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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But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me. Oh and I rush to the start.

-Coldplay, "The Scientist"

Hermione had flopped around her room until the walls were making her crazy, had pestered Keziah - not even a shop full of books could adequately corral her scattered attentions - until that beleaguered lady had thrown her out, had walked the perimeter of the town twice, including two trips to the river, where she made failed attempts at contemplation, before she finally gave up and strode as decisively as she knew how down that lane that led to Harry's house. Some of her false bravado faded at the sight of the white picket fence, but she forced herself to continue. Ron was on an errand; their course, when he returned, could change everything.

And even so, all she could think about was Harry.

When Ron got back, they could go talk to Luna. And Hermione could do this for them - could give them the closure they needed - and then… but she could not make herself think of that. Not yet. The gate creaked noisily as she pushed it open, and walked hesitantly up the bricked path.

When she faced the green front door, she steeled herself, lifted her chin, and raised her fist to knock on the door, hopefully with more confidence than she actually possessed. But the door swung smoothly open before she could make contact.

"H - Harry - " she gasped, startled.

"You didn't seem the type to leave well enough alone," he responded, and in a strange way, she felt as though he'd complimented her. He gestured for her to enter, and closed the door behind them both.

She preceded him into a room that was something like a front parlor, although the furniture was not very formal, and he paused in the doorway.

"Would you like something to drink?" His voice was stilted, as though he were offering because it was what social mores dictated, not because he was genuinely concerned about her thirst.

"Oh, I can - " get it, was poised to trip off of her tongue. Somehow he knew it, and his face grew stormily dark. " - definitely use something, thank you." She finished lamely, and figured he'd completely seen through her lapse, but was choosing to ignore it. He crossed the room, and disappeared through another door, from whence she heard various sounds of kitchen industry, before he returned with a tray outfitted for a light tea.

She had settled on the leather sofa, and he went to the armchair, setting the tray on the adjacent end table. He proffered her a cup, which she took, grateful that the stilted smile she flashed at him went unseen. The ensuing silence, broken only intermittently by the clinks of china, was not exactly awkward, Hermione thought, but more expectant in nature.

She opened her mouth to speak, as his last words, stammered in panic, tripped through her mind. I can't do this again. I can't risk it again. What he was truly saying was that he would not risk it again, that he recognized the potential that lay between them, and was actively choosing not to engage… or wanted to choose that anyway. What do I say to that? she wondered.

"I - I …" She hesitated, cleared her throat, blushing brilliantly all the while, and started over. "I wanted to talk to you about what you said… the way we left things… before."

Harry raised one eyebrow, as coolly as Draco Malfoy might have. "Was I unclear?" Her flush deepened; her face felt afire.

"No, you were quite clear. Painfully so." She allowed herself to be a bit proud of the dry asperity in her voice.

"Then…?" He gestured in a do go on sort of way.

"I don't accept it." The words seemed to have done an end run around her brain, and tumbled forth without her consent. He blinked at her, no doubt thinking that he had misheard her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I - I - I don't accept your answer."

"You can't force me to - " He sputtered with rising indignation, and did not finish his sentence.

"If you don't ever… if you don't ever love me, that's one thing. We can be friends; you were my best friend. But I won't let you run away, hide, not even - not even try…" Hermione blinked ferociously to keep back tears, and was pretty sure that she had a mulish expression on her face. "Besides, we - Ron and I - that is, if this works out…" She stumbled to a stop, not sure of the best way to proceed. He seemed to instinctively know that she was no longer talking about the possibility of a relationship between them.

"If what works out?"

"Ron should be back soon. He was going - well, he didn't exactly inform me as to where he was going. Somewhere to - to get me an identity. He wouldn't say where."

"The Aurors have someone they go to, I think," Harry offered lazily. "For deep cover assignments. A bloke down in Knockturn Alley, so the Ministry can still have deniability… You'd better not get him into trouble." His last statement was a barb, stabbed at her pointedly. Hermione felt defensive, as if she were being accused of bullying Ron into a course of action he did not want to take.

