Keogh

~***~

Between her full exam schedule and dodging the pestilence known as Blaise Zabini, Hermione had little time to worry about her physical training. Kathryn proved wise enough to keep silent on the matter, likely sensing how close to the breaking point she was. With everything piled up on her even Hermione knew she was constantly only half a step away from snapping someone’s head off. Or smacking Draco Malfoy again.

Actually, now that she thought about it, smacking Draco was somewhat therapeutic. Perhaps she should add it to her daily routine.

As for dodging Zabini, she had an unexpected ally in Cedric Diggory. If Harry and Ron weren’t willing or able to remain in the library with her, Diggory would often take up residence at her table across and caddy-cornered from her. The fifth year prefect also let her study in peace, likely because he was preparing for his OWLs and had just as much on her mind as she did. They didn’t speak very often, but just his quiet presence seemed to be enough to keep the Slytherins away from her.

She worked her way through her exams with her usual mix of excitement and anxiety, and did very well up until DADA. She had grown accustomed to the idea of having a werewolf for a teacher, though she hadn’t breathed a word of it to anyone other than Kathryn who already knew just about everything she thought anyway. That werewolves were real had taken her late mother by surprise, just as the revelation that trolls were real had done. After spending the year studying Remus Lupin, Kathy had come to the conclusion that lycanthrophy was a rather horrid thing to have, but seemed to equate his condition along the lines of someone infected with HIV or leprosy; you simply couldn’t blame him for his illness.

“It would be rather cruel, even for me. I mean he’s already survived a vicious attack. I doubt that he asked to be mauled by a werewolf.”

She had a point. Hermione waited her turn to run through the clever little obstacle course and moved forward. The kappas and grindylows were a cinch, as were the pixies and a few stations with questions to be answered and charms to be demonstrated. It wasn’t until she had to climb into the chest with a boggart that she had a problem.

The interior of the chest was black as pitch. She quite wondered how she was supposed to fight anything if she couldn’t see it. Then, as if sensing her thoughts, a light flared. She blinked a couple of times until she could focus and saw that the light was being emitted from the tip of a wand. Looking past the wand she found herself meeting the black gaze of a woman, perhaps in her mid-twenties. The orbs were solid black, not even a hint of white showing, and were set in a thin, pale face. Dark hair was pulled back tightly from her scalp into an unforgiving braid. She was dressed all in black, wearing what looked like some sort of leather corset decorated with silver buckles and chains and a pair of dark jeans that disappeared into leather boots that had a good three inch heel on them.

The witch looked Hermione over with an expression of barely contained disgust. There was something oddly familiar about her but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She swallowed, wondering why she should be afraid of this image when the witch spoke.

“Was I ever truly this weak?”

Hermione blinked, freezing in place. She felt Kathryn flinch inside her mind and realized what she was staring at. This wasn’t her boggart; this was Kathy’s. This is what her mother had feared she would become.

And now she was starting to feel fear. The boggart gave her an evil smile and took a step towards her. “So pathetic. You have no clue as to your real potential. You can be so much more than you are now. Grindelwald? Voldemort? They are nothing compared to what I have become. The world trembles at my feet.”

Hermione swallowed, her heart hammering in her chest. The evil Hermione continued to hold her wand high in her left hand, but now was bringing her right hand up with a calculated slowness, the wand light glinting off the blade of a wicked looking dagger. With a scream she threw herself back and frantically climbed out of the chest, slamming the lid shut.

Professor Lupin was there in a heartbeat, his hands on her shoulders as he tried to calm her down. “Hermione! What’s wrong?”

Her head was spinning. ‘Nothing’s wrong, Professor. I just saw my future self and I turn into an evil bitch bent on world domination!’ “Pro… professor McGonagall! She said I failed everything!” No sooner than the lie was out of her mouth then she heard Ron let out a bark of laughter. No one doubted her. It was perfectly plausible that her boggart would have something to do with her studies.

The exams behind them, she started to relax a bit with the exception of the occasions when the boggart tugged at her memory. She knew her respite from training was at an end and she would have to return to pushing herself physically as well as mentally, but for the moment she enjoyed being with Harry and Ron as they waited the outcome of Buckbeak’s ‘appeal’ that same day.

“Who brings the executioner to the appeal?”

Hermione’s heart gave a twist. “Someone who doesn’t intend there to be a successful outcome.” Poor Buckbeak. Poor Hagrid. She and the boys ran to the gamekeeper’s hut, desperate to be with him at this time.

They found him trying to hold himself together and barely managing. Buckbeak was tied up outside so he could enjoy a bit of fresh air before his execution. The friends agreed to one last cup of tea with Hagrid but he couldn’t handle the dishes without breaking them. Hermione got up to help, taking up the teapot and fighting back her own tears until she opened the lid. The gnarled sight within forced a yelp of surprise from her. “Ron! It’s Scabbers!”

