89Warnings: minor character death, brief Sirius/Hermione, open/ambiguous ending, suicide: dark ritual (not Severus or Hermione). This one is a bit steamier than my usual stories. I decided to try writing it as a challenge.
Notes: the title comes from the poem "Everything is Going to be All Right" by Derek Mahon.
Thank you to Morbidmuch for bouncing ideas with me for this one. This fic will be updating every Wednesday.
Terry was still a boy when he faded away. Only nineteen. The war had made all of them too old, but he was just a kid.
Minutes before he went, Hermione thought about how glad she was to have a familiar face with her in the Death Chamber. She hated the cold rows of empty benches where wizards and witches used to sit and gawk at public executions. Every mutter from beyond the Veil sounded like the voice of someone she knew—someone she had lost.
"There's a snag." Terry said, pointing his wand at the fluttering Veil. "I can feel it, can't you?"
His last words.
There would be inquests, eventually. Why were two Junior Unspeakables allowed to work without supervision? What had caused the rift in the Veil? Where had Terry gone? Neat little answers, all locked up tight in the Department Head's filing cabinet. But in that moment, there was only confusion and flashes of light and Hermione's screams.
Terry was there, and then he wasn't. He flickered and faded against the bright Veil, drifting apart as Hermione threw hoarse, panicked spells at him. She turned in a circle. Nothing. He did not appear on one of the empty benches like a gloating stage magician. He was gone.
The Veil blew outwards with such force that it knocked Hermione off of her feet. When she finally got her bearings, Terry's body was back, but it was no longer him. Bones shifted and skin rippled as if under the influence of Polyjuice before settling on someone she recognised.
Sirius.
Nine years later
It had been nearly a decade, but Hermione still caught the echo of Terry in Sirius's face now and then. A certain slant of light, a different tilt to his smile, and there he was: the boy she'd failed.
There was no danger of any such optical illusions when Sirius sat at his fucking desk. God, Hermione loathed that thing. It was enormous, better suited to Hagrid or Grawp. After Sirius had become the owner of the Chudley Cannons (a dare from Ron), he'd decided he needed an office. As far as Hermione could tell, he mostly used said office (Regulus's old room) as a place to hide when she asked him to break out a few cleaning charms now and then.
"Don't worry so much, love," he said, propping his feet on the desk and tilting his chair back on two legs. "Kreacher will take care of it."
Kreacher always bloody took care of it. Years ago, Hermione hadn't expected Sirius to want Kreacher's service again, considering all that had happened. He certainly didn't need a servant. She took a secret joy in Kreacher's occasional mutters about how much he preferred brave Regulus.
"I'm not asking Kreacher," she said. "I'm asking you. If you don't… You know what? Never mind. I don't have time for this. I have to go to work. We can talk about this when I get home."
"Looking forward to it."
Hermione ignored him. If she actually let herself reply, she would lash out and say things that could not be unsaid.
Being pursued by Sirius had been almost addictive at first. It had reminded her of the thrill of heads turning at the Yule Ball, minus the tedium of hours spent locked up with a bottle of Sleekeazy's. But they couldn't carry on like this, with her being the Wendy to his Peter Pan.
Stomping down the stairs (which she had sanded and refinished), Hermione checked the many pockets of her indigo work robes. Wand, keys, purse, spare vials of cerebrospinal fluid, bottle of omega 3 supplements. Right. Ignoring Walburga's shrieks from the front of the house, she threw a pinch of Floo powder into the grate and stepped into the fire with a clear shout of, "Ministry of Magic."
Hermione nodded back at people who greeted her as she crossed the atrium and entered the lift, her mind already on her work. Something about the entrance hall of the Department of Mysteries always made her feel colder. Stepping onto the smooth floor and looking at the disorientating doors sent shivers tingling over her skin. She could identify each door now that she'd been initiated. Love Chamber, Time Chamber.
Death Chamber.
Hermione turned away from that door, entering the Thought Chamber. Even if she hadn't been offered a transfer, she would have requested one after Terry. Her work in the Brain Room, as Ron insisted on calling it, suited her better, anyway: exploring the secrets of thought, trying to pinpoint the origin of magic.
Snape was already there. Of course. Hermione found him next to one of the brain vats, a floating quill and parchment taking notes at his side. No matter how early she arrived, he always got there first—like he somehow used Legilimency from all the way across the country. Or maybe he had simply taken up residence deep in the Department of Mysteries and never left.
"Granger," he said without looking up from the brain he was manipulating with purple beams of magic.
