Lost and Found

Chapter 4 - Sleepless

H-Hermione? Wh-where's H-Harry and R-Ron?

Gone.

Gone where?

Gone.

Where? Where are they? Tell me where!

And she led him, because she'd already told Sir Cadogan, and he could take the bloody responsibility now. Neville had to know where she was taking him anyway - something in his face told her he knew.

The voices ahead, sneering and laughing. Victory, victory, can you believe it was so easy, right under that old fool's nose, too-

And Snape, Snape there too, talking angrily about some dratted girl that slipped past him - but Voldemort congratulating him because nothing could possibly hurt him ever, now that he had killed his threat.

Ready, Neville?

There's no going back, Neville.

You're sure, Neville?

Then we should go.

Screaming, yelling, crying, two veritable children against a group of them and a dark lord. But goodness, their faces, their comically surprised faces as two of them died so suddenly with the two shouted words the two students might have once shunned violently.

Slice, stun, kill. A mantra, a pattern, in the middle of chaos. She remembered the twisted look on her potions master's face - no, you fool girl, he seemed to say, you've doomed me, you know, I can't stand back and watch but couldn't you have damn well waited for the cavalry?

No.

No, I couldn't have.

Avada Kedavra.

Avada Kedavra.

Unforgivable.

Unforgivable, what they did.

I won't forgive them.

Crucio, crucio, crucio, all at once, they hit her, and one-

One of them was Snape.

Oh look, how quaint, she came back to rescue them. You do know they're dead? You do, don't you?

His eyes looked into hers, showing pity for once, through the harsh words, but she cried all the same. Damn you and them and your half-muggle dark lord too.

And Voldemort laughed, his high pitched laugh she'd only heard described, and he walked to Neville, struggling, and slashed him across the forehead. You wanted this, didn't you, this scar, this symbol of excellence. Wanted to be just like him, did you-

But he hadn't heard the second half of the prophecy.

And she had to stop crying and stare, and wonder if it hadn't been this way the whole time.

Because Neville's face was contorted with a rage she had never seen in him before. And when the dark lord gave him back his wand and bowed mockingly, and the Deatheaters laughed but glared at him for killing when it was over, Voldemort told him he couldn't win - the only one that could win was dead and he was just a bumbling squib with no talent, no talent at all...

"Hermione..."

He closed about her, arms grasping her as though she were a lifeline. She shook her head, wondering why he hadn't taken the wand and ended it yet. She was the survivor who should never have survived, the odd one in the bunch, the coward, the one that ran-

"They- they died well. They died well. They would- would've wanted it that way-"

He was trying to convince himself. She could tell it wasn't working.

"It should've been me," she told him. "If I'd been any smarter, I would've told them to make it me." Eyes staring dully, huddled against him.

And Neville bowed back, a cold rage burning in his eyes. Salute. Yes. That's how it's done.

"But he died," she whispered. "He died for it."

Yes, boy, bow to me. Like your parents did, in madness, and then in death when Bella finished the job...

Sirius' grip on her tightened, and she laughed and cried and wished to god she'd been the one born with the ability to kill him.

Voldemort.

The name came so easily now, without fear. So strange to see the most cowardly of them all stand ramrod straight, staring into death's eyes.

She watched and waited and looked for a wand as Snape - the man holding her back - slipped her wand into her hand.

On three, girl, don't mess this up, make us go out with a bang, at the least, you dratted Gryffindor prodigy.

But he...

"He was-"

He was-

Hurting.

Wands at the ready, boy, you ever been in a dueling club? Yes? Oh good, I see that you're thinking of killing me.

One.

Get ready, girl. Remember, on three.

Two.

A flourish.

You are ready, you know we're aiming to kill?

Thre-

Avada Kedavra.

Avada Kedavra.

Avada Kedavra.

Bellatrix - dead. Dead by her hand. Sirius and the Longbottoms and countless other victims avenged and she didn't feel a thing.

Macnair - dead. And Snape didn't seem particularly bothered by his blank face either.

And...

Voldemort.

Was.

Dead.

A silence.

All of them, astonished, for it couldn't possibly happen. He was dead! Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the only one that could have done it, because he was marked-

But the mockery of a lightning scar trickled blood down Neville Longbottom's forehead, and he bowed to the pale, green-tinted body of Lord Voldemort.

You have to mean it, have to mean it for an Unforgivable-

The cavalry arrived, just a moment too late.

And they realized it was over, that the Dark Lord would never threaten anyone ever again.

Hermione looked to the faces she'd hoped not to see.

And time stopped.

"Why?" she asked him. "I never wanted... never wanted to do that again. Not after Dumbledore asked..."

"Hermione," he told her. "You're not - never - you know you're not to blame-"

"And why not?"

It was too much. How could he comfort someone else when he was hurting so much himself? It was too much to ask of him and she knew it. She didn't want his comfort - hadn't expected it - so she pulled him to her and pretended it didn't matter to her and let him do his hurting.

She'd been doing hers for seventeen years and more.

