Sirius was padding down from the boy's dormitory with damp hair and fresh clothes when the portrait hole opened to admit Professor McGonagal. She was solemn, the line of her mouth a little bit more severe than usual, and looked like she didn't have a moment to waste.
"Miss Granger, if you would please come with me. It's time for you to return to the Hospital Wing." McGonagall stood expectantly with her hands clasped. If Hermione didn't know any better, she would have assumed she was in trouble as she got up to meet her escort.
Sirius started towards them but McGonagall raised a hand that had him halting in step. An annoyed look crossed his face, but he quickly fixed his expression before their head of house could call him out on it.
"You may stay here, Mr. Black." She said, the lift in her eyebrow letting him know that his rather insubordinate look hadn't gone unnoticed.
"Why can't I come?" He asked, his mouth pulled into an unsatisfied frown.
"It's okay, Sirius." Hermione interjected. "I'll see you tomorrow." She watched him deflate a little as the others wished her a goodnight.
She followed McGonagall out the portrait hole and made their way down the stairs. Their steps clicked as they walked and was the only sound besides the whispering paintings that paid them very little attention.
"Professor." Hermione broke the silence, and waited for the older woman's attention to turn towards her. "Was the victim targeted because of their blood status?"
McGonagall pinched her lips together tighter. "That seems to be the case." She sighed, sounding aggrieved. "We caught the one responsible but, whether or not he'll see any sort of proper punishment remains to be seen." Her mouth clicked shut and Hermione noticed for the first time the physical tension that her teacher walked with.
"What do you mean?" She already suspected the answer but wanted to hear it from an adult.
"I assume that in your time the school board was quite corrupt?" Hermione nodded her confirmation. It really was, she could remember many times that Malfoy loudly used his father and family name to get out of scrapes that no one else would have been given leeway on. "Well, it just so happens that the student in question has * people who are shielding him from proper repercussions."
That made sense. The Mulciber's were a powerful pureblood family that hadn't yet had their credibility ruined by Voldemort's defeat and end of the first war. They would be compatriots with the Malfoy's who had long held a seat on the board even if the patriarch of their family didn't have his own seat.
"So, they want to let him off with a slap on the wrist." Hermione didn't bother even making it a rhetorical question. They both knew there was little other outcome. "How bad was the attack?"
McGonagall paused and looked at her for a moment before turning towards one of the large windows in the corridor they were walking through. She leaned against the sill and patted the stone next to her.
Hermione followed and, with a little effort, hopped up to sit onto the deep inset of the sill. It was chilled from the approaching winter but the warm pants she was wearing helped keep the cold from seeping into her legs.
"Miss McDonald was found in a broom closet with a head wound and very little memory of the attack. Thankfully the Fat Friar was passing by and noticed what was happening and went for help. The attacker shoved her into a nearby closet and ran." McGonagall crossed her arms under her chest. That also confirmed that it was Mulciber who was the assailant. "I'm going to assume you had prior knowledge about the attack?"
Hermione felt herself shrivel up. She tucked her chin and nodded. Shame clawed at her chest like a beast.* She had been negligent. Was this going to be how it would go from now on? Remembering the tragedies too late to stop them from happening? She had let herself get swept up in the good feelings and security that being near Sirius had always given her, and began to let the pain, the grief, and the weight of all the lives that she suddenly had in her hands become sidelined in her mind and heart. She wanted to feel protected and safe; she craved the shelter that had been offered. But she forgot that that wasn't meant for her. She was a soldier in a decades long war. She was meant to protect, not to be protected.
"It's not your fault this happened." McGonagall said, seeming to have read her mind. She placed a hand on her shoulder. "You are not responsible for the lives of anyone here. You've given us a gift. One that will hopefully help us avoid many of the tragedies that lead to the second war you experienced. But, remember that it's the duty of the recipient to use the gift well."*
Hermione looked up into the face of her teacher. The soft lines of McGonagall's face hadn't solidified to the one's she had known in the 1990's. She still had an air of youth at forty-one that would vanish with time and war, and Hermione wondered what she would look like if the only hardship she was going to face were the ordinary kind.
