Ascent

Chapter 10

There is a moment in life when one sees the future, and it is completely empty, a gaping void, with a golden pinpoint of light that seems infinitely too far. Unattainable. There are also times when all that can be conceived is the present. The slight echo from the hallway of her friends' laughter was an example of the latter.

Before they even saw her, she felt the indeterminable gulf of who she was and who they were. They could laugh.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow...

She bowed her head and waited for them to see her.

It was the silence, not one of them saying her name, that alerted her to their discomfort. She looked up - they seemed so much younger. It occurred to her that she never looked in the mirror. She felt older than they were, much older. Ginny was beautiful, her cheeks flushed with the laughter from the halls. Ron had his bag over his shoulder and his face was clean. Harry... Harry would always look young, she thought. With shadows under his eyes. She wondered how he could stay so happy when he was the target of destruction, how they could ever have been happy.

When Ron saw her, he dropped his bag where he stood and left the room. Ginny winced at the rough sound, and Harry tried to grab his shoulder, but Ron shrugged it off. It did not hurt Hermione as much as she thought it would.

"Hermione," Ginny said, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear and looking at anything but Hermione.

"Where's Luna?" Hermione asked.

"Still at work, I guess," Ginny said, taking her own thin bag and putting it on the table. "Sometimes she comes back at midnight, remember?"

"You read the papers too much, don't you?" Hermione said. She settled back, relaxing her stiff spine, and folded her hands in her lap.

Harry managed a weak laugh. "We don't believe the papers, if that makes you feel any better. It's just... strange. You look different."

"Yeah, I'm getting that a lot," Hermione said.

"Hermione, perhaps it's not a good..." Ginny began.

"I'm only here for the day. I'll leave this evening. You don't have to deal with this awkwardness any longer than that." She scooted over on the sofa, opening it to them. "I just... I don't want to live constantly around all that death and conspiracy and conniving and... god, too much evil. I practically bathe in it there. Really. It's... heavier than air."

"You sound different, too," Harry said.

"Things change, Harry," Hermione said. "I sounded different after the kidnapping, too. Voldemort stretches out his fingers, and we change, don't you get it? Look, Remus is in the kitchen, making us tea. Can we just have a day? Just one day? Something light-hearted, something that isn't about Lord Voldemort or books or what I have on my forearm? I need something that isn't about my loyalties."

Ginny and Harry shared a look.

"Sure," said Harry. "But... we'll talk this evening, all right? You can stay the night. But we do need to talk, I think."

Hermione's stomach tightened, but she nodded. She felt dehydrated.

Taking his cue, Remus walked in with the plastic tray and sat down next to Hermione, starting a conversation about how the last batch of Wolfsbane from the Medicus Order - Hermione had arranged a friend to brew it in her place - had worked fine, but left he and his squatter restless after the transformation back into human form. More than restless - practically running up the walls and across the ceilings, like catnip for a cat. The crux of the story was that Remus had written in to tell them to replicate the brewing process next month - Remus had never felt so good after full moon. Ginny giggled, and the ice cracked a little.

Remus' story led to an amusing anecdote from Ginny's work, something that was almost like a joke literally about a goblin and a troll walking into a bar. They managed to tell little stories about work - not Hermione, of course - while the afternoon whiled away. Harry did not talk much, and Hermione could only be on the receiving side of the conversations. The tea lasted even when it was cold - Hermione conjured ice and Remus left them to get dinner ready. There were a few breaks in conversation without Remus for warmth, but Ginny struggled for topics in the empty spaces.

Hermione felt Harry's eyes on her, his lips thinning in contemplation... or maybe judgment. Hermione thought that maybe Ron was in the hall leading to the two rooms, listening in, hearing Hermione's voice. Maybe he was thinking about their first kiss - wet, sloppy, awkward, but sweet. They had not been able to see much in the shadows except for a sparkle of light in their eyes. It was such a childish moment... well, not really. The brink, over the edge of childhood. Even for Ron, with his experience, if it could be called experience at all. There was a mutual earnestness. It wasn't great, and they never kissed again after that. But the moment hung over them whenever they interacted, like a benign mistletoe - at least until something new came between them instead. That was what lingered in the crevice between them now, the abyss. It made it hard to smile. She managed something more like a grimace, a smile that did not reach her eyes and was more a stretch and curve of her mouth. Harry noticed, she was sure.

