Everything hurt. Everything hurt. She rose to consciousness with the reluctance of a prisoner climbing the gallows stairs. Her ribs hurt too much to breathe heavily, let alone groan with the pain. Her face hurt too much to wince at the pain in her face. Was she in the infirmary? What happened? She tried to breathe shallowly through the pain, enough to ask for Madam Pomfrey, but the pain in her stomach triggered her memory.
Baby. Father. Pain. Trash. The smell of mother's long-decomposed corpse.
She was broken. She was nobody. Where was she? Was she dead? No, she hurt too much to be dead. She was distantly aware then that someone held her right hand. Someone was next to her. It wouldn't be father. It wouldn't be anyone from school. Maybe Millicent at an outside chance, but she was more cunning than she let on, so likely not. Her neck hurt too much to turn and look.
A voice came from her right side, low and soothing, and it did soothe her, sort of. It was nice to know someone - anyone - was there. She would be on her own now, another lost girl with a child to feed. She couldn't even go back to Hogwarts, Father would have disowned her and tried to recover her schooling fund immediately. She felt a gentle hand on her forehead, cool and comforting, and she hoped whoever it was didn't want anything in return.
She woke again later to find her hand being held again. Still?
Thankfully, the searing, stabbing pain had receded into a dull background ache no worse than her monthlies. She opened her eyes and saw beds, cabinets of potion bottles, clean gauze, shelves filled with sheets and blankets.
St. Mungo's.
She was definitely still alive, and disappointment welled up in her. It would have been better to join Mother. She looked down at her right hand, and saw it was covered by a blonde head of hair. Not greasy like Draco's. It was the loser. No- she corrected herself. He was the Winner. She hadn't suspected a single thing before he'd potioned her. She'd taken him for a rube, and paid the price for her lack of guard. Tactically, he was a genius. She could think of no better way to destroy her life than what he'd done, and he'd made her think it was her idea while it was happening. If she wasn't a now-disgraced no-name nobody, she might have thought he was a worthy conquest. At least that Lovegood bitch would be in the same boat. That was something.
He stirred then, raised his head and looked at her as his first action.
"How do you feel?" He asked.
"Shitty." She replied. "You should have let me die."
"I'm sorry you feel that way, but you're carrying my child. That would never be an option. I... wasn't the one who saved you though."
"There's no way anyone could have known where to look for me, so how am I even here?" She was in a ravine on her family's property, for Morrigan's sake.
"I honestly don't know the answer to that, but I'm going to guess it was Duncan and Hermione, since they told me you were here."
Oh perfect. The fucking golden couple pulled her broken corpse out of a trash heap and saved her life. Fantastic. Well, not like it mattered anyway, she'd never see them again. She had to get to Gringott's and empty her personal vault, the one Father didn't know about. It was only a few hundred galleons, but it would keep her from starving for a little while until she figured something out. Even there she'd been stupid, and used that money on frivolous things, mostly to get Draco to notice her.
"Why are you here? To gloat? To laugh at how you out-Slytherined a Slytherin?"
Corbin glowered at her then. "What are you -" He started, then stopped and sighed. "You still think I potioned you."
She felt herself frown.
"I know all about what you tried to do to Luna, Pansy. Never mind that she's a friend of mine and I'm quite angry about it, but did you really think they wouldn't have any protections against it?"
Morrigan's murderous mother. Of course they'd have had protections. Fuck.
"You drank your own potion, Pansy. Your cup and Wayne's were switched."
Her own potion. Her Own Potion. As though her utter failure wasn't enough, Life had decided to make poetry out of her, just as an extra sprinkle of Fuck You. Father had been right to eliminate the embarrassment. She sagged into herself as the full weight of despair squat down upon her.
She had cried before, of course. Many nights she'd cried herself to sleep. She couldn't let anyone else see her crying, so she'd learned to hide it just like the rest of the Slytherin girls. This was the first time it hurt physically to cry. The tears stung her eyes and her cheeks on the way down. Clenching her chest to sob hurt her entire torso - ribs, stomach, back. She still didn't care. She didn't even care that the loser was there watching, what did she have to protect? She had no reputation, no social standing, no prospects at all. The Mudblood Loser was higher in the hierarchy than she was. If it had been someone, anyone else, she could have dealt with all that. She could have sworn revenge and lived for it. Could have planned and waited and struck from the shadows, but no. She had done it all to herself. Her whole future - decades of being rich, powerful, and feared - all of it was just gone. All her plans, her entire life stayed on that pile of trash and mouldered along with her mother.
She had what she was - nothing.
Then she felt arms around her. Gentle arms held her close and stroked her back and comforted her. For some reason, it made her cry even harder. She wrapped her arms around him even through the pain and held him close as the fear, the anger, the hurt and the desperate loneliness swept out of her in an unstoppable tide.
"Why are you here?" She sobbed into his neck, "I have nothing! I am nothing! You should have let me die!"
He pulled away from her enough to make her look at him, even though she could barely make him out through the tears.
"I don't want you to die. Especially when you have no idea who you really are."
"What?" She sniffed. He gently dabbed the tears from her cheeks and handed her a tissue.
"Tell me if I have got this wrong, but... Up until now you've been pursuing Malfoy -but not because you wanted to. It was something your father made you do. He crafted you from the time you were a child into a thing that only knows what he wants it to do. He punished you until you learned that you had to be a certain way, think certain things, and do what he expected of you. Right so far?"
She nodded. What else was there? Where was he going with this?
"He lied to you, Pansy. He abused you and denied you the love and affection you need. He filled your head with what he thinks is important, and he is wrong. Social standing isn't important. Money isn't important. Blood purity isn't important. Magic decides for itself who can wield it, and everyone knows that.
"I'm willing to bet that you couldn't name five things you like to do that don't involve hurting anyone. What do you like to do that's just for you? When was the last time you trusted someone? Have you ever told anyone what you think or feel inside just because you knew they cared? Has anyone ever really cared at all? Or is it always about what you can do for them?"
"I..." She started to protest, her mind worked feverishly to come up with things she liked to do, but everything she came up with she had to discard Everything she'd ever done was to please father or to get revenge or to impress Draco.
She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "How do you know any of that? You don't even know me."
Connor looked at the floor. "I... kind of watched you... for a while." He said softly.
"You watched me?" He couldn't get into the Slytherin dorms, so she wasn't worried about him seeing... what, exactly? Everything she'd already shown him in the broomcloset? Was it gratifying he'd watched her? Or creepy? She couldn't tell.
"You're beautiful." He shrugged. "Of course I watched you." His cheeks went pink first, then the tips of his ears darkened to red. For some reason, it tickled something in her chest. The corners of her mouth twitched to turn upward.
"I can't decide if you're telling the truth or if you're the best liar I've ever seen."
"Even if I was a liar, I wouldn't lie to you Pansy." She had no idea what the look in his eyes was, but he stared directly into her eyes and didn't waver an atom. An inexplicable warmth spread through her as she searched his eyes, an unfamiliar relaxing sort of feeling. His eyes were so open, so unguarded, so... unafraid.
She shook her head slightly. "I don't even understand how you can live like that." She said. "How do you gain an advantage? How do you climb the hierarchy?"
He flashed a sad grin. "What hierarchy? Why would I need an advantage over my friends?"
