Chapter Twenty Eight

Hermione spent the better part of the summer avoiding everyone. She avoided Sirius because of her fears regarding the harmonic similarity to Minerva, she avoided Minerva out of guilt over the same issue, and she avoided Melok out of a general sense of grief over wanting what she could not have. She avoided Helen because she knew her friend was worried about her, and she avoided Aberforth because the gruff man had a tendency to call her on her shite and she absolutely was not in the mood for that. She absolutely avoided Cedrella and James, who both never failed to be more perceptive than bloody Merlin. About the only people she hadn't avoided were Constance, who was content to let her be moody and not ask questions, and Chelsey who was more interested in getting to the bottom of who she was than he was interested in getting to the bottom of her mood.

It was mid August now, and after spending the morning with Constance at the Dagworth Estate and the afternoon with her boys at Baker Street, she was now spending the evening in the company of Chelsey Keating, the pair of them in their respective Animagus forms as they carefully mapped the Lupin property, much as they had every evening for the last week and a half. His Fox made a good companion to her Fishing Cat, the pair near equal in size and stealth ability, and both able to quickly hide in the brush if someone or something was coming their way.

Remus Lupin had been born five months ago now. The Manchester Lycan Reserve was up and running under Septimus, Cedrella, and Lycoris, and while Fenrir Greyback had been officially included in the project and thus far had come each month within the wards of the Reserve, he was also very vocal against the continuing vitriol that Lyall Lupin shot out during the rest of the month, and Hermione had serious concerns about how long Greyback would remain content to be a fight with words sort of bloke. As far as her history was concerned, before Remus turned five Greyback would turn him. Would the Reserve be enough to change history, or would it merely delay it? Would Remus never be turned, be turned later, or perhaps just be turned by another werewolf? Hermione couldn't begin to guess. All she could do was get to know the Lupin property, and do her best to be here and prevent Beta Remus' fate, worst case. She couldn't stand the idea that he wouldn't at least live, lycanthropy or no lycanthropy.

Hermione's claws gripped at a log as she used it to cross the expanse of a creek. She could swim it, of course, but she didn't fancy getting wet right now, honestly. She turned behind her and mewed at Chelsey, then looked up at the sky to give the signal that they were going to call it a night. After this long on the Lupin property, it didn't take much thinking to remember that this creek did lead back to the edge of the property, and so after she finished crossing she began to trot in that direction. She might not like Lyall Lupin, but the man wasn't an idiot. The fifteen acre lot his home was located on was warded against apparition, among other things. They'd have to get to the edge of the wards before they could leave.

Once on the other side of the creek, Chelsey, in his Fox form, pounced at her playfully. Hermione let out an annoyed huff, although it was halfhearted. She couldn't help but be amused at how the normally stern Charms Professor tended to be so playful while in his Animagus form. He liked to say that it took him back to a simpler time and place, and she supposed she understood that. As he bounded ahead, she batted at his fluffy tail, and the next they knew the pair of them were chasing one another in a circle, each trying to catch the other's tail.

Eventually, dizziness forced them to stop their little game, and despite a few unsteady steps at first, they got on their way again. Hermione smiled inwardly a bit. It wasn't the same, but there were moments when Chelsey reminded her of Alpha Harry. The humor was similar, and the get it done attitude was as well. She didn't sense a Kinship bond with Chelsey, but she did feel an affection toward him that she might call brotherly. She often felt similarly toward Aberforth, in truth. Hermione knew she was blessed to have such wonderful men in her life, and she hoped they were all still around for her younger counterpart to have as a part of her life. She couldn't imagine who she might be now if she'd had Aberforth and Chelsey around when she'd been a child.

"So," Chelsey said gruffly as they both transformed back into their human forms at the edge of the Lupin property. "You planning on telling me why we're mapping this prat's property? I mean I know he's got it in his head to undermine the MLR and it might be a fine excuse to call it simple reconnaissance if we were looking in at him and his habits, but this? Honestly Hermione, by the way you're mapping this place out it's as if you're expecting there to be an attack here at some point and want to know every millimeter of the place like the back of your hand so you can respond as quickly as possible."