She wished that they had kissed once more, at least in friendship, before she had been kidnapped. Maybe Ron would love her now if they had.

Hermione dismissed Remus's departure down the hall while they ate their dinner there in the living room as a need to use the lavatory. She tensed when he led Ron in by the shoulder and made him sit in an armchair some distance away from them. But there. Present. The air hummed with tension.

Remus managed to hold the rest of the dinner's conversation - made more difficult with Ron in the room - by asking Ginny details about her day and asking where Luna might be - which, as usual, led to stories about Luna's oddities, especially since Remus did not visit often and Luna was a cornucopia of amusement. At least for other people she was.

Although the mood became progressively lighter, Hermione felt herself sinking. She wanted to latch onto Remus's arm. She wanted to stretch out her hands and call for help. But to call for help was dangerous for her. It wouldn't be one of these strangers in the room with her who would come to her aid. She felt goosebumps raise the little hairs on her arm as a pair of deep red eyes glowed in the darkness behind her lids.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow... Memories anachronistic, rushing through her head.

"Let's stop pretending," Ron said finally, interrupting Ginny.

I will fear no evil.

But she did. And it was inside of her.

"Yes," she said, looking up finally, looking at Ron. "I think it's time to speak freely."

"You aren't coming back." The words did not come from Ron, but from Harry. They weren't malicious; they were simple, straightforward, resigned.

Resignation seemed to be what the war brought them to. The connection she once felt with them was gone, replaced with awkward silences and half-hearted diplomacy. The gulf hewn during both of her absences only deepened, and the shaky bridge her friends had built finally disintegrated. She was not sure how much she cared. God, she was going to cry because she did not care. But her eyes were dry.

"No, I don't think so," Hermione said.

"Why not?" Ginny asked, peering at her from Remus's other side.

"Hermione, I'm an Auror," Harry said. "It's my job to try to find Voldemort and kill him and his Death Eaters. I thought that we could... I don't know... maintain our friendship just for the sake of it. Because I still love you, as a friend. I think we all still do."

"I don't," Ron said. "Just for the record."

Harry ignored him.

"And I love all of you," Hermione said. "But this isn't going to work, is it?"

"Why not?" Ginny repeated.

"If she were really our friend, she'd tell us everything we needed to know," Ron said, talking into his pillow.

"Except I'm not just your friend any more than Harry is just my friend. If he's also an Auror, I'm also a Medicus. It all comes back to that, doesn't it? That our jobs outweigh our friendships." Hermione leaned back, away from Remus, away from her friends.

"It's not that you're a Medicus," Harry said. "If you were a Medicus to Ginny or Albus or even Snape, it would be all right. But the Auror Department is pressuring me to bring you in and interrogate you."

"They wouldn't dare!" Hermione said, bristling. Her socialization into the Medicus Order clearly had more than a little effect on her view of her place in the scheme of the wizarding world.

"Why not?" Ron said. "I would. If Harry wouldn't hex me if I did, I'd tie you up and throw away your wand. Then I'd pour a gallon of Veritaserum down your throat."

"Ron..." Remus began, but Hermione touched his arm to silence him.

"Do you know what would happen if that happened, Ron? It's happened before, you know. Harry doesn't do that because of friendship, but maybe I should tell you why, politically, that isn't a bad idea."

"I've heard the stories," Ron said contemptuously. "But what kind of damage would just the Medicus Order do if the Order of the Phoenix and the Aurors combined can't solve anything?"

"You clearly haven't heard the right stories," Hermione answered. She struggled not to be too cold. "Mind if I tell you the stories you need to hear?"

"Well, you've never really explained anything to us before," Ron said, "so you might as well do it now."

"You never listened," Hermione retorted. "Do you plan to listen this time?"

"Sure."

