The warlock led the cage-keepers on a twisting path of misdirection with practised ease. Question flowed into question, only rarely needing our attention. The cage-keepers' memories were locked away from us in a way that the wretch-that-was would have pierced with ease. The shifting of time, the freedom of the air, the bounties trapped in human minds; all were locked away from us. We were lesser for the becoming, just as we had known we would be.
The cage-keepers whisked the traitor away and the warlock followed in turn, leaving us with a warning encased in a single look. The traitor's fear had long since left us, but reason told us to mind his words regardless. Our once and future Lord feared only Death and those things which represented it. We were not so foolish as to think ourselves greater.
Empty Truth
"And here we are," Professor Lupin—Remus, Moony—said as we approached the portrait of Sir Cadogan. "For caution's sake, I'll reiterate the Headmaster's recommendation that you stay in the common room until he comes back to discuss things with you. It only seems sensible. If you need anything, I believe Professor Snape will be heading up here to keep an eye on things soon."
I kept from rolling my eyes. There was only one thing that Professor Snape would be interested in keeping an eye on in Gryffindor tower, and between that and the news about Sirius, I had no doubt he'd be in an even worse mood than usual. It would fall to me to keep Harry from charging out and doing something stupid about Sirius. It was just lucky we weren't lacking in things to talk about.
I gave the professor a smile for his sake. "Thank you, sir. Before I go in, do you mind if I ask a favour?"
"After everything today, I dare say that I owe you one. Ask as you will." He said it pleasantly enough, but every word was laced with inaudible melancholy.
"It's about your dog Padfoot," I said with an eye at Sir Cadogan. Portraits liked to talk, and the errant knight had a louder mouth than most.
Remus pinched the bridge of his nose tight. "For God's sake, Sirius—"
"Look. All I'm saying," Sirius said with a grin Remus was half-tempted to hex off his face, "is that if you're gonna tell people that Padfoot's your dog, then I ought to have a co—"
His face flushed and he planted his hand over the other boy's mouth. "Nope! None of that! You can stop that train of thought right now!"
The professor kept his face carefully neutral despite the muted embarrassment I knew he was feeling. I couldn't begin to fathom the reason for it. "Er, yes, I…" He cleared his throat. "What about him?"
"I gave him my cloak and left him out on the grounds. He's also got the bag I keep all of my books and notes in, but it got left where he's been sleeping since he's malnourished and I wasn't feeling up to it. I don't know if I'll be allowed to leave the castle anytime soon with everything going on," I gestured vaguely in the direction of the Great Hall, "so I was wondering if you could grab it for me?"
A conflicted sort of worry fell from Professor Lupin in spades. "Of course. I should probably be bringing him inside anyway. It's cold out there, and I'll bet the Headmaster would love to meet him." He eyed the portraits in the hall. "He's a real dog lover, you know."
"Give him a scratch behind the ear for me," I said with a disingenuous smile as I leaned down to offer the same to Crookshanks, who'd kept himself pressed against my side ever since we left the Great Hall.
Lupin gave me a strange look before nodding jerkily. "Of course," he said. "I'll… do that. Give Harry and Ron my regards."
The professor turned and walked away, leaving me wondering how much worse Professor Lupin must have got at lying over his years of isolation given that Sirius had once suspected him of being a spy. Though, maybe that was why he'd been suspected. I'd have to ask. Even if he didn't answer, being exposed to other people only served to prove to me that Sirius' memories were a remarkably open book. I couldn't help but wonder what it was that made some minds more accessible than others. Maybe it was that Occlumency thing that Narcissa had thought about teaching Draco.
"And who is it that goes there?" Sir Cadogan spoke up suddenly, voice sounding off. "Be you friend or foe?"
Sirius' rage expressed as petty annoyance was a never-ending well, it seemed. "Friend. The password is 'Windmill'."
"Haha! Not anymore it isn't! You'll need to duel me to pass!" The knight stumbled up to his feet and held aloft a bottle in place of a sword.
"Have you been drinking on the job?" He certainly seemed off to me, but I didn't think that the painted wine was it. It was more like his words were hollow.
Sir Cadogan stopped in place and the visor on his helm smacked down with a clang. He raised it back up hastily. "It makes me no less staunch a protector."