"You're saying there's no hierarchy? Why do you all defer to the golden couple then?"
He sighed, and was quiet for a time. "Why do you think they saved your life, Pansy? Do you think they did it to have something to hold over you? For leverage?"
She frowned. "What other possible reason is there? I'm just happy I wasn't raised a gormless fool who believes in Life Debts."
He smiled and shook his head. "They did it because they're good people, Pansy. Because helping others feels good and they like it."
"So they want what? Sex? Is that what this is about?" She frowned. That was kind of gross, but kind of exciting at the same time.
Cody scrunched up his face and shook his head. "Ew! No! They don't want anything from you, it just feels good to help someone else. Have you never helped anyone else without wanting something in return?"
It was her turn to scrunch up her face, but halfway through it started to hurt, so she just shook her head. "No, of course not. Why would I go out of my way for no reason?"
"Try it sometime. I think you'll find that no gain is not the same as no reason."
"That doesn't even make sense." She frowned.
He cocked his head to the side in thought for a moment before he spoke again.
"Take me for example then, answer your own question. Why am I here? Knowing what I just told you, why am I here with you when I should be at school?"
She frowned harder. It was like asking why mosquitoes liked some people and not others. There wasn't any sense behind it. The answer he was looking for was probably more drivel about feelings... though she had to admit his presence did quell the frenzied panic in her chest. She was much more relaxed than she ought to be, especially with a baby growing inside her. At this point she ought to find a cave to line with cardboard and collect food for the winter or something.
"I don't know. I don't understand what you're getting out of this." She admitted quietly as she looked down at the sheets that covered her still-bruised body.
He reached out and placed a gentle hand against her cheek and guided her eyes back to his. He stood and leaned forward, and gently pressed her lips with his own as he looked into her eyes. "I care about you, Pansy. I did before the Ball. I'm here because I want to always be here. I'm sorry it had to happen like this, but I'm not sorry it happened. Yule Ball was the best night of my life, and still is."
Tears stung her eyes again as something inside her cracked. He cared? She was having his baby, so maybe that wasn't so farfetched, but always be here? Did he mean at the hospital? Was he studying to be a Healer? Or did he mean by her side? That question was connected to a raw nerve, and that touch to it forced water from her eyes.
"What does that mean?" She whispered.
"It means I would be here with you even without the baby. It means I don't care if you have money or status or a last name. I'm interested in you, in Pansy. Just you. I want to help you see that you're free, I want to help you find things you like to do, I want you to have fun - for no bigger reason than I want to see you smile."
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him. She liked the way he kissed. He kissed her back, like he enjoyed it. His lips felt alive against hers. It was a far cry from Draco's dead fish lips. Cory's lips made her feel warm inside. Wanted. He was no MacFusty with his aura of power, but he did have a kind of solidity to him that made him seem more than he looked.
"You're insane." She whispered when she let his lips go. "I'm not... I mean... What does that mean? For the future?"
He kissed her again once, and smiled at her. "It means you'll rest here until you're healed. Then you're going to live with my father in Australia. I'm going to finish the term here and then come join you. I'll get a job and start making some money, and then we'll get married. We can finish school part-time when we're there."
She bit her lip to keep from crying again, but it didn't work. He knew she had no House, no name, no resources. He knew he would be throwing away better prospects with no hope of recouping the losses. It was an offer she would never see again if she lived to be a thousand.
"Why?" She cried. "I don't understand you. What are you getting? Why would you ever take me in when I'll be nothing but a drain?"
He forced her to lay back in the bed, and stroked her hair soothingly when she did. "You are a person, Pansy. You are a beautiful witch. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You are not a chit to be cashed in. You are not a means to an end. You are not a gamepiece in some power struggle to be used or sacrificed. You are a living, breathing woman with your own wants and talents and skills, even if you don't know what they are yet."
His hand running over her hair was a stupid, simple thing. Why did it feel so good?
"I don't understand you at all." She told him, still shocked that he would offer to marry her, to give her a last name and the protection of his House, even if it was a nothing mudblood house. "How do you know how to kiss so well? How do you know to stroke my hair like that? Do you know how good that feels?"
He smiled down at her. "My mum used to do this when I was a kid, before she died. So yeah, I know. You're..." He blushed a very cute fiery red, "You're the first girl I ever kissed like that, so I guess I just really like you? I don't know. I'm glad you like it though."
She did. Why had she hated him again? She remembered hating him at the Ball... right. For being the only one who'd asked. For being a mudblood. She was a lot of things, but a fool was not among them. He was the best she was going to get, so she would hold onto him as tightly as possible. The fact he had a talented mouth was unexpected gold, and she wondered just how talented it was. It was sad she would have to wait months to find out, but it was also something to look forward to.
"I do. I... had fun at the Ball too." She said softly. His blush, on the fade, glowed pink again. "I'd like to do that more, without the potions this time."
His eyebrows reached for the ceiling. "You would?!"
She nodded. It was strangely relaxing, knowing that her future was decided. She didn't have to plot to remove the witch who had already bagged the best boy, she didn't have to lie awake at night trying to plan how best to ensnare him, she didn't even have to care who it was, though the whole school knew it was MacFusty, even Draco. She had started to wonder if maybe Draco didn't fancy other boys the way he'd gone on about MacFusty for months.
She had a path. She had a future, one that was completely unexpected, but also a little exciting. She would be grateful - she was grateful, but she would try to remember to show it. She would learn Conrad's background from his father as she toed the line, and then when he showed up, she would do her best to be useful. Just because they had no concept of reciprocity didn't mean she would instantly forget.
She didn't have the ring on her finger yet though. Things could still change. She would have to write to him.
"I.. umm... I would really like that." He whispered, back to fiery red.
They squeezed each other's hands excitedly at the same time, and dropped their disillusionment.
They each looked at the other, and both were pointing at the same black cleft in the wall of rock. They landed on a thick pillar of rock a few hundred meters from the shore that stood alone against the crashing waves like a vigilant sentinel.
"Looks like your guess was right on the money, honey." Harry half-shouted over the roar of the ocean around them.
"It was a simple extrapolation based on known geological composition and forma-" Hermione began, and then stopped when she saw how Harry looked at her through sarcastic brows. "And you knew that because you were there." She quirked both corners of her mouth into an annoyed pout. "You just wanted to call me honey."
Harry leaned over and kissed the side of her head. "True! But I love it when you talk sexy like that." He grinned.
She grinned back at him and slapped his behind as she pushed magic into her eyes. She recoiled immediately on looking at the cave.
"Auch, that's disgusting!" She grimaced.
Harry changed his eyes as well. Magic covered the mouth of the cave, but it was the farthest thing from the clean, clear wards he'd seen. It was a black haze that covered the mouth of the cave, it writhed hungrily and fanged maws surfaced occasionally, gaping wide to bite.
"I don't want to know what he did to make that. I don't even want to know what it does." Harry felt his upper lip raise in disgust.
Hermione used her wand and cast several diagnostic spells at the hideous ward. "It's just a regular Dissuasion Ward, but he's woven a Dementor into it. And some snakes."
"It's technically alive." Harry said queasily. "Self-sustaining, but just sick. He could have carved runes into the rock and made it permanent, that's just deliberately gross."
Hermione looked tinged with green. "I feel like we need to erase it."