They glared at each other for a moment. Hermione looked away first. She did not want to fight. "The Medicus Order has strict rules regarding their arrangements with their clients - that's what it is mostly, especially to the public, a business arrangement. What happens is a whole lot more intimate - I swear I feel him all the time. I suppose I'm used to it now, but sometimes... anyway, it's not so easy to pull away or betray the one to whom a Medicus is bound. Veritaserum might not even work - I don't know, it's never been tested.

"But the Medicus Order wasn't originally meant for the full health of their clients. Medicus came later. They were originally female bodyguards, a concubine that also protected the man who took her. It started as a harem, and perhaps that is what sparks most of the rumors now. We're still taught the old defensive spells, the ones that have mostly been forgotten in modern circles. They're effective, often volatile and encompassing, more effective than most of the newer hexes, if less sophisticated. I could destroy this entire flat and the surrounding buildings with a hex and walk away unscathed, if a little singed. But I don't, because that's not what we do so much anymore, although part of our duty is to protect our client - not from everything, but from some things.

"As our name suggests, we're Healers more than bodyguards now, but our training lets us remember our roots and prepare for the first idiot who decides that we're women and ought to be taught our place in a world ruled by men who are stronger than we are. It's happened all of three times in history, and usually more than a hundred years spans the difference because it takes that long for a society to forget the damage done to it by the Medicus Order. The wizarding world has never been as connected as it is now, so I cannot imagine what attacking a Medicus would do to it. The word that comes to mind is desolation. It's like underestimating Muggles too much because they have no magic, and then they drop the atomic bomb. Desolation.

"In Saudi Arabia, one leader of a tribe had a Medicus - this one, although by this time the Medicus were no longer concubines, was his wife, so naturally, for a warring tribe to stab at the king, they kidnapped his wife and threw her in a hole filled with their excrement, holding her for ransom, for a compromise between tribes." Hermione took a drink of iced tea and realized that the tension in the room was no longer awkward, but the anticipation of a good climax - even Ron was paying attention, finally. Hermione restrained a smile and continued.

"The mark on her back that branded her a Medicus called to the rest of the Order, alerting them that the rules had been breached - it's an older magic, before wands, and I'm not sure how it works. Sort of like Legilimency and Apparation combined. Except... different, more primal than that. Maybe the Muggles have it more accurate with the collective unconsciousness and some people being more in tune with it. I don't know - it's been too long since those traditions were taught, and things get lost through the ages.

"The full strength of the Medicus Order coelesced into an army that swept through the tribe, burning buildings, taking children, slashing the throats of those who did not yield their homes. They did not stop until they found their fellow Medicus and cleaned her up, soothing her. They brought her back to her husband along with the head of the tribe leader and his wife of the opposing tribe. The children who were young enough to be integrated were given to the tribe and the ones who were not able to be given to the tribe were taken and dispersed through their network over the world, adopted in some cases, by the Medicus themselves.

"This happened in a night, and all on their own," Hermione said, looking at Ron. "Imagine what might happen in such a politically and globally charged war like this. Imagine what Voldemort could do with the Medicus Order at his side. Within a week, I swear you would be in a new world. And Voldemort would rule it. The result may be the opposite of the Medicus Order's desire - our first instinct is to preserve life, not to destroy it - it would not be countered by our own internal policies, because government means nothing to us as a whole. So if you were to do what you wanted to do, or if I were to tell secrets to you that would compromise my duty as a Medicus, that is what would happen. I would truly be helping him win the war - or you would. I don't think that is what you want, and I understand your sentiments, but you won't win the war through me. I can only hurt you."

Ron looked somewhat pacified, but he still had to have his last word. "That pretty much sums up what you do to us, doesn't it?"

"Damn it, Ron, are you just jealous because you didn't get under my robes before the Death Eaters did?" Hermione said. She was regressing back to adolescence as she said it, but unresolved aggression was enough justification for her. "Maybe you should be told once again that I. Hated. It. God, I was starving, in chains, tortured, watched my family go through the same things before dying, and you still want to think that I willingly spread my legs for them? It's you who is being unreasonable in this, not me. I'm past it. It's in the past. I'm different now."

"You're not Hermione anymore!" Ron yelled back. "When they made you... they took Hermione. I don't have to like that, and I don't have to like what you are now. In fact, I can hate it. I may believe your story now, but that doesn't change much." Ron curled his lip and stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"Don't forget to turn out the closet light," Luna said, opening the front door and catching the last bit of the conversation.