She offered him a wry grin. He really was clever. "Is that so?" she asked.

The Head of Ravenclaw rolled his eyes. "Come off it, Witch. We both know you're holding back. I'm fairly certain I've got it worked out top to bottom, at least in the general sense, but at some point it would be decent of you to stop insulting my intelligence at every turn and acting as if I'm a complete dunderhead."

Hermione nodded toward a nearby log, and the pair took a seat in the quiet darkness. She'd known this was coming, and while she supposed it would be prudent to call in the rest of the circle of trust so they could help explain things, there was something about Chelsey that made her feel she owed it to him to talk things out one on one. He wasn't one for fanfare, or drama. He simply wanted answers. He was so like Harry in that regard. "Well of course you know I'm a Mage," she began. All members of the Resistance knew that much, although it really was a major point in explaining the rest, so she began there.

He snorted. "That Albus hasn't sorted that out is beyond astonishing to me, honestly. You have Goblin blood as well, don't you?"

She eyed him curiously, not denying it. "What gave away the Goblin blood?"

He tapped his left temple. "Magical eye. Lost the real one during the mess with Grindelwald. Spent two years on the front lines before happily crawling back to my post as Charms Professor. Anyhow, it can see radiant auras, which I admit is dead useful. We Wizards and Witches, when we're casting heavy level magic, will radiate specific colored auras. Folk like the Ollivanders are born with the ability to see auras even if there's no such casting going on, but I digress - Goblins, or those with Goblin blood, have a specific blue color to their aura that you'll never see in another Wizard or Witch. In short, you've got it."

Hermione looked at her friend admiringly. "That is dead useful, Chelsey. So, how'd you sort out I was a time traveler, then?" she asked, not doubting for a moment that he had.

The man looked pensive. "It wasn't anything big, Hermione. It was little things. I remember the day we met I caught you staring at a spot on the grounds, up at Hogwarts. There was just something in the way you were looking, almost longingly, as if you knew that one day there would be something there, even if it wasn't there yet. Over the years I've spotted you looking at other things in the same way, or making comments that hinted to knowledge of things yet to come. It was no single thing - just a culmination of subtle clues making a greater picture. So, let's have it then. Where, or rather when are you from?"

She offered him a sad smile, appreciating his observational skills and thanking Merlin that's all it was, because that meant it was unlikely very many would be able to do as he did, especially if she was more careful of what she said and did in the future. "Summer of two thousand and five was the beginning of my journey, although I spent six months in another reality running along the same timeline before ending up here. I don't believe I simply went back into my own past all those years, either. The timeline is close enough, but I do believe if I were to travel through realities again one day and be able to find Alpha - that's what I call the place I came from - that no matter what impact I made on this place, it would not have made a difference on Alpha. This is merely a third reality."

"I presume you sensibly refer to the second reality as Beta," he mused.

"You presume correctly," Hermione laughed. "Do you ever get tired of being so clever?"

"Never," Chelsey scoffed. "Do you?"

"On occasion," she admitted. "These last few years, I've uncovered secrets that never came to light in Alpha, or even in Beta, and being clever enough to learn them is a bittersweet thing. It may paint me a clearer picture of things that I didn't completely understand back then, but it also means grief. Everyone lies, but people rarely lie for the sake of it, you know. They lie to hide from pain, or to protect people they care for from pain. My job now is to make choices for the future, knowing what's coming and the hell it could be, in the hope that those choices don't make things worse. In my effort to save lives and heal hurts, what if I just cause more pain?"

Chelsey looked thoughtful. "I'm lacking context. How about an example?"

She sighed. "Take Minerva and Orion. You know full well that they had an affair, and that little Trian is the result. In Alpha, that affair was hidden, Minerva allowed Orion and Walburga to raise her son, and he grew up never knowing the truth because, we think, she was made to swear an Unbreakable Vow to never tell him. I watched Alpha Minerva grieve for Sirius…"

"I thought the kid was called Trian," Chelsey interrupted.