His voice was different now—gravelly, no longer the one she'd heard surrounded by potion fumes. It matched the jagged scar on his throat. That simple, venom-roughened murmur of her name was how he'd greeted her upon revealing he was not, in fact, dead. She hadn't known at the time that they'd end up working together—that he had requested to be placed in the Thought Chamber.
The first week they'd been partners, she'd peppered him with questions only Snape would know, trying to catch him out in case he was a Polyjuiced impostor. It hadn't been until he'd lost his temper and demanded to know why she was still pestering him with question after question when he was no longer her teacher that she'd been convinced.
"Snape," she said. "Anything interesting today?"
"Not particularly. I suppose you do have the dubious pleasure of dealing with Davis's gift. Whether that is interesting remains to be seen."
Mr Davis was the recently deceased husband of a former Unspeakable. Upon his wife's death, he'd taken to writing long, rambling letters to the department. Somehow, Hermione had ended up being the only one to reply to him. Never with anything about his many, many theories on all he thought they studied, but a lack of encouragement hadn't stopped Mr Davis. In his will, he had left the department not only his own brain, but that of his late house-elf. Generous.
"Hmm." Hermione wrinkled her nose. "You don't want it? It's a bit weird for me to do it, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Well, I knew him. Sort of. What would you do?"
"I doubt I will be faced with such a choice. Most people of my acquaintance do not possess enough brain matter to make the study worthwhile."
She snorted. "I should have seen that answer coming."
His only response was a half-formed smirk.
It was a little strange, but Hermione had grown accustomed to strange. May as well crack on. The brains weren't getting any fresher.
Donated brains were delivered in a box that reminded Hermione of a Muggle cooler, with a Chilling Charm instead of ice packs. The preparation process was familiar by now. Rote, easy. Her mind wandered, as it always did as she set one of the empty vats to fill and cast Barrier Charms on both of her hands. Today, instead of her shopping list or her plans for the weekend, her thoughts settled on Terry.
She had discovered where they'd gone wrong—which spell had turned against Terry as it had reached beyond the Veil. She'd memorised every wand movement, every syllable, examining the details in a Pensieve over and over.
She also knew how to bring someone else back. She could target the spell, rather than rolling the dice and selecting someone at random. Even if she could tell anyone outside the Department about her work, she would not share this fact with the Weasleys. After Sirius's dramatic reappearance, Ron had given her a few sidelong glances. He'd never actually asked the question, but she'd been able to read the thought on his face as clearly as if he'd screamed it. Fred.
Maybe it had been inevitable that she would turn to Sirius once she found herself single and lonely and still a little lost. He shared the guilt. Upon realising what had happened to Terry, Sirius's first question had been how he could reverse the process and bring Terry back. It wasn't possible. Terry hadn't joined the murmuring dead through that archway. Hermione had worn herself ragged trying to find him, but he had simply ceased to exist. Vanished.
Shivering, Hermione forced her thoughts back to the present. As she had never had the opportunity to examine a house-elf brain, she levitated that one into the vat first. With the brains of wizards and witches, strong tendrils of magic unfurled into the preservative fluid almost instantly. Hermione expected a similar reaction with the elf. A few strands appeared, but they were withered and brown, like a plant left in a dark room.
"Strange," she muttered.
Without the aid of a wand, house-elves could break wards that rendered wizards helpless. They were bursting with magic. Perhaps their magic originated elsewhere in their bodies. Moving closer, she cast a few diagnostic charms on the brain.
There was something there. Not quite a snag, like Terry had felt in the Veil. More of a wall—something holding her back from going deeper. It had a different magical signature from the rest of the brain. Nothing she cast on the barrier had any effect. No false thoughts she shot into the brain could make their way through that wall. Hermione huffed out a breath. Inventing the spells necessary to dismantle it could take weeks.
Was the wall something all elves had in common? None of the Ministry's books on thought even mentioned house-elves in passing. Which was typical of wizards, really. What revelations about the nature of magic might have passed them by because they ignored other species?
"Snape!" she said too loudly, getting overly excited at the possibility of a new discovery waiting on the horizon.
As Snape started at the sound, one of his hands moved close enough to the vat to allow a brain's tendrils to latch onto him. Hermione barely had time to draw a stunned breath before images shimmered through her mind in rapid succession. Her own face, smiling and bright with some newly acquired knowledge. Her bushy head bent over a book, hands reaching up to secure her hair into a messy bun. Her back turned to the viewer as she stood on one leg in front of the vats, scratching the back of her calf with her other foot.
