A/N: I'm back, after a hiatus for the Harmony discord advent event. More regular updates should follow from here. If you haven't had enough of me by end of the chapter, go check out my drabble collection for the event, I'm pretty proud of the way a lot of them turned out.
Some suggested listening to set a mood - Precinct 41 Major Crime Unit, from the Disco Elysium OST by Sea Power.
Harry knows it can't be Hermione. The sun is out and even through the thick storm clouds there is more than enough light to turn her into dust. Even if she had died during the night her body, if exposed to sunlight, would just … float away on the wind, like ashes-to-ashes. Dust-to-dust.
It would not lie sadly on the beach to be found.
Knowing that does not stop him from making his way as fast as humanly possible to the northern beach. It becomes pretty apparent where he needs to be heading, because of the small crowd of people and a yellow tent on the otherwise deserted beach. Only a small crowd, no doubt, because of the still atrocious weather. His line of sight is unimpeded by the flat landscape, so even though he sees them it still takes a considerable time to reach them.
The waves and surf are still throwing sea water surprisingly far up the beach, if this is low tide during the storm he does not want to be anywhere near here when the tides come in. He can see the damage the water has done to the low-lying grasslands, the waterlogged ground sucking at his boosts as he strides.
Wind whipping across his face, he stops on the grass outcropping at the head of the beach. It is a short drop onto the surprising white sands. He had not expected sand this beautiful this far north, though the effect is spoiled somewhat by the dismal weather. His overcoat blows out behind him, caught in the relentless wind. The crowd as far as he can tell is entirely muggle, dressed in the sensible and hardy clothes of the islanders.
A stocky man in the uniform of the muggle police, though well bundled up even by islander standards, stood outside the tent flap. He wore a knit hat, with long flaps to cover the ears, that was almost certainly not regulation. The crowd were clustered several metres back. He could not call it a respectful distance, considering their curious stares, but it was at least a separation.
Hopping down the ledge, the wet sand squelching under his boots, he fished around in his pocket for his badge of identification. It was official, and muggle police were taught to recognise it and cooperate, but he had argued that they ought to have warrant cards too, the same as the muggles. Although Amelia Bones (who was in charge of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement) was sympathetic to the idea there was no further political will to change the system. It did sometimes make interacting with the muggle police difficult and was classic of the British approach to authority.
That hodge podge of agreements and compromises made and then only haphazardly recorded, built up over 800 years of continued ruling, was an approach to government inherited from the Middle Ages and preserved by the old-boys network and the convenience of not having a written constitution. And as true as it was for the muggle government it was even more so for the magical one. Harry was of the opinion that the Aurors ought to be more closely observed, ought to be more transparent, more accountable, and part of that was adequate methods of identification, beyond 'oh, everyone knows who the Auror's are'.
His colleagues largely disagreed. His attempts to modernise the Aurors (which had never gone far, because he was just a pair of boots on the ground, just a regular Auror) had not made him popular with his colleagues. The only success he had enjoyed had been to convince Director Bones of the value of data. His punishment for this success had been to take charge of the records room, which had been in complete disarray. It had taken him a few years, but it was indisputable that his improved system and use of data had produced results. Eventually he had convinced them a small civilian staff to maintain it was a good idea, but it had also solidified his colleague's contempt for his methods.
Down here on the beach, it is much colder than he had been anticipating. Though there was no noticeable difference in the weather, or in the lack of cover from it, here the cold penetrated his warming charm, overcoat, and clothes with ease. It seeped deep into his bones and was almost physically painful.
Approaching the policeman, he brandished his badge. This would completely blow the cover story he gave to Alastair back at the guest house, but then again, it's not like his presence was unknown. Someone had lured him and Hermione here, and then thrown up the wards to trap them, so it was unlikely he was going under the radar at this point. "Good afternoon, Officer," he said, introducing himself while converting his Auror rank into muggle terms, "I'm Detective Inspector Potter, Special Branch."
"Good afternoon, Sir. Sergeant Douglas Collins. Your colleague has already assumed control of the scene and is inside." Their breath misted violently in the air as they spoke.
Harry blinked, his colleague? Dawlish?
"Right," he said, trying not to show his surprise, "excellent. Can you quickly bring me up to speed?"
"Not much to say, Sir. I took the call personally this morning, Constables Iain Brown and Helen Wilson are taking the witness statements back at the station." He paused for a second, "It's technically Helen's day off, but we called her in." It took Harry a second to realise that the entire police force of the island must consist of Douglas, Iain, and Helen.
Harry pulled out a notebook from his pocket and began to write down the details as relayed to him. His freezing fingers struggled to hold the pen. Two locals, who lived nearby, had come down late-morning to assess the damage to beach following the high tide and night of storms. They had found her buffeted by the shallow surf that had deposited her onto the sand and then retreated with the tide. According to Collins they had been pretty shaken up, largely due to the condition of the body.
They had decided that, from the clothing, the body was most likely female and not an islander.
The flap of the tent parted, and Harry turned, a greeting for Dawlish and a complaint about the cold on his lips.
It died when he saw the pink haired woman who stepped out.
Thankfully (or not, considering), he got a glimpse inside the scene tent. The body was … desiccated. Despite having clearly been in the water, evidenced by the waterlogged women's clothing, the body itself appeared to be little more than a husk. Her skin was taught and papery, her arms and legs curled in on herself, in a foetal position. She looked as if she had been dried out, half-way to mummified. Her hair had fallen out, and the clothing was professional but nondescript. Smart trousers, blouse, and a blazer.
Worst of all was the momentary flash, before the tent flap closed, in which he saw her eyes.
Or the lack of them. Her eye sockets were just dark, yawning holes in her skull.
The part of him that watches himself is desperate for his attention. Desperate for him to listen. There's a sound in his ears, something quiet and far away … is it … screaming?
Tonks looked at him and blinked, "Harry," she said, "Wasn't expecting to see you."
