Chapter 6. The Veil is a Lie

Beyond.

Neither here nor there. Away. In a different realm—

In a different time.

Beyond.

"Beyond what?" had been Hermione's first question. They were already beyond the Veil—they had gone through, fallen stars travelling past the bridge between life and death.

"I'm not sure," Sirius had reasoned. "Something is off about this place." He had been the one to live there, after all—this was his past, his shack, his friends, his time. "I couldn't tell you what, exactly. But I don't think—I don't think this is the past I was in."

The possibility had been laid out—another dimension, parallel almost, different in colour and smell and taste. They had been over this.

And they had already come to the conclusion that this wasn't it.

It was Sirius, in fact, who had insisted—listing all the ways in which this reality was all too familiar to him, so tangible and realistic it was like living in a memory, wrapped in the covers of the past, tucked in a pocket in Time.

"Beyond…"

Hermione sat at the table. She grabbed the nearest napkin and pulled a pen out of her pocket.

"Almost as if… we're not in Time at all."

She felt his stare from behind, peeling through the layers of her brain, begging to know what she was thinking.

"Almost as if this," she drew a circle on the napkin, "is all a construction. In stasis." She stabbed the napkin in the middle, piercing through its layers with the pen. "Not a moment in Time or a singularity in space, but a chamber of nothingness, reflected only by the echoes of the past—of your past. A mere copy—familiar, but not quite perfect, not—exact."

His hands slipped on the back of her chair, knuckles digging in her shoulders.

"In Limbo," he completed before she could finish.

She whipped her head. "It would make sense, wouldn't it? The Veil is not a barrier between dimensions—it's a physical manifestation between two realms. Life, and death. But neither of us are dead—well, I don't think—and there is something that tethers the two—" She held the napkin between her fingers, letting it dangle in the air. "Limbo."

"I'm the last person who died going through that veil, Hermione. I was brought back for a moment, but—I came back. This is my limbo."

She nodded, averting her gaze from his. "Which means there is only one way for us to confirm this."

"Which is?" The knuckles against her shoulder blades folded, digging deeper, pushing against her bones—that pain was too real for her to be dead—it had to be?

"We'll need to meet those of your past. Face to face," she concluded, a knot forming in her throat.

Everything she had strived to avoid.

Everything she had worked so hard against.

Everything she had fought to prevent, argued her way around—

It was all coming crashing down on her, an inevitability that she had been too proud to see as such, one she had considered herself intelligent enough to escape. Touch nothing, speak to no one, avoid the past at all costs.

"Those of my past? Hermione, after all—"

"I KNOW!" The distorted echo of herself reared its ugly head. "I know. I keep fucking up. Everything I do goes sideways, and every time, I just hurt you more. I'm not the witch everyone wanted me to be—I'm going backwards and switching hypothesises, messing up experiments and spilling potions, I know. I know that, Sirius—and, if you don't trust my judgment anymore, if you want to take that new hypothesis at face value, I won't blame you. I can't blame you. And I won't push. I'm sorry." She breathed out, almost panting, her lungs jerking in her chest in a broken staccato. "I'm so sorry." She collapsed on the table, surrounding her head with her arms, trapping her beating chest into forced tranquillity, moving the shapes of her distorted visions into a semblance of something coherent—if only in appearance. For the time being.

Sirius was a man of many facets. Hermione had caught snippets—glances—of the light-hearted jokester, the proud peacock charming his way through life—she'd encountered, in the flesh, the broken and traumatised man, the repentant sinner willing to sacrifice what little he had to repair the wrongs he was convicted of committing, the martyr crucified for all to see by a traitorous friend. And, in all those pictures she had collected and assembled of him, she had never seen the shadow that lurked beneath, the one that had crossed the line of Death not once, but twice, and said to her:

"If you're wrong, everything collapses. If we meet them and the world shifts, again, then… it'll be on you, Hermione. On your shoulders."

"Yes."

He sat in front of her. "Are you willing to stake everyone else's life for that?"

"I never took you for the cautionary kind," she laughed, a bitter edge to the sound. "Didn't you want to change the past and correct the mistakes that formed the present? I'm giving you what you wanted then. What changed?"

He paused, tapping his fingers on the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.

"I'm wondering why, love."

He looked up at her.

"Why are you pushing? What are you pushing for?"

His fingers passed over an errant crumb—he pinched it and rolled it between his fingers.

"I'm not a fool, love. I've been known to make some inappropriate jokes, and I certainly have taken the road most laughed on more than one occasion, but I was never an idiot. I trust Harry has told you some of the things he's learned from his father's past—from the Marauders' past. I trust you've even seen the map."

She waited, stagnant in fear.

This was the moment she had attempted to avoid from the moment she had brought him back. The question that had burned on his lips since the very beginning.