"It was his idea! If I'm going to stay - stay here, then I need to - there need to be records of me. Ron said he could get the whole thing, where I was born, where I went to school, previous employment. He said there's a spell that sends a chain reaction to the magical records… my enrollment and test scores will even be on file at the school."

"That's really expensive magic." There was a jaundiced look on his face. "He doesn't know you. Why is he doing all this for you?"

Hermione ignored the tacit insult, and allowed herself to toy with the pleasant notion that he might be jealous. However, when she spoke, it was with contrition and a blunt honesty that took them both off guard. "I don't think he's doing it for me. I think he's doing it for you."

Seven words. And the atmosphere between them electrified, crackling with an intensity that further overwhelmed them. Harry drew in a ragged breath, and his damaged eyes looked through her, into her, and she thought for a moment that she would suffocate.

"Hermione, I - "

Before he could say anything more, she found herself down on her knees in front of his chair. He started slightly, when her hands touched his, but he must have heard her motion, known she was moving in his direction… possibly before she even knew herself.

"I know you loved her. I know you still love her. Just like I love the Harry that I lost. But you've been hurt, and I've been hurt. Can't we - can't we help each other heal? You feel it, don't you? Don't tell me that you don't feel it." Hermione would never have used the words `impassioned', `impetuous', or `pleading' to describe her personality in general, but she found that her impromptu speech had been all three of those, and somewhat incoherent to boot.

"I already told you - " He began, but his words had no real conviction behind them, and his right hand had stolen behind her to thread into her hair. She wasn't even sure that he was aware he was doing it. Moving again on that same odd impulse, she lifted herself upward on her knees so that they were face to face. His eyes looked worse up close, marbled and opaque, and she found herself mourning the beautiful green shine that was gone. His soul, she thought, did not need the eyes as a vehicle; she could still see that noble, wonderful soul, though beaten down by grief and hardship, making itself known in the lines and planes and expressions of his face. She pressed her forehead to his, allowed herself one breath, one moment, one heartbeat, where they both became fully cognizant of what she was about to do. He could have stopped her. But he did not.

She kissed him.

He responded with an alacrity that sent her heart soaring, thrumming rapidly within the confines of her chest. She coaxed him to deepen the kiss, and he followed her lead so willingly that it made her vaguely wonder where the shuttered off man had gone. He had wrapped his arms around her more thoroughly, but the edge of the chair prevented her from getting any closer to him. She made a noise born of frustration, and slid gracefully up into his lap, without breaking the embrace. She felt him hesitate, for the barest of instants, before he resumed the motion of their lips, his warmth beneath her, around her, cocooning her.

There was refuge, safety in the encirclement of his arms. Hermione felt a rush of homecoming so powerful that tears flooded her eyes and overspilled their bounds before she could register it. Sucking in a noisy gasp to allay the burning in her eyes and nose, she broke the kiss, but remained huddled against him, trying to dash away the streaks of wetness on her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" He asked her, his hands smoothing down the length of her hair. His voice was surprisingly tender. Hermione was half-expecting him to dump her in the floor and flee to a distant part of the house, but he remained.

"I'm - I'm sorry…" She stammered in a watery voice. "I don't - I don't know why I'm crying."

"It doesn't do much for a man's self esteem," he ventured in a voice so dry that it took Hermione a moment to realize he was joking. She let out a laugh that was more than half-sob, and apologized again, before continuing.

"I guess - I just realized that I - I… I lied to you, Harry." She felt the tension return immediately to his body, the muscles in his thighs readying in response to his impulse to leave. But he didn't leave.

"How so?" The phrase was deceptively casual.

"I don't know how I'm going to bear it… if - if you decide you don't want this." She gestured between the two of them, before arresting what would remain unseen and rolling her eyes at herself. "This between us, I mean. I - I - " Any further words she might have spoken died in her throat. She moved her fingers through his dark hair, somewhat longer than she was accustomed to seeing, and sighed.