Sergeant Collins looked at the pair of them oddly, though neither of his companions appear to hear or react to the faint shouting. It's like a buzz, like the drone of a fly, just on the edge of hearing …only no insect he knows of screams as it flies.
Someone once told him hearing voices no one else can wasn't a good sign, so he doesn't mention it. They were right then, and right now. Perhaps it's just a lack of sleep? Are his dreams seeping through into his waking mind now?
"Sergeant Collins, please arrange for the scene to be processed and the body moved somewhere safe."
"Erm, don't we usually wait for forensics?" His confused, red face wrinkled and then went slack as she surreptitiously cast a quick charm. "Right you are, Ma'am." Collins busied himself with the radio attached to his stab vest, arranging for the collection of the body.
"Walk with me, Harry?" She said, as she began to walk off. She was dressed a great deal more muted than usual, hair notwithstanding, wearing her Auror overcoat for once over trousers and an admittedly quite loud sweater. Tonks was normally vibrant, and only just on the right side of acceptably dressed for Robards. The Aurors don't have a uniform policy, but there are some expected standards. Whatever she was here for it was clearly important enough (or she expected enough scrutiny) for her to make the effort to tone it down.
He remembers Dawlish taking him aside in this first real week on the job, fresh from the Academy, and having a word with him. Dawlish had waxed lyrical about the importance of uniform, the importance of presenting a united front, the importance of being part of a team. About how an Auror, properly dressed, could defuse a situation without even having to reach for a wand. Later that week he had seen him walk into a shop in Diagon Alley, called to an altercation, and the two ridiculous fighting adults had stopped, sheepishly, as he stood in front of them tapping his foot.
Tonks was on the opposite end of the spectrum. She would walk into a room and be best friends with even the hardest, meanest son of a bitch in there in under 5 minutes flat. She would know their names, their mothers' names, their home address, and probably swap Christmas cards with them.
Neither approach was something Moody, the grizzled, old, retired Auror who oversaw the training at the Academy, had covered. He was very much a practical trainer, a product of his time. Moody had spent most of his professional life more of a solider than a detective and it showed in the way he ran the Academy. It left a lot of the actual on-the-job training to your mentor, and it was luck of the draw who you got. Dawlish had been good, but he'd hate to have had Williamson, who basically abandoned the new recruits given to him. Still better than Savage, who taught them things that seemed only a shade short of being corrupt.
He frowns, "You shouldn't really interfere with their processes like that. It's just making work for the Oblivator who has to clean up after, and it undermines our relationship with the muggles."
She snorts, "There won't be any clean up after. We're taking this one over entirely. Whatever happened to her isn't natural, so it's out of their jurisdiction. Memory charms for all the witnesses, I think. Put out some made up story about the body being historical and everyone else will lose interest."
They walked in silence a little way further down the beach, as Harry turned the situation over in his mind, "What happened to her? And how come you're here, Tonks? Are you Dawlish's back up? How'd you get here with the ward up?"
Her pink eyebrows rose in surprise, "Dawlish? Have you seen him?"
"Yeah, he's hiding out on the island. Said he called in for back-up, but no one responded." Harry tries to rub his hands together to generate some heat, but it is sapped away as quickly as he makes it. He'd layer on a few more warming charms if he could but can't in front of the muggles.
"Hmm." She puts one hand on her hip, looking pensive. "We never got the message. They sent me this way when he missed his check in, but I haven't stumbled over him yet. I arrived the day before the ward went up, and now we're stuck here. Plus, I should ask the same of you, Harry – what are you doing here?" She narrowed her eyes, "And more importantly, what are you doing here on leave sticking your nose into a case?"
He shrugs, "Heard about the body from the hotelier. Couldn't exactly stand by and do nothing."
"Look," she says, not unkindly … but not exactly kindly either, "You might be some kind of super detective, with you gunning for Dawlish's most cases solved record, but you tell us this shit often enough. You can't go getting involved in cases when you're signed off. If Robards found out you were working someone else's case on your own time his head would hit the roof and keep going."
He bristled slightly, partially because of the implication that he considered himself a better detective than his colleagues but mostly because of the accusation he was doing something wrong by trying to help. The worst of it was that he couldn't even deny it, not on either count.
He hardly thought of himself as the best detective in the team, but a lot of the other Aurors couldn't put a case together with both hands and a map, or wouldn't care to even if they could. Some of them only cared that a justice was delivered and didn't give a toss if it was the right justice. The truth. This was one of the areas he and Dawlish agreed upon, at least. Catching the right criminal for the right crime mattered to them, indeed it was a rock-bottom basic requirement, unlike Aurors like Proudfoot or Savage. As long they made enough collars or handed out enough fines to look like they were working they were happy to tick over, completely uninterested in anything but their own cushy jobs. There were good people in the Auror office, in Harry's opinion, but there were an awful lot of useless pricks too. And a few rotten apples too.
Harry couldn't even argue with the implication he was interfering – if this was his case and Tonks had waltzed up while on leave and started interviewing his muggle colleagues, and potentially gearing up to enter a crime scene, he would have had a word with her too. It made him quite a hypocrite, because he was always the one insisting that they did things properly. Insisted that evidence was gathered, preserved, and presented, and yet here he was potentially tainting it by getting involved.
As usual, knowing he was in the wrong didn't help him make friends. "Merlin Tonks, just trying to help." Even Dawlish hadn't had a go at him for offering support, but then Dawlish enforced the rules as written and Harry's suggestions for a better Auror office weren't official policy. Trust them to send Tonks, one of the few Aurors who conceded he might have a point and sometimes even listened to his suggestions.
"Don't shoot the messenger," she says, tight lipped.
"Listen," he says, in a conciliatory tone, "Do you know anything about Barty Crouch's party?"
"Why?" She says suspiciously, "If it's case relevant then you shouldn't be asking."
He casts his gaze around the beach, carefully but faux casually not looking her in the eye, "It's got nothing to do with your mystery body, Tonks. I'm just curious." It wasn't exactly untrue – he didn't have any evidence linking the dead woman to Barty's gathering or to Dawlish's case, so he wasn't technically lying.
