Chapter Text
"Look, I have to be frank with you..." Komal Dhar was a middle aged Indian woman, with a crisp Indian accent. She pushed her glasses up to the bridge of the nose, her smooth forehead wrinkling in a frown as she flicked through these pages. "This looks like utter nonsense."
Hermione blinked, turning to look at Bill. He looked slightly shocked.
"But it is Kolami?" She asked carefully.
Komal looked up and nodded. "The script is certainly Kolami," she said slowly, "they follow rules of script with the sounds and letters written correctly. But they spell gibberish, and they certainly don't translate into English." She thought for a moment, "It's almost as though someone has taken sounds they like and tried to join them into a word that doesn't exist."
Hermione was stumped. That couldn't possibly be it.
"Does the script have a corresponding letter in English?" Bill enquired, looking thoughtful. Hermione wondered what he was getting it.
Komal nodded, "I did notice that the letters used were are ones that have a similar sound to an English one." She began pointing out a few letters from a word in the first page. "This is guh which would correspond with 'g'. This was one is sah which would obviously be 's'. It looks to be some kind of code with the letters that don't correspond being a blank or filler letter."
"So transliteration is an option?" Bill said. His hand reached for Hermione's. He squeezed twice. She tensed.
"Well, yes. But it would take -" Komal was cut off by Hermione who whipped out her wand. "Obliviate," she spoke calmly. Komal blinked, stepping back as her eyes unfocused slightly. She fell back, her eyes rolling back into her head as she hit the chair.
Bill grabbed the book, pulling out his wand as a loud crack echoed in the hallway off the office.
"Fuck," he swore. "Protego maxima, silencio magnima."
Hermione tried to disapparate to no avail.
"We know you're there, Granger!" Hermione's blood curdled. Dolohov. "Come out, come out where ever you are!"
"Not a chance," Bill said, wand trained firmly at the door. "Get us out, Hermione."
"Accio Portkey," she whispered, shoving her hand in her bag. She tapped her wand against a chipped teacup.
In seconds they were gone, leaving a sleeping Komal Dhar behind in a room about to be overrun by Death Eaters.
Hermione wished she felt a little bit guilty.
—
The Portkey deposited them directly into a creek on the edge of farmland.
"Fuck!" Bill roared, as he fell in, head briefly going underwater before he pulled at the bank. Hermione spat out murky water as she shivered, tugging off her clothes as she pulled herself up next to him.
"Here-" She pulled out towels.
"Why must it always be a creek!" Bill was seething. He wasn't too far off an impression of a hissing cat.
"You know why it must," she replied wryly, finally managing to get her jeans off and wipe her legs. Water seemed to disrupt the Trace connection. They had figured it out about a month after the attack on Bill and Fleur's cottage.
It didn't stop him from complaining everytime they fell into a pool of water.
He managed to get changed before her and moved to help wrap her hair in a towel.
"Don't bother," She said with a sigh, "There's no saving it."
"We've got some money stashed in that barn in Plymouth," Bill reminded her, "We could try and find a place in London?"
She pressed her lips to his in thanks, grasping his hand as they began to walk across the field. "It's fine, I'll figure out something." Hermione grasped a strand of her hand mournfully. The years had not been kind to her hair. She couldn't even remember when she had last maintained it properly.
"Now tell me," She said, remembering their conversation with Komal. "We already tried transliteration, it didn't help at all."
"I know but we couldn't work with the missing letters," Bill said, "What if, in addition to the letters that have an English variant, the runes on the back page serve to fill in the holes?"
Hermione let go of his hand to dig around for the notebook, flicking to the last page. Bill leaned against her to point of the runes, "Notice the shapes? Fehu, Wunjo and Isaz - They all-"
"Look like letters from the English language!" She finished excitedly, then her face fell. "Still doesn't work. This word that Komal translated - D, Z - Dizi? Dwiz? It doesn't make sense."
"Yes but there is another rule being applied and we tried it out before. We just didn't put the two together," Bill reminded her, pointing to the sticky tab notes that were scattered through the notebook.
Hermione furrowed her brow as she began to write, using her palm as a flat surface before giving up and shoving the man forward so she could use his back. Bill snorted at her attempts and then hunched over slightly.
"Okay, D would be W, Z is A and W is D. Wad? Doesn't inspire much faith in this endeavor," Hermione said with a laugh, stomach sinking.
"And then place one of the runes in," Bill instructed.
"That leaves us with 'waid' or 'ward'," she said with a burst of excitement, "Ward!"