Harry couldn't agree more. He could almost feel horrified anguish emanating from the thing. It was wrong. It was an affront to magic itself. "Absolutely."
Hermione grabbed his hand and interlaced their fingers as she Resonated. Harry followed suit, and they Harmonized almost immediately.
"Just a short burst, I want to save most of our fire in case there's other things inside." Harry cautioned.
Hermione nodded back at him, and by mutual handsqueeze, they blasted the horrid ward at a single point with a short burst of blazing white and aquamarine. The grotesque Dissuasion Ward buckled and punctured like tissue paper, and was gone in a blink.
Hermione frowned, and Harry could feel her dissatisfaction. "That was almost too easy." She said. "You're likely right, I think there's more inside."
"Let's go see." He smiled, and she could feel him alter his Resonance to carry him through the air, so she did the same. They stopped at the entrance to the cave and hovered near the apex of the opening to give their eyes time to adjust to the gloom within before they floated carefully in through the cave mouth.
The air within the cave resisted the fresh salty scent of the ocean, and was instead a foetid, dank miasma that coated the throat and stung the eyes.
"It stinks." Hermione gagged.
"Smells like old kills left half-eaten." Harry nodded. "Madness."
"I can't tell if it's me or my Svurtr half that wants to destroy it more. My hands twitch with need to tear the place down and correct the infection."
Harry chuckled and nuzzled the side of her head. "There is no you half or Svurtr half. You're one and the same. If it's any consolation, I feel the same. What's been done to this place is wrong."
"I'm glad we're going to be ridding the world of Riddle and this taint. I suddenly have fewer compunctions about killing his followers."
"Yeah, this is what they have planned for the world. Themselves as ruthless kings with us as their playthings. Can't say I'm for it, really." Harry agreed with her. "If their children hadn't tormented you I might be more inclined to spare them, but they've proven they don't deserve it."
"We'll still give them a chance though." She said with a sly grin. She knew that's what he thought.
He smiled back at her as he recognized what she was doing. "Of course. If we don't give them a chance, we're no better than Riddle. I don't want to remake the world, I just want it infection-free. How about you?"
"House in the forest, hunting, fishing, magic, and snuggles." She smiled at him.
Harry laughed, but the sound came across as alien in that place, echoless and hollow. Hermione suppressed a shiver at the unnaturalness of it, and furrowed her brow. It reminded them both why they were there, and they turned back to the business at hand.
They floated carefully down to the obvious focus of the cave, a shallow stone bowl on a pedestal atop a basalt island in the center of a lake of seawater. There were no ripples across the water, everything was silent and dead still. The far side of the lake had about a Quidditch pitch's worth of above-water rock shelf before it dead-ended in a rock wall. Most of the rock of the cave was slick with black slime that made footing treacherous.
Hermione took her wand out again and revealed the arithmancy of the bowl on the pedestal.
"Shit." She whispered.
"What is it?"
"It's really complicated. This is going to take a while. He might be an evil git, but he's good at spellcraft."
"Can't we just blow it up and take the thing?" He asked hopefully.
"What thing?" She frowned at him.
"The thing that's being protected. What is it?" He tried to look over her shoulder, but she blocked his view of the bowl, and there were floating strings of arithmancy in front of it in any case.
"A necklace, looks like. And no, that would trigger everything at once. There are several layers of defenses."
"Drat. Alright then, can I help? Two heads and all that."
"Hmm... don't think so. Follow along though, make sure I don't make any mistakes?" She bit her lip as she sorted the strings. She began to group strings by their place within the spell, each trigger and effect.
"You bet. You won't though." He grinned.
"I could. Better safe than sorry."
"Just relax and be your brilliant self. I trust you." He focused on the task at hand, and Hermione began to say out loud what she was thinking as she grouped each of the arithmancy strings together, then picked each one apart.
"Alright, I think I get it." She said excitedly after she had completed her analysis. "These generate the liquid - some kind of emotion-affecting potion. These are bound to the shell that has to be used to drink the potion, and these ones keep the necklace or whatever it is hidden and out of reach until the potion is drunk with the shell. This handful of nasty is the protections, they share lines with each of the other things, so unless everything is done the way Riddle wants it done, the protections are triggered and this enormous whatever it is happens."
"That open-ended string there? Doesn't that one lead into the lake around us?" Harry asked as he pointed to one specific line.
"Yes, and it splits over and over again. Looks like hundreds of times."
"Hm. So the protection has something to do with hundreds of points in the lake. Or hundreds of different effects." Harry said unhappily.
"Right. But here, see?" She swirled the lines of arithmancy around to point at one of them. "This here looks like a kind of off switch. Like a master override."
"Yeah, it does, but..."
"But what?"
"Do you think he would make it that easy?"
"It wasn't easy. How many others do you think could pull this all apart and make sense of it?"
"Fair point, honestly. I think we should be flying and ready to leave in any case. Better safe than sorry, like you said. My instincts are telling me it isn't going to be that easy."
"Also a fair point, and your instincts haven't been wrong yet." She began to Resonate again, and Harry did a second after. "Ready?" She asked.
Harry nodded back and held her left hand, ready to fly to safety.
Hermione reached out with her wand and activated the master override string. The whole arithmantic display, starting with the override, began to turn red in a sweeping cascade.
"No, NO! Dammit!" Hermione cursed.
The potion in the shallow stone bowl dribbled out and down the pillar in a stream, then ran over the tops of the slick basalt pillars they stood upon toward the water. Hermione grabbed the suddenly revealed necklace from the stone bowl as Harry lifted into the air and pulled her along with him. She shoved the necklace into her pocket as she glimpsed the horror below them.
The potion dribbled into the foetid, stinking lake water, and the depths began to surge. Dozens of pairs of grey, greasy hands scrabbled on the black rocks, their jagged, broken nails made scraping sounds as waterlogged corpses almost exploded into view.
"Inferi!" Hermione called out to Harry, who was busy watching where they were going.
"For real?!" He called back. He pulled up just in time to not smack face-first into the solid rock wall that suddenly covered the entrance to the cave.
"We're trapped!" Hermione shouted, a note of panic rose in her voice.
Harry pounded his fist against the rock face in front of him, to no effect. It was solid and real. They were trapped.
He turned to look at Hermione then, and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Yes, we're trapped, for now. So... What do we do?" He asked her calmly, as though giving a lecture.
She opened her mouth to scream at him, but stopped. She looked at him, into his eyes, then down at the lake below them, then toward the island where inferi snarled and wheezed and gnashed their broken, jagged teeth.
She took a deep breath and let it out, then turned back to him with a tight smile. "We kill them all." She said calmly.
He smiled back. "We kill them all. We read about them not a month ago. What are inferi weak against?"
"Fire!" She shouted with a grin.
"Fire."
Hundreds of the hideous, scrambling corpses ran frantically up and down the far side of the lake in the open as they tried to somehow reach the flying humans.
"Don't need to worry about the ones on the island, we can clear the shore first and wait for those ones to come to us." Hermione said as she evaluated the situation tactically.
"That's what I was thinking." Harry agreed, and synchronized his Resonance with hers again.
She could feel the buildup within him as he readied himself to Breathe, so she matched him and they spread bright white fire in blazing lines up and down the shore. Each column of flame bathed the horde of undead and left steaming, exploded chunks of rotted flesh in its wake.
