Chapter 110: Thursday, September 5, 2002
"Everyday the clocks reset. Your wins don't matter. Your failures don't matter. Don't stress on what was, fight for what could be."
-Sean Higgins
Remus hummed the bars of Blackbird to himself as he made his way into the forest. True, the song had never been one of his favourites. He always thought the message was a little too...artificially optimistic for his tastes. Something the type of people who said things like "just smile and you'll feel like smiling" listened to. But, as many of his thoughts had shifted thanks to her, Hermione had changed his mind.
Now, the song brought him comfort. Brought him a strange nostalgia for something he couldn't place his finger on. But, it reminded him of her and the strange ability she had to make him feel like he wasn't a complete waste of space.
He stopped short, a twig cracking beneath his trainers as he recognised the dead log riddled with flobberworms and the strange formation of trees around a small clearing. He took a deep breath and swiftly moved toward the largest of the hollowed out oak trees, his wand held tightly in his fist.
Silently, he unsealed the opening of the tree and watched as the boggart version of Hermione slipped out from the trunk, a sinister smile on her face, a glowing rock in her palm.
He watched as she began to hiss vile words at him, all while plastering a too-sweet smile across a freckled face. He waved his wand and muttered "Riddikulus!" before pulling a small sphere from his pocket. With his wand, he guided the boggart into the sphere, securing it in place with a containment charm before turning on his heel and heading back toward the Shack. Picking up the bars of Blackbird he had left off on.
"Seamus, George, you have a moment?" Remus asked, popping his head into the den where they were playing what looked to be some sort of cross between exploding snap and gobstones.
"Sure, mate. What's up?" Seamus answered, sighing loudly when his gobstone exploded in a shower of tiny shards.
"I recall being told that if I wanted to blow something up, you're who I should come to," Remus said, crossing the room and pulling the sphere from his pocket.
George and Seamus both looked up at him. George's eyes were bright and curious and Seamus wore a mix of intrigue and apprehension.
"I did say that," Seamus nodded.
"I haven't got the logistics worked out yet, which I think you both will be the best to help me with. And so far all this does—" he held up the black ball, about the size of a golden snitch "—is contain it."
A slow grin spread over George's face, "What's in that container?"
Remus shuffled his weight on his feet and looked around before casting a silencing charm.
"Oh, must be something good if you need privacy," Seamus chuckled.
Remus pulled up a chair and held out the sphere, "It won't open right now. I don't think it's wise to let it loose in here just yet."
"It being…?" Seamus trailed off, plucking the ball from Remus' palm and holding it up to the light, as if to catch a glimpse of what could be inside.
"A boggart."
George's eyebrows shot into his hairline as a laugh boomed past his lips, "A bloody boggart? What the hell are we gonna do with a boggart?"
It was Remus' turn to smile—a mischievous thing that made him giddy in a way he hadn't felt since his time at Hogwarts with Sirius and James.
"I have some ideas."
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
It was half nine in the evening when the streak of silver erupted into a dragon in the middle of the lower level of the Shack where Hermione and Draco sat over a bubbling cauldron of Wolfsbane.
Hermione jolted in her chair, nearly upending the moonstone she had been meticulously grinding with a mortar and pestle for the better part of a half hour.
"I don't want to cause alarm," Charlie's voice came from the mouth of the dragon. "But, Tonks hasn't shown up to the reservation yet. She was supposed to be here days ago and it's not like her to not even send a message if she is running behind. I've sent word after her mum. Andromeda has not seen her for several days. Is she still at headquarters? Did you send her on an assignment? Have you seen her? Send word back, please. I'm worried."
"That can't be good," Draco sighed, returning to his task of steeping aconite in boiling moon water.
Hermione frowned, "She hasn't been around, has she? I thought she left at the same time as Charlie, Bill and Fleur?"
"She did," Draco confirmed. "She was supposed to be spending a few days with her mum and then head straight to the reservation but that was a week ago."
"I'll talk to Harry when he gets back, maybe he sent her out somewhere…" Hermione trailed off, a sinking feeling in her stomach that told her that Harry had definitely not sent Tonks out on some secret assignment without telling anyone.
Draco shrugged, "Doubt it. Wouldn't be like Potter to send someone out without anyone else knowing. Especially without telling Charlie. I mean, have you seen him? Out of all of them, he's definitely not one I would want to upset. The man wrangles bloody dragons for a living. I'm fairly certain he'd have no trouble snapping Potter's neck with next to no effort."
