Hey friends!
Thanks for all your wonderful reviews and feedback on the story, I am just beyond thrilled to hear you're enjoying it!
This chapter is a bit longer than the others, but we've got a lot of ground to cover, and I didn't imagine you'd mind much!
To those leaving reviews - I've tried to respond to all of them, but if I missed responding to yours please hear my heartfelt thank you for both reading and taking the time to respond. It definitely helps me to want to rush back to the keyboard to continue writing!
Many of you have offered theories and advice for the law, and I must say some of you have this genetics thing down pat! You're inspiring and I absolutely love it!
Now for the part of the story you're all dying to have - chapter five!
ENJOY! :)
Hermione opened her eyes to see a stark white room surrounding her. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her head.
Her mind was racing. She wasn't quite sure where she was, but if she had to guess, it'd be St. Mungo's. Only a hospital room could be quite so white, quite so sterile.
She recalled the shock she felt upon seeing Sirius Black and Severus Snape. She didn't understand at all how this could be real. She knew both men were dead. She watched it happen, for Merlin's sake!
She tried to calm herself down with a round of deep breaths but found that she couldn't control the panic and confusion warring within her. Her eyes glazed as she heard a distant ding and the door she must not have noticed before swung open.
"Ah, Miss Granger, glad to see you're awake again." Augustus Pye stepped into the room, a calming draught held loosely in his hand. "I know you've had a surprise, but you'll make yourself sick if you don't calm down a bit. Drink this, please."
He handed her the potion, helping her tip it into her mouth as her hands shook violently. She felt the brew working, her muscles relaxing and her gasps slowing.
"I don't understand." She whispered, as much to the air, to herself, as it was directed at the healer standing by her bedside.
"May I sit, Miss Granger?" He asked.
She nodded mutely, after all, he had to have more answers than her.
"It was certainly a shock to all of us, except Croaker and Kingsley of course. I can remember treating both of those boys when I first became a healer. I was as saddened by the news of their deaths as anyone." He smiled gently at the witch lying under crisp clean sheets.
"I can't imagine this is easy, and I haven't gotten much of an explanation other than "well it's magic, after all". I think they wanted to explain it to you, first."
She stared blankly ahead, still trying to process that two men she revered were alive and well within the bowels of the Ministry of Magic. Her mind refused to process the facts. Their continued existence felt like a blur within her brain. She knew she needed to hear their stories.
"Miss Granger, the Minister would like to speak with you. He asked me to notify him when you awoke." Healer Pye looked gently at Hermione, gauging if she was well enough for visitors. "Can I tell him you'll see him?"
"Yes, yes of course" she answered softly, sinking back into the mattress, hoping that this was all some weird dream and she'd wake up with laughter about marriage laws and dead men.
Kingsley arrived nearly an hour later, striding into the room like a man who had no secrets about dead men living. He was resplendent in dark purple robes that seemed to almost glow against his chocolate skin.
"Ah, you're awake." He sat neatly on the chair next to Hermione's bed, looking at her with a mix of concern and pride.
"You know, you handled that much better than I did when I learned of it." He laughed.
She glared at him, furious that he had known all along that her matches were true, but even more incensed that he knew these two men, members of The Order of the Phoenix, heroes of the Second Wizarding War, were alive.
"Why didn't you tell us, Kings? Why didn't you tell us they were alive?" she asked him. "Harry has mourned Sirius every day since he went through the veil. Every single day. He's never truly recovered, and you've had him here for how long? How long has he been back?"
Her voice cracked. "And Snape! I saw him bleed out on the floor of the shack. I know he wasn't breathing when we left. He gave those memories to Harry and that was it. There was no more after that. How can he be alive?"
"The stories of their survival are not mine to tell, Hermione." he responded, "But I can apologize for keeping you in the dark. I suppose I'll have a lot of answering to do, both to Harry and The Order. We knew it would come out eventually, them being alive, but this wasn't quite how I expected it to happen."
He sighed deeply, the facade of contentment on his face cracking slightly. "It's going to be tough Hermione, to hear their stories and to move forward from here. We have so much to do and we're relying on you heavily. I know it's unfair but I'm asking you to be strong now."