"That doesn't mean I can be complacent." Hermione rebutted. Not quite willing to relinquish the shame or responsibility. She had the power to reduce so much pain. She couldn't let herself be seduced by comfort. Harry deserved his family; to grow up with his parents, his godfather, and his silly, troublemaking uncles. What kind of person would he grow up to be with that kind of love and support? What kind of snowball effect would that have? Would he grow up as friends with Neville and Ron? Would she become something like an aunt to him? It was an optimistic thought, though maybe it was unrealistic. She would be wise to leave for some far off place when all was over and live as a ghost. *There should only be one of her in their lives. Two Hermione Grangers couldn't coexist in the same sphere of society. She couldn't change who she was, and even if she could, her identity was all she truly had left of herself. If she survived this war, she should live out the rest of her life alone.
"Regardless, you cannot expect yourself to remember every event of a time you did not live through, yourself." McGonagall said staunchly. "You were thrown into this situation unwillingly and unprepared. Mulciber attacking Miss McDonald was probably a footnote in what you know of this time. You cannot be held accountable for what you cannot control." She squeezed Hermione's shoulder gently.
"Perhaps not." Hermione conceded. She let her eyes wander to a painting across from her. She watched as a skeleton poured tea for a hound for a moment, before returning to look at her professor. *
McGonagall seemed to be considering her. She probably knew that Hermione didn't believe herself to be blameless, but she didn't push the point. "Mulciber will likely have weekly detentions until the end of the semester. We can't prove he did anything beyond get into a fight with another student, as he was wounded himself. Miss McDonald cannot remember any details from the event to say what really happened or if she was only physically injured."
"Is that why you wanted Sirius to stay behind?"
"Yes. I think it's best if we give Miss McDonald at least a night to recuperate before we risk letting her interact with any of the young wizards in the castle."
Hermione felt sick at the idea McGonagall was hedging around. She didn't want to think about that sort of thing. There was enough magical abuse to be worried about to include the ordinary kind.
"Come on. Poppy will begin to worry if we don't get you back."
Sleep was far away from Sirius. He stared at the canopy above him for a long while before clicking his tongue and sitting up. He pulled over the map that he had kept by his bedside and opened it. It took him a fraction of a second to find the Hospital wing and locate Hermione's name. Mary McDonald was beside her and Madame Pomfrey was in a room that was joined to the infirmary. It took only a momentary scan to confirm that the surrounding hallways were unoccupied save for Filch prowling around and a few ghosts that drifted through the castle.
Mulciber was back in the dungeons with the rest of his house. Clearly in bed with not a worry disturbing his sleep.
Sirius wished he could say there were few people he loathed more than the scumbag but unfortunately Mulciber was rather par for the course nowadays. He just so happened to be more immediately relevant. Sirius couldn't help but think that this wasn't going to be an isolated incident.
His eyes drifted to the fourth year boy's dorm room and found his brother's name. Regulus seemed to have about as much luck as he did with falling asleep. The small inscription paced back and forth in the small space on the paper.
"What are you thinking about?" He whispered to himself.
"Well, I'm thinking about what we could do to make Mulciber and the other lizards live's a bit more miserable." Chimed a voice from across him. James was sitting up in bed and looked like he hadn't gotten a wink of sleep.
"What do you propose?" Sirius grinned at his best friend.
"Well, I've been wanting to reverse engineer the girl's staircase for ages but I keep getting side tracked." James said as he crossed his legs under him. He pulled out a notebook and a self-filling quill and jotted down a couple of notes. "If we can figure out how it works, we could make the path in and out of the dungeons react the same way. It'd take them forever to figure a way out."
"Not punchy enough." Said Peter, his voice groggy as though he had woken from a deep sleep. "What about spiking their drinking water with a potion that makes their teeth fall out?"
"Right, I think we'd probably get expelled if we were caught doing that." James pointed out while shooting a slightly perturbed and somewhat impressed look at Peter.
"Itching powder in their laundry?" Peter suggested after a moment.
