Unofficial Portkey Archive

Shadow Walker

Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time.

-Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart"

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One soul to pour out, one love to catch all. No walls to defend, wars to align. Give me your heart, you already have mine.

-- Jars of Clay, "Heart"

Chapter Fourteen:

Hermione moved silently about her spacious room, folding her clothing and placing it neatly into the wardrobe, empty save for a couple of handmade sachets. Keziah Ashburton, the woman who let the rooms above the bookshop, had given her an extra set of linens, which she had transfigured into a set of pajamas. She was mulling the events of the evening over in her mind, thinking about what her next course of action would entail.

She and Ron had been able to have an amiable conversation as the three of them crossed to the bookshop. But things had been somewhat stilted with Harry, as if he had suddenly realized how far out of his shell he had come, and had just as quickly retreated. Ron had startled her mightily by sweeping her up into a bear hug, after they'd delivered her to Keziah's capable hands, but if he'd been bothered by the tears spilled onto his shirt collar, he said nothing about it. She had turned to Harry, and had become horribly aware that she had confessed herself in love with … well, a version of Harry anyway… and that he had been listening. They had managed a formal, but mostly friendly handshake, with Harry all but promising to see her the next day. Ron had not even troubled to hide his smirk from her.

"Yeah, some of us have to work to pay the bills," he had snarked. "But some of us say we are Ministry `Consultants' and don't really do anything."

"I'm working on my memoir." Harry's distaste for the task had been evident in the way he'd said the last word.

"If that's what you want to call dodging that biographer's Owls," Ron had quipped in return. But his smile was genuine and warm, as he waved good-bye, and headed a little ways out of the square to Apparate.

Hermione closed the wardrobe door, and moved to turn the bedcovers back. Ron appeared to be able to get away with comments that would have sent Harry into further retreat or even flight, had they come from anyone else. She hoped that she would be able to eventually come to a similar relationship. Her heart ached for how broken and lost he seemed, how his quest had asked everything of him, and he had given it. And now he was left to deal with the fall-out as best he could.

Maybe he reminds me of me, she thought glumly. She reached into her leather satchel for her toothbrush and toothpaste, and moved into the bathroom that would have seemed impossibly large if she hadn't been in a Wizarding establishment. After she completed her evening ablutions, she crawled into the bed, inhaling deeply the fresh scent of the clean sheets. Reflexively, she reached for the satchel, to twine its strap around her arm, and then hesitated. She moved instead to grasp the chain of the crystal around her neck, knowing it was deactivated, but knowing that if it were ever removed or lost, she would lose any synchronicity she had with this universe and be cast out. After a short internal war, she looped the strap around her wrist anyway. Just in case, she told herself.

The words of the Harry's prophecy had startled her more than she would admit, even to herself.

"'Claimed and claiming… flung away'," she mumbled to herself. What else could it mean? She clenched the collar of her pajamas around the necklace. It was her biggest fear, that she would find a place she could call home, but then would be flung away, cast out of a universe, utterly at the mercy of a fallible inanimate object.

The Harry that she'd met first, the one who inspired her to her quest, as well as the Harry married to Susan Bones - they had shown her that there was a way out, a way to take what life gave you and make it into something amazing, to fight for happiness, for love. This Harry had not done that, seemed to doubt that it was even possible. She had called him different, bitter, but she rather suddenly realized that she badly wanted to be that reason for him, something worth fighting for, worth living for.

And he was in love with Vega Malfoy… a Malfoy and a Lestrange… how odd. Lucius Malfoy ruined both our lives. She felt herself beginning to drift, lulled into serenity by the warmth of the bed and the lovely smell of the linens. Her eyes popped back open suddenly with a wayward thought: What happened to this universe's Lucius Malfoy? Ron mentioned Bellatrix being in Azkaban, but what of Lucius? Did he die in the Battle?

If she could find a delicate way to bring it up, she would ask Harry in the morning, she decided, her eyelids refusing to stay open any longer. Still clutching the pendant as if it were her lifeline, she fell into restful slumber.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Keziah Ashburton was a sonsy, pleasant woman who vaguely reminded Hermione of Molly Weasley, although she couldn't have said why. There was not much physical resemblance between the two. She bustled a still-yawning Hermione to the large dining table, asking how she'd found her room, and had an enormous English breakfast in front of her before she could have said, "Wingardium Leviosa."

"I slept quite well, thanks," Hermione answered, cupping a steaming mug of tea in her hands and savoring its warmth.

"And what are your plans for this beautiful day?"

"Well, I - I think I should look into getting a job. Do you know of anyone who might be hiring?"