He looked even worse than he had before his disappearance. Hermione tipped him out onto the table so that Ron could snatch him up. He’d lost quite a bit of weight and his fur was coming out in patches. The poor thing looked as though he’d been through a great deal of stress and Hermione refused to think that Crookshanks could have been the cause of all of it.

Ron was still trying to calm his rat when they realized that the Minister of Magic, the Headmaster and the executioner were on their way to the hut. Hagrid shooed them off, not wishing them to get into trouble. Hermione was shaking so hard she thought her legs would collapse as she huddled under Harry’s cloak with the boys. Poor Buckbeak! It wasn’t his fault that Malfoy was such an arrogant, idiotic prat!

“Hermione, death isn’t anything to be afraid of. It’s a natural part of the cycle.” Kathryn’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle inside her mind. It occurred to her that her mother just might be trying to be comforting. “I know you’re young yet, but truly, consider who you are. If anyone should be comfortable with death it should be you.”

“But I’m not!” She forced herself not to cry. Ron was still holding onto Scabbers. “How can you be so calm about it?”

“Hermione, I am dead. And before that I wasn’t particularly cozy with the living.”

It was times like this that Hermione came very close to hating Kathryn. She was about to argue further when she heard the distant song of a swinging axe, followed by a solid thunk. The three friends froze, Hermione’s breath catching. “They… they did it. I don’t believe it.”

Buckbeak was gone. It seemed unreal. Intangible. Tears burned her eyes even as she felt the cold flutter of Kathryn in her mind. “Hermione… something’s off.”

She swallowed, slightly aware of Harry’s hand resting lightly on her shoulder. “What?”

“Did you feel him die?”

Hermione frowned, not sure what Kathryn was getting at. “What do you mean?”

“I didn’t feel him die. Usually you don’t notice the death of animals, or even the death of random people, unless there is some reason for you to be focused on it. You were strongly focused on the hippogriff, so you should have at least been able to detect the crossing from life into death. But there was nothing. Not so much as a blip.”

That didn’t make sense. Of course, most of what she was learning about herself didn’t make sense. Before she could inquire further, however, Ron let out a yelp. “Scabbers! He bit me!” The reason for the rat’s frantic behavior became apparent almost immediately as Crookshanks appeared, moving towards Ron and Scabbers at a quick pace. The rat got free from his master and took off at a scamper, Crookshanks in hot pursuit.

Of course, Ron had to leave the safety of the cloak to go after his rat, which put him in danger of being caught outside after dark. Hermione called after her cat but she and Harry had to give chase. That, of course, meant abandoning the cloak. With hearts hammering inside their chests they tried to catch up to Ron and eventually succeeded after he had caught Scabbers.

They had to get back to the castle, only Ron looked as though he’d seen a ghost. Turning to look in the same direction as their friend, Hermione and Harry gaped at the large, hairy black dog now running towards them. Instead of tackling Harry, however, it jumped for Ron, grabbing him and pulling him towards the Whomping Willow. Before either of them could reach their friend they saw him pulled into a hole in the roots of the tree, his leg cracking with a sickening crunch.

“Oh, shit! Okay, calm down. All we need to do is access the Continuum and track his life thread. Let me drive. We need to be quick.”

Before Hermione could think to ‘step back’, however, Crooks ran to the tree and pressed a knot on the trunk. The swinging branches froze as though hit with a body bind. Harry and Hermione gaped as the ginger cat ducked into the hollow among the roots as well. With a determined look to one another they headed forward and dove in before the tree could decide to start moving again.

“Hermione! What the fuck do you think you are doing!?”

“Not now!” She ‘pushed’ Kathryn out of her ‘way’ as she moved with Harry through the cramped tunnel. She could hear her birth mother cursing at her and calling her an ‘idiot child’, but her best friend was in danger and she couldn’t rely on tricks she still didn’t fully understand how to use just yet to get him back.

They made their way through the tunnel and came out of the other end into a ramshackle building with damaged furnishing and peeling walls. Hermione looked around her, eyes wide. They were in the Shrieking Shack! Only… she couldn’t sense any… any of them.

They saw a wide, shiny stripe where something had been drug upstairs through the dust. With slow, cautious steps they made their way up, certain that their hearts were beating so loudly that they could be heard. The trail led them to a bedroom and there, on a four-poster bed, was her cat. He purred contentedly upon seeing her, but her eyes were drawn to a pale Ron, clutching his leg.

Harry frowned. “Where's the dog?”

“Not a dog. It’s a trap. He’s an animagus!” Ron was staring behind them, making Harry and Hermione turned around. There, near the wall, was Sirius Black. Shocked, neither of them thought to move before Black disarmed them using Ron’s wand. Kathryn was fuming.