"Lacks a certain finesse, but that would make them miserable. And it doesn't classify as maiming!" Sirius nodded with his chin in hand.
James scribbled a few notes, his mouth quirked to the side in thought. "Sirius is right. It's definitely missing something."
"Toilets or mirrors that degrade them?"
"I wouldn't bother with self-esteem attacks for a short term project." Sirius waved the idea away.
"Why does it have to be a short term project?" Peter asked as he rolled over to look at him.
"It doesn't, but if we go that route we'd want to be more subtle than insulting mirrors."
"Hm…"
They sat for a couple of minutes in silence, the only noise was the tapping of James' quill and Remus' soft snoring. Despite his heightened senses, he could sleep through an earthquake the first few nights following a full moon.
"What if we did all of them? Barring the one that includes maiming." James finally broke the silence. "Hit them with one prank after another until they're frantic."
"I like that idea." Peter agreed with an enthusiastic smile.
"We should think of something special for Mulciber, though." Sirius insisted.
"Slowly shrinking clothes?" James asked, looking up at him over his glasses. Sirius never knew why he did that. James was blind as a bat without his glasses. "It'd be like putting a frog in room temperature water and turning on the burner."
"Nah, he could change when it got uncomfortable." Peter waved the suggestion away. "Anyway, it's not nearly enough to get him back for hurting Mary."
"Stick him to the ceiling with a silencing spell?" Sirius threw the idea into the think-pot.
"Maybe with a cushioning charm on the floor underneath him and a timed released sticking charm?" James added to the idea.
"Ooh." Peter cooed at the idea. "That would be terrifying. How long would we leave him up there?"
"It can't be too long or else the teachers would get worried, but it also can't be too short or else it'll be too easy to brush off." Sirius said, drumming his fingers on his knee. "Maybe during a study hall? Or over a weekend when there is no class for the teachers to notice he's missing?"*
"Let's iron out the details when Moony is awake to reel us in." James said with a yawn. He scribbled the last few words in his notebook before setting it aside. He fluffed his pillow and flopped back down.
Pete muttered a goodnight before rolling back over and falling instantly asleep.
Sirius leaned back into his own pillows, with a deep sigh in exasperation with his disquiet and wide awake hated not seeing Hermione off to the Hospital Wing, especially considering there had been a student attacked that night, and even more so because she seemed to have had some foreknowledge about the event.. He couldn't forget how scared she had suddenly seemed. He couldn't even sneak down to the Hospital Wing and keep vigil next to her. Pomfrey may let it slide when no one else was occupying the infirmary beds and he could lay at the foot of Hermione's bed as Padfoot, but certainly not when there was another student around.
"Oh for Merlin's sake! Just take the cloak and go down to her, Padfoot! I can't sleep with how loud you're thinking over there." A slippery mass of fabric was flung into Sirius's face before James's canopy shut around his bed. Barely audible muttering could be heard for a few moments before the room finally went silent. "How am I the lovesick one when that dingbat is here."
Sirius didn't feel the need to rebut the comments, but instead got up and wrapped the familiar cloak around his shoulders and covered his the cloak wasn't strictly necessary for his jaunt to the Hospital Wing, since he had the prefect patrol routes memorized by now and was familiar with all the best hiding spots invisibility really did allow for there to be a lapse in discretion without any drawbacks. As long as he kept his footsteps light and didn't run into Mrs Norris, he'd be okay. Since Filch was last in the Dungeons, Sirius felt that he was safe enough to hurry along.
It hadn't been that long ago he had first found her laying on the stone in her own blood, the moonlight illuminating her figure. A chill that had nothing to do with the cold of the night ran through him. It might have been seen as overbearing or overprotective of him to stick to her side like he was, but if he could keep her safe and never see her so hurt ever again, he couldn't bring himself to care. The Black family madness that he kept at bay in the farthest corner of his mind screamed to keep her locked away for safekeeping, and more and more of his mind wanted that with each new incident. It wasn't right, and he would never encroach on her autonomy that way but, as a compromise, he would stick by her as much as she would allow, fighting as many of her battles alongside her as it took to keep her unharmed. He would see to her happiness. He would ensure that she lived a long and free life, whatever path she chose.
