Then Shall I Know

Chapter Two: Those Who Mourn

"Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.'' [Matthew 5:4 The Bible]

Ginny's unique observation hung over them, not uncomfortably, but coloring the mood more soberly as they resumed their exploration of Harry's photo album. It now felt like less of an amusing activity, and more like a journey they were taking together. Hermione watched the redhead as she reached over to turn the page, her hand touching Harry's quickly in a comforting gesture. She smiled at her friend's perceptiveness--if the sight of Peter was painful to them, it must be excruciating to Harry, even more so to see the trusting looks on the faces of the photographs' other inhabitants. The next image wasn't Pettigrew, however, it was Black.

The caption read, 'Happy birthday, Padfoot.' Judging from the look of joy on his face, Sirius was quite fond of birthdays. The four of them fell silent as they regarded the picture of Harry's godfather. This particular snapshot seemed different from the others, but Hermione couldn't quite put her finger on the reason.

"He looks...calm," Harry said doubtfully, but Hermione nodded at him.

"He is rather...manic, in most of his pictures, isn't he?" she said. Calm, she thought. That wasn't it, though--not exactly. Perhaps 'manic' wasn't quite the word, either. Sirius Black as a young man seemed--or as accurate as his photographs could portray--to consider standing still a waste of energy. Yet, in this one, he hadn't moved from the bench on which he was seated, nor had he looked in any other direction, always slightly to the left and over the photographer's shoulder. Then it hit her, right as Ginny spoke--his usual energy wasn't being spent in motion, it was spent on whoever he was looking at.

"I think he's looking at someone," Ginny said slowly.

"Yeah," Ron agreed.

"I never even thought about that," Harry said sadly, making them all look at him curiously. All except Hermione, who thought she could guess where he was going with this. "That Sirius might have someone...someone like my mum," he stopped. The implications of that thought drew almost all of the previous cheer out of their conversation, leaving behind an uncomfortable silence that none of them seemed willing to break, Gryffindor bravery notwithstanding.

Hermione gave the picture of Sirius one last look, surprising herself by deciding that it was, by far, her favorite image of him, for all that it seemed out of character. She then leaned over and firmly turned the page, revealing--thankfully--a mischievous trio covered in snow from head to foot. She felt Harry let out his breath slowly, from beside her, and nudged him with her shoulder playfully.

"Look familiar?" she said, purposefully keeping her tone light.

"Not quite--the girl in this one seems to still be visible through the snow," he retorted, pleasing her by remembering the violent snowball fight the two of them and Ron had had, last year.

"Your dad and Lupin do look awfully pleased with themselves," Ron said, laughing as the young men high-fived each other. Lily looked completely soaked, but happy.

"It's not quite accurate, though," remarked Ginny, putting her arm around Harry in defiance of Ron's narrowed eyes. "Wait--" she broke off as a disembodied snowball came from somewhere out of sight, and knocked James' glasses clean off of his face. "Now, it's accurate." They all laughed. Ginny's well-aimed snowball had indeed knocked Harry's glasses off, for which he had thoroughly revenged himself by dunking her in the almost frozen lake, and earning them both detention. From the looks on their faces, then and now, Hermione knew they thought it had been worth it.

"Thank you!" Ginny stood up and made a little bow. "This has been Ginny Weasley, playing the part of Sirius Black."

The name having been spoken so soon after they'd all unconsciously agreed not to talk about him didn't hurt as much as she'd thought it would, Hermione was surprised to discover. It did, however, bring with it a reminder.

"It'll be his birthday tomorrow," she said, sadly.

"If Kreacher says anything about him, I'll order him to sleep in the fireplace for a month," said Harry, fiercely.

"Oh, Harry." Hermione couldn't let this one pass--even if the old elf was a grouch, and slightly batty, he couldn't help where his loyalties lay. After all, he'd spent most of his life being fed lies by Mrs. Black.

"Good night, dears," Ginny said in a voice that sounded an awful lot like her mother's when she was handing out an ultimatum. Hermione was impressed; the youngest Weasley had managed to shut both she and Harry up with not much more than an endearment. She supposed the other girl had had a lot of practice. Ron swallowed a deep yawn from the floor at their feet, muttered a little bit, and pulled himself up stiffly.

"I'm off, as well," he said, wincing as he discovered the painful fact that his right leg had fallen asleep. Hermione couldn't suppress a small smile as he stumped off to his room, giving an unconscious but fair impression of Mad-Eye Moody. She got up as well, squeezing Harry's shoulder reassuringly before turning her back on he and Ginny to give them some privacy. She would have to do a quick turn around the hallways that led to each house dormitory, as part of her Head Girl responsibilities.

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The Fat Lady was still quietly snoring when she returned, and Hermione felt bad to wake her. Luckily she was simply yawned through the portrait hole, only to find Harry still seated on the couch, Ginny apparently having made good on her decision to head off to sleep.

"We didn't make it worse, did we?" she asked, perceptively.

"Not really," he said, offering a small smile. "It's comforting to know I wasn't the only one to miss him--them," he corrected.

"It's only natural-" she started, but he waved her off.

"I know."

"No," she said earnestly. "They were your parents--he was your godfather." She stopped, not wanting to embarrass Harry, but hoping he'd understand her all the same. He did.

"Thanks."

Hermione permitted herself a rare luxury.

"You're allowed to be selfish, Harry," she said, meeting his eyes with a mix of laughter and indignation-- "Even if Snape seems to think you're just out for attention and that you act like it all the time." Harry looked shocked for a split second, and then grinned, like she'd hoped he would.

"Professor Snape."

"Sod off," she snapped, trying to shock him.