After their third line of flame, Harry could feel Hermione's Resonance grow weak. If she kept flying, it would drain her too far. She would fall unconscious and drop into the still large and seething mass of inferi below. If they landed now, she would remain conscious and able to fight, but they would lose their advantage and be forced to fight the remaining inferi hand-to-hand.
It wasn't much of a question, really.
"To the island!" He shouted. Hermione looked at him quizzically, but nodded and flew there to set down in their original position. "We'll have to take the rest physically, you're getting too close to drained." He explained as he landed beside her.
She frowned, but then sighed and nodded. She hated to admit weakness, but facts were facts. She grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him savagely. "Don't die."
"Same to you." His eyes were worried about her, but she grinned back at him and took a fighting stance with chin tucked, shoulders high, and fists at the ready.
The first inferi to reach them pulled itself from the lake moments later, and as Harry prepared to push it back into the lake with his foot, Hermione's fist lashed out like a piston and caved its face in with a meaty crack. The inferi dropped instantly to the slick stones and didn't move. The first few arrived singly and in pairs, and Harry did his best to mimic what Hermione was doing, but one of the inferi crawled out of the lake and grabbed his ankles while he was fighting another one, and he landed hard on his behind as the thing crawled up his legs toward his neck.
"Hold it's shoulders!" Hermione shouted at him.
Its jagged fingernails scratched the skin of his arms as he struggled to do as she asked. He saw the feral hunger in its dead, clouded eyes and smelled the sickening rot as it gnashed at his face, but his hands found purchase on its shoulders as he lifted his knees.
"Hold it there!" Hermione shouted. She spun, and one of her legs flashed out. She connected with it just below the ear, and its head sailed away to land with a plop in the lake. Hermione completed her spin and landed in the same position she'd been in to begin with.
Harry threw the now-motionless body away as the torn neck stump dribbled black, viscous liquid all over him. He saw that his arms bled where the thing had scratched him, and a cold lump of worry settled into his stomach.
As he scrambled to his feet Harry saw a pile of unmoving bodies had accumulated in front of Hermione, but he could see the main force that remained approached them quickly. Their tiny island would be overrun in moments.
"Twist your hips as you punch." Hermione said, and demonstrated. "When you hit, only hit with these first two knuckles. That will focus the impact and make it more effective."
"If we survive this I'm going to want you to teach me how to fight."
"I never thought kickboxing lessons would be useful as a witch." She flashed a grin at him, but that was when eight pairs of hands scrabbled on the rocks and they were surrounded, with more right on their heels.
Harry did as Hermione had instructed, and was rewarded with rotted brains all over his front as he put his fist through the inferi skull. His excited surprise turned to horrified disgust, but he had no time to retch as sharp, broken teeth pierced the muscle of his shoulder. He could feel another pair of hands scrape down his other shoulderblade and tear his T-shirt. He spun away from the biting teeth and smashed that head, but another one bit into the muscle between his neck and shoulder.
"Harry!" Hermione shouted. She spun where she was and two heads cracked simultaneously as she lashed out with fist and elbow at the same time. She took a step and her leg flashed out as she kicked the one that held him in the chest and sent it into the lake.
He returned the favor and brought his fist downward like a hammer onto the skull of the one that she had ignored to save him. More gushing gore sprayed over both of them. Hermione nodded at him and turned back to the work at hand. Back to back they stood as they grimly faced the remainder of their foes and fought for their lives.
There was no slowing, no momentary reprieves, they fought and fought and then all at once it was over.
When Harry felled the last one, Hermione looked around for more, and then promptly vomited over the pile of bodies next to her.
Harry held her hair out of the way as she retched, and Resonated to conjure a glass full of mouthwash for when she finished. She took it from him with grateful eyes and immediately gargled half the glass. She spat that out and gargled the rest before she Vanished the glass.
"I got some in my mouth." She said at last, and shuddered.
"We're both covered in it. I probably did too." He conjured another glass for himself and repeated Hermione's actions.
Light blossomed inside the cave as the rock face that covered the cave mouth disappeared again. Hermione visibly relaxed when she saw the way out.
"Well that was pleasant." Her voice dripped sarcasm. "I need to shower for a week now."
"If you're there too, I'd shower for a week anyway." Harry smiled at her. "We have to meet Nev and Daphne in Hogsmeade at eleven though, so we only have a couple of hours."
"Ugh. I want to sleep for a week too. That took a lot out of me." She grimaced.
"Me too." Harry agreed.
"Why am I the only one who looks tired then?" Hermione frowned.
"I've been this way for years, and you've only been this way for months. I'm just more used to the effort. It'll get better." He blew a kiss at her. "I'll get us home, you just rest." He said. He bent at the knees with his arms out behind him, and she climbed onto his back. "We'll get to Hogsmeade and get some food in you, that helps."
"Shower first. Just take us - Harry!" She cried out in dismay, "You're bleeding! You've got bite marks here!"
"Some scratches on my arms too. They're healing. Are the bites bad? They sting like crazy." They were nothing compared to being impaled by a dragon talon, but he wasn't happy at the moment.
"I can't tell in this light. Take us right to the bathroom, I'll check you after I vanish these clothes."
They appeared at Potter Glen, in the master bedroom's bathroom in the next instant. Hermione dropped the necklace on the counter, and Harry Vanished the clothes from both of them before she could expend the effort.
She pulled him to his knees from behind while she examined his wounds.
"They appear to be healing, but not correctly. It looks like they might be infected." Hermione bit her lip and reached for her wand.
"Not surprising, considering where the bites came from." He said.
"This is going to hurt." She told him, then pain blossomed in his shoulder and neck. Harry couldn't see what she did, but it felt like she had poured acid in the wound and then scrubbed it with a wire brush.
"Ow." He said.
"Sorry. That should take care of the infection though..." She hugged him from behind and he felt her breasts on his back. Even the pain in his neck and shoulder couldn't stop his smile at that.
"What was it? What did you do?" He asked.
"Concentrated iodine and a toothbrush. Might have been a bit of overkill, but it seems to be working." She replied.
After a moment, he heard her sigh. The pain receded slowly, but it definitely felt better on the whole. "Good, it looks like you're healing normally again. Thank goodness."
"No, thank you." He corrected. He turned into her as he stood, and saw that her eyes held unshed tears. "Hey, I'm alright. We're alright." He wrapped his arms around her, and she squeezed him back.
"I know. Just scared me, that's all." She reached up to kiss him, and as he reached down to kiss her, they both stopped and saw they were still coated in muck. He turned on the shower and when the water steamed, he gestured for her to precede him.
Neither of them paid attention to the other at first. They were filthy with rotted gore and the feeling of dark, slimy magic, so both of them concentrated on scrubbing themselves clean. Harry had less hair than Hermione, and was consequently finished sooner, so he helped her rinse hers while she finished with the washcloth.
"That feels nice." She smiled sleepily at him while he massaged the shampoo out of her hair.
He kissed her forehead. "I think so too. I love your hair." He smiled back at her. "Come get dressed, and we'll get some yummy steak and relax with our friends, then I'll bring you home and tuck you in for a nice snuggle before bed. Alright?"
"Mmmmm." She hummed, and rested her head on his chest as she wrapped her arms around him. "I love it when you take care of me."