"Sure," Ron said. He was a blur of red hair in the shadow of the hall, and he reacted without thinking to a phrase that was practically normal for Luna.

"Hello, Hermione," Luna said. She sat in Ron's place. Her wide eyes stared at Hermione peaceably, as though Hermione dropping in uninvited was an ordinary occurrence. Hermione managed a weak smile at Luna's lime green business robes. "Do you want some cake? I made chocolate yesterday. And my desk had a few biting bagroots, so I'm stressed enough for chocolate. Cake?"

Harry looked at Hermione. "Do you want to stay for cake? You look like you can use all the food you can get."

Hermione ducked her head, staring at her nails. "That was my fault. Food wasn't a priority. I was actually forced to eat, if you can believe it." She gave a little laugh and looked up. "He's being... he's being Voldemort, but he hasn't hurt me, and he won't. Is that what you needed to hear?"

"It works," Harry said.

"Oh dear," said Luna, "are we splitting again?"

"No," said Ginny. There were no dramatics, no shocked whispers, just pure stubbornness. "He can't have you. You're just going to...?"

"I'm... it's complicated, Ginny," Hermione said, looking away. "He has me, and... he doesn't. I have him, and I don't." She tasted a lie, but she dismissed it.

"Isn't there some way out?"

"If there was a way out, don't you think I would have taken it?" Hermione snapped. She composed herself quickly. "I'm sorry, but I've put this off for too long. I'll have the cake. But then... I think... I should go."

"When will you come back?" asked Luna. "I'll make vanilla cake next time you come, and I want to be prepared."

This was one of those times that Hermione felt that Luna knew more and had more control over her mind than she let on.

"I don't know," Hermione replied. "When Voldemort is defeated, I guess. Or... the other way around. Maybe." She stood up, setting the pillow down and stretching her back slightly. "Chocolate cake?"

"You're just going to leave like that?" Ginny asked. Her cheeks flushed red, that classic Weasley trait. "You're going to leave and never come back?"

Hermione touched Ginny's shoulder, kissed her forehead on impulse. "Maybe," she said quietly. She went to Harry and repeated the action, acting on something forgotten before. Necessity. She went to Remus and kissed him, too. Luna caught her from behind and hugged her. It felt invasive to Hermione, but she endured it. She knew Luna meant well.

***

Macnair jerked awake when Hermione Apparated in his room. He grinned when Hermione looked away from his bare chest. He thought it would be amusing if he decided to seduce her, but he would not do that to his master. Hermione could see the spark of challenge in his eyes, but she ignored it.

"I want to go back," she said. "Show me how to Apparate there."

"Couldn't make it the whole two days, could you?" Macnair said. It wasn't a question, really. "What did they do? Kick you out? Was it any more than you expected?"

"No," Hermione said. "Show me."

"Show you what?"

Hermione whipped out her wand. She was tired and ragged, and she did not have the patience for mind games. Macnair laughed, raising his hands in mock surrender. He pulled on his shirt and Death Eater robes, doffing the stole.

He held out his arm, and although his eyes were laughing behind the mask, the blankness of his face made them more malicious.

"Take my hand," he said. "Remember how it feels for this particular Disapparition. You'll feel something different, a barrier which you can cross through where other people can't. That's what you'll focus on for every Apparition from now on."

"You couldn't have told me this before?" Hermione said.

"Then I wouldn't have the pleasure of your company," Macnair replied. He Disapparated them without warning.

***

Voldemort knew when she arrived, knew the sort of emotional coldness that had settled into her body after the assault of revelations. He opened the door to her room and peered in at her. She was in her bed, a place that she not frequented most of the months she had been working with his notebook. She was tucked in a little ball facing away from him, her Medicus robes stretched taut along the curve of her shoulders, back, and buttocks. He had a feeling that if he walked over to her and touched her face, it would be dry but cold.

From a shift in her movement, he knew that he had been noticed, the presence of his mind felt more strongly by their renewed proximity.

"Welcome back, child."

In her state, it was all he needed to say.