It was not a total surprise. She knew that an accident with the brains could destroy even the most robust of Occlumency shields and cause the affected person to project their thoughts. They had been there before. But these visions of herself through Snape's eyes—glowing and beautiful—she never could have anticipated such a thing.
His next thought was fragile and paper thin. Not a memory, but… a daydream? A hope? The Snape and Hermione in this vision walked together through a dense, tropical forest. Grabbing her around the waist, he pressed his lips to hers.
"Relashio!" Hermione shouted.
The brain released him, slithering back into the vat.
Silence. Oh, gods. Hermione splayed a hand over her breastbone, trying to calm the rapid thud of her heart.
Snape cleared his throat. Instead of the expected defensive lashing out, he said, "I apologise. If anything you saw made you uncomfortable—"
"It didn't." Hermione had to swallow question after question, forcing them down over the lump in her throat. Did he truly see her that way? When had his opinion of her changed?
He gave a stiff nod. "Very well. We will speak no more of it. Now, what was so fucking important that you felt the need to shout?"
Hermione changed into Muggle clothes and walked home that evening, bundled up against the December cold. The four mile trek between the Ministry and Grimmauld Place gave her ample time to clear her mind, while having the added benefit of delaying her Important Talk with Sirius. She was not looking forward to that. In truth, she wasn't looking forward to seeing him at all. She seldom did these days.
They could not go on like this.
Not far from Grimmauld Place, Hermione veered onto a familiar side street. There hadn't been enough foot traffic to break down the slushy snow; her feet skidded over the pavement. One of the second story balconies on the building at the end of the road was festooned with so many fairy lights that Hermione had to shield her eyes against the glare. George must have helped them decorate again.
Ginny and Cho's flat was a warm, bright studio that was full of books and Quidditch gear and always smelt like flying. Hermione still hated to fly, but there was a scent to it that was all wrapped up in her early memories of the Wizarding World—like broom polish and petrichor.
"Hey," Ginny said, kissing Hermione's cheek as she let her in. "You hungry? We're just heating up some leftovers from Mum."
This was one of the best things about stopping off at Ginny and Cho's on her way home: food from Molly. Hermione gratefully accepted a plate full of chicken, crispy roast potatoes, and broccoli and claimed her favourite chair at their kitchen table. The picture of Marietta on the wall sneered at Hermione. It was from their Hogwarts days; the photo didn't know they'd agreed to be civil during the planning process for Ginny and Cho's wedding.
Well, civil was pushing it. Mostly, Marietta and Hermione avoided each other. Hermione had told her how to undo the Boils Jinx after the war, but her stomach still twisted when she thought of how long she'd left it.
"How are you two?" Hermione asked.
"Not bad." Cho shrugged. "Though I did have another patient today who was only there because of Harry."
After the war, Cho had gone to a Muggle university and became the first grief counsellor in Wizarding Britain. Most of her early patients had been drawn in by the fact that her ex was The Boy Who Lived.
"Haven't had one of those in a while," Ginny said. "You still charged them, right?"
"Of course," Cho said. "Oh, Hermione. I need you to back me up on this. The Order Christmas party. Molly made us the cutest—"
Ginny groaned. "Gods. Not this again. It's not happening."
"But they're so adorable! The little quaffles and bludgers. Your mum put a lot of work into those jumpers."
"Hermione. Tell her we cannot wear matching jumpers anywhere. It's nauseating. It's… It's the sort of thing Percy and Audrey would do."
This did not dissuade Cho. A tap at the window interrupted the debate. When Cho let in a brightly coloured, exotic bird that clutched two scrolls of parchment, an irresistible smile tugged at Hermione's mouth.
She wanted to rip through the seal right away when the bird offered her one of the letters. It had been ages since she'd heard from Luna. Where was she now? Somewhere in the Caribbean?
Years ago, Luna would have been at Ginny and Cho's, waiting for Hermione. Those days were tinted with nostalgia: rose-coloured and always happy. They hadn't been—she knew that. There had been fights. Irreconcilable differences. She and Luna clashed too much to last, but at least Luna had been an adult.
Right. Hermione slipped the letter into her pocket, unread. She needed to go home and have that talk.
This was going to hurt.
Note: I don't know where I got the idea for public executions in the Death Chamber. Either I made it up when Harry described the Death Chamber as looking like a courtroom, or I read it in a fic. If you know a fic that included that, let me know so I can give credit. Edit: duj has informed me that they used it in two fics, which I likely read during my great SSHG fic binge of a couple of summers ago! Credit for the shenanigans with the brain tendrils goes to Mersheeple, who helped me out when I was whinging about Severus not cooperating.
