Disclaimer: They belong to JKR, I'm only playing.
A/N: Thanks muchly to beta, miconic, and all of you for R&R.
***
--Chapter Three--
Just when her eyes have sunk deep into darkness and her body into the languor of the slow-moving carriage, the train lurches to a stop. She startles awake and looks about her wildly. Seeing the signage outside--peeling paint and large black letters--she jumps up, gathers her coat and duffel bag, rushes down the aisle and hops down to the platform just as the flag snaps smartly and the whistle blows.
The train pulls away, trailing a comet's tail of empty wrappers, newspapers and other station debris.
The wind pulls at her hair and drains her face of all feeling. She steps out of the station and follows the avenue of squat cypresses--entirely too green for winter--her feet crunching on fallen sprigs. The pressed fragrance makes her sneeze and her eyes water. She rummages for a handkerchief and settles for a corner of her scarf. Pulling her coat on with difficulty, she tries to walk at an even pace.
But the walk is long and the wind strong. Station Avenue bursts into the main street with greetings in graffiti. Demented scarves and hats dash across the square. Her bag slaps heavily against her thigh.
Her mother keeps a tidy house, tidier than Hermione remembers it ever being. She also holds her head high, her back straight and smiles readily. Dust never gathers inside, the windows are always clear. She keeps the garden trimmed for winter, the gutters clean, the driveway swept. She sees patients as usual, shops as usual and wakes and sleeps at the usual time. She sees the same friends, reads the same paper, walks the neighbour's Labrador the same time each day.
But the thing is, nothing is the same.
Suddenly Hermione wants to go back, just for one Sunday; to go back home to Grimmauld Place and spend the afternoon buried in her room, the world tuned out and turned away. She stops and looks over her shoulder, but over the hedges and roofs of the square, the raised platform stands empty. She can't stand the thought of waiting for the next train. An empty railway station, she's found out this winter, is the emptiest place on earth. Maybe she could Apparate back to London, just this once.
But then bile rises in her throat and a shivering begins in her belly, so she tucks her head down and begins to cut through the wind.
*
Harry throws the window open despite the cold. The wind snaps jaws at garbage cans and loose gutters along the street, rain biting experimentally over rooftops. Charlie took Buckbeak to Romania long ago but the smell of droppings and forgone meals persists faintly on damp days. The room's now taken up by forgotten sentries of another bygone life; Gryffindor robes, boxes of stationary, a couple of cauldrons among other school things. Ron sprawls in an old armchair draped with a Gryffindor scarf and pokes half-heartedly at a pile of books. Harry looks on for a moment and Ron catches his eye.
"It's weird, isn't it? She doesn't seem to care about these anymore."
Harry grunts and lifts a shoulder, resolving to put the books away somewhere more respectable.
"She reads other stuff," he says defensively, though he's not sure what he's being defensive of.
"Yeah, Muggle stuff. Which is different." Ron tries for a scoff but comes away with a petulant whine. A gust of wind sends a piece of parchment scurrying across the floor. Ron rubs his arms briskly.
"So, anyway, what've you got to show me? It's freezing here."
Harry runs a hand through his hair and clears his throat.
"Okay, well. Here goes." He strides over to a dark shape in the far corner and rolls back and lifts away the heavy brocade curtain draped over it.
"Bloody hell!"
Ron drags himself forward in the chair. Harry pulls the final corner of fabric away with an awkward flourish and rests his hands on his hips.
"What do you think?"
His grin grows wider and wider. Light from the open doorway and window kindles a sudden gleam in his heart. Total astonishment whips away the clouds from Ron's face. It's as if they're boys again together, eleven years old.
Ron reaches blindly for his crutch and raises himself up. "Is that--really--is that what I think it is?"
Harry hasn't had much time but he's managed to give the bike a thorough brush-down. The black body shines like new. There's no trace of dust or insect nests; a damp cloth and a couple of faltering spells have taken care of years of debris caught in the wheels. The flat tyres have been fixed, once again with a charm. The mirror, headlights and windshield are immaculate, and silver gleams on the exhaust and fender, now dent-free.
Ron leans heavily against his crutch, a hand hovering reverently over the polished seat.
"It's amazing, Harry. How the hell did it get here? It is Sirius' bike, isn't it? Where has it been all this time?"
