28Honestly, sometimes you don't think life can get any worse and then it does. I am being tested, for sure.
So, I apologise for the wait. Now on with the show! The chapter title comes from the song Came Back Haunted by Nine Inch Nails.
CHAPTER THREE - THE MOUTH IS WIDE
"I thought this year might be a bit boring," Lottie said conversationally over a later breakfast of stolen fruit. Her eyes remained steadfastly focused on the end of the table that did not hold Hermione, now dressed in threadbare straight-leg jeans and a garishly orange sports t-shirt that Ron had nicked from the local oval's toilets. She tried not to think about where it might have been.
"I'd kill for boring," Ron groaned, "Wake up, have Mum's full English, dilly dally in the yard, bit of Quidditch, next thing you know it's dinner. Wind down with a game of chess and I'd call that a perfect day. Right, Harry?"
Harry nodded absently, looking down at the book they'd stolen from the Black library with a "Yeah, yeah, of course."
"'Course the family's there; Harry and Ginny are playing Quidditch when the times comes, Hermione's reading something in the garden and getting all polite with the gnomes…" He trailed off, eyes going a little glassy, seemingly at the remembrance of his broken family. Hermione frowned. She couldn't quite recall how, when, or where they'd dispersed. They were a dead giveaway with that hair, and wanted more than the average wizarding family for being blood traitors, as well as murderers of Bellatrix Lestrange. Hermione held back a wry smile – Death Eaters would have a lot more to worry about than succeeding in their plans of revenge if Molly Weasley had any say, she was sure.
"Where are your family?" Remus asked softly, eyes settling on Ron with something like pity, though not quite as patronising.
Ron swallowed down a large, dry mouthful of bread, pausing a moment before rubbing at his mouth tiredly. "Not entirely sure, to be honest. Mum and Dad hadn't seemed too worried about it all, but that was before the explosion at the Ministry and I haven't seen them since. George and Percy went off after Rookwood, and Charlie went back to Romania with his boyfriend. Bill and Fleur joined Ginny, I think–" Ron spared Harry a look, the latter of whose jaw clenched at the mention of his girlfriend's name, "and I'm here, of course."
"Of course." Remus repeated quietly as if to himself, nodding.
Ron's explanation was bringing back Hermione's long-swept away memories like lifting the veil from a bride. Harry's dark expression, body curled around that blasted book as it was, looked tense. Hermione recalled the rather fierce row he and Ginny had had before everything imploded, where Ginny's stony silence had sent Harry into a sort of panic, showing up at Hermione's door with broken glasses and a plea for Dreamless Sleep potion to get through the night.
Harry thumbed at the corner of the old pages, eyes unseeing.
Hermione knew he missed her, more than he'd ever admit. As much as she could recall, it had taken weeks for Hermione to even get out of him that he didn't know where she was in the aftermath, just that she'd gone to Bill's for some reason.
This war had broken them all – beyond belief, really, if Hermione sat down and thought about it for too long. Written down, Harry and Ginny's story was perfect; but it missed the most crucial parts, most notably Harry's inability to be emotionally vulnerable and Ginny's stubborn insistence that that's what she wanted. Ginny had said once, years ago but so vivid in Hermione's memory because of its truthfulness, "Harry would rather sit and stew over something for years than simply ask." Hermione had commiserated at the time, what with Harry's attention dominated by Draco Malfoy bordering on obsessive. However, after they'd defeated Voldemort – both here and in the 70's for Hermione – she'd thought about it. Firstly, when the three of them had slept in the same bed for weeks post-battle, and then when she'd slept in a different bed with Remus, also post-battle.
Harry was only doing what he'd been taught to do, for so long and for the wrong reasons. Harry wasn't allowed to feel, unless it meant it would upset his greatest enemy. And then when that enemy was finally gone, Harry wasn't allowed to feel at all – forced into empty and shallow celebration ceremonies, making speeches at numerous funerals, and expected to want to jump straight into Auror training like it was his sole purpose to fight evil.
Hermione's heart gave a pitiful pang, her feelings both motherly and friendly; torn between wanting to hold onto her best friend, never let go, and also book him an appointment with a therapist as soon as this mess they'd landed in sorted itself out.
"Explosion at the ministry?" Lottie asked, turning to Ron and forgetting the forgettable meal before her. Hermione had been surprised when she'd said nothing as the fruit had been presented, a little bruised and barely enough to feed all of them.
Ron gave Hermione a wide-eyed look, reminiscent of their days at school when he'd been unexpectedly called upon. As if, in a fit of irony, they had travelled back in time, Hermione answered on his behalf.
"In the midst of rebuilding the Ministry of Magic both internally and externally, there was a magical bomb explosion in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which killed nine Aurors and severely injured–"
Harry pushed his chair away from the rickety table harshly, snapping the book shut and silently walking toward the entrance of the tent. His hunched shoulders said enough, but Lottie stared after him with slightly narrowed eyes and a subtle tilt to her head. Hermione knew that face of her daughter's – knew it like the back of her own hand, because it was the face Remus made whenever he was trying to figure something out, and it left Hermione's skin erupting into goosebumps every time.
"It wasn't a pretty sight, to say the least," said Ron, as if nothing had happened – though the quick dart of his eyes to the tent's entrance belied his true focus, "The message was pretty clear: 'it's not over', though I imagine the Death Eaters had more to say along the lines of blood traitors and the like." Ron rolled his eyes, uncrossing his scarred arms, "But enough of that rubbish for now, you two've got some new clothes to patch up. Hermione, a word?" He added, jerking his head toward his bunk, as if that'd give them any semblance of privacy.