She doesn't say anything at first, and he can hear that slight screaming, just at the edge of hearing. He had almost forgotten about it, subsumed into the background noise of the wind and the sea, while they talked. It fades again into the periphery as she finally speaks up, "It's some kind of off-the-record conference. Apparently, he does it every year, though they keep it quiet and never at his house here before, I don't think. It's in the 'spirit of international co-operation' and everything. Supposed to be about continued rebuilding after You-Know-Who, getting people working together across Europe to stop it happening again."
It was a good idea, Harry thought with surprise. Co-operation between the various magical governments was almost non-existent, at least in terms of law enforcement. Everyone set in pre-WW1 mentalities, where maintaining your borders and sovereignty was more important than safety and peace. Wizards were notoriously slow to learn the lessons their muggles counterparts had (though Merlin knew there had been worrying back sliding there too, in Harry's view, in recent times).
"Are we doing security for it?" Harry asks, not remembering anything about it in the most recent briefings he attended.
She glares at him, "No, I don't think so. Probably hired on private security. Careful Harry, Chief Robards will try, and almost certainly succeed, in getting you fired if you disrupt an international conference, you know that, right? I know you've got Director Bones's support, but even she'll have to do something if you ruin another department's big event."
He 'hmms' noncommittally, and Tonks rolls her eyes, before she says, "If you see Dawlish again, tell him I'm looking for him, alright? I need to get back to the scene, catch you later. In town. Away from any cases."
"Yeah, yeah," he says, rubbing the back of his head. "Listen, you change your mind, or need back up I'll be around. Not like I can go anywhere with this ward or the storm anyway."
They part ways, with him taking a mental inventory of everything that had happened in the last few days - mystery letters (sent by someone with the resources to track down Hermione), an unknown body on the beach in mysterious condition, a missing unspeakable, an international conference and a sprung trap.
But a slow trap. They were stuck here, but what for? Did they need them here for something? Or did they need them to not be elsewhere? Or was this the equivalent of being locked to the steering wheel of a car and dumped into a lake? Were they just waiting for the water level to rise?
To say nothing of the second vampire on the island, who had casually issued him a death threat. How did she fit into things?
He was still mulling things over when he arrived back in town, hungry and soaked (he would dearly have loved to use a water repelling charm, but not even the most distracted of muggles would ignore his being dry in this weather). He had been so deep in thought he had not even noticed the change in temperature – at some point, the piercing chill had disappeared. The quiet screaming had ceased. Scowling, worried he was losing it, he chose literally the closest open pub, charged through the doors, shook off his overcoat which he slung over an arm, and trudged to the bar.
Thew pub was kind of dark inside, and the voices inside were low. It was traditionally decorated with a large wooden bar, the booths, the sticky floor and the annoying flashing and pinging of the gambling machines. Casting his gaze over the taps, he thought lovingly of ordering a pint of bitter. Or even a lager. Instead, he asked the barman for orange juice and a food menu.
"Cook's finished until later. We start serving again at six. I can microwave a toastie if you want? Best I can do." Harry grumbles a yes and goes to sit in the darkened corner of a booth. The toastie, when it arrives, is cheese and tomato with a wilted, damp salad on the side. He picks at it listlessly, imagining that the orange juice has something stronger in it.
Doing his best to non-alcoholically drown his sorrows, waiting for nightfall, a clearly magical pair enter and somehow make a mess of ordering drinks by struggling with the muggle money. They wind up in a booth near his, and their voices carry.
"So, how's it going with Johnson?" One asks, casually.
"Fine. You know how it is. They come in with their big ideas, which we patiently explain won't work, and then they shout about it until you do it anyway–"
"And then they leave before it's fully implemented," the other one interrupts in shared commiseration, "and it all falls apart when the next one comes in and the cycle repeats. But they don't care, because by then they're already running another department."
"Exactly. Still, could be worse. I wouldn't want to be part of the French delegation… their new one looks worse tempered than the last one."
"Hah. Yeah, on the one hand it's sucks that we do all the hard work at the office, and at the conference, and then our Under Secretaries get to swan off to the big, fancy cocktail party tonight and leave us behind …but on a much larger hand, I'm relieved not to have to mix with Ambassador Hernandez or Secretary Laurent socially. Or Crouch. Have you noticed he's gotten kind of … weird, the last few years?"
"Yeah. I'm genuinely surprised they haven't given him the push, honestly. Zones out in meetings, makes strange decisions sometimes, doesn't seem to remember conversations you had with him recently… I'm sure once the next scandal hits they'll offer him up to the media as a scapegoat. I can't see why Fudge would keep him around, otherwise."
Filing away that information for later, Harry listens to the rest of their conversation, but it doesn't seem to be anything more than idle gossip, or baseless speculation about the next election cycle. Harry hasn't interacted much with Barty Crouch, but he's heard the rumours that he's been off his game in recent years. Cocktail party tonight is also useful to know, should their ward hunting fall through, and he's left with no choice but to follow up on Dawlish's lead. He wishes John had told him why he was hiding instead of making contact with Barty himself.
As the sun goes down, he puts that all out of his mind. All being well, they'll find the wards and be out of here before sun rises. His stomach twists at the thought. Now he knows she's not a conscienceless monster putting an end to her isn't an option he wants to contemplate, and after the conversation last night it seemed impossible they could pick up where they left off as teenagers.
Could they be friends, though, somehow? Pen pals? Could he manage that? Could she?
Getting up from the booth, he stretches, working out the stiffness in his arms and legs that has set in. Thinking of Hermione has brought a thought to mind, and he silently conjures a thermos flash under the table before returning to the bar. This time he orders a large tea, with a little milk, and grabs enough sugar to cause pre-emptive toothache just looking at it. He pours it into the flask and secures the lid, before stashing it in his bag.