"Well that's handy, as I don't intend to stop." He chuckled. "Besides, you took care of me first, remember?"
"Mmm. Did, too. Mine. Mine mine all mine." She cooed and squeezed him tighter.
"Forever and always, Hermione." He wrapped his arms around her and just held her tight for a long moment.
"Forever and always." She echoed, and kissed him once over both his hearts before she let him go. "Now I want some steak."
He laughed and she smiled up at him, and they turned the water off to dry each other.
Sirius practically skipped up the walk from the Apparition point. Not only was he back at his favourite place in the world, but the kids had news about Voldemort and his possible horcruxes! He'd spent the last two weeks scouring the Black family library for information on the things, and had gleaned a few facts from the information available, but any actual rituals or concrete information on the composition and protections on horcruxes remained elusive.
One of the new and improved Potter elves showed up before he'd taken ten steps. This one was a male, dressed in the now-familiar navy and white uniform. He'd only ever seen Lammy's outfit before though, and he noticed the pants this one wore were military-style, with large pouchpockets on the legs. He also had a small gold medal pinned to the left breast pocket of his crisp white shirt.
"Good morning, Mister Sirius. The Mister and Missus are waiting for you in the library."
"Thank you, er... have we met?"
"I'm Wolly, sir. You knew my sire, Golly."
Sirius stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath. Golly had been James's personal elf from the time he was a child, and he'd been joyful and everpresent when Sirius had lived at the manor. He'd had a decent sense of humor too, for an elf.
"I did indeed, Wolly. I daresay he'd be quite proud of you, as well. Of all of you. He was a good elf, a good friend. He died protecting everything that was important to me."
Wolly smiled at that, and got a little misty-eyed. "Thank you, Mister Sirius Sir. He'd be ever so pleased you're here again as well. If there's anything I can do for you, just call me, sir. I would be honored to answer." Wolly bowed, then vanished.
"It's good to be home." Sirius whispered.
He found Harry and Hermione poring over books at one of the tables when he arrived.
"I would be very surprised if you found anything on horcruxes in this library." He said.
Harry looked up and smiled at him. "Sirius! Thanks for coming. This is enchanting, honestly. We found early on there isn't much in the way of dark secrets here."
"Some lovely things on just about every other subject, but dark secrets not so much." Hermione added.
Harry put a bookmark in the one he was reading and closed the cover. "Let's go to the lounge. Have you eaten? I could do with a snack, and Hermione would kill me if I ate anything in here."
"Count on it." Hermione said threateningly.
Sirius chuckled and followed the kids to the lounge.
Once they were situated and Harry had made himself a sandwich out of a roast chicken breast and a scone, Hermione handed Sirius a necklace she pulled from her pocket.
"What's this?" He asked as he took it. Once it touched his hand however, he knew the question had been redundant. His magic recognized it as belonging to the Black family.
"We were going to ask you the same question." She said. "It clearly isn't one of Riddle's horcruxes, but was left in place of one. There's a note inside. You wanted to know all about what we were up to regarding our search, so there's the latest dead end."
He nodded back at her. "Thank you, I appreciate being kept in the know. I can tell you right now this belongs to my family. Where was it?"
"In a sea cave, on a tiny island surrounded by a lake filled with inferi."
Sirius felt his forehead crawl toward his crown, while the rest of his skin just crawled. "Inferi? You're certain?"
Hermione nodded. "Absolutely. I've never encountered them before, but what else could rotted, gnashing corpses be?"
Sirius felt himself nod numbly. "No, that would be inferi alright." He shuddered as he recalled his own run-in with three of the monstrosities during the first war.
"He wove a Dementor and some snakes into a Ward over the mouth of the cave too, the disgusting git." Harry added after a mouthful of tea.
"What happened?" He asked them. "You're clearly alright, thank Merlin, but how?"
Hermione grimaced. "It's my fault, really. Harry warned me, but I didn't listen. I was trying to de-activate the protections around the horcrux, and triggered a trap. The mouth of the cave closed over with rock and hundreds of inferi came out of the lake."
"Hundreds?!"
Harry nodded. "It was an army. We managed to burn most of them, but we ran out of steam toward the end and had to physically tear them apart to make them stop moving."
"Took ages to get that vile mess out of my hair." Hermione complained. "Stank like anything as well."
"I had to scrub the shower down with bleach afterward just to get the smell out." Harry wrinkled his nose.
"Why didn't you just get the elves to do it?" He asked. That was what they were for, after all.
Harry frowned. "That's not cricket. If it's something I don't want to do, I'm not going to foist it off on someone else, no matter how much they want to help. That's a shitty way to be a friend."
"And a good way to treat friends like servants! Honestly! " Hermione frowned at him as well, even more dangerously than Harry.
"Okay, Okay. Point taken. Old habits, and I've been in prison for twelve years. No offense meant. I'll work on it." James had called his elves friends but still treated them like elves. Apparently his son genuinely saw them as friends. They walked and talked and used magic, however odd they were they were mostly humanish. He made a mental note to be on his best behaviour regarding elves - especially considering any of their new and improved versions might very well thrash him in a duel.
An army of inferi. With their bare hands.
He took a deep breath and let it out. He'd asked to be part of their lives, so if their lives were going to revolve around a different way of thinking, then he'd better get on board or be left at the station. James had been a force of nature unto himself in his day, and Harry - Merlin, both of them! - clearly carried on that tradition.
"You alright?" Harry asked him his head cocked to one side.
He barked a laugh. "Yes. Woolgathering. Making mental notes to adjust my way of thinking, and remembering your mother. Lily would have loved you fiercely." He said to Hermione. "She already loved you fiercely." He said to Harry.
Harry's hand sought Hermione's almost of its own accord. "That stands to reason." He smiled at her. "I do, and both my other mothers do too." He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Smooth, kid.
Sirius suppressed a grin and turned his attention to the locket in his hands. It was round, and the design on the front sparked his memory, but he couldn't place where he'd seen it before. He clicked the lock and opened it. He hoped for some clue, but there were no pictures inside, there was only the note Hermione had mentioned. He pulled the note out and unfolded it, and caught the faintest whiff of the smell Harry and Hermione had spoken of. It made his eyes water and his stomach rebel.
He wiped his eyes with the back of a hand and read the flowing, handwritten words.
To the Dark Lord
I know I will be dead long before you read this but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret. I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can. I face death in the hope that when you meet your match you will be mortal once more.
R.A.B. 1
Reggie. He'd turned on the dark wanker in the end! An ache settled in his chest then, for what might have been. Reggie hadn't been a true Black either. That thought both lifted his heart and filled it with fear that he had abandoned his baby brother to the tender mercies of his mother.
"Sirius?" Hermione asked gently.
He looked up at her and realized his eyes were watery. "Sorry." He sniffed. "I'm fine." He held up the letter. "R.A.B. Regulus Arcturus Black. Reggie, my little brother."
"Oh no, I'm so sorry." She said.
"I'm sorry, Sirius." Harry said softly.
He nodded. Knowing that made him proud of Reggie, a little. He'd still joined the Death Eaters and done terrible things, but it was good to know Walburga hadn't corrupted him fully.
"Just... a little proud he turned against Moldyshorts. He was still a Black, and I don't regret leaving them when I did, but..." He shrugged. There wasn't anything to be done about it now.
"Kreacher!" He called.