Ron lowered his voice, like Remus's hunched shoulders didn't tell Hermione that he was listening, anyway. Maybe Ron didn't know about the slightly heightened hearing – it was close to the full moon, though Hermione hadn't felt any of its effects yet…
"Harry didn't think much of it, but–" He glanced over at the tent flaps again, voice lowering so much so that Hermione's neck began to twinge as she leant forward to hear him, her awkward position also making her hunch her shoulders. She had half a ridiculous thought that she must've looked reminiscent of Quasimado from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and tried not to break the somewhat sombre air with an inelegant snort.
"When we were walking back to the tent, following our hidden tracks as best we could, there was a moment where – well, where both of us sort of wanted to turn the other way."
"What do you mean?"
"It was like," He frowned, mouth twisting in remembrance, "A compulsion, almost. It felt like something – or someone – wanted us to go a different way."
Hermione's mouth felt dry, throat thick with something unnameable. Compulsion, or feelings not your own, or even strange instincts were not a good sign. Nothing good came from unfamiliar emotions; necklaces that made you irritable came to mind, along with diaries that were better off left in girls' bathrooms.
"It was a feeling," said Ron, his cerulean eyes boring into her own, "Like I said. I just didn't exactly like it."
"There could be any number of leftover traps waiting to be tripped," Hermione reasoned, frowning, trying not to think anything of this; she supposed Harry had reason to brush it off, tired as they all were.
"Maybe," Ron relented, pausing a moment before continuing pointedly, "Just don't fancy being surprised. I've had about enough of those recently. We only got you back yesterday, Hermione." He huffed out a dry laugh. "Sometimes I sort of miss waking up to double Potions with Snape. And to think those were the good times."
Hermione laughed long and hard, her cheeks tight with disuse, her eyes hurting with how scrunched up they were. She leant back after a minute or two, taking a relieved breath and appraising her best friend before placing a dark hand on his pale cheek.
"Oh, Ron…"
His left hand came up to cover hers, giving it a faint squeeze before pulling it down and away. His smile was old and beautiful, but he was still only eighteen. A child, to Hermione. "We'll have them back, you know," He said, "The good times. All this faff will have been worth it, then."
Faff, Hermione thought with thinly veiled hysteria, chest still bubbling with soft laughter. Give it to Ron to still think we'll be home in time for supper, or the 1998 equivalent.
He released her hand and Hermione's thoughts trailed off to become weary memories, right at home between her primary school years living in St Albans, and hearing Ruth talk longingly of Australia. Her brain felt fit to burst sometimes, with everything shoved in there. Every now and then it was easier to let someone else do the remembering; to file away each moment into carefully constructed categories that could only push to the forefront of her idle musings at the starting notes of a familiar song or the cloyingly sweet fragrance of Lottie's first perfume.
There was barely a moment's silence for the contentment lost when Ron spoke again. "I thought, after he took a look at the book, that Lupin might be a right hand here." Hermione snapped her eyes back to Ron's, taking in his raised eyebrows and tilted head, "Take a look at the area, give us some answers."
"You can call him Remus, you know," she said, hair bouncing lightly as she turned to look at her husband. His eyes were on them both and he did nothing to hide his curiosity before their daughter caught his attention, rolling her eyes as he dragged his gaze to her instead.
"What's he do, anyway?" Ron asked, still peering at her, "What do you do?"
"I'm Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," answered Hermione, still gazing at Remus. His perfectly sloping nose, slightly too-big ears, and rough stubble all gave her a weird sense of deja vu, now that she was back in the place they'd first met. It was almost as if the mere aura of this dimension covered everything in a weird, nostalgic hue; like if Hermione stared hard enough, held off blinking long enough, she just might witness a plethora of more grisly scars rip open Remus's face, curious eyes turning into war-torn wells of self-deprecation and aimlessness.
But she was getting ahead of herself, wasn't she? Turning poetic in her middle age. This Remus wasn't like the one she met when she was barely a teenager, and he knew her only as his wife, not the know-it-all swotty teenager who'd figured out his darkest secret within months of knowing him.
Abstractly, sometimes Hermione wondered what that Remus would think of her now, comfortable as she was with him. Would he understand why they loved each other? Under the light of a full moon, would he see her not as the failure that he saw himself, but as his cursed companion? Would he see her at all, or the monster he had convinced himself they all were?
It didn't quite matter, but the thoughts were there all the same.
"Remus consults, for the most part." She continued, snapping out of her thoughts with an abrupt turn of her head back to Ron, "He used to guest lecture at Hogwarts, actually. A few of the other magical schools, too, but only once Lottie turned eleven."
He squinted, like he was watching her through some foggy glass. Or perhaps a foe-glass, waiting for the whites of her eyes to appear–
"It's kind of bonkers, you having a kid."
"Ron!" Hermione glared at him, feeling her cheeks start up their tell-tale burn, Ron being his usual self – not the bumbling, red-faced teen she'd left behind – a reminder that though she loved him, he did actually get on her nerves a lot of the time.
"What?" He frowned, a little offended, like she wasn't being perfectly reasonable with her admonishment, "Last I saw you, you were my age, Hermione. Seeing a miniature version of you here – one who's not correcting my every word, mind you – is bloody overwhelming."