The normal response to that would have been indignation. I could sort of hear it in his voice, but it wasn't… It hit me suddenly: it was a portrait. They were just recreations. Imitations. They didn't have any real emotion for me to feel. It was a bit like what I imagined talking to a robot would feel like. All the right cues were there, but the whole thing rang hollow like an unconvincing performance. There was Hogwarts' emotion, sure, but a single portrait was such a small part of it that I couldn't pick it out. The overall effect was more than a little strange.
"If you let me in, I won't tell anyone," I said. The portrait swung open without another word.
Harry and Ron were sat by the fire playing a game of wizarding chess. At least, they were attempting to. The miasma of confusion, anger, and concern made me seriously doubt they had their hearts in it. They looked up with a sudden flood of relief as I entered, and I quickly made my way over to the couch and plopped down beside them. I couldn't help but let out a sigh. The stillness brought a marked relief on the ache still permeating my being. As if sensing my comfort, Crookshanks planted himself on my lap and curled up to sleep.
"Peter Pettigrew's been taken in by the aurors," I said once I realised the boys' anticipation. "He'll be properly interrogated, put to trial, and hopefully Sirius Black's name will be cleared soon."
Harry visibly swallowed. "So it's all true then? Sirius Black didn't betray my parents?"
"No, he didn't. Honestly, I'm not sure there's anyone Sirius cared about more than your dad."
His mess of emotions left him speechless at that, but Ron filled the space. "Hard to believe he's not some crazy murderer after all this. I mean, he cut up the Fat Lady to get in. Even if he was looking for Scabbers," he said with a grimace, "who does that?"
"I never said he wasn't crazy," I answered. "Just that he'd never hurt Harry. He sent you a Christmas present, you know. Something about quidditch?"
"Quidditch? That's… Harry, that's the Firebolt!" Ron's eyes widened with honest glee. His sudden good mood caught me easily.
I looked between the two boys with a smile. "I take it that's something good, then?"
"Good?" Ron huffed, but excitement crowded over his offence. "It's the best racing broom around! I heard Ireland bought a full set of 'em for their team! I'll go get it, Harry, we can show it to—"
"How do we know we can trust him?" Harry asked, stopping Ron in his tracks where he'd already been half-stood up. "I mean, if Dumbledore trusted Quirrelmort, and you trusted Riddle, how do Ron and I know we can trust Black? You've already said he's crazy."
I waited for the wave of hurt at his statement—the instinctive flinch that always came when someone pointed out the events of last year—but it didn't come. It was just a statement of fact. The sun sets in the west, autumn comes after summer, three is magically stable due to there being three pairs of Powers, and I had made a fatal mistake when I poured myself into the memory of Tom Marvolo Riddle. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. Not at all, I supposed.
"Harry, you can't—" Ron started, but I interrupted him.
"It's fine," I said tonelessly. "I don't really care anymore, and he's right."
Worry overtook him even as Harry kept staring at me. "You can't just
not care!" Ron burst out.
"I used to care. Now I don't. I'm not human anymore, Ron. Not really. That comes with consequences." I turned my attention back to Harry. "Which is how I know that you can trust him. Dementors don't just take emotions. They take memories too. It's how w-they define themselves. When we started the merging process, we relived some of those memories."
Left unsaid was that Tom had shown me memories too, but the context was different. Neither part of me meant the other harm. Self-preservation was the thing that had brought me together. If I couldn't trust the thing that was slowly becoming myself, who could I trust?
"So you saw Black's memories?" Harry led.
I gave him a quick nod, only to suddenly remember the pain of moving; the dissonance between me and I. "More than just saw. I lived it. I
was him. His feelings were my feelings, his thoughts were my thoughts. I experienced the moment he figured out what had happened the night you got your scar." I made a point to meet Harry's eyes. "Harry, Sirius' whole world ended the night your parents died. He wanted to take you in himself, you know. Hagrid wasn't lying about that in the Three Broomsticks. He only let Hagrid take you away when he realised that the real traitor was still a danger to you."
Harry's hard expression relented in the light of what I could only hope came across as earnestness. He seemed to deflate in his chair for a long moment before fragile hope entered his eyes. "If he's really my godfather… do you think he can adopt me?"
