Lost and Found

Chapter 6 - Holes in the Past

Sirius watched, puzzled, as Hermione moved down one of the aisles, pretending quite blatantly not to hear Prott's voice.

When he turned back to the man, however, he was surprised to find that the store owner was very seriously looking at him now. Any and all traces of absentminded humor had disappeared.

"Well now," the man said to him. "Might I ask who you are?"

Sirius blinked.

Who I am? Why do I have this feeling he thinks I'm a criminal...

Oh. Well, that would be ironic, wouldn't it?

"My name is Sirius," he responded. "I'm one of Hermione's..." Think. Think harder. "...old friends."

Prott's mouth thinned to a line. "Oh, are you now?"

Why did he not like the way that man was looking at him?

Prott leaned forward toward him, and Sirius found now that there was no mistaking the look the man was giving him. Obviously, Prott did not like Sirius quite so much as he had let on.

"Let me tell you something," the other man said in a tight voice. "Apparently, you're doing that girl a lot of good. I can't deny that. But you're about fifteen years too late to be an old friend." His eyes narrowed. "An old friend would've visited, like that Lupin fellow. An old friend wouldn't show up this late, after all the things she's been through-"

Prott broke off for the moment. Sirius swallowed.

Well.

At least he knew she'd been taken care of.

"Actually," he said, feeling as though he were a student again, being chastised by a teacher, "I really didn't know about... about any of this. Not until about two days ago."

Prott seemed genuinely taken aback by this response.

"Where've you been, Bulgaria?" he demanded. "If you're as close to her as all that-" the shopkeeper broke off in amazement as he saw the utterly stunned look on Sirius' face.

Hiding out in Bulgaria for two months. How the hell did he come up with that one?

"You've been in Bulgaria," the man said in amazement, running a hand through his thinning hair. "Well. Hope it was important."

Sirius frowned. "Believe me, I didn't want to be there any more than anyone else wanted me to."

"Well then. Well." Prott took a deep breath to steady himself. "Sounds like I owe you an apology then. You've got to understand, when she came here, she was a right mess. Half the time, she stared off into space and the other half she'd burst into tears. Wasn't really sure what to make of her for a while, but she's finally started getting a bit better..."

Sirius let out his breath without realizing he'd been keeping it in. "You were afraid I'd up and leave again," he said in understanding.

"Well... not to put it in so many words..." Prott rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I suppose that is rather what I was thinking."

The wizard shook his head, pressing two fingers to his temple. "Hermione certainly seems to have changed since I last saw her, that's for sure," he murmured. "Can't quite believe everything myself..."

Prott was looking much more sympathetic now. "Well, understandable, of course," he said, switching his attitude around quite suddenly. "Incidentally, you two were... childhood friends? Neighbors?"

It took a moment for this to pierce his brain. "Neighbors?" he asked blankly.

"Ah," Prott said. "I suppose not. But you must've known her when she was small, yes?"

Sirius tried not to laugh at the images that conjured. "Yes, of course. I knew her from school." Didn't go there at the same time, but school brought us together, I suppose...

He turned back to look at Prott and was surprised to note that the man was back to the way he'd seen him on entering. Jovial, old, and scheming.

Oh lord. That's just what I need. What on earth is he up to, anyway?

Hermione appeared, then, with a few choice items. Among them, he noticed a razor.

Subtle, Hermione, subtle. But the beard is staying.

He scratched at it absently. Really, he didn't even keep it that long...

"Let's see," she was muttering. "Eggs, bacon strips, cooking oil... I got you some apple juice, I seem to remember you liking that..." Sirius winced. Sometimes she shamed him, really. That was supposed to be a well-kept secret, damn it. "Anything else?" she asked.

He blinked as he realized she was actually asking for input. "Oh. No, I think that's... that's fine." Why on earth would I protest when she's the one paying? Actually, he felt a bit guilty about that, despite the fact that there was no way on earth for him to have procured any money at this point.

Hermione paid for the food and stretched her arms above her head, sighing loudly. "Well. I have to admit, it's been rather a long week or two, Prott," she admitted. "A lot of surprises, especially."

The man behind the counter nodded understandingly. "Yes, well, you take care of yourself. All alone in that house... it's not safe to live alone, you know, not healthy for a woman your age-"

"Prott!" Hermione said, irritated.

"-and what if some mass murderer gets it into his head one night to break in-"

Sirius tried to restrain himself from bursting out laughing.

"-or if you fall and break your back or something-"

"Now that's just insulting!" Hermione protested heatedly.

"-or if you try to be stupid again and no one finds you this time-" Prott broke off abruptly at her face. The expression was at once both murderous and betrayed.

Hermione picked up her bags, put down the money, and walked out.

Sirius stood quite still, very confused by this point.

"Ah... what was all that about?" he asked quietly.

Prott swallowed. "I think I went just a bit too far. Don't you pay it any mind. She'll tell you if she feels like it."

