Disclaimer: Not mine; more's the pity.
Shadow Walks
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
--Green Day, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"
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Chapter Nineteen:
Yesterday you were my best friend, but tomorrow took you away.
--Breaking Point, "Good-bye to You"
Harry came awake slowly, taking a moment to remember where he was, and wondering idly what time it was. There was no way to determine time of day in the little underground, windowless room. His nose ached where he'd fallen asleep with his glasses on; he'd turned over in the night and driven them into his face. The earpiece was still hanging crookedly where he'd broken them, falling on Hermione the night before, but he ignored it. He pushed two fingers beneath the frames and rubbed, as he stretched experimentally and sat up.
Hermione was in the bed with him. It gave him a momentary jolt, until he saw the way she was laying, curled up into a tight defensive ball facing away from him, so close to the edge of the bed that she seemed seconds away from falling off, with a tattered afghan clutched tightly around her. A pang of sorrow washed over him, as he regarded her, feeling an immense regret that he had come here at all, that he had been the showcase for all her regrets, had put on display to her what she was missing - would forever miss - and that he was going to leave her behind, in a universe where she'd already been left behind countless times.
He leaned over her, propped on one arm, and gently brushed a stray lock of hair back from her face.
"I'm sorry, Hermione."
She sniffed suddenly, and blinked her eyes open, shrinking back into the mattress as she saw his proximity. She scrambled from the bed, still holding the afghan around herself like it was armor.
"You're awake," she blurted obviously. "I'm - I'm sorry… I tried not to take up much room, but - but the floor is cold, and - "
"Hermione…" he interrupted gently. "It's your bed. If anything, I'm grateful that you didn't chuck me out." He looked at the desk, with the multiverse book lying open atop it, and several pieces of parchment covered in Hermione's tidy scrawl. "You were up much later than I was. Why don't you get back in the bed and rest, and I'll get us some breakfast? How's your shoulder?"
"It's fine," she mumbled, as he steered her by both arms back to the bed, and made her sit down. He moved over to the tiny stove, and looked back over his shoulder at her.
"What do you usually eat?"
She shrugged, apparently embarrassed.
"Usually just toast. There are some bananas under an Everfresh charm too; they should still be good." Harry found the necessary items, and began to prepare a simple breakfast, while Hermione watched, hunched beneath her afghan.
"Don't you want to know how much progress I made last night?" She finally asked, when the silence seemed to grow oppressive.
"It can wait until after breakfast," he said, holding two plates aloft and speaking with impressive nonchalance. Hermione's eyes narrowed.
"I don't need your pity, Harry," she nearly growled. "Who wouldn't be eager to leave this wretched place?"
"I trust you remember exactly what I said to you last night?" Harry asked, though it wasn't really a question. "Then you also remember that the word `pity' was nowhere to be heard, was it?"
"I think I've got it," she said softly, and was rewarded with a loud clatter, as Harry let the plates drop the remaining distance to the surface of the stove.
"R - really?" he stammered, dolloping marmalade onto the toast and spreading it out. He perched a banana on the edge of the plate, and handed it to Hermione. She accepted the plate, and took a bite, without really tasting it.
"Yes," was her response, and they finished the scanty meal in silence. Harry felt anticipation thrumming through his gut in a dead heat with guilt.
I'm going to find her today, was the inescapable thought that spiraled aimlessly around in his mind, and somehow, even as he tried to force his trembling hand to direct his toast to his mouth, he couldn't make himself believe it. He had spent the better part of a year searching for her in a tireless frenzy, had sunk into a slough of despondency, and had then subsisted behind a hard-working, cheerless façade, refusing to face the idea that she was really gone forever. The next four years had seemed like an eternity.
Then he'd been thrown this incredible opportunity to find her. He'd located Bellatrix, arrested Draco Malfoy, found the necklace…
He was still waiting for something to go colossally wrong.
And then his eyes fell on her.
She had conjured a serviette out of thin air, and was dabbing at her mouth and fingertips with it. The fastidious gesture made him grin; it seemed very natural that Hermione would still tend to the niceties, even while living in a secret underground room off of someone's cellar.
He could tell that a dreamy smile had wafted across his face, and he stuffed the rest of the toast in his mouth, Banishing the plate back to the cooktop, and hoping she hadn't noticed.
Hermione sent her dish arcing after his, where it landed as lightly as a falling feather.