Hermione tutted and rolled her eyes, "Charlie is mostly harmless. Well, if you aren't dating his only sister, I suppose."
"Thank you for that vote of confidence, Granger. Very much appreciated."
"Anyway, it's not about your fear of Charlie—"
"—I'm not afraid of him—"
"—It's the fact that your cousin is missing and no one has heard from her. Draco, I'm not sure you're understanding the severity of this situation."
Draco pulled the aconite from the moon water and passed it to Hermione to be ground together with the moonstone. "I understand perfectly fine, thank you. Tonks is missing and we don't know where she could be. Chances are she's been lifted by a Snatcher and sent to one of the Death Eater camps. We'll find her."
Hermione pushed out a frustrated breath and smashed the boiled flowers into the shiny powder, her grip tightening around the pestle as it began to form a paste. "You're forgetting one key component, which is why it's worrisome she hasn't reported in anywhere. Your cousin is a Metamorphmagus. She's an endless supply of blood for whatever the hell potions they're trying to make with it."
Draco's hands stilled, his knuckles whitening around the handle of the silver blade. "Oh, fuck."
"Do you see now—"
"Oh, fuck! Granger, if they've got her…"
"They'll have an army of werewolves who can turn out of cycle and god only knows what else. Justin is able to transfigure small things at will, if this turns into anything bigger...we won't know who we're fighting."
Draco stared at Hermione, his eyes wide with alarm.
"She's half of St Mungo's blood supply, you know," he said, carefully. He set his knife to the side and ran a hand through his hair. "She donated monthly to help their blood replenishment stores. All the blood they would have taken from the hospital would have been hers. They already know how it reacts to everything, the breakdown of it, the magic in it…"
"She's one of three living Metamorphmagi in the country and the other two are ancient," Hermione whispered. "They're going to drain her."
Draco swore and picked his knife back up, "Can't we make it through one fucking week without something happening?"
"We're at war, Draco. We've been lucky to have as much time to plan as we've had."
"Yeah, well, I'm ready for this to all be over with now, thank you."
Hermione resumed making the moon stone and aconite paste, her mind racing with possible places Tonks could be. Anything that would point to her safety instead of her capture. All the while a quiet I wish this was over, too playing in the back of her head.
A fortnight passed in a blink of an eye.
Hermione—and everyone in the Shack, for that matter—spent long days and sleepless nights researching prior Death Eater camp locations and leads to new ones. Every day groups of three or more spent hours apparating through England, Scotland, and Wales, searching through every safe house they had to see if Tonks had turned in without notice. Ron, Neville, and Dean set out on brooms to Romania, searching any area that seemed suspicious. Charlie tried every method of contact he and Tonks had come up with to try and locate her.
And still, nothing.
Andromeda was beside herself with worry. After the loss of Ted, Hermione could only imagine the fear she felt at her only child having seemingly disappeared. Andromeda was moved, again, from her safe house to stay with Molly and Arthur. They had assured Hermione they would keep her safe and as sane as possible.
Remus kept his ear to the ground and, against Hermione's protests, spent long nights searching for werewolf communities that might have information. An unnecessary, dangerous task that was proving to be fruitless.
As the days turned to weeks and the terror turned into frustrated determination, Hermione found herself alone most days, tending to Justin and the potions stock and trying to contact anyone who could possibly be of any help. After a particularly frustrating and elusive meeting with someone Xenophilius put her in contact with, Hermione was beginning to realize how bleak the situation looked.
"I forgot your birthday," Remus murmured, looking up from a map of somewhere in the West Country with tired eyes.
Hermione leaned back in her chair, bundling her hair above her head and securing it with an elastic before giving a small shrug. "I forgot my own birthday."
"That doesn't make it any better," he grumbled, his mouth twisted into a frown.
Hermione offered a tiny, exhausted smile. "I promise, I won't hold it against you. I'm surprised we've even remembered to shower, if I'm being honest."
A heavy sigh echoed around the room as she and Remus exhaled in tandem. Hermione's eyes rested on a bruised bit of skin just above the collar of Remus' shirt and she wondered how long he'd had it. If he'd gotten it while he was in Prague tracking down Hamish last week or if it was from something else.
"Do you think they could be hiding in Banchory, like they were last time?" Remus said, his voice doubtful as he spoke.