The trip back to the abandoned church is now so familiar to him that he doesn't even concentrate on it. Instead, he's thinking about what could possibly connect Dr. Moreau with Barty Crouch …and he's also beginning to consider whether Barty is going to be a reliable source. The strange way he led Dawlish here and his weird behaviour cast doubt on whether he's got anything to do with Unspeakable Moreau's disappearance. He's in International Co-operation anyway, what does that have to do with the Department of Mysteries? But then again, Dawlish isn't a fool – he clearly thought there was something to it.
His thoughts chase each other in similar circles the entire journey.
She is already waiting for him inside, studying the data from her own diagnostic charms. He watches her for a moment, stood amidst the ruins of the church, it's crumbling, wet plaster and graffitied walls. He is struck again by how young she looks and is filled with an overpowering and ridiculous desire to protect her. His little inner watchman reasonably asks, protect her from what? She is probably more dangerous than he is. She doesn't need protecting. Not by him.
Clearing her throat, she looks up at him. He feels himself warm, with embarrassment and anger, knowing that she's caught him starting. With her enhanced senses, there's not much chance she missed it.
"Evening," he says.
"Hi." The diagnostics are forgotten for a second, as they stand there awkwardly.
Holding his wand out, he says, "Want to complete the set?" She takes his proffered readings and needs only a moment to examine the full set before declaring her results.
"Looks like it's coming from a point in this direction", she gestures inland, "and extends a considerable distance out to sea and up into the sky. Whoever put this up really didn't want people leaving."
They set off into the night, dusk not long settled, carefully making their way in the direction the readings have pointed. They walk in a tense silence, Harry scanning the horizon for movement. He doesn't want to be caught unawares by whatever is lurking out there, be it wizard, witch, vampire, mystery letter writer, or whatever it is that mummifies corpses and steals their eyes.
After a few minutes, she breaks the silence, "Can … can I ask you a question?"
"Sure," he replies, curious.
Her face is drawn, "What did they tell my parents?"
Uncomfortable, he says "Nothing. They're muggles and as far as the ministry is concerned it doesn't need to bother notifying them of anything. Dumbledore would have, but obviously he wasn't in any position to. McGonagall would have done it, but … we begged her to let us."
He looks up at the stormy sky, which accurately reflects his tumultuous feelings about this recollection. "We shouldn't have … and she shouldn't have let us. There's a reason muggles train people to deliver that kind of news. But … Ron and I, we wanted to. You were the missing part of us and we felt like we owed it to you. The last thing we could do for you, in a way."
She is silent, letting him continue. "There was obviously no body, and we didn't want to upset them any more than we had to, so we lied. We told them there had been an accident, and that you had died. Saving other students, so that part was true at least."
Their boots squelch in the mud as they walk.
"What … what did they say? How did they take it?"
"Do you want the truth?" he says, the pain of the memory is something he'd rather overwrite if he could, "or do you want to hear something comforting?"
She laughs, but he can hear her crying too, "Comfort, please."
Taking in a deep breath, he says, "Not well. It hurt them, and they struggled, for a long time. But they learned to cope, and though they never stopped loving you or thinking about you they found a way to deal with it, together."
"And now the truth." Her voice is flat, determined, but falsely emotionless. Her face betrays her feelings.
He pauses, hating to think about it, but she asked … "It broke them, Hermione. Completely and utterly. They blamed us, Ron and me. The magical world as a whole. They were hurting so badly … everything just fell apart for them. Even their relationship for a time. They sort of reconciled a few years later, but I get the impression things are fragile." She inhales, sharply.
Not for the first time, Harry wishes he had got to know them before this thing had ruined their lives. "Ron never saw them again, I don't think, but I still see your dad sometimes. We go for a drink together, when he can't stand to be in the house you used to live in together, or on significant dates. Your birthday, mostly. I think he and your mum don't handle it in the same way so he likes to get away. He likes to hear about your school days, about your successes, about things you loved … makes him feel a little bit like he didn't miss it …"
He nearly doesn't admit the next bit, but what has he got to lose? "And I like to hear him talk about you as a kid. Like we're keeping you alive in the retelling, somehow. He doesn't blame me anymore … but your mum sure does. She threw me out the house the last time I was there."
They both avoided each other's gaze, not wanting to show the other how upset they were. They walk the rest of the way in silence. Eventually her wand signals they have reached the source of the ward, and then they are all business. They search around in the grass and undergrowth, turning over rocks, but can't find anything suspicious.
She suggests they widen their search area, so they begin to spiral out from the central point, ensuring they cover ever possible inch of ground. When they cross it, he almost misses it; too focused on looking for runes, but thankfully his trusty eyes don't fail him.
"Look," he says, pointing to the gouge marks in the soil.
She considers it, looking in the direction the trail leads, "Hmm. They probably carved it over there where the track starts …"
"And then they pushed it into the hole through the rock over there," he finishes the thought for her.
They approach the gaping hole in the island. Leaning over the edge, it looks like a small cave. He can hear the sound of water crashing against stone from inside. There must be another hole further inside.
Wand in hand, he covers her as she descends and then they switch roles.
The cave goes deeper, opening into a small natural cavern … the floor of which is scraped and marked by the passage of some great boulder, dragged along. Following the trail, it leads straight to another hole. This one leads straight down, going all the way.
"Guess we know where the ward is then," she says, checking her wand. They are almost on top of it again. No wonder they couldn't find it at the source point above – it was under the island, submerged in a sea water tunnel.
Harry looked down at the raging seas, the frothing and churning waters violently assaulting the jagged black rock at the bottom of the pit. Plumes of water would periodically leap up, when the standing waves of water synced up, throwing salt and seaweed up the darkened hole. Thinking about diving in there made him feel slightly nauseous, but there wasn't really any alternative. If the ward was down there somewhere, then they needed to follow it. Flotsam, jetsam and other detritus dance on the water, relentlessly crashing from one side to the next.
"Suppose we're going in then," he says.
Hermione shook her head vehemently, "Are you mad? You wouldn't last a minute down there."
"Well, what do you suggest then?" He growls in frustration, still tried, still hungry, still struggling to be in her presence and not be with her in any meaningful sense.
