Marked

She wasn't crying. That was the smallest of blessings, but one Sirius knew he couldn't count on for long. The truth hadn't sunk in yet. The shock prevented that as much as the potion she'd taken earlier that day. But when Lily finally felt the full measure of her grief, he wasn't sure how she would deal with losing Harry, if at all. When he'd come home with Hermione, Lily had come into his arms without waiting for an explanation. She hadn't needed one. They'd been sitting on his sofa for the past hour, his hands and robes covered in someone else's blood, Lily staring off unblinking and numb. For now. It was waiting for her shock to wear off that kept Sirius holding on by the barest thread, forcing his mind to avoid recalling the last he'd seen of his godson that day. This too would pass.

Hermione stood in the doorway of the sitting room with her arms around herself, watching as Sirius comforted Lily. Feeling cold suddenly, she backed away, turning to run up the stairs and into the room Harry had been in just hours before. His presence was still there. In the rumpled sheets and dented pillow. In the pile of dirty clothes near the bathroom door. And in the note he'd left next to the bed that she didn't have the heart to open. She probably never would.

"Tell me what she said."

"I've already told you," Ron responded. He'd been careful not to move his lips much as he spoke, but he still felt as if the split in his face was close to opening up again. He reached up and tentatively ran a hand over the bandage.

"I don't care!" Parvati snapped. She glanced at Lavender. The other girl was still curled up on the other bed; heavy sedatives supplied by one of the nurses at St. Mungo's kept her unconscious. From the way her eyelids fluttered and the sounds she made every few minutes, Parvati knew it was only a matter of time before the nightmare going on in Lavender's mind would once again give way to the real life nightmare she'd temporarily escaped. For now, she would rest. If only they could all be so lucky.

"Tell me," Parvati repeated. "I don't believe Hermione was just saying something like that."

"Of course she was," Ron countered. "She was upset. There's no way she could have meant--"
"Ron."

He frowned. "She said Voldemort didn't destroy Harry. That we can bring him back." He shook his head as Parvati swore. "Of course, she was out of her mind by then. You didn't hear the way Hermione was screaming when Sirius told us we had to leave. She had no way of knowing what she was saying at that point."

"Who are you trying to convince?" Parvati asked. "Hasn't she been telling us all this time that she doesn't want to let him go?"

"That doesn't mean she's found a way for it to happen," Ron said. At Parvati's sigh, he sank into the chair next to her hospital bed and tentatively took her hand in his, careful of the bandages around her fingers. "This wasn't something anyone planned for. We knew what might happen to them and--"

"And Hermione knows a way to bring them back," Parvati said. "I want to talk to her about it."

"It's not possible. No one can be brought back from the dead," Ron said, his voice choking on the last word.

"Voldemort was."

"He wasn't dead," Ron reminded her. "He screwed up his life trying to become immortal. There's no way Harry did anything close to that. And you didn't see them...after." He closed his eyes and a vision of his friends falling to the ground played before his eyes. Ron remembered the still-warm feel of Neville's skin as he'd reached over to close his eyes. He squeezed his hand into a fist as tears burned beneath his eyelids. Ron reopened his eyes to meet Parvati's gaze.

"It was real," he said, his voice soft.

"If I know Hermione, she's not going to let reality get in her way," Parvati said. "Especially if she thinks she's already figured out how to get around it."

Ron squeezed her fingers gently, but said nothing. Whatever Hermione had been babbling about earlier, there was nothing that could change the truth of what he'd witnessed. Her determination to keep Harry in her life couldn't defy one of the few truths they shared with the Muggle world: Death was an irrefutable and inescapable fact. He only hoped Hermione wasn't crazy enough to believe she could change that.

When Dumbledore stepped off the elevator onto the fourth floor at St. Mungo's, he expected to be greeted by a number of things. Questions from the papers he wasn't prepared to answer. The faces of the Aurors who'd lived, disappointed in the number of casualties their side had suffered. What he hadn't expected was the silent face of Augusta Longbottom, staring at him as if she expected her grandson to step out of the car behind him. That look brought with it a sense of guilt--one he knew to be misplaced but felt all the same. He hadn't created this situation and certainly couldn't have stopped it from turning out the way it had.

"Augusta," he said, approaching the woman. "I am so sorry for your loss."

Nodding, she approached him slowly, her lips pressed together. Dumbledore reached for her hands and she pulled back before slapping him with all the strength she could muster. The stinging slap wasn't exactly welcome, but it was a far better alternative to another way she could've taken her feelings out on him.