Hermione shook her head, eyes leaving the bruise on his collar and returning to the stack of parchments Penelope had swiped from the Ministry. "The entire south side was leveled during an ambush a few years back."
Remus let out a frustrated groan and scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. "They're far more clever this time around, I think."
"It would seem that way. They've learned from their mistakes."
"Have we learned from ours?"
Hermione looked up again to meet his eyes, wide and full of something unsure. She contemplated the question. Had they learned from their mistakes?
Immediately, she wants to scream that of course they had. That they were far more organized than The Order had previously been. That they kept no secrets between one another where missions were concerned. They used more planning, better tactics. Every single person had a place, an importance, a job to do. They didn't rely on information from spies or anonymous tips that someone working against them had planted in hopes they would follow. They were diligent now, making sure that every single t was crossed and every I dotted.
But then, their numbers still dwindled. Families of Order members went missing on a near bi-weekly basis. Their own people had been blown up or captured and tortured to death. More and more of the able bodied fighters were sent to safe houses for their protection and even then, some of them had wound up dead. Every single duel was a battle for their lives and they had been fighting in the shadows of misinformation for so long that when they found a bit of light, a bit of headway, it seemed to disappear like smoke in the wind.
Truly, Remus being here had advanced them further than anyone wanted to admit. He remembered things from before Hermione had arrived in 1979 that had proven to be useful. He knew of affiliated Death Eaters that they hadn't even considered. He had connections to Dark Creatures all over Europe—beings that respected him, even if they disliked him, enough that they would keep an ear out for any movement for him. He had built spells and maps and had been working on some sort of project with Seamus and George that seemed like it would be incredibly useful once it was completed.
So, the question remained—in Hermione's opinion—not if The Order was better off now than it had been twenty years prior. But, was it better now, in this moment, with Remus disregarding the laws of time to help them?
Unequivocally, yes.
But, if The Order was still relying on unstable means to produce results, had they really learned anything?
"I don't know," she finally whispered.
Two hours later, she found herself lying flat on her back, staring up at the rafters that lined the ceiling of the shared bedroom. Remus nearly covered her body with his own, his face nuzzled against her chest, his breathing slow and rhythmic as she dragged her fingers through his hair. She thought of the cottage they shared, a thought she rarely allowed to cross her mind. She thought of the countless nights spent wasted, up until the wee morning hours, researching and plotting and trying to connect dots that were never there to begin with. She thought of Lily. Of James. Of Sirius. She wondered, selfishly, if she had been able to stay, if James hadn't transfigured her locket and hidden the stone, if she would have made more of a difference then. If she would have been able to put a stop to the second war before it ever even started.
Or was it still the first war—since it seemingly never ended in the first place?
Remus hummed against her, wriggling further into the sheets before reaching up to cover her hand with his own. She smiled to herself as his fingers moved hers, forcing them to continue raking through his hair.
Things were so much more complicated now than she could have ever predicted them to be. All of the dredges of tea in the bottom of cups and crystal balls thrown about the tower floor couldn't have prepared her for the difficult and confusing mess of intricacies her life—all their lives—had become.
And the sheer thought of giving up the only thing that was easy, the only thing that was sure and grounding...to send Remus back. To force him to live decades of misery, to die in a battle that never finished, to die for a war he had dedicated his life to…
It was unfair.
Regardless of how petulant the thought was, it was unfair.
How was it that she was destined to be alone? To be loved so fiercely by someone who would eventually be unable to love her at all. Who would have to forget her existence. Like her parents had been forced to forget her. Like her childhood friends from primary school had surely forgotten her.
And, without a doubt, Remus would have to forget her. And that knowledge pained her. She could remember clearly the venom behind his words when she told him he would have to forget the first time. She could recall with exact clarity the pinch to his brow and the fury in his eyes when he told her he would not allow her to take his memories from him.
She had told Ginny weeks ago that she would have to get Remus to hate her, in order for him to agree to go back. She had been wrong, of course. Remus had been frustratingly accepting of his fate. But, they had never discussed the means in which he would get there. He had to know, she reasoned, that he would not be allowed the ability to remember. He would have to give up his memories in one way or another. The thought made her feel ill.
Another time, she thought, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed a kiss to the top of his wavy hair. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.
.
.
a/n: I know this one was a bit shorter than usual and it probably seemed like it was all over the place. Sorry about that, just remember there's a method to the madness!
xo
Mimi