Why?

She had evaded it, answered with bits and pieces, lied more often than not—and she could keep doing that.

But the look in his eyes told her it was time to be honest.

"You're going to hate me."

Dusk was sweeping the horizons in dulled colours, raining the light of day on the mess Hermione had made of things.

"I could never hate you."

He said it with such softness, such candour, such spontaneity.

"Sirius, you died for Harry. Your choices were not always—not always perfect, but they were always… human. Selfless and self-sacrificing at times, not so much at others, but never with the goal to deceive or to harm."

"I tried to lure Snape to the Shack," he countered, the shadow of a smile at the corner of his lips. "Mind you, I still think the git shouldn't have stuck his nose where it didn't belong. But he didn't deserve that."

"I trapped Rita Skeeter in a jar," she replied, almost absentmindedly, a slip of the tongue. "What? She was a raging bitch to Harry—and to me," she added at the sight of his raised eyebrows. "But I suppose I did take it too far." She watched the sun rise and tried to swallow the knot in her throat. "The point is… as an adult, you've done your best. Which is really all we can hope for, isn't it?"

"From me, you mean?" Was it a joke? "Relax, love, I'm kidding." He rubbed the table. "Keep going."

"It's been a long time since I've done my best. It's been… years, since I've done things because I wanted to do good, to be good." She choked on that word, 'good'—it rang false in her voice, even when she was using it to convey a truth. "The truth is, Sirius, for a few years now, I've had a single goal in mind—and nothing, no one, could deter me from it. Not that—not that any of them knew, really. I was careful to trim the edges of the truth, shred pieces of it and scatter them around." She smiled to herself, remembering the doubt in Harry's eyes every time she returned from the Department of Mysteries, the tipping point at the end of his sentences like he was asking questions, trying to unearth what she had buried deep. "Harry never did buy all my excuses—not completely." She shook her head. "Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that… that goal I was working towards, it wasn't selfless, or good, or even harmless. It wasn't bad and it wasn't evil, but it stood firmly on the edge. It was something not to be trifled with. A risk for all of humanity—and it was a risk I was willing to take for all the wrong reasons."

She rose from her chair and walked to the cabinets, rummaging through them for a clean mug. Sirius' gaze had followed her, but he didn't dare interrupt—he was, after all, about to find out the truth.

"This was something so grand, so earth-shattering that I went through the Unspeakable programme. And every time I felt like it was too much, every time I even thought of flunking out, that goal kept me tethered—focused, grounded, sane. So I kept going. I finished the programme, and I reached the final destination, the one where everything I intended to do was now within reach. Do you know what that destination was?" she asked, turning towards him, leaning back against the counter, her hands holding on for dear life—she was slipping. Slipping away.

"The Veil," said Sirius without speaking a beat.

"The Veil," nodded Hermione. "That bloody Veil," Ron's voice accidentally poured out of her, as if to shield her from the oncoming drowning of the spill she was about to unleash. "The bane of my existence. The door to my nightmares. The destination. All—to resurrect you."

"Why?"

"Don't you know already?"

Hermione had forgotten the most fundamental rule, the one that underlined all her scientific pursuits—the rule of perspective. She had dispensed so many carefully crafted lies, while always keep the truth firmly within reach, tucked in the pockets of her mind, that she had forgotten how different the world she knew in its entirety appeared to those she only showed sides of it to. And to Sirius, she had given nothing but crumbs—disorienting, often incoherent and scattered, crumbs.

It had made sense when she had kissed him.

To her.

He probably thought she was crazy.

And so, while he was sitting here, listening to her tale of endlessly pursuing a goal, imagining the reason behind it to appear evident, she had forgotten how much she had spun tall tales and taller lies, how little he really knew.

The truth was going to be her downfall—was always meant to be.

Not because of its nature, but because of the sheer complexity of the web she had woven around to hide it in plain sight. A web she was about to unravel into consequences she couldn't possibly foresee.

"Because I—I—I—I—"

She stumbled and fell—but no, not this time.