She grasped his hand, not trusting her own voice at that moment.
"When can I see them?" she asked. "I need to know. And Kings, we need to tell Harry."
"One thing at a time, Hermione". He smiled gently, knowing that her compassion always extended to others much sooner than herself, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Hermione awoke several hours later, not quite remembering having fallen back asleep, but grateful for the rest. She stretched languidly, then reached for a tray of food that was left under warming charms at her bedside.
Her stomach let out a small growl of hunger and she chuckled that her mediwizard or witch must've known well enough that she didn't have breakfast before the meeting that morning and would be ready to eat when she woke up.
After she had fully tucked into the crusty bread and chicken soup, a gentle knock came from the hall.
"Come in" she responded.
The door opened and Kingsley stepped elegantly into the room, followed by a man Hermione never imagined seeing again, and certainly not in this state.
"Hello, kitten." Sirus smiled at her. His long black Unspeakable robes were unclasped in what she could only imagine was a small display of rebellion. He wore a maroon button up shirt underneath, with dark grey trousers. His hair was shorter than she remembered it being in fifth year, still jet black with gentle waves.
But what truly confused Hermione is that he looked much, much younger than was possible. He was 37 when he fell through the veil, but the man in front of her appeared to be 10 years younger than that. He was healthy. His skin practically glowed, his teeth were straight and white, there was no depression or madness in his molten silver eyes.
His laughter boomed loudly in the room, startling Hermione, who realized she'd been staring.
"Are you checking me out, Hermione? I know I'm quite the specimen." He joked.
"You - you shit!" Hermione responded. "I don't understand! How are you here? How do you look like that?" She gestured, waving her hand to represent the changes to his looks.
"I suppose it'll be time for me to start talking then, huh little one? Alright then." He removed the black cloak, folded it over the back of one of the wing-tip visiting chairs, and sunk into the chair next to her bed, crossing his ankle over his knee, looking fully the part of a man born into wizarding aristocracy.
"I guess I'll just start at the beginning and get it over quickly. Rip the plaster right off them emotional wounds, huh?" He joked.
She glared at him, and he sighed.
"You know I went through the veil back in your fifth year. Hard to imagine it's been nearly six years since then. Six years in just a few days, you know?" His voice trailed off as though caught in recollection. He cleared his throat roughly.
"Right, so I went through the veil back in '96. I'm guessing you all thought that was the end. I mean... it's not like witches and wizards are popping back out of the veil at any regularity. And it's in the Death Chamber of the department. Sounds pretty permanent.
You know that the Unspeakables have been researching the veil since they found it hundreds of years ago. While they still don't fully understand the purpose of it... they do know some of its unique traits and flaws.
The veil represents a thin barrier between the world of the living and the world of the dead. That's why so many people often hear whispers in the Death Chamber. They are hearing the voices of those beyond the veil.
The veil was never meant to be a device for transporting the living or the dead. It was more for communication than anything.
I'm not the first person to go through the veil, and I certainly wasn't the first to come back."
"What?" Hermione interrupted. "Others have come back from the veil? Who? So the Department knew we could get you back and they did nothing to help? Did Dumbledore know, that old coot could've helped and didn't?" Questions spilled from her mouth nearly as quickly as they came to her mind.
"Calm down there kitten, I'll answer your questions once you stop rambling a bit." Sirius laughed, glad to see that Hermione hadn't lost her passion in the years of war. "Of course the Department of Mysteries knew that I'd return from the veil. You see... the only way out of the veil is if you died to the veil in the first place. I did say it had some unique traits, didn't I?"
He leaned back in his chair, eyes searching for her. "You see, the veil cannot be used to bring back the dead or resurrect men, but it wasn't meant for that purpose. The veil has an inherent safety mechanism built directly into it by whoever created the monstrosity. I imagine that person to be quite the idiot, but luckily for me, they were a responsible idiot.
You see, the veil was designed only for communication, and should someone get close enough, or wild enough, to go through the veil in some sort of accident or attempt to join the voices beyond, they'd be caught in a stasis. Not alive, nor dead, until the circumstances that led them into the veil had changed."