"I'll do it," and when he looks at her askance, she logically explains "I heal infinitely faster than you, and with my strength and speed I bet I'm ten times the swimmer you are. Plus, the cold isn't going to kill me as quick as it will you."
When he still looks worried, she waves a hand in front of his face, "Hello, earth to Harry, I'm a vampire, remember? I don't need to breathe for Merlin's sake. This is a job made for me."
Reluctantly, he agrees.
She starts to pull her sweater over her head, and he begins to look away, but his eyes catch on the way her back arches and her arms flex. She throws it on the ground and starts to undo the catches on the dungaree straps as she solidly meets his eyes.
Ashamed, he looks away again but hears her laugh softly "Embarrassed, Harry? It's nothing you haven't seen before."
He hears one clasp unlatch and is unable to stop himself looking back. The other quickly follows, and soon the denim garment joins the sweater on the rocky floor. He feels like a teenager again, staring at the shape of her, a familiar flame lighting inside him as his eyes longingly trace the contour of her legs. His sight lingers at her stomach, where there is now a hint of definition to her muscle that wasn't there a decade ago.
He closes his eyes, blinding himself to her. If you had asked him at the time, he wouldn't have said that was something that he cared about but, seeing her now, he was having trouble not imagining his lips against her taught stomach, kissing lower and lower …
Her transfiguration snaps him from his guilty daydream, as she turns her underwear into something more suitable for the water. She tosses her wand into her left hand and casts a sticking charm on her right. She then carefully swaps back, the charm ensuring she won't lose it in the roil.
Standing at the edge, she looks back over her shoulder at him, his eyes still glued to her curves. She shakes her head, but smiles as she does, and leaps into the air, graceful, a perfect dive. She hits the water and barely makes a splash, disappearing with all the speed and accuracy of a veteran spear fisherman lancing his catch.
He waits. He waits five minutes. Then, he waits ten more. He waits the last five in a panic, desperate for her to surface.
Swearing loudly to no one in the darkness of the cave, he strips off his overcoat, necktie and shirt and prepares to do something monumentally stupid.
His holly wand joins his coat and his backpack on the floor, and with spare in hand he casts a bubblehead charm, copies her ingenious sticking charm and finally layers on some cushioning charms. He is a great deal more fragile than she and isn't keen on being dashed upon the rocks.
He briefly considers removing the long cavalry boots (he finds them surprisingly comfortable and supportive, which matters when an Auror in the field is constantly on their feet – that and they're far from the strangest thing he's seen a wizard wear) but decides the meagre protection they'll provide his feet is more important than the added weight, he takes a deep breath, more for his nerves than the oxygen, and jumps. His flailing is nothing like her dive – there is no sublime arc or smoothly vanishing under the surface, he falls like a rock and impacts the water. He feels it even through the charms.
Instantly, he knows this was a mistake. She was right, even with his spell work he won't last a minute.
His weight and momentum thrust him deeper under the dark waters, he manages to cast a simple Lumos before the strength of the waves pick him up and throw him against the side of the cave. The bubblehead charm is useless when the air is forced from his lungs in such a violent action. He gasps for breath, unable to draw it in, and he is spinning freely in the waters, completely at the mercy of the currents.
Trying not to panic further, he desperately searches the water for her. He is thrown about at random so quickly he can't even begin to perform any kind of search. He can barely bring his wand to bear to illuminate the direction he's looking in, can't keep himself upright, very quickly loses which direction is even up at all…
It is not his recognition that he will probably die here that upsets him. It's that if he does, he'll have let her down again. Let her down when she needed him. (Although, the part of him that watches himself, that guards his mind against manipulation castigates himself – these are the thoughts of an obsessive. It's not that he can't value her life, or even value it above his own, but he should care if he lives or dies down here independent of that too.)
By pure chance, sheer dumb luck, he sees a familiar human shape – she isn't being tossed about, as he is. She is an ever-fixed mark that he twists his head back and forth to keep within his vision as he tumbles, helpless. The haphazard beam of light clips the figure just long enough, reveals just enough detail to send him spiralling into dread.
A long length of driftwood pierces her through the chest, just to the left of centre, and pins her against the rock like a butterfly in some gruesome display. Clusters of smaller, but still considerable, splinters puncture her body from head to foot, as if the driftwood had somehow been fragmentary.
Her hair hangs limply in the water, swaying with the currents. Her expression, and her body entire, is paralysed, the freezing waters sapping her strength slowly. Her face is blue. Harry wonders how long ago this happened – how long had a left her here, suspended like this? And what force must it have struck with to drive the tip into the very rock behind her?
Struggling against the inexorable pull of the sea, he tries to summon the wood but he can't complete the motions with any accuracy and she stubbornly remains fixed against the rock. The water has completely drained his warming charm and the biting cold is sinking into him. Very soon he won't be in a condition to do anything productive and they'll both freeze here. Even if he hadn't been winded by the impact before, the icy grip of the sea ensures he can't even begin to draw breath. It's agony in his chest now, the ancient processes in the back of his brain are screaming at him to breathe, to breathe now or cease to breathe altogether in the very near term…
Spinning, feebly struggling to maintain some orientation at all, his movements slow, his body starts to jerk, convulsing in protest at the burning in his lungs. He is once again slammed into the wall of rock and this time something breaks, at least two of the fingers in his right hand. His spare wand is turned into kindling in his palm, the sticking charm refusing to release them they dig into his palm, the feather core quickly dragged into the inky abyss. The bubblehead charm fails, and sea water rushes in to assault his mouth, his throat, his lungs.
Abandoning subtlety, he makes a desperate, last-ditch play. He darkly thinks that if irrational anger is his party trick, then desperate last gambits are his professional speciality. Without the finesse of his wand, unable to vocalise an incantation, he rolls the dice on the only option he has.
Wandless, silently, he throws as much power into a banishing charm as he can. It's far from a perfect choice, the odds of success are considerably lower than he likes, but he can't aim (can't even see now the paltry wand light is gone) and at least the banishing charm stands a chance of hitting his target. All he can do is hope that it does enough to dislodge her, or at least change the situation enough that the action of the waves will eventually free her.