The door to the Hospital Wing loomed over him as he approached, but by this point he was so used to it that he knew exactly how far he could open it without a hinge creak to alert the Matron inside.
He slipped in, shutting the door behind him with barely a click to know it latched, and made a beeline to Hermione's bed. He tiptoed around the privacy curtain and felt a knot untie around his chest. Seeing her sleeping peacefully alleviated some of his anxiety. Carefully, he sat on the edge of her mattress. She was curled on her side facing him, her scarred arm extended outwards. He looked at the unbandaged letters, and felt the emotion choke him. A member of his family did that. He'd never fully reconcile that fact.
As softly as he could, Sirius reached over and brushed a cluster of curls off of her cheek and neck. His fingers brushed over the soft skin of her cheekbone and curled around the shell of her ear. Yeah… pearls would look right. He pulled a hand down to cup over her shoulder and let the feel of her ground him.
She really had upended his whole heart hadn't she? *
Hermione woke to a warm weight that pinned her feet down on the mattress. It was still dark out and her internal clock was telling her that it was very early in the morning. She often woke around this time; a habit formed from taking turns being on watch while on the run with Harry and Ron. With a wiggle of her toes, she could feel the soft body and hard elbows of a dog. She glanced down towards the end of her bed but didn't see Padfoot.
In an ungraceful movement, she curled herself up enough without moving her legs to reach down and feel the lump underneath the silky fabric of the invisibility cloak. She found his nose and let her hands trek their way up to the top of his head and gave the spot there a few pats before moving back into a more restful position.
She stared at the shadowy buttresses above her and let her festering mind wander. So much was wrong and there was no escape from reality for her. She had been orphaned by time and she didn't know how to grieve the life she had left behind. Any attempt to integrate, to form a new life here felt wrong, like she was the one who abandoned her friends, like she had given up on finding a way home. And she had, hadn't she? She hadn't even bothered trying to look for a way home after Dumbledore had speculated that it would be impossible. She had decided to try and fix the problem at its root. To end this war on her own terms. But what if she died here without fixing anything?
Novikov's Self-consistency Principle was a concept that she had read about when she first was given the Time Turner when she was thirteen. At the time she had been so excited. Time travel! How many times had she watched Back to the Future and Doctor Who with her dad? Or reread The Time Machine by H.G Wells? Even in her magical world time travel seemed like an unrealistic fantasy. Until it wasn't. Until she held a small little pendant and gave it three turns. After that she did what anyone would do and hit the library. Surprisingly there were a number of muggle authors among the titles in the sparse section in the stacks. But it seemed to be an understudied field for both muggle scientists and their wizarding counterparts. Novikov's work had been interesting at the time, reassuring even. If it was right, it closed the idea of paradoxes. Whatever she did while in the past had been meant to happen and wouldn't cause irreparable damage to the timeline. It had even played out in her favor when she saved Sirius' life that same year. But now, she was terrified.
What if it was true? What if this was all the same timeline as she the one had lived in? Was everything she wanted to accomplish doomed? The possibility hadn't fully hit her until she failed to save Mary from being attacked. She had always known that failure was possible, but that had been a possibility dependent on her own inadequacies, not on the impossibility of success.
She had built a crutch on the idea that she could be the only casualty of the Second Wizarding War. That it would end with her before it could even be conceived. What purpose did she have if she couldn't be that sacrifice? No one in the future remembered her. The only evidence of her existence in this time had been a hair tie in a box. And she had ignored it. Dismissed that simple detail. That glaring, damning detail.
She felt tears tickle her hairline as they rolled down her temple. A small weight sifted around the back of her knees and tiny paws clambered over and walked across the crest of her hip. Two luminescent eyes caught the small amount of light the moon pushed through the windows and peered at her curiously. The tiny "mew" that followed was like a command that her arm obeyed before her brain could fully register it. She reached down to her hip and scooped the little ball of fur up and brought him to her chest.