"Are you ready?" she asked. The guarded look was up in her eyes again - or was it still? She was going to ready Harry for the journey and send him on his way. It seemed obvious that any kind of sentimental overture or messy, guilt-ridden apology would be rather less than welcome.
"Reckon so," he mumbled, in a muffled voice, as he struggled to swallow the crust of bread that suddenly seemed too dry and too large for his protesting throat.
"Stand up," she instructed, and moved beside him. She tapped him on the head with her wand, and said an incantation in Latin that he did not catch. He started to ask her what she'd said, but she softly hushed him, and he watched, agape, as luminous blue runes began to write themselves in the air.
He had taken only the barest of crash courses in Arithmancy during Auror training, and so had only the vaguest of ideas of what she had done.
"Is that my - ?"
"Magical signature? Yes, it is." Her brow furrowed as she studied the glowing shapes, pointing with her wand. "This one is your individual rune - most scholars think there are no two alike - even twins' are usually slightly different. This is a family rune, and this one has to do with one's astrological sign, and this one is a sort of a personality rune. It - it isn't absolute by any means, but one example shows that those sorted into Gryffindor house generally have this specific rune in common, as do the other houses for other runes. And then this one - " she pointed to the one farthest to the left, " - for a long time has been known as the `constant'. In all my classes and studies, this one has been the same in every magical person."
"Then which one do we - ?" His question was halted incomplete, when Hermione cast the same spell on herself. A set of brilliant gold runes began to form in the air beneath his.
The rune she had pointed out as the "personality" rune was identical to the one of Hermione's in the same position. However, every other rune was different.
Even the so-called constant.
"Why are those different?" Harry asked. An awe-struck smile, a triumphant smile of successful discovery wreathed Hermione's face.
"I was right," she breathed, her eyes flickering over the luminescent runes hovering in mid-air. "Our constants are different, because you are not from this universe." She nodded toward the open portfolio on multiverse theory. "Luna had just begun to explore that aspect, but, of course, there's never been anyone around from another universe on whom to test the theory."
"So, everyone - everyone in my universe has this rune?" Harry asked, reaching his hand upward, as if to touch the symbols. "She has this rune? And that's what will draw me to her?"
In answer, Hermione picked up the blank crystal, strung on a nondescript chain, and murmured another incantation, drawing an imaginary line from the constant to the pendant itself. A ghostly after-image of the rune floated down and was absorbed inside the crystal, which briefly glowed an electric blue color before returning to its natural state.
She tapped the crystal with her wand, and said,
"Increpitare." She handed the chain to him, without really meeting his eyes. "It's done."
"It's done? That's it?" He sounded incredulous.
"The final incantation sets the rune in the crystal to search for or `call out' to its like. If Hermione is in between you and your home universe, which would make sense, as she's ahead of you on your journey, yet has not made it home, then this crystal will draw you to her first - as the nearest bearer of your constant. If she's - if she is dead - then you'll arrive back home straightaway. All that - all that's left is for you to activate that crystal and get out of here. You should bypass all other universes until you reach the one where she is." Her face was almost brittle, as if made of porcelain, her eyes a mask.
There was a smothering silence. Harry finally flicked an uncertain glance at the approximate area where the door had been.
"I should probably… go out - just - just in case," he mumbled.
"Right," she said faintly. "You wouldn't want to risk materializing where this room isn't, and be buried alive." She strode methodically to the wall, and tapped it, as the bricks obediently disarranged themselves and exposed the cellar of his parents' home.
"You don't have to …" he began automatically, as she began to follow him through the cellar.
"I want to," she said, and they made the transition into the house in silence, then climbing through the broken window into the neglected garden. Day had broken, but everything was still damp and misty in the early morning.
His hand went instinctively under his shirt, clasping at the chain of other necklace, the one that would take him - them, he hoped - home. He slipped the crystal that Hermione had doctored over his head as well.
One more stop, one more stop, he thought, scarcely daring to believe it. His heart was thundering so loudly in his chest that he thought it was probably leaving an imprint. He scuffed his shoe on the scraggly turf, and threaded two fingers through a belt loop.
"I want to thank you for - for everything you've…" His words sounded stilted and formal and awkward.
"It's just me, Harry," she said, her voice the barest of whispers.
"That's what makes it so hard," he replied as softly as she had, his throat threatening to close up over the words. One hand groped blindly for his pockets to make sure his wand was stashed safely therein.
She took a deep breath, and stuck her hand out.