"She's not a miniature version of me," Hermione defended her daughter, forehead aching a little at how hard she was creasing it, "Lottie is nothing like me, actually." I hope, she silently added, ignoring Ron's sceptical eyes to turn and busy herself with her rumpled clothes, which had fallen over from their pile at the foot of her bunk bed during her restless night.
Hermione wasn't entirely sure what she'd see on Ron's face if she turned around now. She still remembered what it had been like for her to witness a younger version of Sirius Black in the Great Hall, scowling at the prank his friends played on him at the Welcoming Feast. It had been as if everything in that large, cavernous room whittled down to the long-haired boy and his smirk, and her lungs had struggled to get in any air until she'd gotten to her rooms and cried through the night, brain whirring. She hadn't had answers then, not like she did now, but that had almost made it easier. Never let it be said that Hermione would ever shy away from a mystery; it had been precisely that that had kept her occupied and her head on straight.
Now, though, Ron just had a best friend who'd aged twenty-one years in front of him, along with his dead ex-Hogwarts Professor and their teenaged progeny. The word 'bonkers' came to mind, Ron's incredulous intonation echoing in Hermione's thoughts. There had been a ritual, yes, but summoning her when they did wasn't rational. It defied the laws of magic, of time turners and everything it meant to manipulate the world the way the Dark Arts did. That area was full of sacrifice, but for such sacrifice you received precision, actuality… you got exactly what you wanted because the cost was so great.
For the two of them to turn up on her doorstep, in a life Hermione had long ago accepted they would never be a part of, was simply preposterous.
She couldn't help but think that perhaps this was another mystery to solve; but why now? And why involve Harry and Ron at all? A pervasive weight began to spread through her, tendrils winding their way between tendons and ligaments, down into the very fibres of her muscles. Her hands locked up, cotton falling from her feeble fingers.
Hermione had failed them. All this time, she'd thought the Resurrection Stone had spelt their survival, a window into her old world that assured her they would carry on, happy and carefree without their last jigsaw piece. The Diverter, destroyed in a fit of optimism, a defiant moment in her life when nothing had felt right. She had been battling herself for months on end at that point, and though she'd told herself that she had been doing it for the right reasons; to give her friends the childhoods they deserved, to defeat Voldemort, to save possibly millions of lives – had she not been selfish, in the end? What would she have done, if Harry and Ron had appeared before her, mere shadows of their actual selves?
Had the Resurrection Stone simply been showing her what she'd wanted to see? Surely it wasn't sentient enough to make decisions like that, of all things. But we don't even know the true story behind it, a reasonable voice offered. Maybe it was the Peverell brothers who created the Hallows. Hermione chewed at the inside of her cheek. Or maybe it was Death. No one bloody knows.
Internally shaking herself of her thoughts and trying to ignore the heavy shadow now burdening her, Hermione twisted slightly to throw the words over her shoulder and remarked, "I'm still the same person, Ronald."
There was a beat of silence before Ron's large, calloused hand patted her good-naturedly on the back, almost as if to knock some sense into her. "Yeah, alright."
Faced with Ron's shallow perception of her little family and the deadly descent of her own thoughts, Hermione understandably felt a little off-kilter for the rest of the morning, puttering around as she was. There was only so long she could put off the inevitable, however, and so when Lottie's jaw began to look particularly mulish late in the afternoon, Hermione figured it was time to get things moving.
Despite Harry's annoyance at revisiting the area he and Ron had passed earlier that day, even he could admit their direction was lacking and that this seemed to be their only lead. Donning glamour charms that used to give Hermione a perverse sort of pleasure - to see her face so different from the one she stared at in the mirror every day, cataloguing its changes but most notably its flaws - Ron's newly turned blond head led the way back to the edges of the clearing, Hermione following. As they had agreed, Harry was ten or so metres to their left and a few steps behind, wand held white-knuckled by his thigh. Remus and Lottie had paired up on his left, even further away from Hermione. The distance left her gut squirming. Though the full moon wasn't for another two days she suspected that the decades' worth of control they'd practised was being tested within this familiar place. Though she realised suddenly in that moment that it had borne her lycanthropy, despite never witnessing it.
When they reached the ecotone and began to venture further into the dense woods, the mountainous tree canopy left a cool film of moisture on her skin. Her wand arm remained steady at her hip, though with her sharp eyes Hermione saw the raising of blond hairs on Ron's forearms. She supposed the temperature must have dropped, though she struggled to feel much of a difference herself.
Movement out of the corner of her eye had Hermione turning her head slightly, acknowledging Harry's nod with one of her own as they came to a stop.
"What–"
The silencing charm left Lottie gaping comically, and Hermione locked wide eyes with her daughter, shaking her head ever so slightly. Quiet, she hoped to communicate, we don't know who's listening.
Lottie's stare was indecipherable, so it was simply hope that perhaps she would choose her battles wisely for once in her life that allowed Hermione to focus back on the task at hand.
Sensing their silent conversation, or merely knowing that the quicker they could unravel this mystery, the sooner they could return home, Remus stepped forward, raising a hand behind him to keep Lottie from following. Like he had with the book, once he was close enough – about five metres in front of her and Ron, she'd guess – he put his hand to what Hermione, who'd taken a few steps forward in anticipation, could clearly sense was a ward.