Harry lay in bed with blankets tossed aside due to the summer heat, staring up at the ceiling. Realistically speaking, he knew that it wasn't the worst day of his life—that had come on the exact same day the year before—but it probably made it into the top five. He'd had to see all of his least favourite sights in a row, after all. First came the dreaded exit from platform 9 ¾ into the muggle world, then came the face Uncle Vernon had when he was mad in public that promised consequences in private, then the home he'd grown up in and the rest of his family.
He didn't have the benefit of buying his relative safety with a phoney wave of the wand anymore, either. Dobby had ruined that. Even worse, Uncle Vernon had locked up all of Harry's magical things in his old cupboard. At least the fear of his Hogwarts letter not coming was a bit easier to dismiss this time. It would have meant a lifetime of Number Four Privet Drive after all, and there was nothing that scared him more than that.
It had been hard not to resent you when he saw you walking off with the Weasleys at King's Cross. You had living parents that probably liked you fine, and you still got to stay in the magical world year-round. Harry knew there were good reasons why, but an ugly part deep inside had hated you just the tiniest amount.
That had always been Harry's dream. The idea that someone would come around and save him from the Dursleys had always been a subject that lulled him to sleep at night. It had been the indistinct forms of his parents once, but Mr and Mrs Weasley had slowly been coming to take their place ever since he'd first visited the Burrow. He only hoped his parents would forgive him for the betrayal from wherever they'd gone when they died. Harry thought about asking the Weasleys to adopt him, but he knew how tight their money was, and they were always so weird about taking Harry's. It wasn't like he knew what to do with it.
It would be cruel to ask, Harry decided every time the thought crossed his mind. Besides, he could handle the Dursleys. He always had before. Until then, he counted the days until he'd be back at Hogwarts and dreamed.
The immensity of Harry's sorrow hit me like a truck as his fragile hope wavered before solidifying. I realised then how similar he was to Neville. It seemed like the sorting hat had put them in Gryffindor for the exact same reason.
"Now that Pettigrew's going to Azkaban, I happen to know for a fact that Sirius will want nothing more than to be a part of your life." Ron's sugar-sweet joy at the Firebolt trickled into my voice. "No doubt he'll do something drastic when you tell him how the Dursleys treat you—" Something drastic like murder, I thought, and the combination of Harry's fresh memories and Sirius' sadistic rage made not caring about the consequences of that into something wonderful. "—but I'm willing to bet that part of that will be adopting you. He knows what it's like to hate your family."
"You really think so?" Harry asked as the hope chased out his sorrow.
"I really do." I offered him the tentative smile he'd buoyed into being.
Ron's joy made itself known as he gave Harry a brilliant grin. "Might be hard to pull off with everything, but I reckon if he can escape from Azkaban, he can probably do just about anything."
"Guess so." Harry leaned back into the couch with a disbelieving little laugh. "I can't believe I have a godfather."
The good mood in the air was contagious, and I closed my eyes to let myself feel it fully. "Pretty sure he prefers dogfather in private, actually." The scent of curiosity filled the air. "He's an animagus. I think your dad might have been too."
Harry's eyes widened. "Really?"
"I think so. It only makes sense. They have these nicknames. Sirius turns into a big black dog; he's Padfoot," I explained.
"The Grim!" Harry realised. "He must've been keeping an eye on me ever since I left the Dursley's! If only I'd known, I…"
Ron laughed. "Sod that! If he's Padfoot, then he helped make the Marauder's Map! It's what, Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs? Who do you think the rest of 'em are?"
"Well, I know Pettigrew's Wormtail, Prongs is probably your dad," I said, "and Professor Lupin's Moony, which is really a bit obvious of a name considering everything."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"Oh, he's a werewolf." I opened my eyes to watch their reactions.
Sure enough, Ron flinched back. "He's a werewolf?" he hissed. "Did those memories tell you that too?"
"Professor Snape did, actually." It amazed me how little attention the boys paid to things. "He always fills in for Professor Lupin's sickness around the full moon, and he always talks about how dangerous werewolves are even when he's teaching something else. I think he wanted us to piece it together."
"Does Dumbledore know?" Ron asked.
Harry looked between us in confusion. "What's wrong with werewolves?"
"Yes, Dumbledore knows," I cut Ron off. "And the only thing wrong with them is that they're dangerous during the full moon. I got some of Professor Lupin's memories too, so I know he's taking Wolfsbane potion. He's not a danger to anyone like that."