Kreacher appeared with a loud CRACK!. "Ugly Blood-traitor mas..." He started, then his eyes went wide, his jaw hung open, and his pupils became tiny pinpoints. "Nasty traitor master summons Kreacher to the House of Power..." He whispered. He turned away from Sirius as he scanned the place, until his eyes touched Harry and Hermione.
"Lammy's Master and Mistress!" He whispered reverently. He fell to his knees face down, his arms stretched out before him, palms on the floor. "What can humble Kreacher does for beings of power?"
"Well you can get up and stop doing that, for starters." Hermione frowned. "Sirius, did you need him for something?"
Kreacher got to his feet uncertainly, and looked between them and Sirius, but bobbed his head whenever he looked at Harry and Hermione.
"Kreacher, I called you to ask you about this." Sirius held out his hand with the locket in it. Kreacher took one look at it and completely deflated.
"Nasty blood traitor master discovers Kreacher's shame."
"Shame? What do you mean shame?" Sirius frowned.
"Beloved Regulus master orders Kreacher to destroy the nastybad magic thing, and Kreacher tries! Tries and tries for years! Kreacher tries everything Kreacher can thinks, but Kreacher can't hurts it!"
Hermione sat forward, eyes intense. "That sounds like the kind of thing we're looking for. Would you like some help, Kreacher?"
Kreacher's eyes went wide again as he looked to Hermione.
"Powerful Mistress would helps useless Kreacher?"
"Why did you never ask me for help, Kreacher?" Sirius asked. "Reggie was my brother."
"Beloved master hated nasty traitor master for abandoning family. Kreacher is loyal! Kreacher obeys Beloved Master even when Beloved Master makes Kreacher leaves him to die!"
Sirius exhaled a sad sigh of his own. No wonder the old elf was so crusty - he'd been living with being made to abandon Reggie to die, torn between loyal service to the family and being made to outlive the last official Black.
"You were there with him, Kreacher? Until he made you leave?"
Kreacher bobbed his head sadly.
"What happened?" Sirius asked softly.
Kreacher's mouth twitched and he sniffed. "Narsty filthy half-blood snake man uses Kreacher to test cave magics, and Beloved Master bes angry. Kreacher belongs to Beloved Master! Brilliant Regulus Master brings Kreacher back to cave after and drinks filthy half-blood's potion. Master Regulus claims filthy snake-man's secret and orders Kreacher to go home, to destroy slimy corrupted metal as soon as Kreacher cans. Filthy dead muggleses comes from the lake, but Beloved Master makes Kreacher go away, so Kreacher goes away and leaves Beloved Master to die. Black family dies because Kreacher is loyal, and then Kreacher can't kill the narsty filthy snake-man's locket! Kreacher fails everything! Kreacher is shame!"
The old elf flung a forearm over his eyes as he started to cry.
"Kreacher," Sirius said softly as he put a hand on the poor old elf's shoulder. "Let me help you. We'll fulfill Reggie's last wish together."
"Narst - narsty traitor master would helps shameful Kreacher?" He rubbed his face with his forearm.
Sirius nodded and smiled. "I would be thrilled to. The Black Family isn't quite dead yet either, but it is time for them to change. You wouldn't want to miss a whole new generation of Blacks, would you?"
Kreacher shook his head hard enough to make his ears flap over his face.
"Well then. Let's help you finish your master's last wish, then we can start looking for a new Lady Black. What do you say?"
Kreacher nodded and sniffed. "Kreacher would likes that."
Sirius looked at Harry and Hermione, who were holding hands and smiling at him. "Where, do you think? I know your grandparents had a work room in the basement, but I will have to use Fiendfyre on the thing, and then we don't know what kind of protections it has on it."
"Hmm." Harry grunted. "Quidditch pitch? Even if it explodes, it would only damage the grass, and that'll grow back."
Sirius frowned and pointed a finger at Harry. "That's blasphemy, and your father would be very disappointed. However, you aren't wrong."
Harry chuckled and Hermione rolled her eyes.
"Kreacher, would you please retrieve the snake-man's locket and meet us on the quidditch pitch outside?" He asked the old elf.
Kreacher nodded, then bowed to Harry and Hermione, and vanished.
"Why Fiendfyre?" Hermione asked as they all trooped out to the quidditch field.
"I couldn't find anything specific in the Black library. Apparently even my ancestors knew better than to go mucking about with Horcruxes, though I did find a few oblique references to dealing with them. One of them said "Even the vilest darknesse, no matter the vessel, must succombe to the heighte of the Wizard's Arte". It was written by Antares Rigel Black, who was well known for his devotion to Fiendfyre and using it on Goblins."
"Oh." Hermione replied, "Sounds like you come from a long line of charmers. Your deduction seems sound though."
Sirius chuckled. "It's not an accident I'm the only one left. They were all so charming they ran straight to Oldywarts, soon as he turned up."
"Well, keep being you then. I'm sure you'll find some witch who's crazy about old, skinny wizards." She smiled at him sweetly.
He had to laugh at that. Just like her bloody husband! Harry laughed quietly to himself the whole time, too. He missed Lily and James keenly then, even though it seemed like they were right next to him and teasing him just as they'd always done. Harry and Hermione might share traits with them, but they were also very different from James and Lily, and he was thankful for that. It was a bittersweet thing to be with them, but he knew James and Lily would be proud. He discovered then that he was proud as well, and that startled him a little. He'd had literally nothing to do with either of them growing up, so where did that come from?
Kreacher waited for them at the center of the quidditch pitch. As they approached, they could see a large rectangular locket on the grass at his feet.
"Well, that confirms what we thought about the founders." Hermione said as she bent to examine it.
"That gives us something to go on, at least." Harry replied.
"I seem to be missing a conversation or two. Something to go on?"
Harry looked at Hermione and cast a privacy shell around the four of them before Hermione continued.
"Apparently Tom was fixated on the Hogwarts' founders, so we thought he might use items connected to them as his vessels. Hufflepuff's cup, Ravenclaw's diadem," She pointed to the locket on the ground, "Slytherin's locket."
"Wait wait wait - Tom? Who's Tom? And how do you know that's Slytherin's locket?"
Hermione looked at Harry, and Harry quirked one corner of his mouth.
"Before I tell you any of this, I want your solemn promise to not go after Dumbledore in any way. Feel free to get angry and vent, but stay away from Dumbledore. We need him to live a while longer, and we need you to stay out of prison." Harry looked at him pointedly.
"Dumbledore? I don't understand."
"Promise us, or you'll stay that way." Harry's eyes held a steely glint just like his mother's had. He knew from experience when Lily looked at you like that, there was no getting around her.
"Alright, I promise to not go after Dumbledore in any way."
Harry nodded then, and his eyes softened. Hermione's hand slipped into his.
"We had a... meeting... with Dumbledore a little while ago. He tried to tell us that because we don't sleep in the dorms that he had to report Hermione to the Ministry and she was expelled and was going to have her magic bound and her wand snapped. He was full of shit, of course. He was just trying to push our buttons and get us off balance so he could then make some concession and extract some gratitude from us. It was pathetic, really. In any case, it didn't work, and I... well, the first time I ever met Dumbledore in his office, he tried to Legilimens me. I returned the favor. As a result, we now know everything he knows."
"It's against the law to Legillimens a minor, are you sure that's what he did?" Sirius frowned.