That's odd, she thought absently as Remus's hand stopped dead in the air, a slight ripple ricocheting off of the invisible surface of magic his palm had encountered. Wards weren't a physical entity, exactly; they were invisible for a reason, detectable only by a spell or, in their cases, magical sensitivity. This one wasn't particularly subtle, though, was it? Hermione meant no disrespect to her friends, but she imagined that if they were standing close enough even a third year would have been able to recognise something amiss in this eerily quiet forest.
Left with no choice but to voice his thoughts, Remus spoke.
"Similar to the book, at least." He said quietly, his brow furrowing in thought. His expression was reminiscent of nights spent labouring over letters from his international correspondents, academics who valued Remus's Dark Arts expertise despite the fact that he was a werewolf. "But stronger."
Harry narrowed his eyes, messy hair ruffling softly in the slight breeze. "What is it?"
Her husband sighed, turning around, and Hermione took a moment to appreciate the fine lines around his eyes and the patience in his expression before schooling herself. It would do no good to ogle her husband when they weren't exactly safe right now.
"My best guess is that it's similar to the curses that the Egyptians used to guard their tombs with." Raising his eyebrows, he continued, his Professor-voice both familiar and entirely foreign to Hermione, "Magical signatures lost their significance hundreds of years ago, because spells became too easily traceable back to their caster. You can imagine a practice like this which was losing popularity even before Grindelwald started acting up would have become almost extinct in the rise of a Dark wizard. No one wants to people to know who erected a ward." He pursed his lips a little, disapproving, "Or perhaps who cast the Killing Curse at who."
"Right, a little murder is best left anonymous," Ron snorted, "Brilliant. Question is, why did someone use an ages-old casting technique in the middle of a sodding war, which is bound to attract the wrong sort of attention?"
"Someone who wants to be found," answered Harry, Hermione's own voice following a mere millisecond behind. They looked at each other, and Hermione had a sudden recall of Harry's own words from five or so years ago; 'trouble usually finds me.'
"The Egyptians fully intended for those snooping around their tombs to know who'd cursed them and why, that is certain," Remus explained, smiling, "Muggles don't know about magic, though, so that's where it didn't go to plan: when Western Muggles began studying Egyptology more comprehensively in the 20th century." He turned back to the ward, gazing at the seemingly blank space intently.
"Having Bill here would've been handy," Ron grumbled under his breath, and Hermione bit her lip to hold back her smile, a little sad though she felt at the thought of the older Weasley and his two companions, out there somewhere unknown.
Harry stepped forward, twigs snapping under his feet as he joined Remus and raised a dark hand up next to his former teacher's. The contrast was made all the more interesting by the translucent movement underneath each palm, almost like a colourless radar signal reminiscent of the green ones Hermione had seen in action movies as a young teenager.
Then her wand slid from her loose grip, the sting of an Expelliarmus in her fingers as she whipped around and pushed Ron to face their attackers, still armed as he was, with her other hand.
"Move!" She yelled, diving to the side for some cover as silent spells flew by her, the static of their force making her hair sizzle as she was missed by only an inch. Before she could fully comprehend the goings on, Hermione pushed herself off of the nearest tree trunk and reached out her right arm, summoning her wand back to her with a silent Accio and sprinting across the divide between her and her daughter. The slap of her wand into her palm broke her focus for a moment, and she suddenly heard the shouts of her friends as they fought off what seemed to be multiple attackers.
"Remus!" Hermione called shrilly, hair bouncing behind her as she caught his eye, silently asking him to cover her. He propelled himself towards her and away from the unknown ward as she bent over, allowing him room to fire an array of quick jinxes over her back and toward, when Hermione twisted her neck to glimpse, three robe-clad figures.
In the same moment, Lottie's scream echoed through the woods and Hermione pushed her aching thighs even harder until she could straighten again, flinging her arm out and casting the first spell that came to mind, as if remembering another fight in a different forest.
The Stinging Jinx hit the cloaked man's face, his hands involuntarily releasing Lottie's shoulders as he stumbled back, helplessly patted at his rapidly swelling cheeks and tomato-red eyes. His howl of pain sparked a brief moment of satisfaction in Hermione before she pushed Lottie to the ground as gently as she could considering the situation and stood in front of her. Hermione's instincts screamed at her for the large and obvious target she made for herself with the action. She shot off a Stupefy before the man could get any other ideas and ducked to avoid an incoming Crucio, screamed her way by another black robed figure; this time a woman given the piercing pitch of her voice.
"Colloshoo!"
Her opponent tripped, their shoes stuck to the ground with Hermione's spell. They must've been trainers or maybe even loafers, for the witch slipped herself free of them in the time it took for Hermione to check that Lottie hadn't befallen harm. She then cast a Protego when the witch retaliated with a neon yellow curse; a curse it must have been with the way it made a harsh crack upon colliding with her shield.
At a distinct disadvantage considering she couldn't move, Hermione strode forward, sending as many spells, both deadly and innocuous, the witch's way in an effort to overwhelm her more than harm her. It was pure luck, really, when the witch darted to the side and, in her haste, tripped over something. With a final stunning spell, she fell unconscious with an aborted yell.
Turning, Hermione saw another foe fall to an Incarcerous from Ron, followed by Stupefy, after which all she could hear was her own heavy breathing.
"Everyone alright?" he asked, walking through the overgrowth to check on them - he was on the outskirts of the group as she had been, and had been stuck with the wizard who had disarmed her when she'd made her mad dash over to Lottie.