"Trian is a nickname," Hermione explained patiently. "He's Sirius Orion Black the third."

"Trian is Gaelic for third," the Charms Professor said with a nod. "Go on."

"I watched Alpha Minerva grieve Sirius, not understanding why the loss would have hurt her so deeply," Hermione went on. "As far as I knew, Sirius was just a former student of hers, someone she worked with in the Order - that's their version of the Resistance, which Alpha Albus led - so to see her so heartbroken never made much sense."

"So her boy died then?" Chelsey frowned. "In the war in Alpha?"

She smirked. "Ah, so you haven't gotten it all worked out after all. No, he fell through the Veil of Fates during a battle and ended up in Beta, where I'd end up nine years later. The pair of us then ended up here, in fifty four."

"So you're saying that your husband…" the Ravenclaw muttered. "Well, shite. I imagine he about lost it when Minerva got pregnant then, if he grew up never knowing."

"Understatement," Hermione agreed. "To make matters worse, I have a harmonic bond with Minerva."

Chelsey raised an eyebrow. "Have you two…?"

"Yup," she said, nodding slowly. "Not too long before she got pregnant and we learned she was meant to be Sirius' mother. To say the least, things are a bit awkward at the moment. I'm trying to be a good friend, truly, but she's both my husband's mother and has been my lover."

He frowned. "You're just one big pile of complications, you know that? Oh, speaking of complications, what in Merlin's name possessed you to recruit Dagworth? You do know she's a pain in the arse, right?"

Hermione snorted. "Funny, she's said the same about you. I heard you two dated at one point."

"Worst idea I ever had," he huffed. "She's a menace."

"Ah," she said, smiling brightly, "well then I hate to ruin your evening, but she's a menace I'm related to. She's not only in the Resistance but she's also in my circle of trust, as she is - or will be, anyhow - my great grandmother. I was born Hermione Granger. Her son John - the Squib - is my grandfather."

"Oh bloody hell, you're a Boleyn?" he grumbled. "I very well may have bitten off more than I can chew here."

"Now, now," she said, "I think you'll find that our circle of trust is fairly balanced and you'll find some good companionship. We are in desperate need of some Ravenclaw showing however. Our only representation other than Constance is not even officially a Ravenclaw, as he didn't attend Hogwarts. If he wouldn't have gone to Ravenclaw, I'll eat my boot, however."

Chelsey sighed. "Alright, get me up to speed, Black. Who all is in the fancy circle of trust of yours?"

"Well me and Sirius, obviously," Hermione listed, "Then there's Melok, which should make sense to you given I'm a Mage. Following him we brought in two from outside the Wizarding world - Doctors James Watson and Helen Magnus…"

"Magnus?" Chelsey asked. "I served with an Ashlin Magnus during the war. Good man. Bloody shame he was killed."

"Likely a relative," Hermione admitted. "Helen's father was a Wizard. Anyway, after we brought them on came Cedrella because just like you, she wasn't going to take no for an answer and worked it all out. In that same vein, Aberforth was next. Then came Minerva when she got pregnant. We couldn't not tell her the truth at that point. Constance was just a recent addition. Now you. Those within the Resistance know I'm a Mage, but those are the only ones who know Sirius and I come from another time and place."

"Quite a crew," he commented. "Lots of Slytherins."

"Sirius was a Gryffindor," she smirked, "just as you already know full well I was. James would have sorted to Ravenclaw, I believe. Helen would have, like her father, been a Slytherin. Aberforth and Cedrella, of course you know are Slytherins. Minerva, like Sirius and I, is Gryffindor. Melok would have been a Slytherin or Ravenclaw; it really depends on his mood, honestly, I can't decide. The only thing I'm missing at this point is a Hufflepuff."

"But is that really something missing?" he asked, teasing grin on his face.

"Don't be a prat. I know some wonderful Hufflepuffs," she chastised.