Sirius followed Hermione out after a slight hesitation, feeling, more than ever, that he didn't know enough about the woman he had found himself staying with.

.

.

.

.

.

Sirius had intended to ask just what Prott had meant by his statement, but as soon as he was through the door, Hermione conscripted him into making breakfast.

Learning to make scrambled eggs was surprisingly educating. Not because of the process itself, but because of the adept way Hermione parried his intrusions into her past.

"So you moved here a few years after-"

"Could you put that pan on the stove, Sirius?"

And later, "How did you meet Prott, anyway-"

"I'm sorry, Sirius, do you think you might hand me that beater?"

By the end of the ordeal, he was quite unhappy with the questioning. But he knew that when they sat down to eat, he would be able to get more out of her.

Eventually, that time did come.

Hermione didn't have a kitchen table - she usually used her living room to eat, as she ate almost exclusively alone. Sirius was reminded painfully of a point in time where Ron told her she was going to end up an old maid, living with her pug-faced cat.

Cat. Crookshanks. Where...

"Hermione?" he asked her quietly, cautiously, hoping he wasn't going to tread on shaky ground with this question. "Where is Crookshanks?"

Thankfully, she didn't stiffen or change the subject. "Crookshanks is living with Lupin- oh for - Remus these days. You know, he always insists I call him that, but even after all these years, it comes out wrong. In any case, it's someone to talk to when he's... you know. Moony."

Sirius grinned at this. He remembered talking, in his primitive way, with the so-named cat. It was much more intelligent than any of the teens had realized at the time. If more detailed conversation were possible, he was certain the thing would have talked philosophy with him...

He took a bite from their eggs (it had, Hermione insisted, been a joint effort) and tried to think of safe things to ask about.

"Has there been anything of note in the past few years?" he inquired. "Just... anything interesting, I suppose."

Hermione flushed. "Not in particular, no."

Well.

That was a rather disappointing line of questioning.

His face must have shown his frustration - because she took it the exact wrong way.

"Look, I can't help it if I live in an uninteresting muggle-filled town- well, I suppose I could, but with things the way they were, would you want to live in the middle of all that awful gossip..." She broke off with a sigh and a hand to her forehead.

Sirius wondered where she'd gotten that idea from. Well, not that he hadn't initially been unpleasantly surprised by the place's size, but it hadn't been something he was worrying about at the moment.

"I'm not - that is to say - that wasn't what it was," he said rather lamely.

Hermione crossed her arms, and he could tell she was ready to be stubborn. "And what was it?" she asked with a frown.

Sirius hissed out his breath all at once. Really, this was going a bit far. "I can't get anything out of you!" he told her, throwing his hands up into the air. "You won't tell me a thing about how you got here, nothing about what's happened since then, and lord knows we can't touch anything beforehand-"

Hermione's face turned brighter red and she stood up angrily. "Oh really? Well why don't I ask a question then, Sirius Black - how was Azkaban, how did the Dementors treat you, did anything interesting happen while you were there, did you have any particularly fond memories of being locked up in prison for twelve years or am I prying!"

He gaped at her.

Azkaban. Cold and dark and broken and so insane he could barely breathe they were all around-

Hermione's face went white. She put a hand over her mouth in horror.

"I'm sorry!" she gasped. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No, you did," he muttered. "Perhaps I was being too intrusive." Closed in, boxed in, bars and chains and the food wasn't tasteless, it was you...

"Intrusive or not... that... that was awful of me!" she told him, still pale. "It's... it's not your fault you want to know what's been going on..."

Sirius looked up at her, though, and shook his head. And then, he spoke.

"Azkaban was horrifying. It was your nightmares personified and given explicit permission by the Ministry to dissect every awful experience you've ever had in front of your eyes."

Hermione stared at him, disbelieving. Certainly, she hadn't been expecting him to take her seriously...

"Imagine your meeting with one dementor," he continued tiredly. "Multiply that experience at least tenfold, then try to imagine twelve years of incessantly being surrounded by them. And not being able to die." He looked up at her, and knew his eyes were showing the darkness that others would whisper about when he left the room. "Wishing they really would make you soulless, because then it would stop."

Blurred and melted together into one continuous stretch of misery, broken only by the intrusions of guards to make sure he was still alive, when the dementors would disappear for just one hour so the 'innocent' wizards that worked for Azkaban could stay untouched by their powers and make certain he was affected by them still...

Hermione was frozen in disbelief and fright, and he felt guilt seize him abruptly. There had been a reason he had promised himself never to tell any of them about Azkaban - and this was it. No one should know about such a place, they shouldn't even have to imagine it.

And then, in a tremulous voice, she asked him, "You... you got back your happy memories, though, at the end... didn't you?"