"Good-bye, Harry. Best of luck." Her voice was chipper and false, as if she were making polite conversation with an acquaintance that she did not like very much. He stared at her hand as if it were a deadly breed of viper.
"Good-bye Hermione," he responded, but his voice was low and rough. He ignored her hand, and pulled her into his arms for a crushing hug instead. He felt her body go rigid for an instant, but then she relaxed, melding into his embrace, as if she were trying to memorize him, as if she realized that this was the end and that it was really forever this time.
She was saying the farewell that she never got to say before, he thought suddenly. She pulled back to look at him, and they were practically breathing each other's breath. He dropped a kiss on her forehead, and then on her lips, light and slow. They both tasted salt, but from whose tears it was unclear.
He backed away from her and nodded at her gravely, retrieving his wand to tap the crystal she had just given her. She smiled at him, as he said the incantation,
"Adjicio universum." Still she smiled, even though her heart shattered into a million tiny pieces, even as she was impaled by the shards of what was left of her life.
"I meant what I said before," he said, his voice beginning to echo hollowly, as he vanished. "Don't stay here. Hermione, live your life. I love you."
He was gone, as completely as if a television set had been unplugged. She realized that her smile was still on her face, as if forgotten, and it began to twist in on itself, as the tears began to flow in earnest.
"I love you too," she choked to no one, as she re-entered her hideaway, feeling like a sort of diminishing version of herself, fighting the urge to fling herself down on the bed in the wild hope that her pillow smelled like him. She had never felt so unutterably lonely in her life. Instead, she turned toward the desk, and her face became speculative, as she eyed the remaining blank crystal and Luna's handwritten leather book of notes.
If there are infinite possibilities out there, if I could come up with a way to alter my `constant,' she wondered, hope faintly sparking in her heart for the first time since Harry had told her he was leaving, perhaps there's a Harry out there who needs me as much as I need him.
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There was a high-pitched whistling in Harry's ears, and his hair seemed to be streaming back in a non-existent wind. There were streaks of color, sounds that rose up and died abruptly, the sensations of people and movement nearby, but yet not fully part of his sphere of perception. Where he'd passed rapidly through universes before, he'd been able to distinguish, to observe his surroundings. There had also been the underlying impression that he was not the one moving; it was the universe itself falling into place around him. Now, however, he had the definite feeling that he was moving through untold numbers of alternate universes, at extremely high speeds.
And then it all came to a sudden and undeniable halt, and everything went black. He toppled forward into nothingness, giving over to total disorientation.
"Hey? Hey, you all right there, mate?" A voice filtered into his consciousness, so familiar and instantly recognized that Harry's heart sank. He'd gone home; she was dead, and he'd bypassed everything in between, and arrived back in his own universe. He dimly realized that he was lying face down in verdant grass, and wondered if he could just stay there forever.
He felt a gentle nudge - probably the toe of a shoe - in his side. He felt his wand being removed from where it hung out of his pocket, and tensed, but did not rise. Why should he? He had staked all his hopes on the feeble certainty that Hermione awaited him - somewhere - and those had finally been dashed for good.
"Listen, mate, I'd hate to call the MLE, but - but you are on private property. It's clear you've had a rough night, and - and I'll be glad to send you on your way with a Sobering potion and a couple of galleons, but you've got to get up."
Harry stifled a groan into the grass. What was he playing at? The tears that sprang unbidden to his eyes stung, and he realized that his glasses had been smashed in his fall, cutting into his face.
"Love?" The voice called, retreating away from him somewhat. "Is there any Sobering potion left in the refrigerator?" There was an indistinct murmur from somewhere more distant, possibly inside the house. "No, I don't need it. It's only ten, for Merlin's sake!" The reply was indignant. "It's for some poor sod passed out in our garden."
Sundry pieces of information had been slowly trickling into Harry's dazed brain, not the least of which was his wonder at how Ron - for it was undoubtedly his voice - had known he would reappear in Godric's Hollow, and had managed to somehow meet him there as he'd arrived. Ron had also not called him by name, though he'd seen him only from the back, and had taken his wand. His last remark about the `poor sod' and `our garden' had caused Harry's heart to seize painfully with deferred joy.
He was not home, at least not yet. He was in phase, and somehow Ron lived at the house in Godric's Hollow.
He was among friends!
Finding Hermione should be easy.