"As do I," he agreed. "I'm just not sure I'd include any of them in planning how to win a war before it even really starts. Speaking of the war, what is it about this Voldemort bloke that has you so on edge? You've been fairly open with intelligence at Resistance meetings, but I can tell there's something you're holding back about him that makes you feel he's such a big threat. Compared to Grindelwald, he just doesn't seem all that much of an issue."

She rubbed her temples. "Well, it's either the fact that I watched him take over the world in totality in Beta, the fact that I was the second of two generations of child soldiers because of him in Alpha, or the fact that I spent what would have been my last year of Hogwarts in the wilderness, while his Death Eaters were hunting me, trying to track down the last of his seven Horcruxes so we could finally kill the bastard. I don't know though, is that a fairly threatening sort of man?"

Chelsey's eyes widened in surprise. "Alright then. I suppose context is everything. Horcruxes, really? How Middle Ages. Those bloody things are packed full of problems."

Hermione stared at her friend, who looked genuinely disappointed that the Dark Lord Voldemort had resorted to using such an archaic, out of date, and problematic bit of magic to secure his power. It was like he felt let down. The Mage couldn't help it. She laughed.

"Dobby," Hermione said softly, calling her faithful House Elf.

Sirius watched from the doorway of the Library as the small creature appeared in moments. "Yes, Mistress?" he asked.

She handed him a book shaped package, and another package of a more generic box shape. "Take these to Helen, will you?" she requested. "It's her birthday tomorrow."

Dobby frowned. "How was Dobby not knowing that?"

"She only celebrates on the decade anymore," Hermione explained, "a tradition that she started at the age of seventy. It's one hundred and ten, now. I won't be able to make it out to Old City for the party, but I did want to send along a gift. Be prepared to be available to help others get to and from her Sanctuary tomorrow, however. I believe James and Minerva were both planning to attend, and Helen will likely need you to transport them both. It's possible Aberforth may be going as well. He didn't mention one way or another."

"Dobby is always being available for Mistress Helen," the House Elf said agreeably. With that, he popped away, leaving her alone. Well, not alone, Sirius mused.

"Why aren't you going to the party?" he asked.

Hermione turned around, jumping a little, clearly not having noticed his arrival. "Melok has a meeting with Gringotts tomorrow evening. I have the boys."

He frowned. "I doubt Helen would care if you brought Filius and Caelum along."

His wife let out a ragged breath. "It's been a long few weeks, Sirius. I'm tired. The idea of popping over to Old City just for a party is one more thing I don't need to add to my schedule, not if I can just enjoy a quiet evening in with my boys. Drop it, alright?"

Sirius put his hands up in surrender. "Alright, fine. It just seems like you're avoiding everyone these days. You're usually thrilled for the chance to see Helen. You haven't seen Watson in at least two months except in passing. Cedrella is convinced you're ill it's been so long since you've been to see her. Minerva's asking me what's wrong with you, so clearly you're avoiding her as well. I asked Abe if he's seen you and he outright said you were avoiding him, although he wouldn't say why. Gods know I haven't seen you for more than five minutes at a time in weeks! Constance says you've been up to the Dagworth Estate a bit, and I know you've spent some time with Keating while mapping the Lupin property. So I'm asking, Hermione. What the hell is going on?"

She looked at him guiltily, and sagged against the wall. "I'm trying to sort out my place in the world, Sirius. It's hard. Things with Minerva are complicated right now. It's fine and dandy that she's able to look at me and forget that she's gone to bed with her son's wife, but I can't. I'm trying to reconcile that. It's not that I harbor romantic feelings for her or anything, but how the hell would you feel if you had married Eileen Prince and then down the road you shagged Severus Snape and then found out Eileen was his Mum? Or if you married Dorea and then shagged James? Or married Margot and then shagged Lily?"

"Oh Gods!" Sirius gaped. "Please stop putting horribly awkward pictures in my mind! I get it! It's fucked up!"

"Yes, it bloody well is!" she snapped. "You are my husband, Sirius, and I love you, but Minerva is one of my dearest friends and more than being a woman I took to bed, she's a woman I have a harmonic bond with. You can't fathom the level of complexity. I can't just say to myself that being with her was poor judgment and that it should never, ever happen again. I can't say that I don't want it to. That's not the nature of a harmonic bond! I bloody crave her, and she's your mother, and how wrong is that?"