He echoed her sigh, and settled back in the chair; her heart seized with joy when he brought her with him. "This terrifies me," he finally ventured, with more forthrightness than she had ever seen from any version of Harry she'd met thus far.

"I know."

"If you… go…"

"I am going to do everything in my power to keep that from happening, Harry. I promise." She kissed him again, a lingering caress that he leaned into hungrily. But something unspoken in her phraseology stopped him, and he pulled back, his eyes darting curiously in her direction.

"You said `if this works out'. You weren't talking about the identity… what were you talking about?"

"We - Ron and I - we figured out the prophecy. It's talking about you… and me… and Lucius Malfoy." Harry inhaled a sharp breath through his nose, his lips pressed together in an implacable line. "We - we know where he is."

"How could - how could you possibly know that? The Aurors have been looking for him for years!"

"He's mentioned in the prophecy… called `false light'. And the mirrors… those are alternate universes - what I've been traveling through all this time. That's where he is. Living, hiding - a fugitive in a completely different world."

"So, he's lost to us, then." The bitterness in his voice was palpable.

"Not necessarily. You heard me tell Ron that I helped another Harry. He was looking for his Hermione - she'd been stranded away from her universe by Bellatrix Lestrange. I figured out how to use the necklaces to track her Constant, a part of one's magical signature that is the same across all magical beings in a given universe."

"So - so we know his Constant - then we - then we -"

"Then we set it into one of these crystals." She thumbed the chain around her neck. "It should take me straight to him. I would think he'd settle somewhere where there was no other Lucius Malfoy, somewhere he would be in phase. He doesn't even know who I am - so - "

"It should take you straight to him?"

The emphasis in his voice was unmistakable. Hermione felt suddenly wary, as though her next few steps would take her through an uncharted mine field.

"We're going to talk to Luna - Ron said you knew her from school?" She paused for his nod, noting the faint expression of fondness that flickered across his face. "She's an Unspeakable. She might be able to get us into the Multiverse Room. That's where they chart different universes and tag the necklaces. She can help us. We need to get the Constant, and set a necklace… like I did for Harry… it seems like a lifetime ago now."

"You know how to set the necklace… to take you to another instance of this Constant?"

"Yes… I did it for him, and later - later I crossed through his universe. He - he'd found her; they were getting married. They looked - they looked so happy." She looked up at him with a sentimental smile, expecting him to be enjoying the story… or perhaps mentally applying its success to their future endeavors. But he was frowning.

"We - we need to have an unimprinted crystal. A blank. We can only get one if we can get into that Multiverse Room. I'd rather do it with permission, if possible. I'm already an outlaw in one universe."

"Why do you have to go? He's - he's dangerous. An Auror team should go. It couldn't take that much training… it's just different incarnations of the same place."

"I need to do this." For you, she did not say. For Vega. For everything Lucius Malfoy got away with in my universe. She did not tell him the second phase of the plan, guilt and justification pinwheeling around on each other. We don't even know whether or not it will work.

"But you could be flung away." His word choice would sound odd to anyone else, she knew, but he was quoting the prophecy. "'The Chosen One cannot call her back to life.'"

"That doesn't mean I'm going to die. Ron and I talked about it. It might just mean that there's nothing you can do about whether or not it happens. It's out of your hands."

"That's not much comfort! I told you I couldn't do this! I told you I - " His voice sounded angry, but Hermione could hear the fear underneath. She could hear the walls going up as surely as though there were mortar and stone in front of her.

"No." He had shifted like he was on the point of rising, but she shoved his shoulders back into the leather upholstery of the chair. "No. You are not going to run from me, from this. I am going to apprehend Malfoy. I'm going to bring him back in custody. And then - " She paused, rethinking what she was going to say next. "I've been in battle. I know him, but he doesn't know me. That gives me the advantage." She pressed her forehead back to his again. "I'll be fine."