Harry frowned back. "Like I wouldn't know Legilimensy if it was used on me?"
"Not what I said, just relax. It just seems a little hard to believe, that's all. Dumbledore is the most experienced, most powerful of us all."
"He's a human, Sirius. He got good at using tricks to protect his mind rather than developing his will. He's just as weak as the rest of you, no offense."
"See, when you put it that way..." Sirius mentally kicked himself for forgetting Harry's unconventional upbringing. He needed to get some kind of understanding what the two of them were actually capable of.
"Would you like a demonstration?" Harry grinned.
"Ah, I'll pass, thanks. There are some things rattling around up here I'd rather not have in the open. "
Harry chuckled. "Alright then. As I was saying, we know everything Dumbledore knows. He has known since the thirties that Voldemort's real name was Tom Riddle. Dumbledore went to a muggle orphanage to collect him to Hogwarts when he was eleven. He watched Tom turn into Voldemort while he was at Hogwarts. He's known everything about Voldemort this entire time. That's how we know about his fixation on the founders, how we knew to look in the sea cave, how we know about where we're going next."
"He's known all this about Vol - about Riddle since the thirties?! Since long before the last war!" They could have put the bastard in the ground permanently the last time around. James and Lily could have lived. Edgar Bones. Marlene McKinnon. Molly's brothers. So many people could have lived, if only Dumbledore had simply spoken up.
"You were right, I want to go kill him right now." He could feel his jaw clenching as heat built inside him. So many good people gone - why? For what?!
"Believe me, I understand. I almost did it at the time. Hermione almost did it later."
"We have plans for him, Sirius. Just leave him be and we'll make sure he gets what's coming to him." Hermione soothed. "For now, let's get back to the task at hand. We can talk about what a foul and seeping arse Dumbledore is later."
"Language." Harry cautioned, though his eyes sparkled when he looked at her. She tightened her lips and smirked at him.
Well, at least he could take his anger out on Tom. It was strange to think of Voldemort as a person, but of course he had been one at some point. He'd been a baby after all, a goobling ball of cuteness and dribble, and he had grown to become Voldemort. He would have to ask them how exactly that had happened. Those two facts together scared the shit out of him when he thought about having children of his own. That alreadyscared him, just in general.
"Right." He took a deep breath and forced it out, and placed a hand on Kreacher's shoulder. The old elf had been uncharacteristically quiet and respectful while they talked. "Sorry, Kreacher. I know you've waited a long time for this." He took his main wand out of its holster and took a moment to focus his mind.
Harry and Hermione backed up ten steps, and Kreacher popped over to them.
"Here goes nothing." He nodded at them. It was always a contest inside him when he used Fiendfyre - not that it was often, he hated using it for that very reason. The wild, surging magic inside him wanted to burn everything, to be free to run and consume the entire world. It was only his focus, his restraint that stopped it. He had always won so far, but that had been a dozen years ago. He'd known who he was then, been sure of the world and his place in it. Failure was a great way to learn humility. Was humility useful in controlling Fiendfyre? He hoped it was, for his sake.
A thick jet of bright yellow flame poured from the tip of his wand, tinged here and there with wisps of bluey-green. He focused on the locket, directed the roaring, screaming living flame toward it. It surged at its designated target, eager, excited. The moment the flames bathed the locket, the jewelry began to melt. It softened as it began to glow cherry red, then orange, then yellow, then it began to run as a liquid.
A face formed in the metal puddle, noseless and semi-human. Sirius saw it clear as day. He recognized Tom as the piece of him that resided within the locket sought to escape. It pushed out of the growing puddle of metal like a grotesque boil. The metal sloughed away from the tiny black ghost as the hideous boil popped, and exposed it to the hungry fire. It screamed and rose into the air as it tried to fly from death, but solidified and crumbled to soot like a greasy smear of oil before a blowtorch.
Sirius felt a surge of joy as he claimed the victory, but reigned it in. He took his emotions in hand - all the rage and joy and hunger he'd turned into fire - and ruthlessly stomped them flat. Once the fire was out, he dropped his wand and felt the rush of regret he always felt afterward. It was like cutting off the part of himself that was most alive. The worst part about the whole thing was that he completely understood great uncle Antares.
He drew a shuddering breath and forced himself to calm down. Part of the danger of Fiendfyre was its seductiveness. He knew that, it just took a while for the feeling – the thrill - of it to fade.
"Master has dids it!" Kreacher croaked gleefully, "Master kills the nastybad magics! Filthy halfblood snake-man bes dead!"
Sirius looked over at the wrinkled elf as he shook his over-large hands in the air over his head and danced a little dance. The poor thing had never looked happier, and it made forgetting the living flames so much easier. He picked up his wand again and nodded to the old elf.
"For Reggie. And for you, Kreacher. I am proud of your loyalty. I think Reggie would be too."
Kreacher stiffened up to his full height. "Kreacher serves the House of Black!"
Sirius nodded in return. "More than that, you are a member of the House of Black, Kreacher. I hope we can work together to make it a House we can be proud of."
New times, new ideas. When he'd been Harry's age, he'd been all about new things, and it was time to start learning again. One of Tom's horcruxes was gone now, and he had no reason to believe the rest wouldn't follow. It was time to start with best foot forward now, before the old ways were swept aside completely. He wanted to be proud of who he was for a change, and he knew that would never happen until he made it.
Kreacher's lower lip trembled and tears ran from his cheeks like a leaky tap as he tottered over to him and wrapped his arms around his knees.
Sirius patted him on the shoulder. "There there, old man. We'll sit down and talk when we get home, alright?"
"Kreacher goes to makes tea for wonderful Master." He croaked, then vanished with a pop.
"Well, now at least we know we can destroy them." Harry noted. Hermione smiled at Sirius while she held Harry's hand and swung it gently between them.
"One down. How many to go?" He asked.
"Sadly we won't know that until one of us can root around in Tom's mind." Hermione replied.
"You want to what?" He recoiled in revulsion.
"Yeah, not looking forward to it, but it's necessary to make sure." Harry said with a grimace.
"Once we know for sure, we'll obliviate it out of each other. I don't want that filth in my Harry any more than he wants it in me." Hermione assured him.
Harry leaned over and whispered something to her. She blushed and shoved his shoulder with hers. Ah... Right. So they'd been intimate then. Recently, too. He should probably make some excuses and give them some time alone.
"Well, I hate to destroy horcruxes and run, but I have things that need tending and Kreacher's just made tea as well, so I should probably get it while it's hot."
"We won't be around next weekend, so you know. I want to get everything done that needs doing on Saturday because we're spending all Sunday out on a date. We'll be here the weekend after if you want to drop by then." Harry explained.
"If there's anything I can do, don't hesitate. I'm only an elf away, and I will almost certainly want a break from redecorating with Kreacher." He made a sour face.
Harry shook his hand with a grin. "Count on it."
He had to smile at that. It felt like having a family again. A real one. "I appreciate that, Harry." He grinned at them and turned to go, it was a short if exhausting hike to the Apparition point in the gardens. He would have to make more effort to build up his body again as well. Kreacher would no doubt continue to try to stuff him to the gills with food, but he needed exercise, and the panting, sweaty mess he was by the time he reached the gardens drove the point home.
