Lost and Found

Chapter 2 - Blood and Memories

Waking was disorienting. It always was for her - because she always had to sort through what was real and what wasn't and what had already happened and couldn't be changed.

She remembered her dream this time. Usually, it was a quicksilver mass of memories and emotions, all bleeding into each other and running together until they made no sense at all except to hurt. But this time, she remembered. He'd been dying again (so clearly!) and she'd been right next to him and she could have saved him but she didn't. She remembered that. She remembered choosing not to reach out and stop his fall, because that would make her wrong and him right. She wasn't sure how or why it worked like that, but he was already dead so it didn't matter in particular.

Hermione stifled a yawn and rubbed at her eyes, struggling to pull herself free of the blanket - and realizing as she did that she was on her couch.

Oh yes. I had another dream, a waking dream...

She winced as she realized she'd let him go.

Well... but what could happen? What was the worst? That someone recognize him? Oh my, after nineteen years, they'd surely be laughed at. Besides which, he was less than a memory (a post-humously decorated memory, but a memory nonetheless) and people were loathe to dredge those up. She knew that all too well.

Hermione blinked the sleep from her eyes and looked outside to see the rain still coming down. Surely, it would end soon. Although it was hard to tell how long exactly it had been.

She rose, stretching, and looked into the kitchen. Exactly as she'd left it. No extra persons in her house, not even a stray dog she had thought she'd never see again. So maybe, just maybe, she had been dreaming.

Happy with this decision, sure she could now waste the rest of her life away in peace and solitude, Hermione moved back to her window seat and stared out into the darkened town.

It had been so easy to make the right investments, to get herself enough money to ignore the world. After years of Arithmancy, it was pitifully easy to know which stocks would do well and which would fail within their first year. And then, she retired and she withdrew and she ignored the fact that she had ever been magic in the first place.

Her thoughts wandered back to Sirius, though, no matter how much she wished they wouldn't. She remembered times when she'd stayed at Grimmauld Place, even when no one else had, just to keep him company. Like the old Hogsmeade trips for Harry...

"Check, Sirius," she murmured absently, nibbling on the snacks he'd brought out. She always had to chew on something.

The man across from her frowned, looking intently at the board. She knew he'd been one move from checkmating her - he must be wondering how she had turned the tables so suddenly. Sirius smiled, then, and moved his hand-

"You can't do that," Hermione said without thinking. She'd thought he would try that.

For a moment, he had a puzzled look, then he laughed. "Good lord, Hermione, you've checkmated me again. Didn't you notice?" He ran his finger across the line she'd opened up by moving her rook and she noticed now that her bishop now held a clear line of sight to his king as well.

"Oh. Sorry," she said sheepishly. Because she'd been hoping to hold it out longer, maybe even to let him win this time.

"Don't apologize for winning," he told her with a grin. "Honestly, you need to get some more fight to you."

Hermione smiled, rubbing her arm, embarrassed. "Fine then," she told him, raising her voice. "Play me again," she commanded authoritatively.

He winked. "Good girl. Your wish is my command."

Even if he didn't know it, he made her glow. Because it made her feel good to be needed and to share something private with someone, just one person. She was, for once, someone's first priority, and it was nice.

She remembered mourning for him. It was entirely possible (if it had been real) that the spell had drawn upon that mourning, no matter how long ago it had been.

It hadn't been overt. Not like Harry's yelling and sobbing or Ron's white-faced stuttering. She had never been like them. No, she was nothing like them. Her mourning was cool denial and a refusal to let herself care.

"Check," she whispered, moving her bishop to where it had a clear shot at the king.

"Ah... that's checkmate, Hermione," Ron said. "Honestly, if you didn't look so awful, I'd think you've been playing without me. How did you get so good all of a sudden?"

"Checkmate, then," she told him tiredly. "Look, I played your one game, can I go to bed now?"

"But 'Mione, it's only nine-"

"I'm tired tonight," she clipped him off.

She moved upstairs into the girls' dorms, letting him pick up his chess set. He'd gotten her one for Christmas that year, but she still hadn't taken it out. She didn't want to remember, and no one could make her.

She never had taken that set out. It was still upstairs, with the rest of the magic she wouldn't touch. But, of course, she'd touched it now. What difference would it make to bring out even more painful memories while she was at it?

With a sigh, she pulled herself to her feet, walking again toward the dusty attic. This time, she even let herself cast the charm to destroy the dust - the place looked brand new after that, though, and she wondered whether she oughtn't to have left it dusty. Walking through such old things that looked just new made her feel eerily out of place...

It wasn't in the trunk with the rest of her magic things. A frown crossed her face, but she moved to another of the boxes and pulled it open. Potions ingredients... she'd been wanting to study more potions when she left, on her own... Hermione closed that box sharply, remembering the Polyjuice potion incident. Another box held more books - always more books and never ones she would be able to happily read. And then-

And then.