"Meurig over at the apothecary has been saying he'll get an apprentice for months now. Were you at Hogwarts? How were your Potions N.E.W.T.s?"

"I - I didn't go to Hogwarts, actually," Hermione stammered, an abashed smile quivering on her face as she groped for a believable lie. "I attended school on the Continent. My parents traveled a good bit. But - but my Potions scores were top-notch." Keziah's look was somewhat more measured, and the ensuing pause had Hermione's palms growing clammy with sweat.

"Well, if Ronald Weasley vouches for your character, I don't reckon I'd be having anything to say against you."

Hermione gratefully jumped at the chance to change the subject. "So… you know Ron well then?"

"He comes in every Friday for shepherd's pie. Claims I make it better than his own mum. Although I've sworn an oath not to ever tell her that." She grinned, and Hermione could not stop herself from smiling back. "Now, you look like you need some more - Mr. Potter! Good morning." Keziah broke off suddenly and straightened, her manner becoming noticeably more formal.

Hermione jerked her gaze upward, her eyes widening in near-alarm, and her hands began fluttering of their own volition around the insanity she sometimes called hair. Keziah's perceptive smirk caused her face to burn, and she couldn't help being grateful that Harry could not see what a fool she was being.

"Good morning, Harry," she managed to say in a mostly natural way. Keziah extended an offer of breakfast, which Harry accepted with the polite remoteness that seemed his wont. Hermione took the opportunity to cram her mouth with toast and jam, in the hopes that she could recover her equanimity, while not being required to speak. Keziah's attitude towards Harry, she thought, was interesting. The older woman was not overly ingratiating or smotheringly eager to please, but quietly respectful, stemming possibly from an ever-present gratitude. That kind of celebrity recognition, Hermione reflected, was probably a good deal less irritating.

"Hermione…" Harry said tentatively, nodding in her general direction, as he moved his hands over the backs of the chairs, selecting a seat next to her at the adjacent side of the large table. Keziah was efficiently filling his plate and cup, and Hermione watched as Harry's hands skimmed gracefully over the accoutrements, noting their locations in relation to him. "How - how was your night?"

"Very nice, thanks. And thank you for referring me here. The accommodations are wonderful." She couldn't restrain from rolling her eyes at herself. Saying that his surly mention of rooms to let, simply to get her to leave him alone, was a referral was stretching it just a bit. But he clearly was trying; she recalled how out of character he'd apparently been acting last night. "I didn't expect you to be here so early."

Harry chose that moment to attempt to conceal his flushed face behind an uptilted cup of tea, but drank too quickly, and had to bend away from the table in a paroxysm of coughing. Hermione had the frenzied thought that perhaps Dolohov's curse had given him other chronic health issues, and leaned toward him with concern.

"Harry, are you all right?" He had stopped coughing, but was still recovering the breath that the coughing had denied him. She laid one hand atop his, and the touch ran up her arm as if it were a live wire. He inhaled a sharp breath through his nostrils, and had an incredibly penetrating look on his face. She felt his hand tremble underneath hers, again as if he were struggling with the instinct to pull it away. With visible effort, mirroring his movements of the night before, he turned his hand over, and encased her fingers in his; his thumb moved jerkily over her knuckles, and she caught her breath.

"I'm - I'm fine, thanks."

Hermione was afraid to move or even blink, for fear that the beautiful moment between them would burst like a soap bubble. They both startled when Keziah clattered some dishes together noisily, humming under her breath, and spearing Hermione with a knowing look.

"I - um - I brought you something. A - a copy of the prophecy in full. I thought… you might want to have a look at the whole thing." He fished a slightly crumpled bit of parchment from his pocket, and Hermione could not help but be disappointed when she had to move her hand from his to unfold it.

Tragedy and victory become two sides of the same mirror. Mirrors reflect mirrors into eternity, illuminated by moonlight. The lion in the storm searches for the other side of himself; the whirlwind has swept it away.

The false light takes life, breaks faith, spreads poison. Mirrors reflect mirrors into eternity. Mirrors reflect false light and equilibrium is lost.

She who came from an alien world, inundated, wearing a necklace made of starlight. Desolate she, the lioness, and her season desolation, known by the bard, but unknown by the world. A usurper she, claimed and claiming, but flung away. The Chosen One cannot call her back to life

The first line of the prophecy made Hermione's eyes burn with tears. Tragedy and victory… once again her mind played back the indelible reel of that scene - of Harry and Voldemort dueling, Harry's brief look of disbelieving triumph, a look of promise for her… and then his fall. Everything that mattered won and lost again in the same moment - two sides of the same mirror. She sniffled a bit, and was then surprised to feel Harry's hands in hers again. His expression was a twin of hers; there was no empathy there - he was too wrapped up in his own pain for that - but he did understand. She groped for something innocuous to say.