Of course, he'll be long dead by then – the lack of air in his lungs, the chill in his bones, will finish him in short order.
His last gamble spent, he ceases to pay attention, and instead starts writhing and clawing at his neck. A purely evolved response, driven by instinct, he thrashes helplessly.
Such is the depth of his panic, he is barely cognisant of the strong hands that grip him, haul him through the water. He can't process the change from water to air, such is the speed of the ascent. His eyes see himself slung over one of her shoulders, her tiny arm struggling to hold him – not because of his weight, it's a matter of grip and leverage. She is slender and can only spare one arm to carry him.
Her other hand grasps the rock face, as she propels herself upward in great leaps, finding hand holds lesser mortals would fail to grip. He is dumped roughly on the ground, his breath coming back to him in violent, short bursts and gasps, his bruised diaphragm and aching lungs desperate but unable to supply the air he needs in the quantities his body is demanding.
Hermione stands for a moment, towering above him, as he disgorges a stomach full of salt water onto the rocks. Her face is turned up towards the heavens, concealed though they are by metres of rock.
She sways slightly, and then suddenly collapses onto her knees, and then again, slumping forwards onto the floor. His own distress at vomiting sea water is put aside in his panic – she has fallen face first, surely driving the sharp wooden splinters into her further.
He heaves her body around to face him. Hermione is a mess. Slowly, too slowly, her body is rejecting the blades of wood that pepper her body. He is astonished she was able to climb, and jump, or even think properly with that many punctures. The hole in her chest, right where her heart should be, is ragged. He retches, able to see right through it. The edges of the wound writhe, still bleeding, as the flesh warps and bubbles.
This isn't the fast healing of vampires as Harry understands it. He's seen Hermione recover from a stake through the heart before, the night she turned, and it never did …this. Whatever this was.
It wasn't closing. It wasn't healing.
He gropes for his wand desperately, the one he left behind and wasn't utterly shattered. He summons his pack towards him, sparing the time to painfully summon the splinters of the other wand out of his palm, and digs through his bag. He is still panicking, he doesn't know which of his standard potions would even work correctly on vampire physiology … and worse, he doesn't understand what's wrong with her.
He wants to pull those awful looking skewers out of her, but he knows that will only lead to more blood loss. More open wounds. Thankful for his training, he manages to supress the urge.
She shakily lifts a hand to his arm, as she mutters "It's fine, Harry. It's fine." She hacks, and coughs, spitting a great wad of congealed blood as she does so. He desperately rummages in his bag, there are blood replenishers (which don't work on her, considering his physiologies unusual relationship with blood), potions to aid in concealment, tinctures to repair bone (that take several hours to work, if they even affect her), poultices for minor abrasions, contusions, or lacerations, and all sorts of other things but he doesn't have anything that can repair the damage to her organs. To her heart. Nothing to repair damage on this scale, or at the speed she needs it.
To him, none of this falls under a category he considered 'fine'.
He hastily casts diagnostic charms that spit back nonsense, the magic confused by her non-human composition. The readings don't make any kind of sense and don't tell him anything even halfway useful. The Academy didn't teach him how to heal a vampire – they expected him to be fighting and killing them, not saving them.
A classic problem for him, it would seem.
He had been a good student at the Academy. As a teenager he hadn't been half the student he could have been but as an adult he had found a drive and a passion that he never could have conjured as a teen. Some part of maturing and growing they don't tell you about – that though learning came less naturally to him now, needing effort to learn something he might have just absorbed before, his ability to focus on improving himself has increased tenfold.
And all of that was worth nothing now.
Even in her badly injured state, she was still more able than he expected. Dragging herself backwards, each movement must have been agonising, she pulls herself up to sit against the rock. Looking down at herself, presumably at the gaping hole in her own chest, she snorts a laugh.
"You should," she coughs, hisses in pain, and her head lolls back, the healing of the wound had barely progressed at all, "… you should probably get going. That might have triggered an alarm. I'll be fine."
He is gratified to learn he can still spot when she is lying, at least this time. Even if it was obvious from context. "Bullshit … for a start, go where? And more importantly, why aren't you healing? What do you need?" Getting frustrated with the splints on his hands, and with nothing better to do, he casts a quick charm on the fingers of his wand hand. Like with the splinters, it's difficult using his offhand but they teach you to manage early at the academy. It's saved his life, and colleagues lives, in the past. The bones knit back together – it is a quick and dirty fix, and he'll need to fix it properly later, but it will give him the use of his hand back for a while.
Sometimes his keen eyes are a blessing, and sometimes a curse. The sight of the bubbling, congealing wound will probably haunt him for the rest of his days, but they do sometimes point his attention to things that matter.
Her pupils widen and contract, ever so slightly. Her canine teeth lengthen slightly, standing out in her mouth of otherwise perfect teeth, before they shorten back into place, into the smile he can't stop thinking about when he's alone or not distracted.
The Beast is fighting her for control.
And he suspects, by the way she is trying to stop him looking at her face, she doesn't want him to know. Scrambling further through his bag, his hand closes on the thermos flask. Ripping the cap from it, he moves to take the back of her head in one hand and proffer up the contents to her lips. He hadn't expected it to be relevant so quickly, but he thanks Merlin he had the presence of mind to get some.
The liquid steams in the cold, as she sips. It drips from her slack mouth and down her chin, almost certainly scalding her as it goes. The skin shimmers slightly in the liquids wake before it heals. She reaches up to grab the flask, wrenching it from his grip with surprising power. Even halfway to dead, and getting closer by the second, she is stronger than him at his peak.
Greedily drinking now, she clutches the thermos as if she has been without water for days. Again, those keen eyes spot the slight dents in the metal where her fingers have gripped just a little too tightly. Once she has drained it, she takes several deep, steadying breaths.
