And here, at last, is a truly new chapter of my story. I truly hope you'll like it, because there are about 15 more to follow, once a week, if that's what you want. Just tell me. Flattery will get you... everything...
Love, Kia
Chapter 6
1997-1998 The year of the horcrux hunt
When Hermione, out of breath, stands in front of 12 Grimmauld Place for the first time since Sirius's memorial service more than a year ago, she doesn't want to go in. It has very little to do with the risk of coming across Severus Snape there, or any other Death Eater, for that matter. It has to do with whom she will never meet there again. She knows that the grimy, neglected façade mirrors its interior. Dead and empty. Sometimes, even though not as often as before, she dreams of the ancestral home of the Black family being filled with people and the smells of homemade cooking, laughter, Christmas. A first edition of Shakespeare's sonnets. Sirius. He is as distant as the Christmas dinner Molly Weasley once cooked in his kitchen. The only Christmas dinner ever cooked in his kitchen?
But Harry drags both Ron and her up the stairs, and taps the door with his wand.
Will that really do the trick? There should be charms, jinxes.
"Technically, it's my house," Harry mutters. "But Mad-Eye thought all the security charms would only risk bringing the location to the attention of the muggles. If Snape or Malfoy come this way and try to force themselves in, the explosions or whatever would make even the muggles question the frequent earth tremors."
Seconds later Mad-Eye Moody's voice, a voice Hermione never thought she would hear again, asks them if they are Severus Snape. After that an illusion of Professor Dumbledore rises from the floor and points accusingly at the trio. Hermione begins to think she actually would prefer the emptiness of Grimmauld Place to the jinxes that might pop up anywhere in the house. When Mrs Black's portrait starts screaming she feels she is about to cry from sheer exhaustion. She collects herself. She hasn't cried since Professor Dumbledore's funeral, and is not about to start now.
"Homenum revelio," she casts and relaxes when absolutely nothing happens.
They make themselves at home in the cold, dusty house. Hermione senses Harry is withholding something from them but doesn't have the energy to care. Ron and she have fought him hard enough to go with him in his hunt for horcruxes. She has researched the topic during the summer and come up with very little. There might be something in the most restricted part of the library at Hogwarts, but she hasn't been able to go there. She has considered asking Professor McGonagall, but this is, in so many ways, Harry's hunt. His quest. There may not be more information to be gained than what Professor Dumbledore already told Harry last year.
They camp in a drawing room on the first floor. In the thin, dusky dark of the August night, Hermione watches Ron who lies on the floor beside the sofa she rests on. Harry lies closer to the door. Hesitantly she reaches down and touches Ron's shoulder.
"Hmm?" he mumbles.
"I… I'm just… lonely."
He takes her hand and pulls it to his face. She doesn't exactly know if he kisses her hand, but she feels his stubble bristle against her skin. His hand is large and warm and she feels a tiny bit better.
They stay at 12 Grimmauld Place for more than a week. On the second day Harry calls Ron and her to Sirius's room where he has found a part of a letter from Lily to Sirius. Hermione scans the room she has never been in before. It's extremely messy, as if someone has searched it. Someone probably has. There is a photo of Sirius, Remus, James and Peter on the wall. A Sirius so much more carefree and happy than she has ever seen him.
They find Kreacher and listen to his tale about someone who might be Mundungus Fletcher coming to steal what might be the switched locket that, in turn, just might be the horcrux Voldemort once hid in the cave by the sea. Then they wait for Kreacher to return with Mundungus. The house doesn't appear to be watched. Neither by Death Eaters nor members of the Order.
The calm before the storm? Where did that come from? Does the Order even exist, in any form, any more?
The third night Kreacher still hasn't returned. They have eaten a meagre supper of bread, cheese and tea, and Harry and Ron fall asleep early. Hermione can't sleep. She is hungry, restless and, quite frankly, bored. She is more than prepared to follow Harry to places just as dreadful as that cave by the sea. She has heard both Harry's and Kreacher's accounts of the place and the picture she paints in her head chills her blood. She will go anywhere with Harry to fight his war. She has come to realize it's not her war as she used to think. Nothing is really hers, because part of her feels already dead. The quiet, dark rooms of the Black family house, or, more accurately, Harry's house do nothing to make her feel more alive.
Oh, let that storm begin, I can't stand this… nothingness. Give me something to solve, research, curse…
She drinks a glass of milk in the kitchen, extinguishes the old gaslights and goes in search of something, anything, that isn't broken or adorned with the Black family crest. Something that might come in handy in their quest. She stops in front of the door leading to the library.
Here, if anywhere in England, there might be more information about Horcruxes. How they are made, preserved, hidden. Destroyed?
Very slowly she turns the door handle. It's pitch dark inside.
"Lumos."