Grimalkin purred as he tucked himself under her chin. The hot iron nail that felt like it had been driven into her chest seemed to cool at the small creature's affection. She hugged him a little bit closer and tried to focus her spiraling thoughts on the weights of the warm bodies that had chosen to sleep on top of her.
It was no use worrying about hypotheticals and paradox theories that hadn't been proven or disproven yet. As far as she was aware, or anyone was aware, she was the first person to time travel further back than twenty four hours. Perhaps there was a way home, but she had already committed to this path. The hope to change things before they could start, to give Harry a life where he didn't grow up alone or was ever chased down like a pig for slaughter.
And maybe, just maybe, with a little luck, she might find some peace for herself.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, willing her heart rate to settle itself. In her mind's eye, she painted a picture of a warm hearth and Christmas lights and imagined herself curled up on a leather couch. She saw Harry and Ron sitting on the floor with a chessboard between them. Ginny sat between them, unintentionally leaning into Harry's space. The chatter of Order members was ambient noise behind her, the only notes that drew her attention were Tonks' loud laughter and Lupin's pleased murmurs. She imagined she felt the couch dip, tipping her over to knock into the shoulder of her favorite escaped convict.
She held the scene in her mind, trying to convince herself it was real, if only that it would become her dream for the remainder of the night.
Hello my dear readers,
I normally don't add any notes at the end on FF.N and reserve that for my posting on AO3, but recently I've noticed that a fair few of my commenters have either been dissatisfied or concerned about some of the content I'm including in Destiny Derailed and its companion book, Touch Starved. Most of the complaints have been over Hermione's age and the relationship she had with Sirius in the future, within the canon timeline. I think there has been some misunderstanding that there is an untoward relationship between them, but there is not. I think the confusion comes from the reference of affectionate touch between the two. Unfortunately in today's society we have been conditioned to see touch and emotional vulnerability between two people as inherently sexual. Which puts us on guard whenever we encounter it.
One of the reasons I've been writing this story is because I believe that love is the greatest of all things. And I'm not just talking about romantic love, but love between people. The love we have for our family and friends and our neighbors and even our enemies, is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Often when people think of love, they think of passionate, uncontrollable emotions. But really love is a choice. It's the choice to reach out your hand and choose to put someone's needs over your own wants and desires. Love is selfless and can only endure through deliberate choice. The story I'm writing is about that. It's about the hurt people who learn to love selflessly. Touch, especially touch that is devoid of expectation or implication, is extremely powerful. It is a form of acceptance and care that we as people crave and desperately need on a biological level. Without getting to much into the science of it, we need physical affectionate touch to survive, and to regulate our emotions. People die without it. So while yes, ultimately there will be a romantic relationship eventually (far into the future, when Hermione is an adult) for the moment, the touch between the two of them is platonic, or even familial. It's the physical behavior that posits that they have accepted each other as pseudo-family. Much in the way Harry and Sirius are family. It's about healing ultimately. Not fulfilling desires.
All of this to say, reader, although my intentions are good, if there is something in my stories that feels wrong to you, morally, or otherwise, I cannot do much about it. But I urge you to stay any vitriolic comments that, tactfully or not, imply that I am morally bankrupt for what I am writing. Believe me, a lot of thought goes into the ethical and moral boundaries of the kind of story I am pursuing. I'm not above criticism, no one is, but please remember that I am writing this for you for free, and that you chose the parameters on this site, and read the synopsis before clicking on a story. If something bothers you, you can just click away from it and be done.
Perhaps I'm a bit sensitive and protective about these stories. I started writing them as a coping mechanism following the passing of my mother in 2021, but regardless, I ask that before you comment something nasty or reprimand me over some behavior the characters exhibit, please consider that there is a person behind the words. I think long and hard about what I am writing and would never intentionally write anything that was inappropriate or perpetuate something harmful. I draw on a lot of my real world experience to explore the emotions of the characters. The hurt, grief, the fragility of being without the physical and emotional support needed, and incredible relief when you finally get that hug from someone who truly loves you.
I hope you enjoy this chapter! And if you haven't already, I urge you to read the other end of this story, Touch Starved.
lots of love and prayers for peace,
Rosie