"Good night, Hermione," he said, subtly letting her know that he wished to be alone even as he smiled his thanks for her helping lift his spirits. "Sweet dreams!" He called out to her as she reached the stairway to the girls' dormitory.

As long as they're not about being massacred by snowballs, she thought, they will be.

If she'd stuck around a few minutes longer, she'd have seen Harry flip idly through the album one last time, stopping at one photo and staring at it incredulously for a long moment before shaking his head, rubbing his eyes, and muttering to himself that he was seeing things.

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Hermione wasn't surprised when neither Ron nor Harry showed up for breakfast next morning. She'd long since discovered that they both thought it was a sacrilege to get up early during the holidays. She'd always thought it was a treat, actually; getting up with no pressing obligations for the day meant she could spend more time doing whatever she wanted. This reminded her of what she planned to do today, and she finished her breakfast quickly, anxious to begin.

Four hours later, she was surrounded by books in the library when she heard muffled bickering from two very familiar voices approaching her.

"It's not my fault it was windy today!"

"Well, you took off with it before I could cast a charm to make sure it stayed put!" The voices were silent for a short time, during which she could hear their approaching footsteps.

"I didn't even think of that," Ron admitted.

"Hermione isn't the only one who--" A very angry sounding Madam Pince interrupted Harry's loud retort, and Hermione had to smother a giggle when she imagined the look of outrage on the librarian's face. Pince absolutely hated any commotion in her library. She stood up, hoping that her two friends would see her and leave off any more arguing before they got kicked out entirely. Ron spotted her immediately and abandoned Harry, who was left to make their apologies to Madam Pince.

"Thought you'd be in here," he said, knowingly. "Any luck?" Hermione didn't have to ask 'with what;' they all knew each other pretty well by now.

"For all the Quidditch fanatics that go to this school, there's an amazing lack of pictures of them," she said, disgustedly.

"Don't worry, we think we've figured it out," Ron said, gesturing to himself and Harry, who had just returned from his dressing-down by the school librarian.

"You did?" she asked him.

"Yeah--well, the general idea," Harry said, with a sideways look at Ron. Hermione groaned inwardly--those two seemed to have such an amazing talent for trouble, much like the subject of the picture they were trying to figure out.

"...invisibility cloak," Ron was saying.

"I never thought of that," Hermione realized. It made sense, though. No one was allowed on broomsticks near the pitch during a game besides the players and the referee, but it wasn't enforced by charms or anything. She started to pack up the books she'd gotten out, looking up at the boys when she realized they'd fallen silent.

Both Harry and Ron looked as if they'd just gotten a perfect score on their NEWTs. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, I never said I was perfect," she said, slamming one of the books particularly hard against the table when Ron gasped at her. "Help me pack these up." She would just have to ignore them.

"Hang on a moment," Harry said, lifting one of the thinner books from the stack she'd not gotten to yet. "This is from their year."

"Which?" Ron asked, coming over to investigate.

"Seventh."

Harry opened the book on the table, the three of them crowding around it excitedly. It wasn't quite the same format as a yearbook, but had pictures of the students and faculty, complete with descriptions and captions. As they paged through it, Hermione wondered at the similarity between this and the night before--it was as if fate was leading them to discover something, or... Ugh. She hated Divination, or anything that hinted of the Hand of Fate, or other such nonsense. Hermione would admit that Seers existed--after all, Professor Trelawney had proved that fact already--but she put her foot down at seeing signs and portents in her everyday life. She put those silly thoughts firmly from her mind, and tried to pay attention to what Harry was now talking about.

"See?" He was pointing at one of the moving pictures and grinning broadly. It looked posed--as posed as a wizarding picture could be--and showed James Potter on his broomstick, hand outstretched toward a tiny golden winged ball, with Sirius Black holding the end of the broom, laughingly preventing Harry's father from his goal. The caption read, 'Inseparable.' As they watched, beaming, a broom handle appeared from out of frame and poked Sirius, causing him to let go; the next moment he was tackled by a lean looking Remus Lupin. The scene was happy and familiar looking; it could have been a picture of their antics at The Burrow, but with different subjects. They checked the section title, which appeared to be 'Seventh Year Fun.'

Before they could investigate the book further, a silky voice behind them made all three of them start in surprise. It was Professor Snape.

"Must you displace half of the library mere hours before you're to leave for the holidays?" He frowned at Hermione and the many stacks of books she'd pulled from the shelves in her search for a picture of the Quidditch pitch of twenty years ago.

"We were just putting them back, sir," she said respectfully.

"See that you do." With that, he swept away in a cloud of black robes.

"Quick, let's see if there are any pictures of His Greasiness in here," Ron said, grabbing at the now closed memory book on the table. Hermione considered trying to chastise Ron for his disrespect, but Harry interrupted her before she even began.

"Much as I'd like to, if he comes back and says something about my dad or Sirius I would probably do something that would lose us about a thousand house points."

"He's right, too--we'll need to be in the Headmaster's office fairly soon," Hermione said. Replacing all of the books went much quicker with two extra pairs of hands. As they entered the portrait hole after a quick 'Oh Tannenbaum' to the Fat Lady, Harry said something about checking to see if 'it' was dried off yet, and headed up to their room. Hermione looked at Ron quizzically.

"Well, when we got down there, I sort of...grabbed the cloak and flew off." Ron looked sheepish. "It was windy, and Harry didn't get a chance to perform any kind of sticking charm, so the cloak blew off me--"

"And into the lake." She finished for him. He nodded. "You two sound as bad as James and Sirius," she scolded, but this just made the redhead swell with pride as he dashed off to join Harry. "That wasn't a compliment!" she yelled after him.