He opened his eyes, squinting against the sun - brighter now, and at the level of about mid-morning - and tried to sit up slowly, groaning involuntarily as he did so. Every muscle in his body ached, and he wondered what kind of toll his rapid flight through the multiverse would take on him. Pinkish stains came away on his hands, when he removed his destroyed glasses and wiped at his eyes, and he looked askance at the twisted metal.
"Dammit!" he said under his breath. "Oculus reparo." The glasses righted themselves with a soft snick, and he sighed gustily, thinking of the first time he'd ever heard that particular spell.
Replacing the glasses on his face gingerly, mindful of the lacerations, he braced one hand on the springy lawn, and attempted to stand to his feet. As he turned toward the rear of the house, where Ron had gone, someone came out of the back door, and he was suddenly cognizant of exactly two things.
If he was in phase here, that obviously meant that he had either never been born or had already died. Judging from the reaction he received, he'd guess it was the latter.
And it was not Luna that Ron had been talking to through the open window.
Distantly, he heard the sound of crockery breaking as it came into contact with the stone steps that descended from the house to the garden.
He looked up at Hermione, standing in the back door, with the remnants of a Sobering potion splattered around her feet, her mouth open in unadulterated shock. She had gone pale as new parchment, and Harry moved involuntarily toward her, afraid that she would faint.
She recoiled away from him, bracing her hands against the doorframe to hold herself up.
"It's not - it's not possible. Sweet Merlin… I - "
Ron suddenly appeared behind her with some washcloths, water, and towels, evidently to help the `poor sod' in question, and looked quizzically down at the mess on the steps.
"Did you drop it? Are you all right?" He added, when he received no response from Hermione. Finally, his gaze followed hers, and his face mirrored the exact expression that Hermione's had.
"Bloody hell," was his rather predictable response, before he pushed Hermione back into the house, and leveled his wand at Harry.
"Ron, what are you doing?" Harry said in an alarmed voice, afraid that he would be hexed before he could explain himself.
"Who are you?" Ron asked. Inside the house, Harry could hear the faint sounds of Hermione crying.
"I'm Harry, you blind git. I need to talk to Hermione."
"Like hell you do." Ron's face was stony. "Is this your idea of a sick joke?"
"I'm - I am Harry, but I'm not from this universe. I - I've come from another - another universe to - to - "
"To what?" Ron's voice was all but a snarl. Harry swallowed noisily.
"To take Hermione home."
Ron's reaction was about what Harry would have expected, as his face suffused a bright Weasley red.
"You're not taking her anywhere." He bit out the words.
"No, you've got to listen to me, Ron! You've got to believe me! Hermione was stolen - taken from our universe by Bellatrix Lestrange during the Final Battle five years ago. We've managed to track her to this universe, and I've come to take her back where she belongs. You can test me for polyjuice, for Glamours - you can give me Veritaserum, if you like, but I swear on Dumbledore's grave that I'm telling the truth!"
"That's a pretty safe oath to make, considering Dumbledore's not dead!" Ron snapped, looking just seconds away from hexing Harry within an inch of his life.
"He is in my universe," Harry replied softly.
Hermione reappeared then, peering between Ron's arm and the door, red-eyed and wet-faced.
"Let him in, Ron."
Ron turned to look at her, aghast.
"Are you mad? That could be anybody! Harry's dead." She nodded, and her eyes did not leave Harry's.
"Harry is dead," she said quietly. "But I believe him."
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A few moments later found Harry once again in the tiny house at Godric's Hollow, seated on a comfortable brown leather sofa, his lacerations healed and with a cup of tea in his hand. Ron and Hermione were perched in chairs opposite, staring at him unabashedly, Ron clearly still suspicious of him.
"I'm sorry, Harry," Hermione said calmly. "But I don't remember any of what you've just described. Don't you think I'd remember being forcibly removed from my universe and abandoned in a new one?" Her words so closely mirrored those of the Hermione he just left that he was more than a little discomposed.
But then disappointment - nay, even despair - swamped Harry so heavily that he thought it might knock him over.
"I - I thought…" he stammered. "You said you believed me… don't you - don't you remember anything?"
"Of course I believe you." Hermione's voice was gentle and soothing, but not patronizing or false. "I know what Harry Potter looks like when he lies and when he tells the truth. But Harry - our Harry - was killed six months after he defeated Voldemort - assassinated by a stray Death Eater bent on revenge."
Harry was taken aback. Of all the ignominious, pointless ways to die - to be caught with a curse in the back, after he'd beaten Voldemort! It was like being walloped with a Bludger after the Snitch had been caught.