Closing her eyes, letting the flask fall to the floor, she quietly says, "Hot, sweet tea, huh? You remembered. Mum always used to say a cup of hot, sweet tea could fix anything." A small smile plays across her lips, whether for him or her mother he can't tell. Her mother, as far as Harry knows, probably doesn't say that anymore.
"Well," he mutters, slightly uncomfortable, "you did only tell me yesterday. Even Ron could have remembered that far back."
One hand limply touches his leg.
It is the first time, since they met in his hotel room, that she has voluntarily touched him. Touched him for touching's sake, and not for some practical purpose like saving his life.
He had half expected it to feel electric, or to be warmed by it, but it just feels soft and light. A familiar touch, gone but not forgotten. That part of him that always aches is torn – is this better, or worse, than when she wouldn't touch him? He is so tired of being angry and of hurting, and that little contact washes away a small bit of it. Such a tiny reprieve, but the only relief he's experienced in a decade. And at the same time reminds him of what they can't have.
"Thanks anyway," she says, and a far away note enters her voice, "You always did listen to me though. Even when you chose to ignore my advice, you always … always listened." She growls in pain as she manages to hold her head straight enough to look him in the eye. The dilation of her pupils has stopped, her canines have stopped their lengthening / reducing cycling. "It matters more than you know, getting to hang on to my humanity, now of all times…"
His hand trembles as he raises it to hold hers. He half expects her to snatch it away, but she doesn't. "Why aren't you healing?" He has moved past the valley of panic from before, and into the serene waters of terror beyond.
Her breathing is sharper than it was a minute ago, each breath clearly hurting her, as she hesitantly answers "I told you – I'm not getting the right diet. The animal blood isn't as … potent. The super speed, the reflexes, the healing … everything, it's all powered by the blood. Consumes it. The more we need to heal, or the faster we run, the quicker it consumes our stockpile. But it also keeps us alive – a vampire who runs out of blood dies, just like anything else. The wounds slow me down but unless I lose a limb it doesn't really matter because it's the blood that sustains me."
That makes sense to him. They teach you that vampires can keep fighting through extreme wounds. That the only way to put them down, beyond fire or decapitation, was to do so much damage they can't keep getting back up. That eventually you can overwhelm their rapid healing.
"And I'm running out." Her voice is soft, but oddly not afraid. "Which is why you need to go."
"I'm not going anywhere." He insists, committing the feel of her hand in his to his memory. Every line, every contour. Her nails, her knuckles, the smooth flat of her palm, the small, fine, almost invisible hair on the back of her hand.
"When I told you the Beast only knows how to do four things, I technically wasn't lying. As such. Like any animal it'll also act to stay alive. I might be on top right now, but the tea will only help me for so long. If you stay, it will try to force me to feed from you, and I refuse to go out more animal than a woman."
He swallows, suddenly aware of his own heartbeat. Aware of the blood flowing through his own veins. Distractingly, and unpleasantly, aware of the throb of life in the artery in his neck.
"And I refuse to hurt you again," she looks away, ashamed. "The last time … I would have sat with you until the sun came up. I wanted to even though I knew it would kill me. But it won't let me. It forced me to leave, to save itself. Well, not this time," she coughs again, more blood spilling from her lips, but her voice is firm, unyielding "not this time."
Letting her hand go he opens the satchel back up and pulls out a crimson vial.
In one smooth motion he pops the cork and swallows it in a single gulp.
Blood replenishing potions don't replace your blood, they simply kick your body into overdrive; forcing the marrow in your bones to produce in an hour or two what it would normally take a month to make. It's part of the reason they should be administered by a healer. Taking too many of them too often has been known to lead to cancers of the blood and bone, but this is an emergency.
She is too clever, and though his exposed wrist is already on its way towards her face, she grabs his arm and obstructs the motion.
"Come on," he says, "This is what you need and I'm offering."
"No!" She cries, "I won't, I won't do that to you again. You're going to leave, and then so I am. In a manner of speaking. It's – it's for the best."
"Shut up and drink me, you stubborn son of a bitch." He growls, fruitlessly trying to push back against her iron grip and the immovable object of her arm. An irresistible force he is not, but he's not out of tricks just yet.
"Don't –" she begins to say, but he is already committed. The wand in his other hand points directly at his wrist, and a weak, silent cutting charm slices into his skin. It doesn't bite deeply, but it's enough to draw blood.
It wells slightly on his skin, running in a thin line around the curve of his arm.
Her face contorts, a battle between rage and hunger that is all Hermione. No dilation, no canines. No Beast. She lets out a strangled cry as her features slip into despair for a moment and he almost regrets what he's done. Regrets taking the choice out of her hands. Almost.
Then her teeth surge and she sinks them into his wrist, her mouth and head covering his view of the act of penetration.
As before, everything goes light. The ache in his muscles and bones disappears. Even the throb in his broken-and-repaired fingers leaves him. He sits there, on his knees, lightly breathing, revelling in the feeling of all his worldly cares dropping away. There is only her, and her mouth. Only her and the divine.
He sees a tear drip down her cheek, but he does not feel the sadness or the guilt he would expect to. Instead, all he feels is vaguely pleasant, like waking up on a summers day to find the curtains drawn back and the daylight bathing you in its gentle embrace.
In fact, it's so strong that he even lets himself think about how eager he was to do this. It's the thing he won't admit, even to himself, even late at night when all the other intrusive thoughts take hold of him, this one is the one he bars his doors against. That deep down, he wants her to bite him. To drink from him. He lets himself admit how badly he wants it, bad enough that once an even halfway reasonable opportunity arose it hadn't even taken him a second to offer her his lifeblood. That the thought of that first bite drives him to need another. And another.
Normally he would repulse himself. Would feel ashamed of himself for being so willing to offer himself up to her, but under the affects of her physical and emotional anaesthetic he could look at this darkly held desire objectively. Could take it out and look at it from all angles and feel nothing about it.