"There - there's a lot of light imagery involved here," she said hoarsely. "Moonlight, starlight, false light… mirrors… er, do you mind if I make a copy?" Harry shrugged dismissively, and she Duplicated the parchment.

"Do you want to walk?" Harry interrupted her, his voice abrupt, too brusque. Hermione eyed the remainder of the breakfast that she hadn't quite finished. Her appetite had faded with Harry's producing of the parchment.

"Sure… I - I just need to - er… I'll be right back." She stood so quickly that her chair clattered backward noisily, and she cringed. "I'll be right back," she repeated, pressing the original prophecy back into Harry's hand, and hurrying down the corridor to her room.

When she came back to the dining room, dressed and freshened up, with her hair braided tightly down the back of her head, and her leather satchel across her body, there were other occupants eating breakfast, but Harry was gone. On her way from the kitchen with a rack of toast, Keziah caught her look of commingled alarm and disappointment, and said simply,

"He's waiting for you downstairs." Hermione tried to stifle her relief, but she gathered from Keziah's dancing eyes, that it had leaked through anyway.

The bookshop downstairs still had the "Closed" placard hanging on the door, but was unlocked. Hermione felt her heart flop in relief, as she saw Harry, sitting hunched on the front stoop of the shop, waiting for her. He looked up as the door opened, and the little bells jingled to herald her exit.

"Are you ready?" he asked, without preamble.

"I - yes," she finished helplessly. She desperately wanted to ask him how he'd known it was her, but she didn't want to seem insensitive.

"It's the way your footsteps sound… and the - the way you smell," he blurted. "Like… er… vanilla…" He blushed horribly, and Hermione couldn't keep a faint, surprised grin from crossing her face.

"It's the soap I use," she patted the front of her satchel with an open hand. "And how did you know I was wondering that?"

"People always wonder that." Harry's words were stiff, and some of his shuttered look was back. "I'm a walking circus sideshow." He stood up, and jogged easily down the four stone steps, leaving Hermione standing near the door, one hand extended as if to help him up, although she hadn't yet touched him. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off, raking her with a gaze withering enough to make her wonder if his blindness wasn't some kind of ruse he was perpetrating on the entire Wizarding community. "I can manage myself just fine. If I need your help, I'll ask."

She was so flabbergasted that she let him get halfway up the block, before her righteous indignation kicked in. His pace was brisk, and she had to very nearly run to catch up with him. It was still rather early, and the damp morning fog had yet to burn away. The streets were almost empty.

"Just where the hell do you get off? You've got no reason to yell at me for wanting to help you. How did - how did you even know I wanted to help you?"

"It - the clasps on your bag clinked together when you moved forward. I - I heard them, and I - besides, I can just tell from your voice…"

"Tell what from my voice?"

"That you're kind. But you don't know what it's like! To have people fawning all over you because you're the Boy-Who-Lived, but then pitying you, treating you like a child, like someone broken… like - " He stopped to regain his lost control, his wand arm motionless at his side, though his Detection spell remained glowing in the tip.

"Harry, I don't pity you. And everyone's broken… in one way or another."

They had nearly made it to the outskirts of town, when Harry had stopped, and Hermione realized with a start that she recognized the lane. The rutted road, lined by stone walls, that led to Harry's family's home, the home that seemed to be a constant across many universes.

"Don't pretend you know what I've gone through! I woke up in agony, like someone had poured acid in my eyes. They told me I had done it, I had defeated him… but that I'd never see again. And my first thought… my first thought was `I wonder if Vega will mind.' And then … and then Ron came in, and - and his voice… Part of me knew then, just by the way he said my name…" He blinked several times, pressing his eyelids together tightly, as if to ward off tears. "I didn't see it happen, you know. And still I dream about it. Sometimes I stop it; sometimes I cause it. But every time… I wake up, and she's still gone."

"Part of me died that day on the battlefield when I saw my Harry fall. I did see it, and it's seared into my mind. I saw Ron fall, I saw Ginny fall. An Imperiused version of my mother tried to kill me," Hermione said quietly, reverie on her face. "I know how it feels, Harry. I know how much it hurts."