Still grinning, Harry walks around a cardboard box containing a few grease-stained rags among other cleaning gear.
"Long story. Short version is that I found it at Hogwarts. And yes, it's Sirius' bike--hang on, how do you know that?"
"Hogwarts? What were you doing there?"
"Never mind that, nothing important. Important thing is I found this. Remember that broken statue under the stairs to the Astronomy tower? Some Greek god, I dunno. Anyway, that's where this was."
"What, just waiting there for you to find?" Ron hobbles around, intent to look at the bike from all angles. His face suddenly has colour.
"No, I don't think so. I don't know, really, how long it's been there or why or how, I dunno."
He rummages in a box and brings out the scroll case. "And I found this too. Not too sure what it is…" He holds it out, but Ron's more interested in the bike. "So, anyway, I brought the bike over--"
"Did you--oh bloody hell--you flew it over, didn't you--"
"Of course, how else would--?"
"And it was all right? I can't believe it!"
"Yeah, it was fine, a bit creaky but it flew all right. Like your dad's Ford Anglia, I guess."
A pause fills the air.
"Yeah, it is, actually." Ron looks away, fiddling with the talisman around the handlebars. His eyes shed some of its sheen. He clears his throat.
"When Fred and I were sorting Dad's things, we found some diagrams and instructions Sirius had given Dad. Ages ago, just when they'd got to know each other--the early days of the Order, I suppose, judging from the dates. Anyway, the instructions were about how the bike was made to fly. And Fred said they were the same sort of spells used on the Ford Anglia." He looks at Harry, an apology in his eyes. A curtain hovers over his previous fair mood.
"There's a photograph too. Dad and Sirius with the bike." A corner of his mouth lifts in a brief smile. "It actually looks exactly like that," he says, gesturing. "Pretty buff."
Harry walks over to the window. The wind's died down, a touch of rain glistening on the cobbled street. The rustle and tapping of the starlings in the roof are louder here in the upper floors. A yellow raincoat sprints blindly across the street, head down.
"So, what's this?" Ron tugs at the small bead he's been worrying.
Harry walks over and looks at the bead in Ron's hand. "I don't know. It was there when I found the bike. I think it's charmed into place…I couldn't get it out to clean." He stares at the small double face, and something slides into place. "Actually, that looks like the statue."
Ron looks at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"
"Well, the statue had two faces. And this has two faces too. So maybe they're meant to be of the same person--god, whatever."
"Ahh." Ron releases the pendant and clatters around the bike slowly. He leans against the window, his head almost touching the top frame, the crutch leaning awkwardly against a leg. "A mystery worthy of Hermione."
Harry remains quiet. The room is suddenly gloomy, with Ron blocking the light. Something scuttles above the ceiling, raining down a spray of dust.
"You haven't told her."
Ron's eyes are narrow and his voice quiet. Harry doesn't know how or when, but Ron's lately developed an even, steely tone that Harry, much to his irritation, has discovered on several occasions to be quite effective. He rubs the back of his neck, trying to formulate an answer.
"And you're not planning to, are you? Not any time soon," Ron persists.
Harry recounts his reasons silently, but under Ron's glare, they seem insubstantial.
"Look, I'm in trouble with her already, all right? I will tell her but not right now, not with her ready to bite my head off anyway." He drags an upturned crate closer and drops down onto it.
"Can you imagine how mad she'll be if I tell her I flew the bike from Hogwarts?"
"Not to mention that you'd been sneaking off to Hogwarts while she's worried sick about two murderers being after you," Ron adds smoothly.
Harry turns his head aside. Raindrops track the slow throb of silence. Clouds of breath blossom in the cold air.
"Have you noticed that she's way more--way more…" He flails, not wanting to say it out loud, as if it's somehow a traitorous thing to say. Ron has no such qualms.
"Way more paranoid than she used to be at the worst times during the w--during the last few months?"
"She was never paranoid."
"All right. Protective?"
Harry grimaces. He wonders why it sounds reasonable coming out of Ron's mouth and yet blasphemous in his own mind.
Ron crosses his arms, looking over his shoulder at the street. "She's just lost her Dad, Harry."
"Yeah. And so have you." It's out of his mouth before he can blink.
The curtain flicks firmly into place. Ron raises himself on his crutch.
"Yeah, well, it's different."
