Chapter Text
A hundred feet below, the black waters of the lake lapped against the rocks of the bluff. There was no way to tell how far down the waters went; even the sparkling sunlight was quickly swallowed by the depths.
Hermione stepped back from the edge and meandered her way through the knee-high grasses to the ruins she’d crossed the lake for. Nothing remained above waist height, and much of it was lower still; strips of broken stone criss-crossing the ground atop the cliff. The thickness of the foundations spoke of a once-mighty fortress; smooth, if weather-beaten facades filled with rubble and lime, built to stand for centuries. Ideally.
She walked through what could have been a gatehouse and crossed a courtyard-turned-meadow into a large rectangular space. A great hall, perhaps, or the kitchens below. If she closed her eyes she could almost picture the stout battlements and soaring towers, commanding the valley from its throne atop the lake.
For a time, Hermione used the peace and solitude to let her magic flow; conjuring wildflowers, whose petals transformed into butterflies and took to the sky, who swarmed together into a churning sphere, which became a multi-faceted crystal, which fell back to the ground and burst into droplets of water, soaking the soil, but in truth her mind was elsewhere. It had been on little else recently and deep down, she knew it was time to confront her feelings and move on, whichever way she fell.
“Ah! I suppose I shall have to find a new location to conduct my brooding!”
Hermione turned to see Sirius hopping over one of the low walls. She hadn’t heard the telltale crack of apparition, meaning he must have hiked around the lake and approached on foot.
“Brooding? You’ve been here two months, what have you left to brood about?” she asked as he came closer. He looked much improved from when they had met; his hair was clean and casually swept back, his face had more colour and was no longer hollow, but she could see in his eyes that there was a lot of the past that he still carried with him.
“Old habits,” he grinned, “And I don’t believe I shall ever run out of things to brood about. Why are you out here anyway?”
“Brooding,” she replied sarcastically.
“Excellent, we can form a club! Remus needs a little work but I bet we could bring him around.”
Hermione rolled her eyes but followed Sirius as he nodded his head towards a low, flat section of the crumbling walls that looked out over the lake and to the cottage, nestled like a toy on the far side. They sat down next to each other and Sirius pulled a cloth-wrapped object out of an inner pocket. He placed it on his lap and unwrapped it, revealing, to Hermione’s surprise, a sandwich. He tore it in two and handed her a half.
“Where did you get bread?” Hermione asked incredulously.
“Oh sh*t,” Sirius muttered through a mouth full of sandwich. “Don’t tell Minnie, but about two weeks after we got here I snuck away to the nearest baker I could find. I missed it too much! I have a stash of it in my room.”
She looked at him reproachfully but, after taking a bite, couldn’t blame him. Fish, roots, and leaves were fine, but there was a lot she missed.
“You know she hates it when you call her that,” Hermione said, mostly to avoid having to agree with him.
“That’s why I do it,” he replied. She looked sideways at him as he sat taking in the view, chewing absent mindedly.
“You seem… better,” she ventured. The change had been gradual but the Sirius sat next to her was a far cry from the one in the carriage on the way to Calais. They had never spoken about, nor even acknowledged the conversation they had had that night, but with each passing day a little darkness seemed to lift from him.
It had taken longer for him to warm to Lupin and McGonagall, presumably because of their role in his banishment, but slowly she had seen fewer single-word responses, more smiles, and more jokes.
“I feel better,” he replied. “There will never come a day when I don’t miss them, and I will have to live with my actions since then, but I didn’t think I would ever be back in this country, among these people, and life is too short to spend sulking.”
They finished eating in companionable silence, before Sirius said “So, are you going to tell me what you were really doing up here?”
“Thinking,” she said, truthfully but somewhat evasively.
“Have you figured out what you’re going to do about him?” he asked. Hermione’s head snapped around to him, surprise on her face. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about Harry’s role in her parents’ abduction. She had barely spoken about him at all.
Sirius looked at her plaintively. “You don’t think I haven’t noticed that you refuse to talk about Harry, but get uncomfortable when he comes up?”
Her face warmed and she looked away.