"So much that you came here - looking for him, for someone to replace him…I'm not him, though! I'm not your Harry. I never will be! You can't expect me to be - you can't - "

"Harry, I don't." She realized with some surprise that it was true. She reached out, as if to lay a hand on his arm, but arrested the motion. "I've killed people, Harry. I lured an entire team of Aurors - led by Draco Malfoy, the Minister's son, mind you - into a trap, and then blew up the building. I was a Ministry-wanted terrorist - Undesirable Number One. You aren't the same Harry as the one I lost. But I'm not his Hermione any more either."

"Draco Malfoy…" Harry shook his head, a disbelieving, almost sardonic smile flitting across his face. "It's hard to believe…"

"What is?"

"That she - that she didn't even exist in your universe… when she made such an impact in mine." Hermione's face crumpled in sympathy, and she did touch him then, dancing her fingers along the back of his hand.

"It's one thing I've definitely noticed… that sometimes the slightest differences can result in such profound change, and yet … yet sometimes - even with those changes in place - there are fundamental things that stay similar."

"Yeah, like Lucius Malfoy." Harry's clouded eyes were hard and distant.

"I don't follow."

"He got away with it, didn't he? In your universe, he even bloody well became the Minister for Magic. In this one - "

"I thought he was in Azkaban… I thought he - Ron said - " She recalled her rather jumbled thoughts from the night before. What had Ron said?

"His wife is in Azkaban. The Aurors never found Lucius. That's practically why Ron became an Auror, but there's never been a trace of him. He - he …killed his child, and left his evil harpy of a wife to rot in Azkaban… and - " he shrugged, " - and he got away with it."

"Victims don't always get justice, Harry," she reminded him regretfully. He turned toward her then, and then, to her great surprise, lifted his other hand - the one that wasn't entwined with hers - to softly touch the side of her face.

"I don't understand it…" He admitted helplessly, then continued before she could ask him to clarify. "You didn't exist here. I've never met you - I still don't know you. And I still - I feel like - I - " He floundered to a stop.

"We were best friends in my universe, in other universes. There must be something inherent in both our personalities that gravitate toward each other, that - on some level - attract one another. You must feel that, even though you don't know me… yet."

"It doesn't seem like a lot to hang your hat on - as a reason to stay, I mean. What if I - if I never - I mean…"

"Sitting around a table with you and Ron again… Harry, it was wonderful! I'm not sure if I truly comprehended how much I missed it. It's not something I'd give up again lightly. Even if friendship is the only return on my investment." Just the statement hurt a bit; she wasn't sure that was true.

"And what if I do… start to feel the same way… and the - the universe takes you?" He rocked toward her, only the slightest bit of forward motion. Hermione's heart was lurching almost painfully in her chest, half-afraid and half-expectant that he was going to kiss her. "'The Chosen One cannot call her back to life.' That's what the prophecy said. I can't lose someone again."

"I'm trying to figure out a way to make the stay permanent. But for right now, the crystal is all I've got. I've charmed it with every kind of protective spell I can think of. But - there never are any guarantees, Harry… not really."

She hoped that the beseeching look that she knew was on her face translated into her voice. But Harry backed away from her, disentangling his hand from hers. He was shaking his head, even as he moved away, something like panic evident in the upturn of his eyebrows, in the tension of his neck and mouth.

"I can't do it again. I can't risk it again. And Vega - she - I - I'm sorry, Hermione." He looked sorry. "I need - I - I have to go." He gestured vaguely down the lane with his wand. She could just glimpse the shiny white paint of a picket fence where the path bent out of sight.

And Hermione stood there, not sure whether to feel sympathetic or stupid, as he strode decisively away from her, fleeing the very idea that he could ever feel for someone else what he'd felt for Vega Malfoy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"… and then he left." Hermione spread her hands wide, more chagrin than despair in her voice by design. Ron was sitting across from her at the pub, with fish, chips, and butterbeer in front of each of them.

"I can't say that I'm surprised. I know you must be - confused… or frustrated… or both, but you - the truth is, you don't know Harry… er - not this one anyway. But I do. And I'm telling you that this is not like him." He held up a hand to stave off Hermione's burgeoning protest. "Oh, storming away all moody and refusing to talk is like him. But showing up at breakfast… talking to you. He likes you. A lot. And he knows that he shouldn't be falling this hard and this fast for someone who is a complete stranger to him, and it scares the hell out of him."

"He showed up at breakfast for a reason. He brought me the prophecy." Hermione's no-nonsense tone dismissed Ron's theory out of hand.

"As soon as he could. The first chance he got. Do you know how long he's been giving that author the runaround about his biography? He likes you, Hermione." Ron's grin was cheeky. "I'd lay Galleons on it. And I'm an Auror, so I don't have many of those."