He hobbles across the room, resolutely looking away. Harry opens his mouth to apologise, but words have dried up. He looks down at his feet, his hands hanging awkwardly between his knees. Ron's uneven footsteps manoeuvre their way out of the room and down the stairs slowly. The house rattles like a handful of marbles in a wooden box. His insides creaking, Harry gets up to pull the old brocade curtain over the flying bike once again.
*
Outside the door, Hermione takes a few deep breaths. Her face and eyes are raw. The cold's driven a blade into her lungs. She rummages in her bag, pulls out a key and opens the door.
Warmth. And the smell of a roast and something sweet mingling. She pulls off her gloves and drops her bag. The curtains are drawn. A tall glass with a sprig of Christmas roses stands on the mantelpiece. Framed photographs range on either side of the vase; she takes great care to not look at those. She pulls her coat off and hangs it on a hook near the door, grimacing faintly at the long dark coat that hangs there already.
"Mum?" she calls. She walks through to the kitchen, trailing a disconsolate hand over polished furniture.
"Oh, hello darling. Wasn't expecting you so early." Her mother sets a greasy tray on the counter and draws Hermione in for a quick hug. Her short straight hair and tall frame is in complete contrast to Hermione's build and colouring. It was she and her Dad who were a pair.
"How are you, my love? You're looking quite windblown. It must be terrible outside." She picks up the tray and drops it in the sink. Her movements are brisk and light, the kitchen airy.
"Yeah, Hermione. Looking a bit pale there. Your boyfriends not looking after you?" Nick grins across the newspaper he's spread out on the table.
"Hey, Nick." Hermione drops to a chair. "Homeless once again, I see."
Nick spreads his arms wide. "Hey, all the world's my home. Especially when they make roast for lunch. Isn't that right, Aunt Helen?" The radio's on, tuned to midday news. Helen turns the volume down and wipes her hands on her apron.
"Well, yes, this one turned up bright and early today too." She nods at Nick. "Ask him why." She moves to the electric kettle and flicks the switch on.
Nick sticks out his tongue. "Look what I got." A silver ring sits within a bed of painfully red flesh. "It got infected, and I was running a fever all last night. But Aunt Helen here fixed it all up."
Hermione looks at him curiously, swallowing down distaste. "I wouldn't have thought of you as the type, Nick. And how can you stand to eat with that thing in your mouth? Or speak, for that matter?"
"If you mean the type that's always out to try out something new, then that's me." He winks. Hermione snorts and reaches for a page of the newspaper.
"And I am now happily inducted into the folds of all wearers of tongue-rings," Nick continues. "That reminds me, when do you plan to invite me into your magical abode?"
Hermione scans the gardening lift-out intently. "It's not my house."
Nick snaps the paper smartly. "Yours, Harry's, it's pretty much the same thing, isn't it? What do you say, Aunt Helen?"
"Enough, Nick. For someone running a high fever, you're remarkably chirpy. You see, Hermione, he has no trouble whatsoever with speech." Helen wipes the counter and checks the oven.
Hermione turns the page coolly. "How's your week been, Mum?"
Helen begins to recount her week in selective detail. Nick goes back to scanning the paper. From time to time, Hermione feels his eyes on her but when she looks up, he seems engrossed in the paper. Her irritability, at a persistent buzz since she spotted his coat behind the door, notches up a little.
Nick's been in and out of the Granger household since he was seven and Hermione no more than a toddler. He shares his uncle's brown eyes but with a disconcerting slant to them, always darting and curious like a pair of feelers on a grasshopper in an otherwise contained face. Outwardly he's always groomed and neatly poised, all tucked in like a well-maintained suburban garden, inconspicuous and unremarkable.
Finally, Helen leaves the kitchen to gather a dose of antibiotics for Nick. Hermione lays the paper down.
"What?" she snaps.
Nick grins and makes a great show of clearing his throat. "Does the name Rufus Scrimgeour mean anything to you?"
Hermione starts and regrets it immediately. Nick carries on.
"I see that it does. Well, let me just say that I have made a friend in a high place, and have been given an exclusive tour into the wonderful world of magic."
Hermione opens her mouth. Nick holds up a peremptory hand, mischief glinting in his eyes. A lock of curly brown hair--so like her own yet not as recalcitrant--falls across his forehead and he smoothly tucks it back in place.