Before he took up jogging though, there were some people who needed to know about Dumbledore's perfidy.
It was afternoon on the third day when Lammy became aware that something was wrong. She had just put the final touches on her diagram of how Harry and Hermione's bedroom had been before Hermione had decided to demolish it. Lammy thought it would be useful to have a reference to work from in case Hermione suddenly decided she wanted it back how it had been before. She had just finished the labels on the large oak dresser - which had become a tree - when it hit her that something was wrong.
It was too quiet, she decided. That was it. Then she noticed that it was the vibration. The constant, pulsing vibration that only abated for a few minutes at a time during the last three days had actually stopped. The floor wasn't vibrating, the walls weren't vibrating, and there wasn't a constant low, pulsing buzz from the china cupboard. Everything was still and quiet.
She wanted to go and see if they were alright, see if they wanted or needed anything. She knew she shouldn't though, they hadn't said that Hermione was herself again yet. She wasn't concerned for her own safety, rather she didn't want to do anything to make her best friend freak out.
She sighed with the frustration of it and hoped she was back to normal soon. Until then, she would have to trust Brolly to look after them.
She went back to her diagram and started to make tiny labels for the grand wardrobe - which had also become a tree.
She swam through clear, faintly aquamarine water. She glided nearly effortlessly over the rippled white sand below and reveled in the feeling of the flow of water over her scales. She could see his tail lazily stir the water from the beach as she approached, and she smiled inside, satisfied that he guarded their three eggs. They would be Shardlings soon, once they broke out of their eggs, and then they would have a family of their own. A strange duality of contentment and fear overtook her as she broached the surface of the water.
Her eyes opened, and the first thing she saw was his dark, unruly mop. He lay half across her, with his lower half resting at an upward angle on a hill of galleons. His mouth was half-open on her left breast, and a trail of his drool flowed over it and underneath, down her left ribs.
Warmth bloomed in her chest and she smiled as she lifted her hand from her stomach to run her fingers through his hair. In some ways he was so mature, so responsible, so intelligent and sensical... and then she got to see him as a little boy, so open and vulnerable, peaceful and completely adorable. She wondered if their own son would look -
Oh no.
The pile of gold, the claw marks in the ceiling, the stone and plants everywhere... her memory supplied her frenzied need to have him inside her, and she panicked internally. She'd been in Heat. She'd been fertile. They'd had sex for who knew how long? She didn't even know what day it was. There was no way she wasn't pregnant. She was going to have a baby. But... dragons had clutches! Babies? How many babies?! No no no no no, it was too soon for that! Much, MUCH too soon!
"Mm... Feels nice." Harry mumbled into her breast.
"Harry..." She croaked. Even to her own ears she sounded like Aunt Edna, like she'd been a smoker for forty years. What had she... Right, there had been screaming. She cleared her throat, but it didn't improve anything. "Harry? Tell me we didn't have sex for however long while I'm fertile with no birth control? Please?"
He raised his head off of her, and wiped his chin, then wiped her ribs. "You sound like you don't want to be a mum at fifteen." He grinned at her.
As if it was any time to joke! Was she or wasn't she!? She could feel her face contort as she chose her next words, but they never left her.
"Before you get upset, because I can see that you're not kidding - no we didn't. It was one of the things I talked about with Sirius. He showed me the contraceptive spell he uses, and since he doesn't have any children I have to assume it works. I cast it with every scrap of power I had, so I hope that was enough. Sirius says it's geared to last about a month, so I won't be potent again until then."
She sighed with relief and relaxed again, the connection to her panic cut.
"I want to find a nice spot on the grounds and start building a cave for the next time." He continued in a more relaxed tone, "Someplace where we can leave everything like it is now and just go there. Makes more sense than changing everything around." He kissed her as she smiled up at him.
"I'd like that." She rasped. She tried to lift her hand to drape it over the back of his neck to bring him down for another kiss, but the act of raising her arm engaged her core muscles, and every single muscle in her stomach - including some she hadn't known about - screamed at her to never, ever move again.
She groaned and squeaked at the same time, and gently lowered her arm again.
She breathed through the pain for a moment until it dulled.
"Are you alright love?" Harry's voice was suddenly tense.
"Fine... Overuse. It feels sort of good in a masochistic kind of way, but also ow. Stomach is very ow."
Harry had the gall to laugh at her.
"Laugh while you can, git! Soon as I heal..." She croaked.
He leaned down and kissed her anyway, soft and tender and full of his scent - She felt herself grow warm again, and she decided that was enough of that. Healing first, more sex later.
Harry Resonated, and she floated up off the huge mound of gold - now mostly scattered about the room - and her housecoat wrapped itself around her before she gently floated down into a chaise.
"I'll go see about some soup or something?" He knelt and brushed her hair back from her face.
"I love you so much, Harry. That would be just wonderful. Tea too please. And steak. And more steak... I'm a bit famished, actually." She grinned sheepishly.
He chuckled at her and kissed her again, then wrapped his own housecoat around his nakedness before he exited the bedroom.
She smiled to herself as he went. She loved his cute, sexy little arse. She relaxed against the chaise and just felt. Yes, her stomach hurt from her breasts to her knees, but she also felt... Happy. Content. Relaxed. Loved. Satisfied. All of it, woven together and wrapped around her like a blanket.
A year ago she'd have wept to imagine feeling what she felt now. There was more to it though, there was something...
Trust.
Harry could be trusted.
The realization cut her to the quick and made her eyes sting.
Even when she was not in her right mind, he looked out for her best interests. How many boys would have taken responsibility before having sex? One more count she needed one finger for.
She wiped her face despite the pain it caused her stomach. Harry returned while she still grimaced in pain and wiped tears away.
He placed the tray on the floor next to her and knelt beside her almost instantly. "What's wrong?" He asked with a frown.
She shook her head and wrapped her arms around his neck while she cried even harder. "Nothing!" She sobbed, "You're wonderful and I love you and I don't deserve you."
He chuckled softly as he kissed her tears away and held her close. "You know how I feel about that kind of talk, love." He rubbed her back as she held onto him for dear life.
"I know." She sniffed, "I'm stuck with you, you love me, I love you, and deserve doesn't get a look in."
"No matter what you think, Hermione, without any of this I would still choose you and you'd still be stuck with me."
"I love you so much, Harry." She squeezed him even tighter. "I just... I can't even express it properly. Words are just too small."
He stroked her hair as he held her. "I think the last three days were a pretty good start." She could hear the grin in his voice.
"Oh. Augh." She let go of him and fell back against the chaise as she clutched her stomach. "Don't make me laugh. Fuck that hurts."
He fed her a spoonful of the soup before she decided she'd recovered enough to take the bowl from him.
"Was it really only three days?" She asked with a semi-frown.
"It's late morning on February tenth now, but I figure we probably slept for twelve hours or so."
"Which would put it at almost exactly three days. Too short. Too soon and too short. Dammit."
"That's bad?" He asked around a mouthful of steak.
She sighed between spoonfuls of soup. "It means Mother's advice will and won't apply to me. I'm going to have to start a journal to track things until I learn my own pattern. I hope it isn't more than once a year."
"So it's more of a hating-to-have-to-wait-and-see-instead-of-knowing-everything-right-now-Hermione-thing, rather than anything bad." His wry grin said it all.
She narrowed her eyes at him.