This time, she would pick herself up, dust herself off—

"Because I've always—I've always—have you never noticed?" She turned away. She couldn't possibly look at him right now. There was a limit to what she could withstand. "The way I looked at you at headquarters. The way I lingered…" She paused, pushing her palms against the edge of the counter, watching as her flesh turned yellow under the pressure. "No, of course you wouldn't have noticed. And I can't say I blame you! A fifteen, nearly sixteen-year-old girl, hanging at your every word, it's not—healthy, normal, to notice. And you had Harry—we all had Harry to think of. But since we're here… I was so—so—fascinated by you. And yes, yes, I did tell Harry you were too impulsive, I warned him against you, not because I didn't trust you, but because—well, you know. And also because I just—" She turned on her heel, finding the courage to face him again. "I was jealous. It's a stupid feeling, even for a teenage girl. Not that I ever was a regular teenage girl, but I was still prone to the same idiotic feelings and over-the-top reactions. So you see, the girl is fascinated. Maybe a little obsessed. The girl has a crush. But what of the woman? Has the woman outgrown those feelings? She should have. She must have. The woman is older now—wiser, probably not—but then again, who is at age twenty-two? You'd think, at least, that she'd be rid of those hormones running wild and playing fast and loose with her fragile emotions—but war does a funny thing to a child's brain. It stops it from growing. You would know." She sat back down, tying her hands in knots in front of her. "So the woman, not much of a woman that she is, finds herself at the precipice of something. She hasn't left her childish desires behind, nor has she recovered from the atrocities of the world. She shuns her path, the one drawn for her, and she turns to something else—something new. A new path. She forges it with the only thing she's holding on to—that crush from her school days, that crush that feels like it may have been the realest thing, the most human thing she has truly experienced. The friendships are tainted with blood and tears, and the family—well, there is no family anymore, is there? There is only the woman, the desire, and the path." She pressed her lips together. "That would make a terrible joke."

Sirius didn't laugh—but she knew he wanted to.

She knew he would have, if he wasn't scared of interrupting her endless stream of consciousness, the truth finally spilling from her lips.

And, truth be told, she knew him to be terrified by what she was about to say next.

"The path is long and dangerous and riddled with obstacles. It's no easier a path than the hundreds she has taken before, but this one, she's walking alone. She thinks to herself that no one would be upset with her for giving up and picking up a new one—she has earned it, after all. She's a war heroine! But she doesn't give up, because, well, the desire is at the end of the road—and no matter what they say about the journey over the destination, the journey really does nothing for her. She would rid herself of it altogether if it weren't for the destination. She keeps walking, and at no point does she sit down and think: 'This is a terrible idea! You're insane!' No. Because this woman has already sacrificed everything for the war. Even her parents. And for once, she's allowed to have something all to herself. It doesn't matter that it was Harry's first—in fact, she'll fool herself into thinking that, really, it's all for him. At least, it's a good excuse on paper once her mystifying deed comes to light. She fools herself, again, when she succeeds—only to fail almost immediately and fall through the Veil herself, with the man she has just resurrected. It's almost too convenient—like a joke! There, she trips, that's the punchline." She looked down at her hands, almost like she was coming to terms with what they had done. What they were capable of. And she sighed. "But in real life, the joke doesn't end at the punchline. She has to come face to face with the fact that the man was happy to be dead—he had wanted what he'd looked for all along: the knowledge that his godson, the child he was certain he had been unable to protect, was safe and sound and happy. She should stop there—say 'this is over, I will ensure you get eternal peace and put an end to this madness.' But she doesn't—because it was never about Harry, it was always about her. She pushes on. And every step of the way, every single moment since that fall, the woman continues to act with that madness wrapped around her throat, juggling mad ideas in her brain. She rebuffs the idea of changing the past, then does so accidentally—or not so much so—anyway. She then begrudgingly accepts to change the past, but all under the cover of disguises, with a strict routine and an even stricter process—but even that, she disrupts. And so—so she loses the last bits of her mind. Finds a loophole that would excuse any impulsive decision-making, tells him 'yes, let's go meet your friends, let's do that'—maybe because she does really think that this is Limbo, but also because, in the end, she's ready to give him everything. Everything he wants, no matter what price there is to pay at the end of the tunnel. Because everything she has done, she has done for him." She slid down, her back against the lower cabinets, finally shedding the last pieces of her truth from her heart. "Everything I've done, I've done for you."

The silence in the kitchen weighed a thousand tons—it pressed down on Hermione's shoulders, sinking her below the cool tiles of the kitchen floor. She stared up at him while he was turned away from her, the picture-perfect representation of the rebuffed lover and the object of her affections.

And, had Hermione not lost herself to the meanderings of her broken heart, maybe she would have left it at that. Maybe. But she'd gone too far now, said too much, laid it on too thick—and she thought she at least deserved a response. Even a cruel one. Especially a cruel one.

Which is why she didn't walk to him—she crawled, the feeling of denim sliding over grout keeping her grounded, the movement of her curves almost animal in its brusqueness, the tears sliding down her cheeks a fountain of lost dreams. She crawled and she pressed joined hands into his thigh, the sinner begging for something, maybe not forgiveness but at least the semblance of understanding, the gentle touch of appreciation, or even the slap of punishment. Something—anything.

"Sirius, please talk to me," she cried into his lap, her knees wobbling on the cold floor, threatening to collapse.

A hand roamed above her hair before knotting itself in it, holding on to her—gently, not pulling, not hurting.