“Minnie and Remus talk about the two of you,” he continued, “but what they say doesn’t at all match with what I have seen. Tell me what happened. It can’t make it any worse?”
“I don’t know where to begin,” she said in a small voice.
“Start at the beginning.”
So she did. She told him of the incident at Kings Cross station; about her days alone on the streets before running into Harry; of their exploration of magic and their fruitless hunt for a sign of her parents. She told him about their lucky lead on Sommerset House and the disaster that befell them there; of caring for Harry when it looked as though he might not wake, and their infiltration of the Camden Brewery when he finally did. She must have been talking non-stop for hours while Sirius sat on the stone wall and listened as she finished recounting their lessons at Dumbledore’s house and the revelation that Harry had been the unwitting trigger of the whole series of events.
The words tumbled out of her, freed from the dam they had been building behind for months on end, and by the time she was done Hermione felt physically lighter as the burden was lifted from her shoulders alone.
She looked up at Sirius with pleading eyes. “I don’t know what to do, Sirius. I want to forgive him but it hurts every time I think about it.”
A sad smile crossed his face. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Hermione. Both of you. They are not the sort of things people your age should have to contend with, but sometimes life has a cruel sense of humour.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “It sounds as though Harry has been doing all he can to help you find your mother and father?”
“Out of guilt?” Hermione questioned.
“Possibly,” Sirius replied, “but if he’s anything like his father, he will be doing it because it is the right thing to do. He will be doing it for the people he loves.” He looked at her pointedly and Hermione felt an unusual swooping sensation in her stomach and looked away.
“You are both still very young,” he continued, pretending not to notice her reaction, “and we make mistakes when we are young. Heaven knows I made more than my fair share. He should have told you, yes, but to admit it and potentially lose everything you had built? Do not forget that Harry had been alone for far longer than you had. It doesn’t excuse it, but I can see why it would have been very difficult. Try not to judge him on the actions of one day, but on all he has done since to rectify it.”
She knew he was right; she had known it herself deep inside. The ever-present, gnawing worry for her parent’s safety, their lives, had suddenly been given someone to latch on to and blame; to direct the blinding spotlight on that wasn’t herself for losing control of her magic. She had allowed her subconscious relief that she may not be the sole reason they were taken to eviscerate the relationship she had with the one person who had been there her.
Hermione turned to Sirius to thank him but was interrupted by the flapping of paper wings as a small origami bird fluttered towards them from the direction of the cottage. Sirius snatched it from the air and unfolded it to read what was written inside.
“It’s from Minnie,” he said, eyes scanning the page. “We’re needed back at the house. There’s been word from Dumbledore.”
Sirius apparated the pair of them back across the lake and they stepped inside to find McGonagall and Lupin stood around the kitchen table, each holding a crumpled piece of parchment.
“What’s the news?” Sirius asked as they took spaces at the empty sides of the table. McGonagall held her letter aloft.
“This arrived from Alastor, sent last night. It seems he has been in contact with Albus and they are recalling everyone as soon as they can find a secure location. They are taking the fight to Gaunt.”
“Is it legitimate?” Sirius asked.
“The passphrase is correct,” McGonagall confirmed. They looked to Lupin who was also holding a note.
“Arrived at the same time,” he said. “It’s from Albus, recalling me from my search for you to aid in the coming fight. There hasn’t been any way to contact him, so I never told him you were already with us.”
“This is it, then?” asked Hermione, excitement and a good deal of trepidation in her voice. “They’ve been working to destabilise Gaunt and they’re ready to strike the final blow?”
“Not quite,” Lupin grimaced. “These things take a lot of time and planning and moving parts, but it is fair to say that we are moving against him rather than hiding away. It is the end of the beginning. Perhaps even the beginning of the end.”
Hermione nodded, understanding. “So we need to all gather to start planning.”
“We need to pack and wait for further instruction,” said McGonagall, waving her letter. “Albus hasn’t yet found somewhere safe for us to base ourselves.”
“Could they come here?” asked Lupin.
McGonagall shook her head. “While I am not opposed to housing everybody here, it is too remote. We would not be able to respond quickly to events in London or conduct effective surveillance.”