Desperate to change the subject, he swallowed and focused on the other people she was avoiding. "Okay, so I understand you avoiding Minerva. What about everyone else?"

Her gaze narrowed. "Things with Melok have been stilted since he ran off for six months, Sirius. If you haven't noticed until now, that's on you. We're still trying to rebuild our relationship. Trust was broken, and we are still rebuilding it. I am admittedly avoiding Cedrella, James, and Helen because they are all perceptive and pushy and I'm not really in the mood to talk about any of this and they will all want me to do just that. Aberforth has a tendency to ask hard questions I'm not in the state of mind to deal with, so yes, I'm also avoiding him. Constance, at present, is a breath of fresh air as I can just be around her. She doesn't push me to talk about things I don't want to talk about. I can just ramble on about Potions theory for two hours if I like, and that's alright. As for Chelsey, a bulk of the time we spend together is in our Animagus forms, so there's not a great deal of talking, and when we do talk, it's about the war, as he's been brought in the loop and I'm catching him up on Alpha and Beta."

Sirius latched onto the last bit. "Keating's in the loop? When the hell did that happen?"

"Three days ago," she admitted. "I just haven't had a chance to say anything."

"Because you're also avoiding me," he accused.

"As you also push me to talk about shite I don't want to talk about," Hermione glared, "yes."

"So sorry for being worried, hun," he said crossly. "It's not like you to shut yourself away, and I promised your Mum I'd look after you."

He watched as his wife winced. "Don't talk about her. Please," she said softly.

Sirius was baffled. More baffled than he'd been at the start of this conversation. "I don't get it, Hermione," he muttered. "Why the hell not?"

"I'm just worried, is all," she said, looking at the floor. "There aren't many people, spanning three realities, that I'm truly terrified of letting down. Mum would be one of the very few and I thank all the Gods she isn't here, to be perfectly honest. Do you remember what happened in Beta when we found Umbridge?"

He nodded. "You locked yourself behind wards for a couple of days."

She shook her head. "That was after, Sirius. I mean what I did to her."

Sirius frowned, remembering his conversation with a pale Severus in the aftermath of that mission.

"What the fuck happened?" he'd asked Severus, after seeing his girlfriend return covered in blood spatter.

"She lost it," his former lover said grimly, face pale. "Umbridge had her wand dropped, clearly prepared to surrender. Then one of the others there begged us not to hurt their Mistress, not unlike you'd see a loyal House Elf do. Hermione asked Umbridge if they were under the Imperius and Umbridge confirmed they were, immediately saying that she'd release them as soon as terms were agreed upon."

"Then what?" Sirius had asked in morbid fascination.

"Then Hermione simply said 'You'll release them now,' and slit Umbridge's throat," Severus went on. "You can't hold the Imperius if you're dead, after all. I can't fault her logic but Umbridge may have had usable intelligence. It was unnecessary brutality, Sirius. She crossed the line."

"You tell her that?" he asked softly.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Severus scoffed. "She's a Mage and she's amped up to the tune of impulsively killing. Only thing I'm telling her right now is 'yes ma'am.' When she cools off, I'll talk to her."

Sirius met his wife's eyes, acutely remembering the fear in Severus' posture. She hadn't even been an awakened Mage back then. "I remember," he said softly. "Severus told me."

"I turned into a monster that day, Sirius," Hermione said plainly. "I crossed a line. Severus was right on that count. The thing is that we were at war and war tends to make men - or women, for that matter - into monsters. You see enough brutality, it happens. Arthur once told me that war doesn't make saints. It can only make sinners. We either lay awake at night praying for the next fight or praying for forgiveness. What we pray for is what defines us, ultimately. The thing I fear, love, is that if I see enough carnage, I may well slip into the category of sinners who only ever pray for the next fight. By then, I'll only be the woman who showed Umbridge no mercy. I'll be the woman Jean McGonagall would be ashamed of."