.

.

.

.

.

It was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. She'd never really gone through the correct stages of mourning, as she knew she was supposed to. Somehow, she'd gotten stuck at shock and denial, and now it was like going through all the others all at once while Sirius just tried to hang on.

And that, in itself, was somewhat frightening. Seeing the person she'd once looked up to trying to make sense of things, having him not be on top of it all, having him at a disadvantage and a loss for words. She knew she would never be able to straight out tell him, either, to give him closure. Because she lacked the ability - she lacked the use of the one word that would tell him for certain. She could tell him they were gone, she could tell him they hadn't made it, but she couldn't say- she could never say the one word...

"Hermione," he asked her, face on her shoulder. "Where do I go from here? Where did you go?"

Her lips turned upward into a sad kind of grimace.

"Nowhere. But I went there very quickly, I'll have you know."

Asleep... used to wake up at the crack of dawn... just sleep in, there's not really anything to do today... or tomorrow or the day after that...

There was a flash of lightning and she sighed.

"Give me... give me something," he begged. "Anything. Tell me something to do."

Hermione tried to think of something. It was hard. She was so out of touch...

"I know," she said with authority. "You have to make sure people know you exist. Then, you have to tell Lupin - he'll want to know - and then..." She hesitated. "I don't know. Find a job, settle down with someone. Live life, you know?"

"I notice," he told her quietly, "that you're not taking your own advice."

"Well," she said defensively, "I sort of did. How the hell do you think you got here, anyway?"

Sirius sighed and sat up again, rubbing at his forehead. "I don't understand this. Any of this. I'm not going to pretend I do. For now, I think... I just need to sleep on it."

Hermione looked at him with a grim certainty in her eyes. "You won't sleep."

He ignored it.

"I can try."

.

.

.

.

.

She had put her head to her pillow and closed her eyes by now. But the strange thing was, after all those years of always being able to fall back on sleep, of doing that when she could think of nothing else, the thought of him trying in vain to go to sleep and forget kept her awake.

Hermione opened her eyes and shifted, certain she could find some kind of comfortable position. After a few seconds, she settled and closed her eyes again.

But then, that one really wasn't so comfortable either.

Neville... Neville, did it fix anything? Did it make anything better?

No. It didn't... it didn't do anything.

Feel full again? Did it get rid of that aching hole?

No. Still empty.

A tear leaked from her eye then, and she realized she was beginning to go through the beginning again. Sometimes understanding, sometimes not, sometimes crying as she realized she'd never see them again. Sometimes trying to make herself forget. And, most frightening of all, sometimes succeeding for that bare moment - then feeling the horrible, gut-wrenching guilt as she realized that forgetting would mean they did it for nothing.

Hermione swallowed and got out of bed, setting her forehead against the wall. It was cool in the room, her air conditioner was working properly now. So what was missing, why couldn't she sleep goddamnit?

Her thumb went to her mouth, and she bit into it without realizing.

Nothing's better... nothing ever got better...

Blood began to well into her mouth - she pulled away the thumb and swore softly to herself, knowing the band-aid was ruined. Why couldn't she have taken up biting her nails or something healthier?

Hermione gave up. She moved to the door and pushed it open, pulling a pillow and blanket with her as she went.

There was no sound from the couch as she set herself down on the floor.

But she knew he was awake.

"Sirius?"

A non-committal sound.

"Yeah. Thought so." She paused, leaning her back against the couch, feeling her hair brush up against the back of his hand.

There was silence for a long while as they each tried to understand. And failed.

Hermione sighed.

"You remember..." she started, "You remember when... when Harry fell down the stairs, and nearly broke my neck falling on me?"

More silence. But his fingers had brushed her hair, and now they had clenched in it helplessly.

"And when he beat Ron at chess that one time, because he'd stolen his rook from the table and bribed it to keep its mouth shut?"

She leaned back farther, into his hand, tilting her head upward. He had sat up, and his grey eyes looked down at her in the darkness.

"And Ron... Ron..." She stumbled, trying to remember. It wasn't working. Just... too long, too painful.

"Ron named his owl Pig," Sirius said in a choked voice. "Bloody bird near took one of my fingers off before I gave it to him."

Hermione sniffed. "Yeah. He tried to send me my birthday present with that owl. Poor thing came close to dying." There. There was the word she couldn't say. She'd almost said it.

"I remember," said Sirius in a tired voice. "I remember tearing into Ron's leg when I pulled him down the whomping willow. It was almost funny. He-" His voice cracked, but it was more from a helpless laughter than anything else. "He screamed like a girl. God, you have no idea how close I was to losing grip when he made that face..."

Hermione laughed, and it turned into a sob so quickly she wasn't sure which it really was. "Harry was always talking about what he was going to do when you were free. He wanted to live with you more- more than anything-" She broke off, a hand going to her mouth to hide her trembling mouth.

Sirius sighed and grabbed her by the arms, pulling her upward to sit with him. It said a lot for her potions that he was already able to do it - the thought was random, and it entered and left her mind so easily with all the other random things she'd been thinking.