"I understand why you--"
"You understand nothing!" Augusta shouted. "You've lost nothing. The Ministry got exactly what it wanted--the Boy Who Lived took out the biggest threat our world has ever faced and you never had to lift a finger. Were you even there when he died? Or did you not have to show your face to ensure your plan was executed perfectly?"

Before he could respond, he heard a voice call down the hallway, "Is that him? Has he finally gotten here?" before he was surrounded by angry parents.

"What possessed you to allow children to fight today?" He'd turned to face Lavender's father Alan, but was cut off before he could answer. "Don't bother answering. I never expected much from you as Minister, but I never thought you would send children to do the work of adults. And what do you have to show for it? Two dead children, one who's lost his senses and nearly a dozen Aurors dead or injured." Alan frowned as he poked a finger at the center of Dumbledore's chest. "You may not have to answer to us for what you've done, but you can be sure the Wizengamot will not be understanding when it comes to what happened today."

"Mr. Brown, I assure you, I never planned for the children to be involved today."

"Oh, is that why they've spent the past few weeks training for this?" Dumbledore turned again and came face to face with an irate Molly Weasley. "Yes, Ron told me, after a Healer made sure he wasn't going to lose half of his face!" She grabbed the front of Dumbledore's robes, screamed and pushed him. "Do you have any idea how close he came to being killed?"

"You're lucky all of our children weren't killed!" Amara Patil screamed. She pulled out her wand and thrust it under Dumbledore's chin. "Do you know how close my daughter came to dying today? Do you even care?"

"Amara, no," Molly said. She grabbed the other woman's arm and pulled her back. "He's not worth it." When Alan walked the other two women back down the hall, Augusta turned to Dumbledore.

"You may not have created this prophecy," she began, "but you made sure it played out the way it did. One day you'll pay for that." Without another word, she turned from him and joined the parents outside of Parvati Patil's room.

She didn't know how long it had been--half the day, maybe--before she heard Dumbledore's voice travel up the stairs. He was asking about her. Asking how she was coping, if she'd eaten anything, if she'd talked about it yet. Hermione didn't hear Sirius's answer, but she didn't need to. Neither of the house's other two occupants had thought of her since they'd returned to the house that morning, and would not have given her any consideration if the Minister hadn't reminded them of her existence. It was ironic, in a way. When Harry had been there, Lily couldn't stop talking about Hermione's influence on her son. He'd been gone mere hours and now his girlfriend was as much a ghost as he was--forgotten in the shadow of everyone's grief.

When Hermione spotted the Minister in the doorway of the bedroom, she avoided his eyes in the mirror above the dresser. She'd had enough of pity when Ron had repeatedly attempted to calm her before she finally found the strength to push him away. There was only one thing she needed from Albus Dumbledore and it wasn't a shoulder to cry on. She looked up again and their eyes met in the mirror.

"Do you have it?" Hermione asked.

The Minister frowned at her and nodded.

"Then what are you waiting for? Do it. Now," Hermione ordered. When Dumbledore didn't move, she turned to him, her mouth set in anger.

"You know we can't do whatever we wish with Harry's remains. It would be disrespectful."

"You're worried about being disrespectful to his remains?" Hermione shouted. She began to tremble. "He is dead and all I want is for you to bring him back! That is all. You told me you'd find a way to fix what he'd done and save him if you couldn't. I lived up to my part of the deal. I helped him get ready. I--I kept up his morale as best I could. I let him go!" Dumbledore reached a hand out to her and she shook it off.

"No! You don't get to pretend to comfort me. You do what you promised. That's how you can comfort me. You bring him back. And if you refuse, I will." She eyed the glass globe he had removed from the pocket of his robes. "And don't dare tell me I can't do the spell work it would require. I don't care how much I'd have to learn. Harry needs to be here. He didn't deserve to die."

"And Neville Longbottom did?"

Hermione glared at the Minister.

"I did make you a promise, Miss Granger. And I intend to keep it. If Lily gives her consent. Otherwise--"

"She will," Hermione assured him, heading for the door. "I'll see to it."

The moment Sirius closed the door to the sitting room, Hermione cast a spell to lock it and another to cut off all sound. She had a feeling Lily would react with more than a little surprise and the last thing she needed was Sirius interfering with what had to take place.