"The night before the battle, I couldn't sleep. I knew I needed to, but my mind just wouldn't quiet down. I came down to the Gryffindor common room, and Vega was sitting by the fire, staring into it like it held the answers to all the secrets of the universe. I remember first thinking how beautiful she was, and secondly, wondering how the hell she'd gotten in. `Only one thing left to do,' she said, when she saw me. She held up her left hand - " Harry demonstrated with his. " - so I could see the ring, my ring, that I'd only put on her finger six months before, and said, `then we can get started on forever.'

She seemed so sure, so confident. She didn't have even a hint of fear in her eyes, and I wondered why she hadn't ended up in Gryffindor."

"It wasn't her bravery that overcame her fear," Hermione interjected. "It was her love, her loyalty… to you."

"Much good it did her," Harry scowled. "Perhaps if she'd showed love and loyalty to someone without a target on his back, she'd still be here. Perhaps I'm not meant to have forever… You should get out while you still can," he intoned darkly, only half-joking.

"From what I've read of the theory," Hermione continued, overly loud and precise in her enunciation, so as to communicate the implied I'm not listening to you. "The Multiverse has a certain motion to it. If I leave this universe, I'll head in a certain direction, away from this universe, so that the nearest matching Constant - in the correct direction - will be Malfoy's. Then I just circle back… h - home." She stumbled over the last word. Her chin wobbled, as she forced out light words in a voice clogged with tears: "Simple as that."

This time, Harry kissed her, cupping the nape of her neck with one hand, angling up to meet her mouth, where she sat on his lap. The unadulterated joy that gripped her felt all the more powerful due to its unfamiliarity; the euphoria was heady and surreal.

"Aren't you two just adorable?" came a cheeky voice from the doorway, and Hermione and Harry's lips detached from each other with a smack that was audible, causing their blushes to deepen further. Ron was standing there, satchel in hand, dressed in shabby black - Hermione assumed - for his trip to Knockturn Alley. "You move quickly." This was aimed at Hermione, in a tone of much admiration, and she wondered if one's face could actually ignite from embarrassment.

"Sod off, Ron," Harry mumbled. Hermione twitched in his lap, uncertain whether she ought to rise and move, or if maximum damage had already been done. Harry seemed to sense her insecurity, and curled his arm around her waist, holding her firmly in place. He had a bashful, boyish half-smile on his face, and his head was angled the way a sighted person's would be, if he were looking up at her through his lashes. Her stomach cartwheeled.

"Did you have any trouble?" She asked, in what she hoped was a normal voice. With a parting caress of her fingertips down Harry's wrist and hand, she did rise, pulling at the neckline of her blouse with her other hand, trying to generate a breeze that would cool her heated face.

"Not a bit of it!" Ron was somewhat more jovial than his successful errand would require, Hermione thought dourly. "Kept you Hermione Granger… my contact found a couple in Oxfordshire with the same names as your parents, but we changed those, made them deceased - better safe than sorry, you know."

Hermione blinked a bit. She did know; it still stung.

"You are now a proud alumna of L'Academie de Magie." Ron's French was passable. Hermione wondered idly if Bill was married to Fleur here. "That's the one in - "

" - in Luxembourg, yes."

"I used your N.E.W.T. scores, just as you gave them to me - except - except I - " He cast a somewhat nervous look at her, and rushed the rest of the words out. "I lowered the numerical values a bit, just so you were in the top of the class, but not first. You would have been first in everything except Defense, but that's - that's too good. It would draw attention. People might really wonder just why it was that they didn't remember you at all."

Hermione's eyes flashed indignation at first, but she let her shoulders sag at the end of Ron's explanation, knowing his reasoning was sound.

"Anyway…" Ron drew out, unzipping his satchel, and handing her an ID card, a birth certificate, a passport, and some educational certification. "You're all set, and your wand's been properly registered. You should be able to visit the Ministry without raising any eyebrows. Are you ready to go?"