"Still mental that Dumbledore let him in a school." Ron shook his head but conceded the point.
I shrugged. "He let me back in, and we don't even know if I'm dangerous yet."
That sobered the mood some, but Harry broke through the silence. "So the ritual really worked, then? You're gonna survive?"
"There's no way to know yet," I said. "The merging isn't really done yet. We're still settling. I'm not the thing I'm going to be, just most of a dementor and most of a witch. Things might change. Besides that, I can't see Healer Jameson anymore, so he can't tell me anything."
"Why not?" Ron asked.
I sighed and resigned myself to explaining. "Because I'm not human anymore. If it gets out, I won't just be expelled. I might lose my rights as a person." Both sets of eyes went wide with concern. "Dumbledore's going to look for a healer we can trust, but you can't tell anyone about me. The only people who know are Dumbledore, Sirius, Professor Snape, Luna, and you two."
"Merlin…" Harry stared down at the table for a moment before he met my eyes once more. "We'll keep your secret safe." He looked to Ron, who matched his promise eagerly.
"I know you will." They'd already made such a long habit of it, after all.
"So," Ron prompted me after a moment, "what's it like being a dementor-thing?"
Harry jabbed an elbow into Ron's side. "She's our friend, not a thing." I couldn't help but wonder how much of that stemmed from Harry's reaction to the word 'freak'.
"He's not wrong, actually. Dementors don't really do personhood. They think of themselves more as 'it' than anything else." At least they did when they bothered to consider themselves as an entity at all. Silence was an oddity there. Annoyance came unbidden at the thought, but I dismissed my soulmate's offence. "And as for what it's like; that's a bit difficult to answer, especially given that we're not really done cooking yet. As it stands, it's…"
I trailed off to consider what to say. They weren't completely mental, meaning I couldn't answer like I had Sirius, and I'd more deferred the questions to later with Dumbledore than actually answered any of them. Harry and Ron would be the first people I explained the fullness of my experience to. I wanted to do it right. They'd be the ones keeping the closest eye on me after all, and they were the ones I stood to hurt the most.
"I don't really have proper emotions anymore," I finally began. "But I can tell what the people around me are feeling and sort of use it up by remembering it later on to feel it myself. I experience some of their memories too, if someone's feeling something really strongly. Doing it's easier if I close my eyes, and it's Silence—that's the name of the dementor—that chooses those memories, not Hermione."
"Hold on, are you telling us you aren't Hermione?" Ron asked with confusion and a pinch of fear.
It made sense he'd ask that. The arrangement was strange even to me. "Subjectively, yes I am. Part of Hermione is Silence and part of Silence is Hermione, but… Hermione is the part that does the human things: walking, talking, exposing traitors, and all that. Silence is the part that does the dementor bits. Whereas the… entity that is me," I waved my arms around myself for effect, "is both parts, and the difference between the two is only going to get smaller."
Harry looked over at Ron. "You get any of that?"
"Not a word, mate."
"From my perspective," I tried, letting now-familiar annoyance seep into my voice, "I'm Hermione, and part of me is connected to Silence. From your perspective, objectively, I'm sort of both."
"Weird," Ron said after a long moment. Harry nodded his agreement. "So, did you see any of our memories?"
That, at least, was an easy question. Easier than explaining my binary existence, at least. "I saw some of yours while I was still unconscious, actually. I was there for your first time hearing about your uncles, when you realised I was in the Chamber of Secrets, and then I think your talk about me with Percy in the library?"
Ron baulked. "Cheery picks, those."
"Dementors aren't known for being fun at parties, Ron," I drawled. He choked on a shot of humour, and I turned to Harry. "I didn't see any of yours when I was unconscious, but I did see one in the Great Hall when you were talking about the Dursleys, and one just a minute ago."
Harry went white as a sheet with bubbling fear and shock. "What did you see?" he asked as levelly as he could manage.
"I saw you deciding to ask your aunt a question in the Great Hall," I said slowly, "and then you at home thinking about the Weasleys."
"Oh."
Regret hit me keenly. "Sorry. I'm not in control of it—"
"It's fine," Harry insisted with a wave of a hand. I knew him well enough that I didn't even need to feel his whirling emotions to know he was lying, though it certainly helped. "It's just… I think I felt it. You, I mean, or Silence, or whatever."