"What's this about?" Lily asked. She glanced back and forth between the Minister and Hermione, her mouth pulling down when neither answered. "It's been hours. I should probably get back to my daughter and tell her...what happened." Lily swallowed. "I wouldn't think you and I had anything left to say to one another," she said to Hermione.

"I have plenty to say," Hermione responded.

"Miss Granger--"

"Minister," Hermione began. "With all due respect, I think I'm the one that needs to explain."

"Explain what?" Lily asked. "Don't tell me there's more."

"Harry--" She paused and looked away from Lily for a few seconds. The pain flashing in those eyes was more than she cared to see at the moment, but she had to deal with it if she was going to do what needed to be done. "The past few weeks were difficult, especially knowing what might happen." Hermione looked at Lily again and took a deep breath. "After this morning, I know what we did was right." She motioned between herself and Dumbledore. "We found a way to keep Harry in our lives--to bring him back to us exactly as he was." There was a long silence as Lily let Hermione's words sink in.

"Wait." Lily looked back and forth between them. "I don't understand how this is even possible. Harry is dead. How can we bring him back?"

"He's not really gone," Hermione said. Reaching a hand out to the Minister, she waited until he put the small glass globe that had contained Harry's prophecy into her hand. "We created a Horcrux for him a few weeks ago." She held her hand out to Lily, briefly allowing herself to feel surprise that she wasn't as shaky on the outside as she was inside. "We've saved all of his memories from the day this was created up until he left to go after Voldemort."

"That doesn't make any sense," Lily said. "I know how a Horcrux is created. After everything you told me about Harry's past, I don't think there was any time when he could have split his soul."

Hermione looked over to Dumbledore. He put a hand on Lily's shoulder. "The day Severus was killed--"

"No!" Lily pushed his hand away and took several steps back. "You told me he saved your lives. That's what he did. It was self-defense. Sev was attacking him."

"Harry had been talking about killing him for days before that," Hermione said. "You can ask Professor McGonagall. He went into that room knowing what he was going to do. It's a coincidence that Harry had to help Sirius and the Minister before he could carry out his plan."

"You knew?" Lily asked. She pointed at Hermione. "You knew and you didn't try to talk him out of it?"

"I knew, but there was nothing I could do. Believe me, I tried to talk him out of it," Hermione said. "He felt like he had to, to avenge his father's death."

"And he felt no remorse afterwards," Dumbledore added. "That is why I could not assist him in putting the pieces back together. After I had confirmed what he'd done to himself, I created a Horcrux for Harry in case--"
"In case this mission you were sending him on came to its natural conclusion," Lily finished. "I see. It was okay to send my son to die, because you knew you could bring him back if you had to. Why couldn't you just take out the part of his soul with Voldemort's soul attached to it?"

"Because that part was bound to his body through his scar," Dumbledore said. "We did not do this because we were sure Harry was going to die."

"But you weren't sure he would live," Lily stated. Her eyes narrowed on Hermione. "This is the secret you've been keeping all this time? Why you acted to strangely when I asked why you'd left the school. He never knew, did he?"

"No," Hermione said, flushing. "I'm not sure how he would have reacted, to be honest. He said he never felt Professor Snape's death was murder, so I don't think he'd have been able to accept what he did to himself."

"That is all moot," Dumbledore said. "Now, we must decide what to do."

"There are no decisions to be made." Hermione grabbed Lily's arm. "You have to give him permission to create another body for Harry. We have can have him back in a few days."

"Miss Granger, it's not that simple."

"Of course it is," she replied, turning to him. "You know exactly how to do it."

"I know a way it is possible," Dumbledore corrected her. "I still believe Harry was adverse to any known method that would bring him back from the dead."

"He didn't want to use the potion outlined in the Key," Hermione said. "He never said he was against anything else. If Voldemort found a way to create himself a body that didn't involve sacrificing anyone or using blood, why can't we try that?"

"You're splitting hairs, Miss Granger," Dumbledore said. "I viewed Harry's memory as well. The body Voldemort was in was a deformed mockery of a human body. If we do not handle this precisely, Harry could end up in that state or worse."

"I don't want to take that chance," Lily said.

"We won't be taking a chance," Hermione said firmly. "Harry will live again and he'll be fine." She turned to Dumbledore. "You can do this. You can bring him back, safely. You have to." She moved her hand to squeeze Lily's hand and felt relief when the other witch squeezed hers back. "We can't lose him. Not again."