"What in Merlin's name makes you think you're even leaning that direction?" Sirius asked, deeply concerned.

She sighed. "The Fates have said I must understand the greater good if I'm not to fall to darkness. The problem with this, Sirius, is that the greater good is a slippery slope. When you live in a world of absolutes, and not one of measuring the angles and considering the larger picture and long term implications of each choice, then it's easy to stay on the ethical positive. However, the minute you are ruled by a greater good, you can just as easily serve a greater evil as a greater good, and it's exceedingly difficult to see the difference between the two until long after the choice has been made and consequences have begun to spiral out."

"In other words," he realized, "if you don't heed the Fates and get on board with the greater good, then you'll probably fall to darkness, but if you get on board with the greater good, you're afraid you may fall to darkness anyhow."

"Pretty much," she admitted.

"Well that's shite," Sirius grunted.

She laughed a little, and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I agree."

Constance Dagworth laughed a little as she walked into the Hog's Head, quickly taking note of Aberforth behind the bar and Melok sitting at it, both looking like kicked Kneazles. "Oh bother," she said in greeting. "What has you two in such a funk?"

"What else?" her brother inquired. "Hermione."

"You're going to have to give more detail than that, Abe," she rebuked.

Melok rubbed his temples. "She's avoiding everyone."

"She's not avoiding me," Constance replied. "I do believe she's only avoiding people prone to push her into discussing issues she's not inclined to discuss. If the lot of you would just respect personal boundaries, then perhaps she would only be avoiding a few of you."

"A few of us?" Aberforth inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, I imagine she'd still be avoiding Minerva and Melok all the same," she supposed. "I said I wasn't pushing her to talk, not that I was a blind idiot."

The Goblin slammed his fist into the bar. "I thought we were past this."

Constance looked at him pointedly. "When was the last time you kissed her?"

Melok glared, and to both his and her surprise, Aberforth answered the question. "Beginning of June," the barkeep said. "Or did it happen again since then?"

"How the bloody hell did you know about that?" the Mage expert asked, looking exasperated. "Also, no. I've only seen her in passing since then, and she's pointedly not been alone with me since either."

"You idiots were meeting me, remember?" Aberforth remarked. "Here, at my bar. I got to watch the tail end of the argument and the ensuing snogging."

"Enjoy the show?" Melok sneered.

"Was I meant to interrupt?" her brother countered. "Am I your bloody minder, now? For fuck's sake, Melok, you're both adults, and she's a Mage. You couldn't have paid me enough to get in between the two of you rowing. I already had a concussion from getting in between a perfectly ordinary pair of Wizards rowing that morning. I was not inclined to get between a Mage and a fairly powerful Goblin having a row! Just because you can't keep your hands off a fine piece of…"

"Watch how you talk about her!" Melok said dangerously as he pushed himself up a bit to make himself seem taller.

"Watch how you treat her, you arse!" Aberforth said, leaning forward and glaring.

"That's quite enough!" Constance firmly insisted, one hand on Melok's shoulder to push him down and the other on Aberforth's chest to push him back. "I do believe Hermione is quite capable of defending her own bloody honor! She doesn't need either one of you getting into a duel over it!"

"But he said!" they both began.

Constance slapped both of them upside the head. "I said enough!"

Finally, the pair calmed, each of them rubbing their heads and grumbling about temperamental women. "Sorry," Aberforth mumbled after a pause.

"Sorry," Melok agreed, slouching down and grabbing his drink off the bar, taking a sip.

Well, at least they were back to drowning their sorrows, she mused. She pointed toward her favored brand of Vodka, and her brother pulled the bottle down and poured her a glass. She took a sip before speaking again. "She'll come around, gentlemen. Pushing her will only make this hump last longer."

"It's buggered," Melok said grumpily.

"Buggered," Aberforth concurred, refilling the Goblin's Firewhiskey as well as his own.

Constance let out a sigh, and took another sip of her own drink. "Yes," she mused. "It is rather buggered, isn't it?"

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