"What circumstances?" Hermione asked. "If a person walked into the veil to join the voice of a loved one beyond, how could that ever change?"
"Ah, and there you have another mystery of the Department of Mysteries!" Sirius joked. "We've got quite a few down there, you know!"
"Just tell me how you came back, Sirius. I'm tired. Don't give me the runaround, okay?" Hermione pleaded.
Sirius slumped in the chair. It was clear he was avoiding it, although she couldn't quite understand why.
"I was sent into the veil. I was forced there, by Bellatrix, as you know. She hit me with a spell and I fell backward into the veil."
A look of pain was etched upon his features. A mix of revulsion, fear, and regret.
"She's dead," Hermione told him. "She died during the battle at Hogwarts. Molly killed her." She was trying to reassure him that there was no danger to him now from his crazy Aunt. Unconsciously, her hand drifted to cover the scar that Bellatrix had left on her arm. "She's gone now."
Sirius looked at her with a grin. "Oh yes, I know."
He laughed then, a gentle sound that eased the tension in her body, a smile on his face. "You see when she died the veil spit me right back out onto the floor of the Death Chamber. Her death changed the circumstance that fed me to the veil, and so my stasis was ended."
"It was quite unexpected," he continued, "I had just seen Harry. He used that stone to call us forth before he faced Voldemort. I saw Lily and James and Remus... and then... I was back on the floor of the chamber. I thought perhaps it was because he killed Voldemort, but the Unspeakables knew enough by then about the veil to tell me that it was Bellatrix's death that brought me back."
She looked at him in awe, muted by the shock of hearing his words. "But you look - and four years you've been back - and no one..." her thoughts trailed out of her mouth as though by force. She was mumbling under her breath and Sirius found it adorable.
"Yes, there is the case of my handsome looks, isn't there!" He bantered. "Looks this good don't happen overnight kitten, it takes six years in a healing stasis to look this fierce! "
He was amused by the look of confusion on her face. "The veil is odd, Hermione. It... didn't just hold me as I was when I entered. You remember I was depressed, a bit mad from my years imprisoned, unhealthy with the strain that 12 years among the dementors and too much to drink after that had caused my body."
"The stasis, it brings you to your true state." He explained. "It just gave me what I was meant to have before Azkaban, before years of neglect, drinking, depression, and self-loathing destroyed what I once was."
Hermione was overwhelmed with the information. She was glad to see Sirius returned, of course. But she was frustrated that he'd been alive for four years and no one was the wiser. She knew she was intelligent, the teachers at Hogwarts, especially McGonagall, spoke often of his skill and cleverness, although with humor because of his poor behavior. Of course, he'd be an Unspeakable if he couldn't tell the secrets of his return to life.
"Sirius, I have so many questions for you. I'm so glad you're alive." Her eyes shone with tears and Sirius could tell she was trying not to be overcome with emotion.
He stood gracefully, and gently grasped one of her hands between his. He was warm, warmer than she thought he'd be. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, and he felt a jolt of desire through his body. "We'll talk more later," he replied, pressing a kiss to her fingers.
She laughed. It was a soft tinkling sound that heated him. "Get down here and hug me, you prat. Kissing my fingers like you care about pureblood manners. I ought to hex you!"
Sirus was glad to hear her laughter and relieved to know she wasn't angry. He swept her up into his arms, twirling in a circle as she breathlessly and pounded his back with her fists. "Put me down, you! I'm supposed to be resting!"
He stopped spinning and set her gently upon the bed. "Yes, you should be resting. I am going to go now, there are things to be done. I'll be back soon. I imagine you'll want to see Severus soon, too." he responded with a laugh at the look on her face.
"Yes, I call him Severus, don't be shocked. I can't call him Snivellius forever. I'm trying to be an adult here!" he said playfully.
She beamed at him and he thought it was the most beautiful sight he'd seen in years.
"Speaking of the man, he'll be in after dinner. You might want to prepare for that!" Sirius stepped out of the door quickly to avoid the pillow she'd thrown at him. He was relieved and thought perhaps this law could be something that he could support, as he knew he wanted to spend more time with the woman in the room.
He needed to see Kingsley. It was time to figure out his return to society.