Sirius tried to smile, but turned into a pained expression. "Of course. Of course I got them back. They would have had to kiss me to make them leave me permanently..." And now, he was remembering his frustration and the torturing thought that he was innocent. The thought that hurt so much, they let him keep it. "Sometimes, I wondered if I wanted them back," he whispered, unable to stop now. "Because having them means you'll only lose them again. I wondered if I'd never had any if they could've hurt so much..."

The eggs had gone cold.

Hermione's jaw trembled, but she stood her ground.

And then, her voice carried over to him, and he realized that he had broken through.

"I came here fourteen years ago, if you don't count Christmas next week," she said quietly. "I... I don't remember much of it. I do remember that I wasn't quite sane. And that it hurt."

Sirius looked up at her intently, recognizing for the first time a bit of the dementors in her manner. A little shard of Azkaban.

"I came here... here in particular... because it had been my father's home town." She bit her lip and sat down heavily. "I'd wanted to be close to them, even though they were... were gone..."

Sirius' eyes narrowed as he recalled their earlier conversation.

"He resigned. Because everyone knew that he'd screwed up when the first dark mark hit the sky..."

"Who was it?"

"Oh. It- It's not important."

"I managed to get myself set up with some money I'd put into good investments," she said. "And later, I even managed to start going to the store on my own and all. But it wasn't ever complete, if you know what I mean. It was... it was going through the motions but not getting anywhere..."

Eating but not tasting. Breathing but not living.

"Yes," he said. "I know something of that."

Hermione gave him a frightened glance for a moment, but continued dutifully. "Well... well Prott really helped me out for a long time. He helped me get things in order and he'd even sneak me some strawberries every once in a while because he knew I liked them."

Ah. Good. He was glad he hadn't gotten on bad terms with that one.

"Well, it- it ended up-" Hermione's voice faltered. "I mean, there was no reason to believe anything would happen, since it'd been at least a year since the- the incident." A thrill of foreboding went through Sirius, and he had a very unhappy feeling that he knew what she was about to say - or at least some of it. "Well, I was home alone, like always, but apparently some of the old Deatheaters had gotten wind of where I lived..."

Sirius' hand tightened into a fist. If he had only been here-

"It was a close call," she whispered. "I- I don't know if you know, but if you're hit with enough Cruciatus curses - all in a row, I mean - your heart can stop from the strain-"

Sirius felt a sick feeling take him. How many had she had to go through just to find out that bit of knowledge - there were no wizards in history that mentioned such a thing-

"They thought I was dead, naturally, so they left-" She stopped in the middle of her sentence to stare at him, her face taking on a peculiar cast. "Sirius, are you - are you okay?"

He swallowed. Tell me they're dead, Hermione, tell me they're dead for that- "Yes. I'm fine. Go on."

She did, but only with effort. "Prott and Lupin-"

"Remus," Sirius corrected her dully.

"-yes, Remus, they found me like that because he'd gotten wind of it just a little too late... well, Remus thought I was dead too, I'm told he was crying and everything. If Prott hadn't been there, if he hadn't known how to restart a heart- there's a muggle way, too, you know- I really would be dead."

Oh yes.

Definitely glad he hadn't gotten off on the wrong foot with Prott.

"He had to break my ribs to do it, and that smarted for a long time, but I made it all the same. I only found out later that-"

Hermione stopped abruptly, licking her lips.

Sirius wondered what on earth could be worse than what she'd already told him.

"Well... well Lupin-"

"Remus," he told her again.

"-Remus, he was understandably upset, and- and the full moon was just a day or two away- he wasn't thinking, mind you-"

Sirius knew what she was going to say. He thought it was only natural and very justified.

"He went after them as a werewolf," he finished for her.

Hermione blanched. "Yes. Yes, he did. But Sirius, he'd had his potion. Something like that... it I can't imagine..."

What? Imagine someone caring about you enough to be that angry? You should know better than that. Much better.

"I would've done precisely the same thing," he told her, quite fiercely. No, if he'd been there, they would never have gotten so much mercy from him as being torn apart instantly- "Good lord, Hermione... but what did Prott think of all this?" He'd forgotten Prott, nearly. He knew there was something important about that.

The woman sighed, taken temporarily off subject. "Prott... well, we couldn't exactly tell him I'd been cursed to death-"

Sirius really had to try not to clench the arm of the chair quite so hard.

"-so... it was a viable explanation..."

"Yes?" he asked quietly.

"Remus told him, with my permission, that I'd... um... tried to commit suicide. With poison or some such thing. I can't- can't remember at the moment."

Sirius let out his breath at once.

It hit him then, not fully, but almost - Hermione had to have been only a few years older than he remembered her when this happened. There. It was a starting point, albeit a gruesome one.

"You know," Hermione said nervously, looking away from him as though ashamed. "You know, breakfast is probably going to have to be warmed up again as it is. I'll do that, I think."

She picked up the plates then, and hurried into the kitchen, leaving him to mull over the new things he'd discovered...

And the things he still didn't understand.