Casting her eyes across the trees, Hermione squinted through the dimming light and searched for any other surprises. She had forgotten, even with the protection of the dark canopy above, that the world was no longer barren, like it had been when they'd been on the run in her teens. Instead, the fight was on both sides now – the fight just as energetic for the light as it was for the dark, which meant more people about, ready to strike. Hermione didn't know where they could possibly be taken anymore. It had always been to their demise, when she was younger – served on an ostentatious Pureblooded platter for Voldemort's sycophantic mission to evade Death. Now, Hermione wondered what people might want with them, both the light and the dark.
"Fine," Harry panted, fiddling with his wand, almost nervously. His shoulders were rigid, the softness of his messy locks a stark contrast to the fierceness of his green eyes. Sweat by his temples, glinting with the brief flicker of the setting sun through the trees, revealed the effort it had taken him, exhausted as he was, to bring down his opponents. Nearest to him Remus looked similarly worse for wear, and Hermione was swiftly reminded of the head injury he'd suffered not even twenty-four hours ago.
Turning around at the thought, Hermione saw her daughter still sprawled on the ground, dirt on her chin and eyes narrowed at her.
"Oh!" Hermione breathed, and waved her wand over the teenager with a silent Finite Incantatem, "Sorry, Lottie."
"Can't do much when I've been Silencio-ed, can I?" Her tone was acerbic and unforgiving, "May as well have not been here at all."
Opening her mouth to reply, Hermione was interrupted by Harry's sharp "Impedimenta!", the spell ruffling her hair. She whipped around in time to see the witch she'd previously stunned freeze in place, hand still outstretched for her dropped wand.
"Thought you'd stunned her?" Lottie asked, now simply confused. A wave of relief came over Hermione at being saved from that forthcoming conversation, despite the oddity of the interruption.
"I did." She said, frowning. How odd, that her spell hadn't seemed to have stuck.
Walking forward until she'd reached the witch, Hermione noticed that her hair was a tangle of dark red, almost as if she actually had white hair now stained with blood. Hermione crouched down, clutching both shoulders and hauling the woman around onto her back. The woman's right hand remained in the air with the spell, but her wide eyes followed Hermione closely, darting from her face to her wand balanced in the wedge between thumb and forefinger.
With her elbows on her knees and her wrists hanging limply in the space between them, Hermione studied the woman. Her face wasn't familiar, but her cheeks were still a little plump despite her ratty appearance and thin limbs. Young, then, Hermione thought. In her perusal, her eyes caught on the bronze bracelet around the girl's bony wrist, thin and almost medical in its style. Reaching out with her wand, Hermione let its tip touch the jewellery, tilting it into the fading light.
"Runes," she murmured to herself, eyes flicking back to the woman, whose countenance remained edgy and unreadable, "But for what?" They were older than any runes she'd recently translated, and it had been a long time since she'd bothered with runes altogether. They had been more important in this world, when she might have been facing any number of traps or secret locations to unlock. The Deathly Hallows came to mind, a paltry zing of wry amusement running through her at the thought of them – but they had been destroyed, or were once again lost. No, this was something else… something new.
It had been a while since Hermione had been faced with newness.
Her diagnostic spells were vague at best and she realised that the longer they lingered, the more dangerous their surroundings would become. It wouldn't do well to happen upon enemies once again so quickly, so instead Hermione placed a stasis spell on the piece and carefully detached it from the woman, whose eyes followed its movement into the back pocket of Hermione's jeans.
The red of a stunning spell hit the woman, her limbs falling as if she were merely a puppet no longer with strings. Her eyes were now closed.
"It's time to go, I think," Remus said quietly from just behind her, lowering his wand, and Hermione stood with a nod. She brushed down her front to rid herself of stubborn bits of dirt and grime, then turned in time to see Ron disapparate with a faint pop, grip tight on the upper arm of the wizard he'd just defeated.
"This one look familiar to you?" Harry called out, and Hermione inspected the man at his feet once she was close enough, Remus following behind, "I swear I've seen him somewhere."
There was a small cut in his left brow, and though his mouth was slack and the pallor of his face almost had Hermione thinking he might be dead, she also had the sense she'd glimpsed his greyish hair and uneven stubble somewhere once before, too.
"Gaspard Shingleton," said Remus, and Hermione twisted her neck quickly enough to see his eyebrows shoot up in surprise, "Inventor of the Self-Stirring Cauldron, among other things."
Harry snorted, "Think I've seen him on a Chocolate Frog Card, so that makes sense."
Potentially miffed moderately famous wizards aside, there didn't seem to be any reason for these witches and wizards to have attacked them. Once they had apparated them to random locations throughout Scotland one at a time, it felt perhaps that they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or maybe the outdated ward had called to their group just as much as it had called to Harry and Ron when they'd stumbled across it. It felt like it required more thought, but Hermione's head was so full of runes and intriguing bracelets that she struggled to grant it the proper attention as they began to make their way back to the tent.
Then, as if no one wanted her to think at all, Ron spoke up – tone reedy and rushed – before they had barely made any head way on the journey, "I think we need to look for the others."
Their strained silence seemed to encourage him, and he continued, "I know it's a bad idea – Merlin, do I know – but we've got no end in sight, anymore. What are we trying to do here? Follow a dark book to an even darker place?" He stopped, turning around from his place at the front of the group with a tight mouth and exasperated eyes. He looked at Harry. "Come on, mate, you've got to know this isn't worth our time."
Harry looked away, out into the trees, mouth twisting up in annoyance.