"Of course, naturally you want to know all about it. You see, I have this cousin who I only recently discovered is a witch. Imagine my surprise, but also the intrigue--a witch in the family! Can such a thing be true?"
He clasps his hands over the newspaper. Hermione grinds her teeth, trying to keep her facial expressions in check.
"So naturally, I ask her to introduce me to her world, her friends, her fellow witches and wizards. But alas, my dear cousin does not think it a good idea." Nick makes a sudden expansive gesture. "But I am a resourceful soul, an excellent sleuth--"
"Oh, stop the act!" Hermione slaps the table loudly, the newspaper crackling beneath her hands. "What did you do?"
Nick looks delighted. He chuckles, showing a quantity of perfect teeth. "Oh, all right. What did I do? Since you were so coy about telling me anything, I wrote a letter."
"To who?"
"Rufus Scrimgeour."
"How did you know about him?"
"I didn't. I just addressed my letter to the Minister of Magic. I gathered that much about the politics among wizardry from the measly information you gave me."
"And how did you send it?"
"The normal way. It was just one more envelope in the pile of letters I drop off every day for the Library. Once again, refer to the said measly information. You know, when you told me about how you got your first letter to Hogwarts, I thought it should work the other way too."
Hermione props her forehead in her hands and contemplates the pattern on the tablecloth. The oven emits a loud ring and Nick jumps up to turn it off. From behind, he looks like a younger version of her father, slight but strong, albeit a little taller.
"Look, I meant no harm," he says, returning to the table.
"And I don't think I did any. Besides, don't you think it's a bit unfair that you're still trying to keep us poor Muggles--" he makes quotation marks in the air "--in the dark after your activities almost flattened our city? Scrimgeour wrote back and invited me to a tour of the Ministry and Diagon Alley--did I say that right? He met me briefly, then got one of his assistants to give me a tour."
Hermione wonders about the cold prickle running up the back of her neck. She tries to compose herself, to wear a bland face. She can hardly blame Nick; she herself is responsible for whetting his curiosity with her reluctance to talk about anything magical. But her reasons are her own and she doesn't care to give them substance, not even in her mind.
"So what did you think of it--us?" She manages to keep her voice even.
"Well…" Nick stretches his legs under the table, leans back in the chair and crosses his arms over his chest. He cocks his head to one side as if considering a particularly puzzling Picasso to which he's just unearthed a clue.
"I was actually quite disappointed." He shrugs at Hermione's raised eyebrow.
"You are all too civilised, all so modern, so…proper. I mean, yes, I should have known since I know you, but…" Hermione refuses to rise to the bait and gazes at him with her chin propped up on her palm.
"I expected blood and hoods and ritual sacrifice and all that sort of stuff but your magic is too clean. Sure, some of you dress and do things in a decidedly odd manner, but that's got nothing to do with the essence of your magic. It's very, what shall I say, mundane. Hmm. Maybe it's like medicine. You know, the profession of medicine used to be all blood and gore and stabs in the dark, cures worse than the disease and all, very mysterious in the early days. But now it's all clean and metallic and, and…white. The same practice but time has changed it."
Hermione attempts a sneer. "Mum's right, that foul ring's not hampering your speech at all."
For a moment, she wants to set him right, tell him about the blood and gore and stabs in the dark, of hoods and sacrifices, of fear and hopelessness. About the green curse, or the other one, the one that can hurt you till you're senseless, or the one that can cripple, or any number of other things…But then the desire wilts, the indignation short-lived like midwinter sunlight.
"Oh, that's another thing." Nick stick out his tongue. "This is not just any ring. It's special." He wiggles his eyebrows and sticks his tongue out even further at Hermione's expression. "I got it at a fancy little shop in Diagon Alley."
"You what?"
"Business isn't exactly thriving in Diagon Alley, I must say, with so much of it burnt down. But this little shop was open and it had a bit of everything plus a qualified artisan for this kind of thing. It's got my name magically engraved in it, 'Nicholas Hatch'…I'd show you, but you look like you're going to be sick already…" He winks. "You probably know him, the guy who did this for me…then again you mightn't. A short, tatty man, reeked of smoke--tobacco I think, I didn't know that people even smoked tobacco any--"
"Oh, Nick!" Hermione drops her face into her hands.
