirmed in her armchair. Of course, there was a very high chance that she would venture into the Veil and not come back.
With a sigh, Hermione set her work to the side and rubbed her forehead. Frustration and worry cut through her contemplation and sent thoughts of runes and spells scattering away. Hermione stood up irately and stretched, taking a short walk around the library to clear her mind of anxious energy.
She was still reeling from the break-in at the Department and Griffiths' murder. Coupled with Harry's concerns the message left scrawled in blood on the Veil's dais took on an even more troubling level of meaning. Death nourishes...
Hermione worried about Harry as she paced around the library. The guilt that had riddled him in the years following the war seemed to be manifesting itself in his almost obsessive concern about a Death Eater revival. It was as though he felt that solving this would somehow purge him of the mistakes he thought he'd made during the war. Putting aside her academic interest in uncovering the secrets of the Veil, Hermione was left with a burning desire to bring back Sirius for Harry. Perhaps Harry would feel less obligated to get involved if his greatest regret was resolved.
Sitting back down in the armchair, Hermione pinched her nose and tried to focus herself on her work. There was so much supposition in formulating a ritual that could open the Veil, but what did she really have to go on? Hermione pulled her transcript onto her lap and started scanning through the text again.
'The Veil acts as a doorway to the realm of spirits...' Well, that wasn't particularly helpful but the confirmation of the fact ensured that she was on the right tracks. '...the soul of one who has not passed on occupies a purgatorial space; the Veil allows the living to interact with said soul.' Interesting, Hermione thought as she reread the line again. As no one had returned from the Veil in living memory the assertion that there was a metaphysical space in which souls were trapped unable to move on, was a crucial part in her understanding of how to form the spell to activate the Veil.
If there was a space of some variety behind the Veil, perhaps on another plane of reality but not fully integrated with an afterlife, then it significantly increased her chances of being able to navigate her way back again. Stepping into a place of hypothetical afterlife would be a like entering a sealed room through a window that locked from the outside, all it would take was one gust of wind and she could find herself trapped. Of course, one could potentially escape but not without serious injury. If the place beyond the Veil was less final and intended as a stop gap between the world of the living and dead, then it was far less likely to be as closed and dangerous.
Hope sparked in Hermione's chest for the first time since she had discovered the documents. What she would be attempting would be dangerous, recklessly so, but her reading bolstered her confidence.
However, there was a problem. Hermione sighed and chewed her lip. The Veil had been intended to allow people back out again, meaning that somewhere in the course of its existence it had malfunctioned. Unless she could find the flaw and secure it, Hermione would be unable to enter the realm beyond and return again.
"What you reading?"
Hermione startled at the sound of Remus' voice and hastily stuffed the pages between her leg and the armrest. She turned around and smiled tiredly at Remus who stood in the doorway. "You scared me!" She exclaimed.
"Sorry," he replied ruefully and came to perch on the seat opposite.
"It's alright, I was just working on some paperwork for this research," Hermione replied with a smile.
"Top up?" Remus asked nodding at her empty glass and holding up a bottle of wine.
"Oh, please," Hermione replied eagerly and held her glass out.
"So," Remus said as he filled two glasses. "I heard that you took Harry to the Department today."
"How do you always know these things?" Hermione asked looking baffled as he handed her the glass.
"I have my sources," he replied with a grin.
"Kingsley," she said with a roll of her eyes. "That man gossips worse than Molly Weasley after a few firewhiskeys!"
"How did Harry seem?" Remus asked as he took a sip of wine.
"To be honest, I regret agreeing to let him see the place," Hermione said miserably and took a large mouthful of wine. "I thought that maybe he would let it drop when he saw it was being treated seriously but all it seems to have done is stir-up old wounds and make him even more determined to investigate these rumours about Death Eaters."
"Hmm," Remus replied thoughtfully.
"Remus?" Hermione asked in a small voice tinged with fear. "You don't think he's going to do anything stupid do you?"
"I don't know, Hermione," Remus said with a sigh. "Harry is an adult now and I can't pull rank on him. I think that we just need to be there for him. Merlin knows that I can empathise, the sense of helplessness and guilt after Sirius escaped from Azkaban – not knowing he was innocent – it started driving me mad." He shook his head sadly.
"Perhaps you should talk to him?" Hermione suggested.
"You know him," Remus said wryly. "He'd rebuff me and say that everything was fine, that he just wanted to know that someone was investigating it, for peace of mind."
"You're right," Hermione admitted as she stifled a yawn.
Hermione took another long sip from her glass and smiled wearily at Remus.
"Why don't you go get some sleep?" Remus suggested. "Things might seem less daunting in the morning. Not to mention it might be best if you get an early night, I don't think you'll get a lie-in when I'm trying to persuade Teddy to leave the house for his appointment with the mediwitch."
"Oh dear," Hermione said with a smile. "I'd best be off to bed then." She downed the glass of wine, gathered her papers and stood up. "Thanks for the wine and the chat Remus," She said with a smile.
"No problem, try not to let things get you down too much," He replied as he casually scanned his eyes across the bookshelf.
In her room, Hermione curled into the duvet and tried to clear her mind of the day. She hadn't realised how exhausted she was and promptly fell into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.
A/N: Please review! :D