She can make out the outlines of the furniture, the fireplace, the bookcases.
"Incendio," she whispers and small flames rise in the fireplace. A warm glow settles over the things closest to the fire. On the thick Axminster carpet a couple stands, kissing. The man is tall, dark and stands bent over the woman he holds in his arms. The woman's dark blonde hair flows down her back and the man buries his hands in the curls. The somewhat frizzy curls.
Hermione can't breathe, doesn't want to break the illusion, the trick of… what?
Is he, is Sirius, a ghost? And she, me? Am I dead enough to be a ghost?
The man rests his forehead against the young woman's and whispers words Hermione can't hear from the doorframe, but that she knows by heart anyway.
'…give me, and yourself , a little more time… …sweet dreams, darling…'
He turns her around and pushes her softly towards the door. Hermione stands frozen but the fragment of her imagination or of her memory or whatever it is, dissolves when it leaves the slightly illuminated spot in the room. The tall man leans against the desk and Hermione can see how he grips it hard. A minute later he lets go of the table-top and stands with his back to her, his face to the fire.
"I used to pray that time would make it right, to give her back, to forgive me for what I did to her. I wish my prayers had remained unheard."
He flops down on the sofa, out of sight for Hermione. She hears nothing more. No breaths, no mumbled or whispered words she doesn't understand. Hesitantly she tiptoes closer, more drawn than terrified, and grips the armrest of the sofa. The sofa is empty. She curls up in the corner where she once slept. It's cold and smells of dust, like everything else. She has no idea why she just saw what she did, or what Sirius meant with his words about 'time' and 'prayers.' She hasn't cried for Sirius for months, trying, forcing herself to be as numb as possible in matters of the heart. Ron has softened towards her, and he is the only one she can even imagine ever getting close to, involved with, even if it would be wrong. It would be to keep loneliness at bay. In a novel she has read the line 'the incurable loneliness of the soul' and the words scare her. Is it really possible to feel this lonely? She cries into a cushion, and pulls a blanket around her. But despite being exhausted now, she still can't sleep.
Not here. Not in this room. I need to go back to the drawing room.
But for some reason she continues up the stairs to the room Harry called her and Ron to the first morning in the house. Sirius's room. Hermione realises this is the first time she can watch and touch the remains of what was once Sirius's life, without keeping her guard up.
The room really has been searched. Papers, clothes, books and broken trinkets litter the floor. She lights a small paraffin lamp on the desk and looks down at the mess of papers. Harry might have gone through them in search for the missing part of his mother's letter to Sirius, but he certainly hadn't organized the letters, newspaper clippings, notes and photographs. Slowly Hermione picks up a piece of paper with handwritten scribbles. The upper left corner is adorned with Twilfitt and Tatting's Men's Wear in Diagon Alley. Recognizing the handwriting is almost painful.
Pick up old bike jacket.
It's dated 1 October, 1981. Less than a month before Lily and James were killed and Sirius arrested.
Did you have time to use it? Where is it now?
Not knowing why, just following a haphazard clue to anything to do with Sirius, Hermione opens the wardrobe. She recognizes the clothes hanging there. Elegant velvet waistcoats, shirts in dark hues of grey, maroon, brown. She pulls the sleeve of a shirt to her face and it releases a hint of warm wood, grass and library. Hungrily she buries her face in the fabric, trying to turn back time. Her other hand searches for the thin gold chain inside the collar of her blouse.
"This Time turner is set on you, Ms Granger. Do you understand? Whatever or whoever you choose to bring with you must follow your time line."
"Yes, Professor McGonagall."
"And I don't need to tell you again that it is very unusual to trust someone as young as you with such a powerful device. It's for your double curriculum only, Ms Granger."
"Yes, Professor."
"And at the end of the academic year you will return it to me."
"Yes, Professor."
Even if I did use it… Sirius is dead. He is dead in my time line. It's no use. It's impossible.
She lets her hand fall and takes a step back. On the floor of the wardrobe there is a row of boxes. Large boxes. Hermione kneels and opens one at random and comes across a copy of The Daily Prophet. Under it there are more old newspapers and clippings. Hermione grabs the box and places it on the desk. More papers. Daily Prophet clippings from 1980, 1981. Seemingly trivial reports of accidents. Some very short, almost disinterested reports of disappearances. Marlene McKinnon. The name makes her gasp and she searches the box for more information.
Was this the end of your happiness then, Sirius? But why are these papers even here? Where did you live after Hogwarts? I've always thought, I don't know why, that you lived close to James and Lily. But why would Lily write you a letter if you too lived in Godric's Hollow? Did you really come back here to Grimmauld Place? After you ran away when you were 16? But if so, where are your other things? Why are there personal papers here from the year before Azkaban if you ran away four years earlier? Did you come back here to live after Hogwarts? With your mother? Can't see that happening. Didn't you inherit someone, an uncle?