"Hardest thing I've ever had to live through," Ron mumbled. "Harder even than Charlie dying, because it was all supposed to be over." He seemed to be echoing Harry's own thoughts. "Everyone was supposed to live happily ever after then. If it hadn't been for Hermione…" He trailed off, and they exchanged glances. Harry found his gaze drawn inexplicably to their hands, noting for the first time the gold bands that adorned their left ring fingers.
"Bloody hell, you're married!" Harry blurted, before he realized he'd spoken aloud.
"Two years ago," Hermione said, and smiled self-consciously when Ron took her hand and kissed the back of it.
"Smartest thing I've ever done," he said. Hermione's gaze seemed to caress her husband's, and Harry suddenly felt very much like an intruder - an unwelcome intruder that disrupted lives, brought memories of death, and made everyone uncomfortable. The sight of Hermione looking upon someone else with such love brought its own unique brand of pain.
He focused on the nondescript beige carpeting, and, when he finally dared look up, Hermione was watching him pensively, awareness dawning in her dark eyes.
"Oh my God," she said quietly. "You're in love with her, aren't you - with your Hermione?"
Harry's face burned, but he knew better than to deny it.
"Yes," he said, averting his gaze and appearing absorbed in the waving limbs of the young oak tree outside the window. "That's why I came after her - that's why I haven't had a moment's peace since she vanished from my life. That's why I've got to find her!" Emotion clogged his voice and made it quake, and he saw Hermione's eyes go shiny with tears. Ron's face was pale and drawn.
"We - we calibrated a crystal, so that it would be drawn to her magical signature - the signature we share - the one from our universe. It - it brought me here… so - so I don't understand…" Harry's voice trailed off, like that of a bewildered child whose world has suddenly been knocked awry.
Thick, troubled silence sloshed around the room.
"We - we both work at the Ministry…" Ron finally said. "If - if there's any kind of help you need, I'm sure - I'm sure we - we could get someone … you know… to help…" His voice dwindled off lamely, as Harry appeared not to have heard him at all.
Suddenly he straightened, and said,
"Holy hell!" so abruptly that Hermione visibly started. The realization had bludgeoned him upside the head so quickly that he felt like he was having difficulty breathing. He pushed himself to his feet, abandoning his teacup with a noisy clatter, and began to pace around the small living room, gesticulating wildly to himself, while his two friends watched in confusion and no small amount of concern.
Hermione is here. My Hermione is here. She's out of phase. Oh God, she's out of phase. How will I find her? She could be anywhere, anywhere, and I would never know.
Then he remembered the one being that would know, that would be able to see Hermione, and perhaps bridge the chasm that yawned between them, long enough for them to go home.
Godric's Hollow and Hogwarts - they seemed to be focal points for all three members of the Trio, in whatever universe they happened to inhabit. They were constants, places to which one or more of them seemed to gravitate consistently. Perhaps that would work in his favor. Perhaps Hermione, realizing that she was out of phase, would have gone there, back to the school - hoping for aid, hoping for a solution to the never-ending quagmire in which she found herself.
"The ghosts!" he exclaimed disjointedly. "Sir Nicholas! Are the ghosts still at Hogwarts?" His eyes were blazing, his face flushed with the urgency and desperation of his question. Ron and Hermione both appeared completely flummoxed. "Are the ghosts at Hogwarts?"
"S - sure, mate," Ron finally said slowly. "Nearly Headless Nick's been there for as long as I can remember. Each house has got one."
Harry closed his eyes in a prayer of thankfulness. Now, if only he could get to her, find her before she moved again. If she hadn't been to Hogwarts… but he couldn't think about that. When he opened his eyes, they were both still staring at him, but he could not muster up enough concern to worry about what they thought.
"Accio wand," he said tersely, and the smooth wood slapped audibly against his palm as he caught it decisively. Ron watched him guardedly, but made no aggressive moves.
"I've - I've got to go…" he said, in as close to an apology as he could get, with everything inside him screaming for him to get the hell out of there and find Hermione!
Only seconds after he darted out of the back door, they heard the gunshot crack of Apparation.
-
Oh, this chapter was fun to write! I figured this one and the next would be the ones everyone was waiting for! Hope it will live up to expectations!
Hope everyone enjoyed it. Allow me once again to express my thanks to all those who read and review. I am consistently amazed at how many people seem to be enjoying this story! Thank y'all so much!
You may leave a review on your way out, if you like. They are always anticipated and appreciated.
lorien
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