There was a picture.

Hagrid had taken it just before their third year. Before everything had started, before they were even aware that a man named Sirius Black existed. Before Lupin, before Deatheaters and the dark mark and the Tri-wizard Tournament where they first saw death. Before Voldemort was reborn.

Ron and Harry stood beside her, linked arms on either side. They smiled at her, waving and leaping to get her attention while she herself looked at each of them scoldingly, trying to get them to stay still for the photo. Ron winked at her in that way he had, and Hermione had to look away. These two people did not exist anymore, but she wanted to believe that they did so badly...

Like the mirror of Erised, she thought faintly. I could sit here and stare and hurt for the rest of my life, trying to believe...

But wasn't that what she'd been doing anyway?

She stowed the photo in a pocket and found the chess set in short order, leaving and closing the attic door this time. She didn't want to be tempted to come back up.

Hermione set the chess board down on the table and opened the box that held the pieces for the first time.

They were ornate. Breathtakingly so. These - these were better than Ron's set, which he had so painstakingly taken care of for so many years. The robes of the pieces (historic witches and wizards, how thoughtful of him) flowed in tandem, as though a wind had swept through the board all at once. They stood proudly at attention, as though awaiting her orders...

She felt her eyes tear up as she realized - Ron must've spent quite a bit on this set. It was even more valuable for the fact that he hadn't much money in the first place. And she hadn't ever even used it...

When she took out the photo again this time, he was putting an arm around the other Hermione, laughing as she tried halfheartedly to pull away. The tears managed to leak out, and she had to push aside the photo to put her head down on the board.

I shouldn't have... I should have left it...

She didn't look up as the door slammed open. Nor did she say a word as stomping footsteps made their way toward her.

A strong hand pulled her up by the back of her shirt, spinning her around to face a very livid, very wet and very disbelieving Sirius Black.

"What is this!" he demanded, pushing a newspaper in front of her face.

It wasn't a wizarding newspaper, and it was somewhat limp from being wet. But she could see it clearly, for all her tears.

"What?" she asked him hoarsely, wishing he'd left her alone and remained an awful dream. "What, are you interested in how the stocks are doing now? Oil prices bothering you?" She felt her lip curl into a sneer, but the tears were still coming. He didn't seem to care.

"Very funny," he hissed at her, and she could now see that there was fear in his eyes. This is Sirius, my Sirius, the same one from the time he died... I've just never seen this side of him before... "You can't tell me you don't know!"

Ah yes. Yes. Since he was the same... the date would bother him.

"Go on," she told him, part angry and part hurt and part wanting to hug him and beg him not to disappear. "Go on and ask me. I'll tell you the truth, I swear, even if you try to make me lie."

His face was flushed from rage. "Why does the newspaper say that this year is two thousand fifteen?" he said in a low, threatening voice.

And she looked him straight in the eye, and kept on crying. "Because it is two thousand fifteen."

His mouth tightened as she knew it would, and he threw her against the wall with a strength she hadn't known he had possessed. "You're lying!" he shouted at her, his face very close now. "Tell me the truth!"

She was shocked, and she was sure her face showed it. Because even though she knew she was different now, knew he probably wouldn't recognize her (wouldn't want to, wouldn't believe it if he thought it) she had never truly believed that Sirius Black could hurt her.

"You-" she whispered. "You..."

His face went white, and he stepped back from her, apparently realizing just how far he had gone. And maybe, just maybe, he suspected who she was - and maybe it was just the utter betrayal in her eyes.

You left us. You left when I needed you and you don't even know it, and I can't hurt you for it but I want to-

And she pulled her wand from her pocket, tears still flowing down the angry red tracts on her face and yelled "Sterno!"

His face turned surprised for only a moment before he was flung away from her and thrown to the ground. It gave her an awful sense of satisfaction, because he hadn't known she was a wizard or that she was capable of such a thing. "Vulnero!" she screamed, drawing her wand down with effort - he hissed in pain as the wound on his chest began to bleed again.

And Hermione dropped her wand, face pale, as she realized what she was doing.

She put a hand over her mouth and dropped to her knees, the tears still going.

"Bloody hell," he managed a moment later, pulling himself up against the wall shakily.

She thought he summarized it quite nicely.

It was funny though, Hermione thought dully. Because she was crying in a corner again, except this time he knew it. And, unlike last time, he probably wouldn't care about the palpable pain in her chest, the ache she hadn't been able to rid herself of for that whole time he'd been gone. It was in the place where her heart was, but she knew logically that the pain came from her mind and not her heart, so why did it hurt there?

"Damn you," she choked. "Even though it's not your fault!"

He staggered over to the wand, not even bothering to try for it secretly. His hand closed around it and she didn't stop him.