Suddenly she is bone-tired. She puts the box back in the wardrobe, and is just about to close the door when something soft falls from one of the brown velvet jacket Sirius used to wear around the house when he had guests. It's the same jacket he wore when he nonchalantly gave her the untidily wrapped book of sonnets. He smiled a wry smile she couldn't decipher. The object that falls from the breast pocket is a silk scarf, maybe a large handkerchief. It's dark grey and its pattern is a discreet print of small, black paws.
Padfoot. It must be a gift from someone who knew your Animagus form.
She puts it in her pocket. The fine silk folds into almost nothing. It doesn't feel like stealing.
Ten months later, war-weary, bruised, exhausted, malnourished and hurt in every way possible, Hermione wipes a trickle of blood from her right eyebrow with a threadbare piece of dark silk. She aches all over when Harry, Ron and she leave the office that was once Professor Dumbledore's. Harry has just used the Elder Wand to mend his own holly and phoenix feather wand, and he has told Professor Dumbledore's portrait that he intends to put the Elder Wand back in Dumbledore's grave.
Hermione's mind wanders for a second to what the inside of Dumbledore's grave will look like now, its stone cracked by Voldemort and left open to the merciless rains, storms and snowfalls of the North. Will scavenging birds of prey have… Wolves…? Werewolves…? She stops her train of thought before the pictures her mind conjures up makes her sick.
She walks between Harry and Ron. Harry has his arm around her waist, Ron holds her hand. He intertwines his fingers with hers in a way he has never done before. A couple of hours ago Ron and she kissed each other in the Chamber of Secrets, deep below Hogwarts Castle. The rush of adrenaline that hit her when she stabbed one of the last Horcruxes with a Basilisk fang, and that made her answer Ron's kisses with more passion than she has felt in a year, is quickly fading, and she is falling back into her most common state of mind numbing exhaustion.
Whatever made me kiss Ron? It's not as if I love him. Not like that. He burnt his bridges and any feelings I might have had for him when he left in November. Does he love me? In another way than this… this… this bond between Harry, him and me? Why is he holding my hand like that? I used to want him to keep loneliness at bay, but we're all lonely after this. We've lost far too much to ever feel whole again. I need to sleep… I wonder if Gryffindor Tower is unharmed? The couch in the common room…
Harry stops and wraps her into his arms.
"What?" she whispers into his shoulder.
"You're crying," he whispers back and strokes her hair. Ron rubs her back softly and she gives into sobs of a grief so large she cannot even begin to untangle the mess of pain and longing and oppressed feelings. She feels so physically weak that the floor seems just as inviting as the softest of beds.
"He's alive! He isn't dead. There must be something with his condition of not being fully human! Harry…"
Hermione recognises the voice of Dean Thomas.
Who isn't dead? Don't tell me it's him… If that bloody lizard with a survivability of a cockroach somehow has managed to… I'll jump from a tower. If this isn't over now, I'll jump from the highest tower still standing on the castle.
She feels Harry turning to look at Dean, without letting go of her. With a voice as dark as her own thoughts Harry asks hoarsely.
"Who, Dean?"
"Professor Lupin. Remus. It might be the Lycanthropy in him. He was declared dead with… with all the others," Dean says the last in a slightly quieter tone, "but a few minutes ago he walked out of the Great Hall on his own two feet."
"Thank, Merlin," Ron whispers behind her back. "At least someone lived."
"He is the only one," Dean answers their unspoken questions. Hermione's heart aches for Ron who has lost his brother Fred. Maybe Ron and she would make a good couple now. He might actually need her…
Worst possible reason to build a relationship on… Get a grip!
"I'm glad," Harry says. "Where is he?"
"He went to examine damages on the castle. At least that's what he said. He said he'll find you later."
"Thank you, Dean. We'll be down soon. We'll just…" Harry doesn't finish the sentence, but Hermione hears Dean's fading footsteps and understands he has gotten the hint of Harry dismissing him.
Slowly Harry lets his hands sink and takes a step back. His eyes wander between her and Ron who stands behind her.
"I want to go down. I want to find Ginny. And… and see who I won't find," he says with a shaky voice. "I can't stand not knowing. Will you come?"
"Yeah, mate. I also… I think Mum needs me. Are you coming, Hermione?"
She turns to catch Ron's eye and nods. Together they begin to walk towards the stairs leading down to the entrance hall of the castle. When they've descended the first flight of stairs, Hermione stops.
"You go ahead. I'll be down soon. I just need a minute alone. I'll just go and see if there is anything left of the library, then I'll be down."
"Are you sure?" Ron asks.