"Harry told me that you were an Auror," Hermione said abruptly, seizing at the opportunity to change the subject. "He said it was because of Lucius Malfoy. Because he got away." The affable look on Ron's face morphed into something deadly serious.

"That's a case that still bothers everyone up in the Department." He put a bite of fish in his mouth, and gestured at her with his fork. "He was at the Battle. People saw him, witnessed that he cursed Vega. And he disappeared. Rich Wizards often have more than one wand, so the fact that his registered wand was never used again isn't really that damning." His eyes narrowed. "I just know that he's out there somewhere, free, laughing at us. He couldn't even show any loyalty or love to his wife or daughter - believe me, he is as false as they come. At least that's something that's constant, eh, Hermio - what's wrong?"

All the color had drained from Hermione's face, and she had emitted a squeak of shocked realization. She scrabbled desperately through her satchel for a moment, before she pulled a folded piece of paper free. She opened it, and thrust it under Ron's long nose with a trembling hand.

"This is Harry's prophecy. I don't understand."

"I Duplicated it this morning. Look at it, Ron, look at it. You just said it." Ron's eyes roved over the verse at length, before he looked back up at Hermione, shaking his head in a baffled way.

"I said… that it was constant at least… that Malfoy was a liar… I - I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"You didn't say he was a liar, Ron. You said he was false. False! Look at the prophecy!" Hermione's voice was becoming high-pitched with the possibility of discovery imminent. "'The false light' - do you know what `Lucius' means? It comes from the Latin word, lux, for - "

"For light," Ron finished for her, looking as though he'd been Stunned.

"'The false light takes life, breaks faith…' His very surname means `bad faith'. Sweet Merlin, Ron! That part of the prophecy has got to be talking about him."

"What about the mirrors?"

Hermione looked back over the prophecy again, her lips moving silently as she read, her eyes alight with furious thought.

"Have you ever done that? Held a mirror up to a mirror?"

"Only once," Ron admitted. "It makes the mirrors really tetchy."

"Not Wizarding mirrors. Just regular ones. They reflect each other - it looks like there are hundreds of them, that it goes on forever… an infinity of mirrors…" Her voice drifted off, as she stared into the distance.

"Hermione?" Ron finally prodded uncertainly.

"The universes… a new one born from each individual decision we make. The mirrors are the different universes."

"So the part about the lioness is about you."

"It certainly would seem so. I came from another universe, an alien world, and I fell into a river, inundated… even known by the bard. The Bard is a common nickname for the famous Muggle playwright - "

"William Shakespeare," Ron supplied, and then said, off of Hermione's astonished look, "What? I read. Hermione… A Winter's Tale, right?"

"Where I came from, I'm pretty sure you never read Shakespeare," she informed him, unable to suppress a wry smile. Ron rolled his eyes.

"Well, I'm not going to say that I think he missed out. You need a bloody Translator Charm to even understand any of it!"

"Now that sounds more like the Ron Weasley I know!" They grinned companionably at each other for a moment, before Ron brought them back to the matter at hand.

"So if part of this is about you…"

"And Harry. The lion in the storm - his scar - that's got to be him."

"We'd already assumed that much. It's no wonder he's afraid. It certainly sounds like he's going to lose you. The Chosen One cannot call her back to life. And what has Lucius Malfoy got to do with it? He's been missing for five bloody years."

"What he's got to do with it is… I know where he is. Or, perhaps more precisely, I know where he isn't."

"I know lots of places where he isn't," Ron informed her sardonically over the rim of his tankard.

"Mirrors reflect false light… He's not in this universe."

"Well, I would think that's going to make him somewhat hard to catch."

"I know how to do it." Hermione's voice was triumphant. "I helped another Harry find his Hermione… in another universe. The Constant - it's a part of your magical signature that's the same for every wizard in a given universe. Mine is different, because I'm not from here. We can track your Lucius Malfoy using his Constant. All we need is a blank crystal from the Department of Mysteries."

"And how do you suppose we're going to get that? My clearance is not that high; chances are, nobody's going to believe us anyway; and you technically don't exist." He ticked his points off methodically on his fingers.

Hermione's smile was radiant in the rich yellow light of the pub. If her companion had known her prior to yesterday, he would have recognized her joy - the thrill of a solution discovered. Her forefinger tapped deliberately on one phrase of the prophecy. Ron peered down to see what it was: illuminated by moonlight.

"Tell me, Ronald Weasley," she teased. "Do you know Luna Lovegood?"

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