She darted a look at Harry, still seated in the leather armchair, tension evident in every line and sinew of his body. She reached out to take his hand, lift him to his feet.

"Yes, let's go."

*****************

Luna was waiting for them at the reception desk in the Department of Mysteries. Hermione was already off-balance; she had been a little nervous of her fake ID, but it had passed through the security check without scrutiny. Indeed, most of the attention they'd garnered in the corridors had been due to Harry's presence. The rotating doors guarding the entrance to the department in which they now stood were different as well, having been painted a disconcerting shade of green. She stood, trying to surreptitiously wipe her sweaty palms on the sides of her jeans, and she knew she was staring at Luna. The Ravenclaw was wearing a black pencil skirt and matching blazer, with a crisp white shirt underneath. She had on black pumps, and her blond hair was combed back into a rather severe bun. Her earrings were silver hoops.

"I know I must look odd," Luna acknowledged her dumbfounded look in her typical effervescent voice, and added, in a stage whisper, "I'm in disguise today. I'm Luna Lovegood."

"Yes, I know," Hermione replied, feeling an old camaraderie resurface. "I'm Hermione Granger." The two women shook hands. "We knew each other… somewhere else."

"Ah, I see." Luna shot her a perceptive glance. "I wondered who you might be, when Ronald asked about the Room."

"Can you get me a blank? I've copied someone's Constant before, imbedded it in the crystal, so that they could find… someone. It worked too." Luna gestured for them to follow her down a planked corridor, dodging gouts of odorous smoke along the way.

"I would have been happy to supply Ronald with a blank crystal on the strength of his Keeping skills alone," Luna said, matter-of-factly. A memory of a roaring lion hat flashed suddenly through Hermione's mind. "You need me for something. What is it?"

Hermione darted her eyes sideways to exchange looks with Ron. Harry had been standing impassively next to his best friend, but his stance shifted with the rising tension in the room. Here goes nothing… Hermione thought.

"I am bringing Lucius Malfoy back from where he's hiding, so that he faces justice for his war crimes, and for the murder of his daughter, Vega." This came out in one long breathless utterance. Luna's eyes crinkled at the corners, and Hermione had the uncomfortable impression that the Ravenclaw knew exactly why she'd come, but was going to make her say it aloud.

"And?"

"There's a reward for his apprehension, isn't there?"

"100,000 Galleons," Ron supplied the information neatly.

"I'd like to decline the reward. There's something else I want instead. Ron - Ron tells me Malfoy was already tried for war crimes, in absentia?" Hermione tried to make her voice casual, but she was sure she heard a nervous squeak anyway.

Luna was nodding, as Ron also responded, "Upon his apprehension, the Aurors have been directed to transport him directly to the Veil, so that his sentence may be carried out."

"Then there should be no objection, should there?" Hermione met Luna's gaze evenly.

"It's extremely unorthodox and highly risky. There have been no known successful trials."

"There will be now."

"You can't know that."

"I need this to work. It will work. But I'm going to need your help, Luna."

"There are things… there's no way I can guarantee - " Luna's blue eyes were as forlorn as Hermione had ever seen them, and she was watching Harry. This could hurt him, she seemed to be saying, and I don't want to hurt him anymore.

"What the hell are you two talking about?" Harry finally burst out, frustration all but strangling his voice.

"Hermione Granger wishes to undergo a Constant transplant," Luna said calmly. Hermione fought down a bizarre urge to giggle at the Muggle-sounding term. "By forcibly removing the Constant from Lucius Malfoy's magical signature, and transplanting it into her own, she hopes to make her stay here permanent, without requiring the aid of a crystal."

"But…" Harry prompted.

"It has never been successfully completed on a wizard. The Magical Beasts who have been experimented on were in extreme pain before everything that made them magical was rent asunder. They died in agony."

"For Merlin's sake, Luna!" Ron exclaimed. Not in front of Harry! He might as well have added in a fierce whisper.