"Sirius could tell too. What did it feel like?" It would be a useful thing to know, even beyond simple curiosity.
Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times as if searching for the words. "Bad," he finally settled. "I was remembering it along with you, but it was more vivid than it should have been. It felt like I was back there. Not physically, but… emotionally, I guess."
"People are afraid of Azkaban for a reason," I commented absently as a yawning chasm of regret and grief opened up around me without my consent. "I can't see Dumbledore's or Professor Snape's memories, so there's a way to… protect yourself from me. I think I know what it is, too. The problem is that if I'm right, then learning it while we're this young would hurt your magic in the long run. I'll just have to do what I can to not take from you two."
"...What about everybody else?" Harry asked eventually.
I searched my mind to try to conjure a nice answer, but none came. "I don't know. Dementors survive on stolen memories and emotions, and given how Silence is the one picking them up, I think that might still be true for us. Me. It's not like I can control it too much anyway."
"Nothing ever just gets better, does it?" Ron sighed, and I found I couldn't disagree.
"That's everything then?" The headmaster asked, looking over his half-moon spectacles. "Aside from the exact details your extrasensory insight provided and your conversations with your fellow students—both of which are private—that is everything you have experienced since performing the ritual?"
"Yes, sir," I answered honestly. It was already late when an irate Professor Snape entered the common room to retrieve me, and Dumbledore had spent the hours since then quizzing me on every detail. I was exhausted enough that I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it had become early morning some hours ago.
"And how, precisely, are we to know she's not lying?" Professor Snape drawled out. Despite his many protests, he'd been there listening and offering snappy comments the entire time. Weak annoyance shot through me at the professor's words, but Dumbledore answered before I could bite.
"Because Miss Granger is many things—many more, even, than she was a few days ago—but unintelligent is not one of them." His tone was pleasant, but his flavourless annoyance might as well have been written in neon to me. "I'm sure that she's long since realised that leaving any details out would do nothing but limit our ability to help her. We are, after all, on her side."
Professor Snape stood and leaned over Dumbledore's desk, leaving behind empty fury and indignation.
"I am on the side of protecting the student body from a loose Dark creature. Since the start of this year, you seem to insist on forcing me to question if we are allies in this. Did you not hear her admit that she forces the people around her to relive traumatic memories? I will
not have a thing like that near my Slytherins."
"I will admit to that being a complication." The headmaster met Snape's eyes easily and steepled his fingers. "But I suspect this might well prove temporary. We will need to monitor her as the transition from two into one progresses. Any theoretical dietary need for stolen memory could well abate, even as she gains what I suspect will be more conscious control of her abilities."
"And what of the meantime? Are we to simply let the students suffer until she's finished?"
"Not at all," Dumbledore said pleasantly through the emotional equivalent of gritted teeth. "In fact, I already have a solution in mind."
I took the opportunity to speak up. "If there's a way to get rid of the risk to my friends without dying, I want to do it." I'd have been earnest if I had it in me, but as it was it was a simple statement of fact.
The headmaster nodded my way, and Snape sat back in his chair with a scowl. "I would propose a two-part solution. The first part would answer the question of sustenance. Similar to what we have done with vampiric students who attended Hogwarts in the past, I would propose regular donation of memory and emotion through a safe medium."
"To conjure someone willing to play nursemaid to a dementor is no mean feat," Professor Snape spat.
"Which is why I will be offering myself," Dumbledore said. Professor Snape relented with a cross of his arms. "I've the means, the motive, and more memories than I know what to do with. It will be, as it always has been, my honour to pass down the contents of my head to those students in need of them."
Resignation came over Snape, but his scowl didn't relent. "You know well that the appetite of a dementor is an endless pit. It will not stop simply because it has been fed."
"Hence the second part of my proposal." He turned his attention to me. "Miss Granger, are you aware of the Mindblot potion?"
"I think I saw it mentioned once. I believe it's designed to put a barrier around one's thoughts and feelings," I answered. "The book I found it in didn't describe it any more than that." It had been mentioned in a footnote just a few pages off from the polyjuice recipe in
Moste Potente Potions.