She suddenly felt like a first year, levitating her first feather.
"One word down, roughly four thousand to go," Bill said.
Hermione smiled weakly, putting the notebook away as she grabbed his hand. Bill straightened up and together, they trudged through the cow pat filled fields.
—
Finding a ride to civilisation took a while. They reached the nearest town three hours later, both extremely tired and hungry.
A lovely old lady ran a small inn in the town, the inn serving as the only restaurant, post office and pharmacy. She had no customers staying overnight, and was happy enough to give them a room to stay in for a ridiculously low price.
"And dinner for two please," Bill asked politely with a charming smile, his eyes wrinkling.
"Of course, dear," Dotty said with a toothy smile, "Aren't you two a handsome couple." Hermione bit back a laugh as the woman clearly fell for Bill's charms, happy to throw in breakfast for no extra cost.
"You're a doll, Dotty," Bill said, reaching to place a hand delicately on the woman's wrinkled arm. "Thank you."
The old woman blushed, hands shaking as she pressed a key into his hand and waved him off.
"Careful, dear," Hermione murmured under her breath, "You might cause her to have a heart attack."
"Been there, done that," Bill said, turning to wink at her, "How do you think Muriel had hers?" Hermione laughed, remembering the old bat.
Bill unlocked the door to their room, pushing it to open a modest sized room with a king sized bed. The room was furnished with very old furniture; a stocky wooden headboard with matching side tables and vintage floral curtains.
"There's a bathtub!" Bill called from the doorway opposite the bed.
"Hallelujah!" Hermione replied, tossing her bag onto the bed. "Run us a bath then, love."
She tugged off her clothes, wrinkling her nose at the state of them. She could hear Bill playing around with the taps before the sounds of running water began.
"See if you can charm Dotty to run a load of washing," she said thoughtfully, grabbing a clean towel that was hanging off an armchair to wrap around her.
"She already offered when you were looking around," he replied, pulling off his shirt and throwing it on the pile. "I don't she enjoyed our muddy boots tracking through her establishment."
Hermione leaned against the doorway, watching him strip without a seed of shame. Bill caught her, raising an eyebrow, "Miss Granger, hasn't anybody told you it's rude to stare?"
She snorted as he mockingly leered at her, the scar across his face flashing slightly. She didn't stop him when he grabbed her hands, pulling her towards him to kiss her deeply.
"Now," he murmured against her lips, "Do you think this bath tub will fit the both of us?"
—
Dinner was a humble beef stew that warmed them right up and filled them. It wasn't often they could eat like this. Thanks to the trace on their magic, it was hard to get their hands on money. Their only funds came through Horntook, a goblin that owed Bill from his time in Curse Breaking. He accessed Bill's vault, taking small amounts at a time before getting the galleons converted to Muggle currency.
Even that had to be used sparingly, mainly on seedy motel rooms and bare minimum meals. Bill's connections and Hermione's experience meant that this period was a step up from her year camping with Harry and Ron during the hunt. She spent many hours lamenting on the fact that Harry had the galleons to keep their comfortable for months, and yet they had battled it out in a cramped tent.
Hindsight and all of that.
Hermione's feet were tucked under her as she worked on the notebook, on pieces of scrap. She transliterated the work while, beside her, Bill put their words she transcribed through the decoder they had made. They both worked on the bed, pressed together with the a small space heater roaring.
After a page was done, they began to fill in the blanks with the runes.
It took three hours for them to fully complete the page, to fill in the gaps and create words that made sense. But they did it.
"Urgent missive," Hermione read, "This notebook is property of Saul Croaker, to be given to the Department of Mysteries at his death. The content of this notebook pertains to that of the Time Room and includes cursed information that will only resonate with those familiar with the subject matter."
Bill frowned. "What is that supposed to mean? Anyone can pick up a book and read about time. Wouldn't that be enough?"
"Resonate," Hermione repeated, tongue tasting the words carefully. "I think it means that anyone who reads this who hasn't experience time travel will be cursed."
Bill swore at her words. "So, only you can read this? I tried every spell I could and I didn't detect a single curse. I'd say it's just a threat."
"But can we risk it?" Hermione said, placing a hand against his chest. "We know now that this is something we can use. It'll just take a little longer to translate the rest on my own. I don't want to risk you getting cursed, Bill."
Bill looked at her, and she could feel his weariness. His shoulders slumped.
"Fine," he relented, "But I can at least do the transliterations. You can do the rest."