"It's okay, Hermione. It's okay." He shushed her as his hand dug itself deeper within her curls. "It's alright, love."

"It's not," she protested, sniffling and sobbing. Like a child.

His hand snaked from her hair to her face, sliding beneath her chin and raising her head so she could look up at him.

"It's not wrong to go after what you want, Hermione. It's not wrong to—it's not wrong to want." And though his words acted as affirmations, Hermione could sense he wasn't all there—still in shock, reeling from the downpour of confessions she'd imposed on him.

"You should be angry," she said after a moment. "You should be mad."

He looked down, a frown on his face. "Mad? Why would I be mad?"

Then, he reached for her arm and pulled her up—easily, almost as if she weighed nothing—and had her face him. "I was dead, and you resurrected me. You dedicated years of your life to do it—and, yes, it didn't all go as planned. Everything's bonkers right now. But—I could never be mad."

"You should," she insisted. "It wasn't for the right reasons!"

"So what? It was a loving gesture." He paused and rubbed her shoulder. "I don't think I could ever give you what you really want, love. But I'm grateful. You're—something special, Hermione Granger."

He was softening the blow.

That's why he wasn't upset—

She was insane and powerful and he understood it. He was letting her down gently, cushioning the fall.

He'd been so eager to kiss her back, just the night before. He'd worried and paced back and forth, and he'd been so upset—she had been so close, so close to finally reaching the destination.

But he knew now—he knew she was obsessive and insane and off her rocker and every shade of unwell.

And then—she remembered something.

"Why did you change your mind?" The question escaped her lips in a single breath.

He was withholding something from her.

"About what?"

"About changing the past—about going head-to-head with the ghosts of your past." She swept the floor with her gaze, trying to cobble together the bits and pieces of her memory into a coherent narrative, into something she could mould and phrase and make sense of. "You asked me if I was willing to stake everyone's life on a hypothesis."

His eyes brewed a storm, a medley of grey clouds dancing in his irises.

"Isn't it obvious?" He was mirroring her words from earlier, mirroring their entire conversation, mirroring her own doubts back to her.

Why?

"It's anything but," she quipped in return.

He smiled.

"You're a bright girl, love. You'll get it soon enough." He rose from his chair. "In the meantime, we should get some sleep. We'll need to be rested if we're going toe-to-toe with the demons of my past," he said, walking away from her.

"Don't you walk away from me, Sirius Black!" she shouted. "Don't you dare."

"Or what, love?" He was smiling—one of those full smiles that stretched from ear to ear, that lit up a galaxy and left her with wobbly knees and a pounding heart.

He was playing at something—no dog would leave a bone untouched, not unless it had a good reason to.

She ignored his question. "I kissed you and you kissed me back." She stared up at him. "Did you mean it?"

There it was again—the storm. "You took me by surprise."

"But did you mean it?" She walked forward, taking root right below his nose, forcing him to let it out.

"Of course I meant it. I thought we were—fuck, I don't know!" He threw his hands up in the air. "I thought we were—if I'd known you'd harboured—Hermione, I can be the man you like for a minute, not the man you pine after for years! I can be the fling, the self-loathing lover, but not whatever it is you expect from me." He looked back at her. "That kiss might as well have been a million years ago."

It hurt.

"You changed your mind because you thought we were heading somewhere together. You didn't want to risk it. But now that you've seen me, really seen me, it's not worth the headache anymore. Back to plan A." She said it to herself, really. It was all making sense, finally—the pieces of the puzzle working together, creating the final picture.

The guilt on his face was unmistakeable.

And, as if it had been summoned, the echo returned. "Now's the right time to tell him, don't you think?" she cackled, a hand on Hermione's shoulder.

For the first time, Hermione listened—she listened to the distortion telling her to do the wrong thing, no longer able to refuse its call for darkness.

She smiled. "You know, I guess I need to add something else to my confession. Since it doesn't matter anymore, anyway. Yesterday, when I disappeared, I was with you."

"With me?"

"With you twenty-two years ago. And he didn't just kiss me. He got me good and wet, too—that Sirius took a risk. Maybe I'm not the picture-perfect Hermione you drummed up in your head before finding out that I, too, can be fucked up and obsessive, just like anyone else—and maybe I deserve you shunning me for it. But I thought you should know—he certainly took a liking to that slightly insane, but entirely real, version of me."

Her heart was pounding in her chest.

Thump, I shouldn't have done that, thump, that was reckless, thump, but so exhilarating, thump, is he jealous?, thump, will I finally know?

"And he treated you well?"

"He did." She kept herself from smirking.

"Good. Because I won't."

He crashed down on her, the storm finally breaking past the barriers of his irises and raining down on her, wet lips devouring her—

Finally.