Dumbledore offered me a tired smile. "Five points to Gryffindor. You're absolutely correct of course, though not entirely so. The key detail for our purposes is that the barrier it produces is not only one way. It prevents its imbiber from having their mind spied upon, but also prevents them from spying upon the minds of others. It would need some modification to suit the purpose, but it is not for nothing that I have perhaps the most skilled Potion Master I've ever met in my employ."
Something churned within me at the proposal. I managed to keep my face schooled, but my vision blurred as pain came over me with an intensity I hadn't felt since waking up in Sirius' cave. It came from the intersection of Hermione and Silence, and the pain relented as I realised how much I did
not like the idea of that potion. Speaking up about it wouldn't bring me anything but scrutiny though, so I kept quiet.
Seemingly unaware of my internal conflict and resolution, Dumbledore looked over to Snape, who uncrossed his arms with a weary sigh. "It's becoming increasingly clear to me that my protests are falling on deaf ears. I take this to mean that I've no choice in the matter?" Dumbledore offered only a smile in response. "Very well. But I'll make it known now that when this
thing," he waved a hand in my direction, "proves your trust to be folly, then
you will be the one forced to live with the consequences, not I."
"At my age, every day that I live to see the fruits of my labours is a gift," Dumbledore said pleasantly. Snape's fury kicked up high enough that it confused me that he didn't lash out.
"Very well. Now if you'll excuse me, it seems that I have many hours of arithmancy ahead if I'm to have any hope of fulfilling this fool's errand." With that, Professor Snape stood, gave me a lingering glare, and stalked out of the room. The door shut behind him with a slam.
The headmaster gave me a wry smile. "It's good to see him so cooperative."
I grimaced, as much from fading pain as from his statement. "Was he this angry about Professor Lupin?" If this had been Snape being cooperative, I didn't want to see him petulant.
"More so, I'm afraid. They've quite the history together." He gave me an appraising glance. "A history you seem well-informed about."
I shrugged. "If Professor Lupin knows Occlumency, then he doesn't practise it. Same with Sirius."
"I'll not ask for details," Dumbledore said with a hand raised to stop me. "Though I will ask you the same thing I've asked all natural legilimens who pass through our halls: to keep those details you happen to glean to yourself. People have a right to their privacy."
"Yes, sir."
He tipped his head approvingly. "Good. Now, with that in mind, I do have a potentially contradictory request for you." He waited for my nod before continuing. "I will note that while Severus is a master at his craft, the thing we have asked of him is difficult indeed. It will take time and experimentation to achieve a satisfactory result." That was fine by me. He could take all the time he wanted. "In the meantime, if there is any information that you happen to stumble upon that you suspect might affect your safety or the safety of others, I ask that you bring it to my attention immediately."
"That's reasonable," I said after a moment to think. I didn't want to agree outright—dementors
were bound to the letter of their word, and I didn't know when that would begin to affect me in earnest—but there was no reason to say no either.
"Splendid," the headmaster said with a mix of approval and frustration that I thought might have meant he knew what I was doing. "With that settled…" He trailed off and looked up to the door. "Come in!"
"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't forgive me," Remus said, looking anywhere but the other man's eyes. "Twelve years in Azkaban for a crime you didn't commit, and I hardly even questioned it. I should have known, should have argued for a trial."
Sirius Black—the man Remus now realised had been the most loyal of all of them—looked up from his half-ravaged plate for just a moment. "It's forgotten, as long as you forgive me for suspecting you, too."
"Done," he agreed quickly. "I just can't believe that Peter was alive after all this time."
"Not for lack of trying on my part." Sirius gave him a gaunt grin, a ghost of the one that once decorated his face so readily.
Remus tried to match it but feared the result came out as more of a grimace. "Twelve years as a pet rat. I can't imagine it."
Sirius let out a dry, broken cough of a laugh. "That's 'cause you're too good, Moony. Sick fucks like the traitor never have made much sense to you." He made another precise cut into his steak with shaking hands clasping silverware just so before ferally tearing into the chunk he'd carved out. The display broke Remus' heart to see. Sirius Black, once proud and composed, reduced to little more than a starving animal.
"You look like you've barely eaten since you escaped."
"Not been my priority," he admitted. "But there's always something to eat if you look hard enough and don't care if you have to pinch your nose. Sure, there are a few people that like to feed strays, but the trash can behind the Broomsticks has been good to me, and I bet I've just about snapped up every rat in Hogsmeade by now. Would've been good practise for the real thing."