They hooked arms to stabilize each other, but there were so many memories to tell, so many things they didn't know, might never remember.

"So many people asked me if I was okay," she whispered. "It got so repetitive... are you okay, Hermione, are you sure, Hermione, is there anything I can do? Maybe they meant well. I don't know. I just... I wanted to scream at them. Of course I wasn't okay. I just had to keep getting reminded... and then- then they wrote an article on him, just Harry. I thought about writing in to tell them there were other people too..."

Can you tell us what happened, Mr. Longbottom, what did you see when you got there?

And You-Know-Who was there, laughing? Please, will you relate the details, Miss Granger?

Shut up. Shut up.

So he fulfilled the prophecy, and killed You-Know-Who?

Yes. Yes, that's it, I came with Hermione just a little too late.

Neville, what-

I'm going home, Hermione. There's not much left of it, but I'm going. And no one will ever bother me again, will they? He's got his rest. Well he can have the credit too, because no one is going to be able to bug him.

"You didn't, though?" he asked.

"No. I never managed to care about it enough."

A pause.

"At the risk of sounding repetitive... are you okay? Now, I mean."

Her lip trembled and his hand moved to close on her other shoulder comfortingly.

"No. I'm not."

"Good. We're on the same page, then."

Hermione laughed. It was at once the most selfish, most refreshing, and most natural thing she'd heard in seventeen years. God, where had he been when she needed him?

Needed.

Needed.

Something I need.

"You feel empty," he muttered. "Like-"

"-you'll never be happy again. I know," she told him. "And... I haven't been."

"What was it like?" he sighed. "I missed - god, I missed two years. Can you tell me... things? Just anything you can think of."

Hermione rubbed her thumb against her forefinger and realized it had become slick with blood again. Damn it.

"Yes," she whispered in a shaky voice. "He missed you terribly."

Sirius' face turned cloudy, but she looked at him and began to realize something for the first time. He was here. He was... he was alive.

"I m-missed you," she told him with a sob. And threw her arms around him, holding to him as though he might disappear.

Sirius seemed surprised, but he hugged her back tightly. "I would say the same, but I wasn't gone long enough," he told her wryly.

"Y-yeah," she managed. "I know." Her arms tightened. "I couldn't play with anyone else, you bastard," she told him with a sniffle. "You ruined the damn game for me."

He laughed, patting her on the back. "I feel as though I should wash your mouth out with soap. Ah well. I wasn't ever that good an adult anyway."

She brought a hand up to his face... and flicked his forehead.

"You were n-never an adult."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'm insulted. I think." But he raised one hand to the back of her head and leaned down to put his forehead against hers. "It's okay. I'm alive. Take deep breaths, count to ten, and tell me something happy."

One, two, three, four, five, six- oh, screw it. He's joking anyway.

She smiled shakily. "Harry made Head Boy. Ron learned to actually play Quidditch - he was lined up for a pro career before-" She broke off, but found something else. "And - one year, Harry got to use magic to get the Dursleys to come to Hogwarts. For- for their own protection." She giggled, remembering the day - she'd been coming down the stairs with her bag, thinking about getting herself a QuickQuotes quill (but then, she decided against it, because she didn't want to be associated with Rita Skeeter in any way) and then - she'd looked up at the great hall and blinked.

Harry Potter, walking into the building, wand trailing behind him like a leash... two very round people and one toothpick floating along behind him, with the unmistakable marks of a petrificus totalus visible on them.

Sirius chuckled against her. "I wish I'd been there to see that."

Hermione pressed her lips together. "I got a picture," she told him, holding in the laughter. "I had to hide it, though, because they said they wanted any evidence destroyed - I think Dumbledore purposely overlooked it." She moved to wipe the tears from her eyes, and he caught her hand again.

"Good lord, Hermione," he said, eyes focused on the skewed band-aid. "Is that what I think it is?"

She blushed brightly, embarrassed. "It's a habit, okay? I don't exactly leave carrot sticks lying around everywhere."

Sirius sighed and searched the darkened room. A short lightning bolt outside lit up the place in black and white, and he snatched the box of band-aids off of the table, nearly taking them both tumbling down on top of it in the process.

Hermione turned away and started to tug the old one off with a wince, but it was caught well on one side of the cut. She closed her eyes and looked away. One...two...

The band-aid came off all at once. Her eyes flew open. "Ouch! You-"

Sirius grinned, and he put the new one on quickly. Before she could utter another word, he bent his head and touched his lips to her palm.

"All better?" he asked.

The words she'd been about to say died on her lips.

Because he was...

He was...

Absolutely charming.

"Ah... yes?" she managed.

"Good." He gave her one last reassuring hug and then let her go.

"Somehow," he told her wistfully, "I feel almost sleepy."

Hermione smiled, and curled up in her blanket on the floor.

"I'm glad."

Because even though it wasn't better - wouldn't ever be better - and it still hurt just as much...

It was different now, somehow.