"I - I think - " Hermione ventured, trying to infuse her voice with certainty that she did not feel. "I think if we - if we're both in a null magic field… I think it will work. Do - do you have other Unspeakables who have tried it? The transfer would have to be - "

" - simultaneous, I know," Luna completed her sentence smoothly. "I can find the right people. How long do you think it will take?"

"To get to the correct universe should take almost no time at all. To - to find him and bring him back… that could take longer."

"Have you thought about what you'll do if you are out of phase in that universe?"

Hermione exhaled an exasperated puff of air from between her lips. Luna sounds like a bloody prosecutor!

"It shouldn't matter. The necklaces aren't affected by phase. I should just be able to wait for him to be asleep, and then activate it while he is within its circle."

"And if you happen to be somewhere remote, isolated… when you return to this universe?"

Hermione thought of Lucius Malfoy, thought of his thin-lipped patrician sneer, thought of his manipulations, of his relentless pursuit of her, thought of Harry, thought of Ron and Ginny, thought of a shy, pretty Beater whom she'd never known… Her dark eyes flashed with righteous fire.

"I can handle Lucius Malfoy."

Luna skewered Hermione with a long, measuring glance, moving into the Gryffindor's personal space, her heels making an echoing plok, plok, plok on the tiled floor. Her hands fluttered spasmodically around Hermione's face and hair - picking Nargles out of my aura or some such, Hermione was sure - and then went still at her sides.

"I believe you." The blonde responded coolly, but Hermione had the sneaking suspicion that it was to some thought or declaration that shehad not actually voiced.

Hermione's eyes flew to Ron. One corner of the redhead's mouth was turned up, even as he endeavored to look appropriately solemn. There were twin glimmers of admiration and understanding in his eyes. She did not want to look at Harry, afraid of what she might see on his face, but his choked gasp of her name demanded her attention. She pivoted swiftly toward him, bracketing his cheeks in both hands, uncaring of any audience they had.

"I have to do this. I have to. For him, for her. I know you understand." There was dampness beneath her thumbs, and she moved them restlessly, swiping at the tears that she knew matched her own.

"I do understand." His voice was impassioned, vibrating with deeply held emotion. "I know the risks you're taking because I have taken those risks. You're doing exactly what I would do… if - if I could… and - " He leaned his forehead into hers. "And that's what makes it so hard. I'm afraid for you to go… I'm afraid of what might happen, I want you to stay - and I know I can't ask that of you."

"I am going to come back. I have not come this far and fought this hard to fail now." Her voice was as fierce as she could make it. Her heart was trip-hammering against her breastbone. "I love you."

The air was suddenly charged, as unseeing eyes flew to hers. Hermione felt herself crimson. The words had tumbled out of her mouth, bypassing her brain. He seemed to have that effect on her.

"I -" Harry began. She could see the muscle in his jaw tremble, and she traced it with one finger, bringing the digit up at his chin to rest lightly on his lips.

"Don't say anything," she whispered.

"You have to come back. To me. Please." His voice was an uneven rasp. She jerked her chin downward twice, in an ungainly and abrupt nod. He surged forward, just as hastily, and kissed her, a soft and lingering meeting of the lips. Hermione unsuccessfully tried to swallow a sob as they parted. Claimed and claiming, but flung away…

Luna already had Ron's magical signature hovering in the air, in runes of glowing gold. Hermione watched as she deftly copied the Constant and embedded it in the crystal, then took the chain with numb fingers, and looped it around her neck. She felt Harry's fingers entwine desperately in hers. Backing away from him, taking slow measured steps until their hands could no longer bridge the distance between them, was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do.

She knew he couldn't see her, but she fixed her eyes on his face, memorizing him, loving him, and hoping that somehow he knew. Ron had moved to stand beside him, one hand clapped on his best friend's shoulder.

I'll come back. I have to come back.

The Chosen One cannot call her back to life.

In a clear voice, she intoned, "Adjicio Universum."

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