She nods and is unprepared for the soft kiss he plants on her lips. When he withdraws she sees Harry smiling softly, not surprised at all. Once again her saviour-of-the-world friend pulls her to him. Harry kisses her too, on her cheek, buries his face in her hair and whispers in her ear.
"I love you, too."
A second later Harry and Ron are on their way down, and she watches them with an aching throat and burning eyes.
The library entrance is destroyed and the first sections of bookcases are burnt, cursed or blown to rubble. Hermione enters carefully. In some places there are puddles of sooty water, as if someone has extinguished smouldering remains of fire, just minutes ago.
"Aguamenti," Hermione hears a familiar voice further ahead.
"Prof… Remus? Is that you?"
And there he is. Coming towards her from a dark corner of the library. Bruised, dirty, limping and hardly recognisable, he says her name in a voice on the brink of tears. Earlier tears have washed the skin under his eyes clean of grime, but Hermione can see that his grieving is nowhere near finished.
He smells of death. Of dirt and blood and something rotten, but so does she, she supposes. Beneath the stench of war there is a trace of how the world used to be, just three years ago. Three years ago, during the final days of her fourth year, Victor Krum was sending her romantic letters and she turned him down as softly as she could. Three years ago she only had a vague notion of what was to come. In many ways she was still a child, and Remus was her friend. A man who used to be her professor who had seen something in her and answered her letters seriously and full of friendship.
"I thought you were dead," she blurts.
"So did I, for a while. But then something pulled me back. Tonks is… she is…"
"I know," Hermione whispers. "I'm sorry. Shh…" She embraces the much larger man and cries with him.
"When I… When I had seen… said goodbye to her, I thought of you. I was afraid you had… had died too."
"No," she answers darkly.
Suddenly Remus takes a step back and looks her over.
"What is it?" she asks, uneasy under his scrutinizing eyes.
"You just… You remind me of… You look exactly like when…"
"When what? I can never have looked like this before." A dry little laugh forces its way up her throat and the aching knot of tears there disappears. She reaches into her pocket, pulls up the paw-patterned piece of silk and dries her eyes. Remus softly takes her hand and pulls her closer to a window.
"I've seen this before," he mutters.
Embarrassed she tries to pull her hand out of his grasp, but there is no accusation in his voice.
"I took it at Grimmauld Place. From Sirius's room. I stole it."
Remus looks at her and, unbelievably, he smiles.
"Not really, love."
She doesn't understand and is too tired to play riddles. Remus touches her hair and says, almost as if she's not there:
"I remember wondering if this was clotted blood. It smelled like it."
"What are you talking about, Remus?" Hermione is beginning to worry about his mental state, this talk in the past tense.
He looks down at her and, unexpectedly, he smiles.
"I think you are about to go on a long journey, Hermione."
Hermione is so tired the mere words suggesting any efforts whatsoever blur her vision.
Where is there to go now? Home? Where is that?
Remus turns her in the direction of the door and places his hand on her back.
"Come on. You'll see. If I'm not mistaken we'll soon run into Professor McGonagall and I think she will tell you."
"Remus, I can't, I'm too… I just want to sleep. I've been on the run for almost a year. I'm not up to anything…"
"Hush. Let's listen to Minerva first. And here, drink this." He hands her a small vial and she raises her eyebrows questioningly.
"A bit of pick-me-up, a bit of liquid luck. Just swallow it."
The potion affects her almost instantaneously. She is still bone-tired, but her mind is clear and alert. They leave the ruins of the library and, as if Remus had gifts of divination poor Sibyll Trelawney could only dream of, a tall and slim witch is standing at the end of the corridor.
"Minerva," Remus calls softly. The witch winces, but finds her bearings immediately. She walks towards them as briskly as ever. Close up, Hermione can see that Professor McGonagall is a war-weary as everyone else she has seen since the deafening disintegration of Lord Voldemort earlier.
"Remus. Miss Granger. No, you are Hermione to me now, since you are not formally a student anymore."
Her words hurt Hermione. If she isn't a student at Hogwarts, who is she then? Surely Professor McGonagall will allow her to take he seventh Hogwarts year when the castle is rebuilt and everything is back to… back to some kind of functioning society. Never normal again.
"So, Remus, you are here for this. I never knew that. I thought I would be alone with Hermione when she went."
Suddenly Hermione has had enough. The other two are talking in riddles, and about her, not to her.
"Tell me now. Stop confusing me. Tell me and then let me go and sleep for days. I've had enough riddles for a lifetime."
Professor McGonagall faces her and smiles. It's the same perfectly unsuitable smile Remus smiled before they left the library. On a day with more casualties than anyone can count no one should smile at all.
"I'm about to send you back to Hogwarts."
"But we are at Hogwarts," Hermione almost cries.
"Hogwarts of 1978."