Lupin and McGonagall descended into a discussion on the pros and cons of different safehouses around the country, Hermione listening and filing away what she learned, until Sirius, who had been unusually quiet, spoke.
“I might know a place.”
The others looked at him.
“You don’t mean… Clennell Hall, do you?” asked Lupin uncertainly.
“Gods no!” replied Sirius, pulling a face of disgust. “I’m sure dear cousin Bella has her talons all over that. No, it turns out my beloved mother and father owned a place on Claremont Square. I got a letter about it a few years ago when they died. Heaven knows how it found me. Tied to the magical signature I guess?”
“Claremont Square?” said Lupin, even more confused than before. “Why on Earth did they have a house in the heart of muggle London?”
“A secret house, no less!” added Sirius. “Never heard about it when we were growing up. I don’t know in all honesty. Maybe they liked to pretend to be muggles at the weekend? That would be something.”
“I assume, otherwise occupied as you were, you have not had an opportunity to visit said property?” McGonagall asked. Sirius raised an eyebrow at her overly diplomatic summary of the situation.
“Funnily enough, no.”
“Well, it may suffice,” said Lupin, running a hand through his hair. “I haven’t seen the square myself but it’s a wealthy area; big houses, assuming it’s still unoccupied.”
“Only one way to find out,” shrugged Sirius.
In the dead of night, four people peered out from behind the bushes onto the silent street. An unbroken row of tall houses lined the park in the middle of Claremont Square; four storeys tall, five if you included the basem*nts just visible below the level of the pavement.
Number twelve stood shoulder to shoulder with numbers eleven and thirteen, identical in every way. The same white stone ground floor; the same dark brick upper levels; the same dark windows.
“I don’t see anybody watching the exterior, or moving around inside,” Sirius whispered, nodding his head towards the house in invitation to approach.
They looked to McGonagall; their voice of reason in their endeavour. She appeared decidedly uneasy, but after a final check up and down the street, gave a terse nod.
The four of them stole across the lamplit street, Sirius in the lead, and climbed the steps to the front door. There was no familiar prickling sensation as they crossed the property boundary; either the wards began at the threshold or there were none at all. On the top step Sirius paused before the door; glossy black with polished brass fittings, but nothing else marking it as an abode of the Black family.
Slowly, Sirius reached out his hand and touched the handle. The moment his fingers brushed the cool metal there was an audible click, and with renewed confidence and not an insignificant wave of relief, he turned the handle and swung the door open.
Shuffling in behind him, it took a moment for Hermione’s eyes to adjust to the gloom; not helped by the fact that the interior was decorated solely in black, dark green, or polished wood. A corridor stretched before them, leading from the entrance hall to a set of stairs, and beyond to a closed door. A thin layer of dust coated the floorboards, undisturbed by even the tracks of small rodents. The house truly was deserted.
The hanging chandelier was empty of candles, so Sirius lit his wand tip and proceeded cautiously down the hall. He was passing a large, murky portrait when a deafening screech caused them all to leap out of their skin.
“YOU!”
Sirius wheeled around and loosed a curse in the direction of the sound, which only left a scorch-mark on the wall.
“TRAITOROUS FILTH!”
The sound was coming from the portrait itself, and as Hermione edged closer she could see it contained a dour-looking woman dressed all in black, shrieking at the top of her lungs.
“Mother!?” Sirius replied, incredulous.
“ABANDONNED OUR FAMILY-” she was still yelling.
“Silencio!” barked Sirius, his wand aimed at the painting, and it fell silent. They took a moment to calm their racing hearts, Sirius looking rather sheepish.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “My sainted mother always did-”
“-WORTHLESS RETCH OF A BOY-” The charm had broken and Missus Black’s screaming once again filled the hall. Sirius’ shocked face would have been almost comical if Hermione hadn’t been worried about someone coming to investigate the noise.
Sirius tried to silence her again only for the charm to fail in seconds, and eventually resorted to conjuring a set of thick, velvet curtains to cover the offensive portrait. The yelling was still audible, though significantly muffled, but it was the best they could do at short notice.