So strong was his lack of feeling that he wasn't distressed in the slightest by the sight of the wooden splinters reversing their path through her body, the slow rejection of the foreign body as the wounds healed. The wood dropped to the floor, slick with blood. Not even the sight of her ruined chest knitting itself back together in excruciating detail broke through the fugue he was experiencing. So far away from reality was he, that even the uncomfortable and pained noises she made as the damage was undone couldn't disturb him.
The grotesque healing complete, he leant his head forward, until his rested against hers. He sat there, comfortable as she drank deeply from him.
Then, her chest heaved.
She broke her contact with him, head turned to the side as she threw up. She coughed and spluttered; his arm still held in her iron grip. Another messily organic noise originated in the back of her throat as she lurched again and yet more of the contents of the flask of tea spewed itself across the rock floor.
Momentarily, he was bemused by the lack of blood in it. And in its complete lack of digestion. Gross though it was, it was essentially unchanged from when she consumed it. It even steamed for a moment as it cooled on the cold floor.
Turned away from him, she uses her free hand to wipe her mouth. As the trance state fades away from him, he tries to pull his hand away from her. He feels a little weak, a little drained, even a little dizzy. But, thanks to the timely interruption of the tea making its return she was a long way from having drunk him dry.
"How dare you," she said, in a low, dangerous voice he did not normally associate with her. "Don't you ever take a choice away from me again, do you understand me? Don't you ever make me do that EVER AGAIN."
It takes him a moment, waking up from that dull place the bite takes him, to summon up the emotion to respond, "You were going to die, and I won-" he is interrupted by her twisting his arm painfully and he gasps in response.
"Never again," she says firmly, the full brunt of her piercing glare is brought to bear on him.
"I'd do it again. And again. And-" she twists further, and he tries to bend with her as he exclaims in pain. He could use the wand, but he won't.
"Never again," she repeats.
Gasping, his face contorted in pain, he manages to hiss out "You're hurting me, Hermione. Again."
His arm is released, thrown back at him in anger, as she spits "Fuck you, Harry. You don't get to make these decisions for me. I went twelve years without tasting your blood. Without human blood at all. You don't know what willpower that takes. And I don't know that I can keep doing it if you go around offering yourself to me."
He nurses his aching arm, cradled against his chest, as she continues in a quiet voice, "If you had just done as I wanted this could have been over, Harry. I could have been … I would never have been able to hurt anyone."
She would have preferred to die. His insides are filled with ice as he digests this realisation. The thought of a world without her it, even this cursed version of her, is too bleak to comprehend. He wants to tell her that, to make her understand that when her light is eclipsed by the world he'll be left in perpetual dark. That even her un-living absence was better than her dead absence.
His mouth twists the words before they even come out, filtered through the vast reserves of his latent anger, and instead all he does is accuse her. "Is that why you came here, then? Is this what you do? Find something or someone you can throw yourself against until you finally find something that'll kill you?"
He hadn't expected her to reply, but she whispers bitterly, "The Beast is strong, but it's stupid, Harry. It won't let me endanger myself, but it's idea of danger is running into a burning building or leaping in front of a bullet. It's too dumb to see far enough into the future to understand when a choice might lead to danger. But it does learn. It wouldn't let me jump back into that hole now, no matter how much fucking tea I drink." He still can't quite get used to her swearing, even in this incredibly stressful situation.
He sits there, his knees in the dirt, his body resting against the back of his heels. "I … I'm sorry, Hermione. But I can't let you go. I just… I'm not built to do it." He is genuinely contrite, he understands the gravity of his transgression, both in terms of denying her agency and in terms of continuing her suffering. He is sorry, but he'd still do it again.
She covers her face with her arm, apparently to hide tears and says, with an edge to her voice, "And that's the other half of the problem. The bites, they linger, Harry. The more you get bitten, the more I subvert your will. Not consciously, and just … slowly. Bit by bit. Each bite takes away a little of your free will and instead makes you seek me out, so I can bite again. And I don't want to do that to you. I … want you to be the man I remember, not some half-subverted snack."
That's too close to home for him. It tilts his perspective, skews his life, as if he's only just now seeing it for what it was. From that perspective it's not even been that slow. She bit him over a decade ago, and he has spent all his free time and energy since looking for her.
He thought it was because he loved her. He did love her, before she turned.
Loves her, in fact. He does love her, even now.
But can he trust that feeling? That little voice that checks his thoughts for corruption, that examines his actions for undue influence, is now busily interrogating every thought and feeling he has ever had in relation to her. It questions and probes, holds a burning looking glass over every interaction, trying to compensate for its inability to spot it before.
Hurt and confused and guilty, he represses it. Like always. He pulls himself to his feet, lost for words.
Turning back to the hole in the rock, he buries himself in work to distract him from personal problems. Another Harry classic these days. His wand weaves through the air as one of his boots rests on a suitably large rock. A push with his heel and it falls through the air, the delicate and difficult transfiguration turning it into the sleek form of a dolphin as it falls. It glides into the water like Hermione did, like it was born to it.
It's a complicated transfiguration, carefully balancing the inorganic to organic. Go too organic too fast, or complete the wrong parts first, and all you end up with is a dead dolphin. It's something that they touch on with gifted seventh years but even so the level of finesse and speed he performed it in was impressive.
The creature disappears under the water, acting according to his will. It barely dives more than a few metres before the magic ceases to respond to him.
The waters throw broken bits of rock back out at him.
Having stood up, she is busy repairing her clothing, his stolen wand in her hand. "I'd be surprised if you can get anything down there. I was barely under the surface before I got impaled. Whoever left that little trap down there knew what they were doing. I don't think we can get to the ward." Her tone is cold and business-like. He heard her speak to Ron like that more than once, reserved for the times he had truly fucked up.
Wand falling to his side, he asks, "Then where does that leave us?" He isn't sure if he's talking about the ward, or them.
She shrugs, her words still ice, "I guess we do it the old-fashioned way. You and me, investigating. Like old times."
"Like old times?" He repeats. "That doesn't sound so bad."
Her silence is thunderous.
Awkwardly, he says, "How would you feel about crashing a party tonight?"
A/N: Thanks for reading!