"Tell me what's going on," he rasped. "And how you know me."

Hermione didn't answer. She'd already decided that if death ever came to stare her in the eyes, she'd let it do as it wanted.

"Tell me!" he said again, but he couldn't manage a tone higher than a hoarse whisper now.

And before he could do a thing, she was hugging him and sobbing into him and saying it over and over, just like she'd felt before - the thing she'd tried to voice for years and never managed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I failed..."

She wasn't sure why he didn't just throw her to the ground and demand an answer again. Maybe it was that strange connection she'd noticed, or maybe he retained some of that good, merciful character even after twelve years in Azkaban had eroded his sanity. But he stayed stock still... and, eventually, closed trembling arms about her, his forehead coming to rest on her shoulder.

"Why?" he asked her in a soft tone. It was a question that held so very many meanings, but she took it to mean why are you sorry, why did you fail...

"B-because I couldn't save you," she told him. "And I c-couldn't save them..." Because I'm supposed to be the know-it-all, the best witch in the wizarding world, but I couldn't do a thing...

"When did you ever..." he hesitated, as though not quite believing it, "have to save me?"

Hermione sniffled. "When you f-fell through the c-curtain... you were dead, we all thought so..."

He stiffened at this, and she felt his mind working now. We? He seemed to be thinking. And then, most likely, She knows about that.

"How long-" his voice broke. "How long ago?" he asked hoarsely. "Nineteen years?"

She couldn't answer though. Because he was real, he was solid, and he wasn't dead. She really had brought someone back, just one person, and for now, it was enough.

Sirius seemed to realize that she'd already reached her breaking point. Because he was silent while she absorbed him and cried.

It was when her hand came to rest on his chest, though, that she realized something warm, wet, and sticky had soaked through his shirt and that it was her fault.

"I-" She pulled away abruptly, looking at the blood on her hand.

"Don't worry about it," he muttered, now looking a little pink and a little exhausted. "I've been through worse - believe me."

Oh. Azkaban.

"I know," Hermione swallowed. "So let me anyway." She took his hand and guided him to the couch, then hurried to the kitchen to retrieve her first aid kit. "There's no medi-potions around here, I'm afraid - you m-must've noticed I live in a muggle neighborhood..." She gave him a shaky smile. "But I suppose I'll do the best with what I have and whip something up for you tonight."

He blinked somewhat dizzily, as though to say Tonight? I'm staying? When exactly did you decide this, when you tossed me around like a rag doll or when you started crying on me?

She ignored it politely and began to pull on his shirt.

And he, being the strangely immodest person he was, pulled it off himself quite easily. Hermione caught her breath and winced.

It looked much worse than she'd thought. Bellatrix had really pulled out all the stops - of course, darker magic was her area of study, but Hermione had never seen such devastating damage from that particular spell.

"Ouch," she murmured as she pulled out the antiseptic.

Sirius' lips twitched. "Quite."

The dried blood was cleaned up in rather short order, but Hermione stopped to nibble at the cut on her thumb, as she'd taken to doing when she was nervous. She wondered for a moment whether she ought to tell him about the antiseptic. It seemed best to just get it over with, so she smeared her handkerchief with it and drew it down the gash, expecting a rather nasty swearing streak at the least (considering who she was dealing with).

But Sirius didn't even blink.

Well. He did take it initially without so much as a whimper. Suppose I should have expected it...

Hermione pulled the handkerchief off, wincing as she saw the new stain of red on it. It really did have to hurt.

Next was the gauze, and then the tape (gently as she could, though he never really complained) and the bandaging around it to make sure nothing got inside.

When she was done, she moved to wipe her hand across her forehead - she had to blink for a moment to realize that he'd caught her wrist.

"When did this happen?" he asked seriously.

Hermione looked down and nearly laughed. The cut she'd been nibbling at had broken again - her thumb was smeared with blood. Before she could answer, however, he reached for the same cloth and gently swabbed away the blood, putting a band-aid in place rather quickly for someone who was supposed to be a pureblood. Ah, but he was on the run for a few years, he must've learned...

"There," he told her. "All better my dear crazy woman whose name starts with an 'H'." For a moment, she wondered how he knew - then her eyes caught sight of the handkerchief, which had her initials on it. His face was strained - obviously, he was trying to find some kind of humor in the situation.

She gathered her courage, looking past his eyes into the small haunted part, the part that would probably never leave them. Because he'd been through worse, and he deserved to know.

She uttered the most frightening word then that she'd ever had to. "Hermione."

He blinked.

"What?"

Oh please, please lord let him have heard, don't make me say it again. But she did anyway. "My name is Hermione, Sirius. Nineteen years."

And if she'd thought he was white before, she had been wrong. Now, he was positively ghost-like.

His eyes darted down to the two initials. H.G.

Hermione Granger.