"That man," Ron jerked his head, as if trying to gesture to the wizard he'd blinked out of the country, "Reennervate-d himself or something. He took one proper look at my face and asked me why we weren't ending this." He gave Hermione a long look. "I didn't have a good answer. And we've established this ward isn't exactly harmful, haven't we? So that's our job done. We move on, and we find the others, and we go on a bloody hunt for Death Eaters."
"Ron…" Hermione said warningly, casting her gaze quickly to Lottie, "It's not that simple."
"Of course it's not that simple!" He exclaimed, waving his arms about in frustration, "But the last time we were alone like this, Harry almost died, you were tortured, and Dobby damn well did die! Isolating ourselves isn't going to do anyone any good."
Ron's heavy breathing filled the air after his impassioned speech, and Hermione bit her lip in worry. It was easy for him to say that, wasn't it, when finding the others meant reuniting with his family? And though she knew Ron was more aware of his family's whereabouts now, and that he was used to missing them and also used to losing them – Hermione also remembered, despite the decades apart, that he longed for any sense of normalcy.
"Ron's right," Harry announced after a quiet moment, jaw clenching with his decision, "We need a plan, even if it gets Bombarda-ed half-way through."
"The plan is to follow the book to its natural conclusion." Remus said, eyes narrowed slightly, "The book that you gambled with when you brought Hermione here."
"Listen," Harry said sharply.
"No," Remus snapped, and Hermione swallowed thickly at his stubborn tone, "I don't know you any more than you know me, it seems, but you don't seem to realise what you've done. You've disturbed the careful balance of magic in this world and in ours, and unless we try to right that balance then we have no idea what that means for any of us."
"Seemed to work fine for you for, what was it?" Harry said, glaring, "Decades, right? So I'll take my chances."
Remus's face transformed, a storm brewing in mere seconds as the two of them stared at each other. The situation was getting out of control, and a nervous fluttering began in Hermione's chest for what felt like the first time in years.
Remus was right – there was indeed a balance that had been tipped, and if Marlene's suspicions in the 70's were anything to go by then either her family was due to die sometime soon if they didn't get back to their dimension, or they'd be unable to return once an unknowable event solidified their existence in this one.
They didn't have time to stand around and argue, and they certainly didn't have time to find more Weasleys and defeat all of the rebel Death Eaters. By the same token, with every minute she stayed here, Hermione was reminded of what she'd left behind; a broken Wizarding World. Just like her best friend longed for normalcy, Hermione yearned for her best friends, her parents, and a life in which she could make a difference.
That's what she'd wanted, wasn't it? No, what she'd needed. To make a difference? To take her magic and wave a wand over a broken world and call it a day? And here she was, ready to turn her back on it all again; to abandon what she'd signed on to do when she was eleven and lied to Professor McGonagall about the troll in the girl's bathroom. What she'd signed on to do when she was twelve and solved a Potion Master's riddle so that her best friend could face the Darkest wizard of their time once more.
Hermione had bled for this world; had cried and sweat and laughed and suffered and celebrated. Going back to her fame and her friends and her life would be the easiest thing in the world. And though he had his faults – and though she doubted him even in death, also even in life – Dumbledore had certainly had a point all those years ago, after the passing of Cedric Diggory.
"Dark times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right."
Wouldn't returning be easy? Where was the sacrifice, when she'd already left this world behind before and survived; thrived, even?
"Stop," Hermione said, skin tingling ominously in time with her churning thoughts. Remus looked to her, eyes wide and almost pleading. Hermione had never felt so terrible, so unworthy of her kind, patient, loving husband; but she knew in her heart of hearts what needed to be done, and she knew it was likely her family would never forgive her for it – and, in the sickest way, that's how she knew it to be right.
The absent, proud, and grating voice of Albus Dumbledore echoed in her brain, an imaginary, "Well done, Hermione," feeling slimy and uncomfortable as it settled in her mind.
"The book is important, Remus is right," she began, trying to ignore the frown of Lottie nearby, attempting to choose her words as carefully as possible, "But we know that sentient objects spell trouble," Ron grunted in acknowledgement, like the memory of his sister lying in a dank chamber was an everyday occurrence – which it probably was – "and we also know that this is just the first of many unwelcome attacks we're likely to face, if we continue; attacks we might not survive."
"If?" Remus repeated, tone quiet and deceptively mild, "So you've made up your mind, then?"
"Perhaps," broached Hermione, "Perhaps pursuing both ideas is possible." She ignored Remus's stare. "You mentioned a plan, Harry. So let's make one – the book wanted you to find it. Who would want me to come back here? Who could even know I'd gone?"
"And how did they know we'd walk near this ward?" Ron added, eyes darting around in thought.
"Mum–"
"The Black Library," she said, closing her eyes and picturing the now desolate place, "Who has access to the Black Library?"
"I was the only person named on Sirius' will–"
"Mum!"
Hermione opened her eyes to her daughter, her face a younger mirror of Hermione's own. Remus's green eyes looked straight back at her, narrowed and suspicious.
"You're not choosing this over– … over home, are you?" Lottie's voice was almost a whisper, her mouth downturned at the question.
"Lottie, there's so much you don't know, don't understand–"
"No, Mum," she said loudly, eyes looking a little wet, "I understand perfectly. I get it now."
Hermione's chest burned, as if she'd run a marathon and was stopped right near the finish line desperate for oxygen. "Lottie, please, I–"
"Sirius?"