“Running after a murderer! Now you’ve lost your wand and you didn’t even have the sense to bring so much as a dagger with you! I can’t believe you’re my daughter!”

Hermione felt the icy cold of Kathryn’s mind as spirit attempted to assert control over her. Her vision blurred for the briefest moment before she gathered her wits and shoved the dead woman back. “Not now!”

“I want you out of here!”

“I won’t leave Harry and Ron!”

“Harry and Ron are expendable, Hermione! The castle is full of thirteen and fourteen-year-old wizards. There’s only one of you!”

She didn’t have time to deal with this right now. She had to focus on what was going on at the moment, putting herself between Harry and Black much to Kathryn’s outrage. It took every ounce of concentration to keep aware of what was going on in the room while keeping Kathy from taking over her body and removing her from the conflict. She saw Harry attack Black, hitting him and managing to get his wand back, pointing it at the man and trying to screw up the nerve to kill him. Of course, they hadn’t been taught any lethal spells, yet.

Kathryn tried again to take her over and again Hermione shoved her back. Finally the solution dawned on her. Putting her ‘lessons’ to good use at last, she ‘reached’ for a mind. Any mind. In spite of its reputation, there were no dead souls in the Shrieking Shack, but the Hogsmede cemetery wasn’t that far away. She sent a thought that way, a soft plea for assistance and was rewarded by the memory of two witches newly arrived to the Great Majority hurrying to her to ‘hold’ her mother back.

This small victory took long enough for Professor Lupin to arrive. Now able to fully focus on the events as they were happening, Hermione felt certain that the teacher would save them from Black. To her shock she watched him embrace Harry’s would-be killer as though they were long lost siblings.

“I don’t believe it!” And she couldn’t, not really. She had been covering for him the entire year! Keeping his secret firmly behind her teeth where she guarded her own so closely, and all the while he had been helping Black in his attempts to get to Harry. She felt like a complete and utter fool. And, finally, after all her efforts, she exposed Lupin for the creature he was.

She had to get Harry and Ron out of here. In spite of what Kathryn maintained, they were not expendable. Harry would be easy enough, but she didn’t think she could get Ron out without hurting his leg further. And she had to be careful. Clever as she was, she still wasn’t all that experienced with navigating the Continuum. Doing so would allow her to get the three of them to Hogwarts almost instantly whereas Black and Lupin would not be able to apparate in pursuit. The first obstacle would be to get Harry and Ron into the Continuum without them panicking, and she really didn’t have a way to warn them without being overheard.

Through her ciphering she heard Professor Lupin begin his explanations about being at school with Black and Harry’s father. About how the boys had become animagi illegally just so they could run with him when he turned at the full moon. It would have all been quite touching if it weren’t for the fact that Black was trying to kill Harry. But then Black and Lupin said something that threw her off her figures.

“He’s a wizard. An animagus, named Peter Pettigrew.”

The equations just popped out of Hermione’s brain as she gaped at them. Ron denied it vehemently, of course, but it was true that Scabbers seemed to have lived an awful long time to be an ordinary rat. And then there was the missing toe on his front paw, when all they ever found of Pettigrew had been a single finger. Black proclaimed his innocence? Pettigrew had been the betrayer? The one responsible for selling James and Lily Potter out to the Dark Lord? It was too fantastic to be believed.

“Of course it is, Hermione! They’re trying to distract you!” Kathryn still could not reach her, the spirits holding her still keeping her at bay. “Get out of here before the pair of them set on you all! Take the boys if you must, but you have to get out!”

Hermione took a breath, trying to weigh everything at once. They had their wands back as a sign of trust, so perhaps their claims were worth hearing out? But then she heard Severus’ voice. All eyes turned towards the door as her ‘father’ undraped Harry’s invisibility cloak, having picked it up at the base of the willow.

She could practically feel the venom and hatred rolling off of Snape. She knew he loathed Lupin, but apparently he hated Black even more. He made no secret that he fully intended to turn Sirius over to the Dementors. The spell left her lips before she could even think. “Expelliarmus!”

She hadn’t been alone. Harry, Ron and Hermione stared down at her father’s now motionless form. “We attacked a teacher…” I attacked Severus.

“You are so going to be grounded for this.”

Harry challenged Lupin and Black, demanding that they prove their claims. Ron didn’t want to give up Scabbers, but he would be unharmed if he were an ordinary rat. Lupin and Black aimed their wands at the rat and it shortly began to twist and writhe, growing in size until Scabbers wasn’t Scabbers anymore. Instead was a rodent-faced, waxy looking man with watery eyes and a wholly untrustworthy appearance. Harry and Ron were so shocked that they didn’t hear Hermione mutter the first thing that popped into her mind, very softly under her breath.

“Shit-fire-mother-fucking-damn.”

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