Helen enters the kitchen just that very moment, arms loaded with the contents of a medicine cabinet, trailing a loop of loose bandage behind her.
"I just dropped the first-aid box. Nick, why did you leave a pile of books in the corner? I tripped over it and oh, what a mess!" She drops her load on the kitchen table and Hermione rushes to make room.
"All of this stuff is probably useless now, been on the floor and everywhere, and I don't know where to put them now! I don't have a spare box."
Nick gathers up the bandage and Hermione gets on her knees under the table, chasing small sticky bottles tumbling over the table.
"I'm sorry, sorry, the books are for Hermione--and don't worry Aunt Helen, just a flick of Hermione's wand and your cabinet will be as good as new-- "
"Shut up, Nick--"
"Oh, come on, one little demonstr--"
"I don't have my wand, so shut up."
"My, my, for a witch to travel without her--"
"Stop it, both of you! Hermione, darling, I'm sure there are some cardboard boxes in your father's study, could you get one for me, please? And Nick, you might have to run to the chemist for your antibiotics now that I've ruined them--let me write out a prescription. Lunch is going to be quite late, dears…"
*
The room is dark. It doesn't smell of disuse or lack of fresh air. On the contrary, it smells like a pause, faintly of tea and polished wood and muddy shoes, as if her Dad's just stepped out not a minute ago. She stands at the door, her hands flexing at her sides. It's not as pristine as the rest of the house, nor completely disorganised. He was a man of method and kept track of things that mattered. He was careless with food crumbs, much to her mother's despair, but careful not to get any of it on his papers and the keyboard. He didn't tidy the shelves bursting with books all that often but his desk was always ordered. Things have been moved, she can tell. His Wellingtons no longer stand at the French window and the couch has been pushed to the far end of the room. The curtains have been replaced. The new ones release less light, swallowing down the sun as soon as it touches the window. She doesn't know what to feel.
Should she feel angry at the changes that have been made, or sad at the things that have been left the same?
A hand touches her shoulder and she starts.
"Darling, I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking when I asked you to look for a box." Her mother squeezes her shoulder, her cheek against Hermione's hair. They stay close for a moment and then a hitch begins in Hermione's belly and she moves away, into the room. Trying to steady herself, she sits down on the couch. Helen follows her.
After a moment, Hermione regains her voice. "What do you plan to do with the room?"
Helen looks at her, surprised.
"Well--I--I thought I'd leave it as it is for a time, until you, until--"
"Until I get used to him being gone?" Hermione shakes her head at some thought she cannot bear to voice.
Helen sighs and comes to sit beside Hermione.
"I meant to say, until you make a decision about where you're going to live, what you're going to do with your life."
"Oh." Reddening a little, she glances briefly at her mother. "Sorry." She draws her knees up on the sofa.
Helen leans back. "It's all right." A dark coloured throw rug decorates the sofa, made of a soft material. Hermione presses her cheek against it. The room has a low ceiling and as a result has always seemed cosier than anywhere else in the house. The far wall holds a few shelves with various bits and pieces which Hermione recognises as her own handiwork from aeons ago. A large paper spider from nursery and a cross-stitch castle. An old Christmas garland made of dried holly and forgotten toys from an unremembered play group. The bookcase too holds a portion of her life; primers and readers from her time in Muggle school. There are various photographs too, propped up haphazardly on any available surface and she doesn't have to look close to see who's in them.
They are not pieces of her life, but remnants of his.
How can she tell her Mum that one of the reasons she wouldn't move back home is this very room, which sits in her heart with its door always swinging to and fro, its darkness and love always more alluring than the life she has now?
She sighs and hugs her knees, glancing at her mother. Helen stares at the ceiling, her head tilted back against the sofa. Her eyes have shadows beneath them and her skin looks taut, held together with effort. Her hands lie slack on her lap, her ring glittering in the gloom. Hermione wonders what Harry and Ron would be doing. Harry might be making lunch, Ron cleaning out his despicable freshwater prison. She hasn't told her mother about how Malfoy came calling and how it was understandable because Harry had killed his father. The house would be quiet and dark, full of soft shadows. There would be no need to talk, despite all that remains to be said.
"There's no hurry, is there, Mum?"
Helen smiles. "Of course not. There's all the time in the world."
--end chapter three--