Remus couldn't help but stare in horror. "Bloody hell, Sirius."
"Nobody ever said revenge is glamorous. It's just necessary. Like food, or water, or getting piss-drunk in your twenties." He punctuated every word with a twirl of his fork in the air that was so familiar it ached.
The professor shook his head as if to cast off his surreal stupor. "Revenge fulfilled then, I suppose. He'll be off to Azkaban soon. Dumbledore's got his eyes on. It might as well be a done deal."
Sirius grunted through a mouthful of potatoes. "It'll have to be good enough," he eventually said. "Some things are more important than others. Speaking of: tell me about my godson."
"You'll love him," Remus said, knowing for a fact that it would be true.
"The implication that I don't already is insulting." His tone was harsh, but that bony, rotten, wry smile was back. "Now details, Moony. Details!"
That earned a familiar laugh from Remus. It was almost enough to make him forget that the past twelve years had even happened. "He's a fine kid. Loves his friends enough to bring back old memories. Honestly, between that and the way he looks, it's hard to not see James sometimes. The only differences are the scar and his eyes."
"Still got Lily's eyes?"
"Killing curse green," Remus confirmed.
The influx of sudden emotions made me realise just how drained I'd been. Over the hours spent with two men I could read but not copy from, the only feelings left to me were a dwindling supply of Sirius' rage, grief, and regret. It was hardly a full range. Professor Lupin's mix of sour sorrow and sweet nostalgia was heady in the light of it.
He came in with a transformed Sirius in tow. Sirius' tail was wagging from beneath my cloak and Lupin had my bag slung over his shoulders. The professor's inner turmoil gave way to surprise at the sight of me.
"Welcome," Dumbledore said to them. "Have a seat. Feel free to make yourselves comfortable." He gave Sirius a pointed glance.
Sirius clambered up into the chair Snape had vacated and began to shift. In the span of a moment, his body stretched, shortened, and contorted until the man himself sat primly with legs crossed. He'd changed and bathed since last I saw him, managed to tame the nightmare that was his hair, and seemed to have decided his facial hair was a lost cause and shaved it entirely. I didn't blame him.
"Dumbledore, Hermione," he greeted with a nod to each of us in turn. "I assume you're the one responsible for him knowing about my animagus?"
The headmaster saved me from answering. "Given everything that has happened over the past several days, and indeed the past decade or so, she and I have spent a short while discussing her experiences."
"Only fair, I suppose," Sirius said. "Having you in the loop and back in my corner will certainly help with the whole freedom thing."
"I can only hope," Dumbledore replied.
Professor Lupin slung my bag off of his shoulder with ease. "Speaking of, here you go."
"Thank you, Professor." Inside was the culmination of my once-life's work—the magical formula for the thing I was—and I accepted its return greedily. The professor gave me a tight smile before sitting down. As he did, Sirius gave me a pointed look, waggled his fingers up at his eyes, and nodded towards Dumbledore. I nodded accordingly; the headmaster knew all about me. He jabbed his head over to Lupin, and I shook mine. Sirius frowned, but seemed to accept it.
"How's Harry doing?" Sirius asked me.
"He seems like he's taking everything in stride," I answered. "He's had better days, but he's had a lot worse too."
He nodded absently for a moment. "Any shot of me meeting him tonight?"
"He was going to bed when I came up here some hours ago." Disappointment flowed from Sirius like water.
"There is always the morning," Dumbledore said.
Sirius relented. "Suppose so."
"Speaking of, Hermione, I do believe it is past time I allowed you to get some rest yourself," the headmaster said. "Professor Lupin, Mr Black, and I have quite a bit to discuss, and there's no reason to drag you into it any further."
I stood up and hefted my bag, finding it easier to lift than it had been before. Lupin must have cast a featherlight charm on it. "Of course, Professor. I'll see you in the morning."
After some quick goodbyes to the other two men, I made my way out the door and down the stairs. The walk back up to Gryffindor tower was made even more exhausting by the late hour, but finally, eventually, I returned to the common room and climbed up to my dorms. I only just managed to place my bag down in my still-warded trunk before the I-that-was-now-we landed back in my bed again for the very first time.