Spinning around to face Remus, Hermione's chest ached further. Her husband's face was wan, the old scars looking fresh in the early moonlight, his pupils large and consuming in their blackness. Of course, she thought, Hermione's own grief lashing at her from the recesses of her teenage memories; here Sirius was dead, and Remus's spirit had died with him.
The Sirius she knew and loved, full of life and laughter and one of the best friends that Remus had ever known, seemed immortal. She imagined Remus thinking He can't be dead. And as if she had used Legilimency on him, Remus shifted his gaze to her, his lips trembling, before he sunk to his knees on the cold ground.
Rushing over to him, apologies tumbling from her lips, Hermione knelt down and ignored the sharp pain in her knees as she grasped his face between her palms, forcing his eyes to look into hers.
"He's alive," She said, thinking of back home, "I promise you, he is. But here, it's not the same."
"You never said," Remus gasped, clutching his stomach with white knuckles as tears fell from his eyes, "You never said anything."
"I know," Hermione's own stomach ached keenly in commiseration, her hands shaking against Remus's cheeks, "I'm so sorry, but it didn't matter."
It was like it took him a moment to process her words, then suddenly he pushed her away roughly and she fell onto her back, head hitting the hard dirt and pain ricocheting about her skull, lights blooming behind her eyes.
"Didn't matter?" Remus roared, now sobbing, "SIRIUS IS DEAD! AND IT DIDN'T MATTER?"
"He's alive!" Hermione reassured him hurriedly from the ground, the pain having left her quickly, "I changed it, didn't I? Remus, I promise you!"
"Hermione!" Ron yelled, startling her, "Get away from him!"
Blinking, Hermione focused on her redheaded friend, wand arm now confident and high. Frowning, she turned back to Remus, whose pupils began to get larger, whose sobs were so loud there was a rattle between them, the sound so familiar–
"Full moon!" Harry shouted, rushing forward, "It's the full moon!"
There was a scream, and Hermione felt hands grab at her arms, tug harshly at her limbs, yells and shouts and more screaming.
"NO!" She shouted, pulling away from the hands, "Get back!"
She hoped Lottie would explain. Merlin, she hoped. How could they have forgotten; how could she have?
"Remus," Hermione rasped, crawling toward him as the ache of her innards kicked up a notch, the now identifiable beginnings of her transformation into a wolf cruelly reminding her of the affect of the moon's luminous rays on her skin. She shot out a hand, curled her sharp nails in the chest of the love of her life, clutching at his heart and hoping to Merlin he could hear her through his rumbling growls.
"REMUS!"
Charlie hoped she could look back on all of this one day and laugh, but she was beginning to doubt even that.
"LET GO OF HER!" Ron bellowed, and it was only because Charlie had seen her parents transform once before that she collected herself quickly enough to intercept him.
"What are you doing?!" She shrieked, yanking on Ron's fraying jumper, "You'll die!"
"So will Hermione!" He shot back at her.
"Mum's fine!" Charlie insisted, feeling her eyes widen as her father's skin began to shred before her very eyes, fur bursting through it like the pantomime of a villain unveiling their true face in those Muggle horror pictures Mum had made her watch last year. "She can handle it, let's go!"
"What are you saying?" Harry exclaimed, pushing past the two of them as if to intervene, "He'll bite her!"
"Mum's already bitten! I thought you knew her or something?!"
"What?" That seemed to have shocked Ron into stillness.
"She's a werewolf, and we really don't have time for this!" Charlie insisted over the long scream of her mother, who was folded over Dad's back as if to protect him from Ron's still raised wand. "Come on, let's go! She can only hold him off for so long. Accio Hermione and Remus's wands!" Snatching the wands out of the air, Charlie grabbed their sleeves and pulled them away from the two werewolves, hard enough to have Harry stumbling before she whirled around and fled.
"Charlie!" Harry yelled from behind her, "Where are we going?!"
She ignored him, pumping her legs faster until they were all so out of breath that talking to each other was out of the question. She tried to ignore the howling in the near distance, and squeezed her eyes shut briefly to chase away the last image she'd ever had of a werewolf before tonight – snapping its jaws at the closing door in front of her.
This was familiar, at least. Running was something she'd done regularly prior to attending Hogwarts – had done it with her mother, actually, before Charlie had become too much of a nuisance as company. The sting of her lungs and the ache of her thighs was comforting, even as she could hear the ungraceful heaving breaths of Harry and Ron a step or two behind her. She leapt over large rocks and bulky shrubbery as they came into view, then pushing off of her left leg to take a hard right a few minutes later, back toward the tent. In any other place on any other day, she might've tried to talk to her mother, to get her parents confined to a secure, warded area for the night.
Needless to say it hadn't felt possible in the moment, not when Harry and Ron thought her mum had been human, and thought, for some reason, that her dad had been a danger to her.
What was with that, anyway? Charlie thought absently as they closed in on the clearing, no growls of werewolves at their heels. Harry and Ron were clueless, and it had been an awfully long time since her parents had forgotten about the full moon; had forgotten to take their potions, too, it seemed like.
Once they passed through the wards that Dad had replenished earlier that day, Charlie gestured for the other two to halt. She rested her hands on her head to catch her breath, opening up her diaphragm like Mum had always taught her to do.
"What… in Merlin's… name…–"
"Mum's a werewolf," Charlie interrupted Ron's spluttering. She ignored his dark look at her easy breathing, like it was her fault they had been running for their lives. "Why didn't you know that?"