They tramped down the hall, past a living room covered in cobwebs, and to the door at the end which led down a short flight of stairs into a large kitchen. As with the other rooms, dust covered the floor and surfaces, and jars of long-rotted goods sat on the shelves.
Sirius used his wand to scour the worst of the dirt from the kitchen table and four chairs while Lupin fished some mugs from the sideboard, attempted to clean them, but grimaced and put them down again. They took their seats; Sirius and Lupin on one side, Hermione and McGonagall on the other.
“Well,” Lupin said, “I think we can assume this place is safe for now. Walburga’s screaming would have alerted anyone on the upper floors and it looks like it’s stood empty for years at any rate.”
“We have some work to do before we can offer it up to Albus, though,” said McGonagall.
“Cleaning,” said Hermione.
“Wards,” added Lupin.
“And restocking food, medicines, linens and the like,” finished McGonagall.
“I’ll tackle the portrait,” growled Sirius.
“Tomorrow,” replied McGonagall. “It is late; let us make the bedrooms as liveable as we can and tackle the rest tomorrow.”
With mumbles of ascent they rose from the table, Hermione glad they had thought to eat before leaving and pack extra supplies, and headed for the stairs. Lupin stayed behind to weave basic protection and detection wards while Sirus led them up to the first floor.
Four doors opened onto the landing. At the rear of the house, over the kitchen, sat an ornate, tiled washroom complete with a tarnished brass bath. The adjacent door led into the master suite, dominated by a great four-poster bed and silken forest-green sheets. Sirius turned his nose up and closed the door swiftly. Of the final two doors, one opened onto a small parlour, and nobody knew what the fourth door was because it refused to open, so they climbed up another floor.
This time they were greeted by four modest bedrooms, all identical in their furnishings, and all impersonal, untouched, as though they’d never been lived in even when the house was occupied. The topmost floor turned out to be servants’ quarters with a handful of smaller rooms and a cramped washroom, though the dust and grime made it clear they had long been neglected.
They settled on the second floor, moving from room to room casting scouring, freshening, and warming charms until they were somewhat habitable once again. Since arriving, Sirius had become steadily glummer and more withdrawn, looking more like the man Hermione had shared a carriage with than the one she had come to know in the glen.
“Everything okay?” she asked when McGonagall left to start on the next room. They each grabbed a corner of the bedsheet and shook it before letting it float back down to the mattress.
“There’s no mistaking a Black family home,” he said with a wry smile. “Spent thirteen years of my life trying to escape a place just like this and now I own the damned thing.”
“Well,” said Hermione, “I can’t imagine they’d be too pleased with what you’re doing with it.”
Sirius barked a genuine laugh. “No, you’re right. Thomas Gaunt finally defeated from Orion Black’s drawing room. I like that.”
Sweat beaded on Hermione’s brow as she directed the flow of magic into the ancient rug, obliterating anything that didn’t belong; insect eggs, stray hairs, and almost a decade of dust. It wasn’t a glamorous task, but already the results of their efforts were showing in the shine of the floors, the gleam of the mirrors, and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen.
She released the stream of her power and sat on the edge of one of the parlour chairs to catch her breath. Across the hall stood the mystery door, still resolutely closed despite her covert attempts to open it; McGonagall having instructed them to simply leave it closed while they focussed on the rest of the house.
Her mind wandered to what could be lurking behind it. Perhaps it was simply a broom closet, or a music room. Maybe a studio. Or could it house something more sinister; a reason for staunch Gaunt-supporters to hide away in the muggle capital?
“Still thinking about the door?”
The voice made her jump as Sirius entered the room, followed by Remus. She scowled, confirming his suspicions.
“Slacking off when there is so much still to do?” he asked in mock afront.
“Oh yes, and how comes the removal of Missus Black’s portrait?” said Lupin, coming to her aid. “Two days you’ve been at it and I can still hear her muttering from behind the curtains.”
Sirius pouted. “I don’t want to talk about it.” His attempts to remove the infernal painting had provided a colourful backdrop to their work; their shouting matches turning the air blue as he tried and failed to prize it from the wall or otherwise destroy it.