"She wasn't one when she left us a few months ago," said Harry, gazing intently at the ground like Aunt Lily had always scolded him for doing. Charlie frowned to herself. Maybe they needed to find her aunts and uncles. They'd know what to do better than Harry and Ron, anyway.
"What have you been talking about, all this 'when she left you'?" Charlie asked, because this had been bothering her since they'd landed in the garden of the House of Black. Uncle Sirius had always gone on and on about how he'd hated the place, and in fact had left it to his brother after their parents had died. She'd only ever seen pictures in old books, the ones in her mother's library that detailed bloodlines and old Pureblood practices. There'd been some really awful stuff in there, and Charlie hadn't really wanted to delve further after she'd snuck in one night a few years ago. Mum had just been paranoid, anyway, when she'd banned her from that particular shelf. Charlie had only managed to read the book on Pureblood families by chance; one of her parents had accidentally left it on a side table. She'd guessed it had been Dad at the time, because her Mum was really strict about taking care of books, Charlie knew.
Not like you really know her, though, do you?
She shoved the thought away, anger souring in her throat and leaving an ugly taste on her tongue.
Harry looked up from the ground and straight at her. It was a little unnerving – he certainly had never looked at her that way before. In fact, Harry was sort of like an annoying brother most of the time, a little too gloomy for Charlie's taste and entirely too into Quidditch when he wasn't sulking. She could admit that he was more tolerable around Ginny, but everyone was more tolerable around Ginny.
"Charlie," He began, and he sounded almost nervous, "Last we saw Hermione, she was the same age as us."
She stared at him, dropping her arms from her head now that she had her breath back. Although it suddenly felt as if it had been robbed from her again, but she was perfectly still, no physical exertion imminent.
"Hermione went missing for seven weeks, and we performed a ritual to find her again. When we did, she was the same age as Lupin and talking about dimensions." Ron continued for his friend, still a little breathless, "And you're her daughter. It's mad, I know, but in the scheme of our lives it doesn't exactly rank the highest on the weirdness scale."
Charlie continued to stare at Harry, the incredulous question of What is the weirdest thing, then? tumbling around in her skull.
"So you're…" Charlie inhaled sharply, "You're not Harry and Ron, then?"
"I'm Harry Potter," Harry said, "And this is my best mate Ron Weasley. But we don't know you, and–"
Charlie's thoughts fell on top of one another, her lungs feeling tight and uncomfortable.
"–and Uncle Sirius is dead?"
Harry's face went a little stony, stonier than she'd ever seen it before. Ron appeared behind him, clapping him roughly on the back in a facsimile of comfort, but it seemed off. Almost as if he would've done something different had she not been there.
"Sirius died a few years ago, saving all of our skins," said Ron quietly, hand now on Harry's shoulder. His red hair looked dull all of a sudden, like someone had turned the lights down or something. He opened his mouth to continue, but then clamped it shut with a click of teeth.
Uncle Sirius was dead. But Charlie had seen him the other week, along with the Weasley twins. Her eyes snapped back to Ron, taking in his red hair and dishevelled clothing. He'd mentioned finding the others, and spoken of how they were all separated after that attack at the Ministry of Magic, something which she hadn't ever read about in The Daily Prophet. Mum had never mentioned it either.
But the conversation that felt so long ago, back home at Cheldon Farm, sprung to mind. She hadn't understood at the time, and in fact had sort of thought the whole thing a dream until Harry had stunned her dad. Now, though…
"I overheard Dad say that Mum arrived in 1977." Charlie said, "Like she'd used a Time Turner–"
"Not exactly," Ron winced, "But close enough. Thing is, there was no Hermione Lupin in our history books."
Her mother wasn't in history books? Charlie wanted to laugh. She'd been in every history book Charlie had ever gotten her hands on – the woman who had defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort at Malfoy Manor.
"But if… if Mum wasn't in history books here then… then who defeated Voldemort?"
"We did." Harry said, and his voice was a little rough, like he hadn't spoken in a while, "A few months ago now."
"But it's 1998." Charlie tried to reason, feeling her blood rush in her ears, "That means he's been gaining power for twenty years."
Harry and Ron just looked at her and said nothing. They didn't need to.
Charlie lost her balance with that realisation and sat down in a heap on the ground outside the tent.
She'd never felt dumb, not really. Maybe around her mother, who was the most intelligent person she knew even if she could be really stupid sometimes, like when it came to Charlie wanting to see her friends or asking to skip out on another Ministry ball because she was tired of being gawked at. Now she felt stupid, not realising what they had been talking about.
The shame was there, too, because Charlie knew, even if Mum never spoke about it, the sacrifices they had made back then to defeat Voldemort. And now they were back in a world where he was still dead, yes, but his legacy lived on – and it was a legacy twenty years stronger than the one Charlie had learnt about at Hogwarts, when people had gone missing and entire families had died.
All of that, and Charlie had thought her mother was choosing this place over their home – over her family.
Who would choose this? Charlie thought, feeling the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
The answer never came. She simply sat, feeling empty in front of their new home, in a place she knew nothing about with a Harry and Ron who weren't hers.
Charlie simply sat and looked up at the radiant full moon, waiting for her parents.
Again, this was a difficult one for me to write. I haven't quite gotten back into the rhythm just yet. Hopefully it was alright.
I start a new job tomorrow, so updates still might not be regular. I'm really sorry for that, but I'm trying.
Thank you for reading :) I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! I look at all of them, and find them so encouraging.