“It is strange though, don’t you think?” mused Hermione before the two of them could descend into bickering. “Why lock only that door?”
“Well, let’s find out then,” said Sirius, striding across the landing to the door in question.
“What about Madam McGonagall?” Hermione called after him.
“Minnie’s out,” he called back over his shoulder. Hermione shared a look with Lupin, who shrugged and went to join Sirius while she followed close behind.
He was crouched down in front of the keyhole with his wand pointed at the handle, his tongue between his teeth.
“There’s something… blocking the pins…” he said, peering up through his eyebrows, most of his mind focussed on the task at hand. “I can’t… keep it out the way and get the lock. Give me a hand, Remus.”
Lupin knelt opposite him and drew his own wand, the pair of them working to try and break the magical binding.
“I see what you mean,” Lupin said, pulling faces of his own.
“Yes, you need to lift the- no, the left one.”
“I am lifting the left one.”
“I mean left from my side.”
“We’re on the same side!?”
“You’re making it worse!”
Hermione let out a small sigh and reached out with her magic to probe the stubborn door. She steered clear of the lock and instead let the tendrils of her power feel around the seams, tracking the frame that the door sat flush against. It wasn’t long before she detected a curious force binding the wood together along the top, and another that had seized the hinges on the far side. With a subtle flick of her wand, she severed the binds and the door eased enough to take the pressure off the lock.
The lock clicked and Sirius let out a triumphant “Ah-ha!”, followed by “I told you,” directed at Lupin.
In the room beyond, shafts of sunlight from two tall windows picked out motes of dust in the air disturbed by the sudden opening of the door. The beams fell onto yet more neglected wooden floors, but instead of the dark panelling Hermione had come to expect, the walls were lined with shelves and shelves of books; a library.
She stepped past the two men and moved to the nearest rack, eyes roving over the titles on the spines. The collection was smaller than the one at Dumbledore’s former house, but the contents were notably different; Magiks Most Darke, Power in Blood, Serpentine Sorcery.
“Did you know they had any of these?” Lupin asked, examining a shelf of his own.
“No,” said Sirius in a grim voice. “Don’t touch anything either. I wouldn’t put it past them to curse specific volumes.”
Standing back, Hermione counted no fewer than six more sections just as large as the one she was browsing. “Do you think they could be useful?” she asked.
“They should all be burned,” Sirius growled.
“I’m not saying we should use what’s in them, but maybe we could understand how he’s been-”
“No good will come of it!” His severity surprised her, but he caught her wounded expression and softened slightly. “I’m sorry. It’s just- you didn’t grow up with my parents. Trust me; if they thought it was worth keeping, it can only be bad news.”
They were interrupted by someone pointedly clearing their throat just outside the door, and turned to find McGonagall fixing them all with a beady eye. They had the good grace to look somewhat ashamed, enough at least that she decided a verbal dressing-down was unnecessary.
“Given our progress, I took the liberty of informing Albus that we have found a suitable headquarters,” she said. “He shall be arriving with Mister Potter shortly.” With a final, stern look she turned on her heel and walked back down the stairs.
Hermione glanced over at Sirius, both nervous for different reasons, but he gave a reassuring smile and followed after the witch.
Back down in the kitchen, Hermione sat restlessly at the table. The nervous energy churning inside her made her want to do something, but there was nothing to be done; the room was already spotless and piping hot tea could be served in seconds with the wave of a wand. When she thought about it, four months wasn’t very long to be apart at all; she went far longer between visiting cousins and grandparents, but for a brief moment in time they had been all that stood between the other and total despair, and the nature of their parting weighed heavily on her.
Across the table, Sirius drummed his fingers against the wood. For him this was his first chance to meet the boy whose parent’s he’d loved, and of whose murder he had been accused. Hermione supposed he must have seen Harry as a baby, but certainly not in any capacity that Harry would remember. Would he be happy to see that a part of them lived on, or would the reality of what had been lost become all too acute? She didn’t know, and expected he didn’t either.
Lupin looked between the anxious pair.
“Look-” before he could finish whatever he had been about to say, there was a firm knock, knock, knock on the front door.
