Chapter Text
Starman
[Teddy squinted at them for a minute and then laughed quietly. “The prequel you reckon?” ]
Hermione fell to her knees beside Sirius as he collapsed on the floor. There was a dreadful, aching sadness inside her chest, she’d been fighting so hard against it since he opened the door. Finally as he fell, limp and helpless at the end of her wand it won out, and an uncontrollable moan escaped her lips.
Tears splashed down onto her thighs, dark spots on the light denim, as she reached out a hand to move his hair from his face. Stunned and peaceful, just like that first day, the lines of anger relaxed, the recent hard set of his mouth gone, his eyelids closed so she couldn’t see the betrayal there. She could pretend just for a moment that he was asleep. Like that morning, sunlight and skin, ten minutes of sweet denial before this awful day had really begun. She could pretend that he would open his eyes in a moment, bright and sharp and full of hope.
But they wouldn’t be.
When she woke him up they would be sharp alright, sharp and furious, just like they had been moments before.
Hermione didn’t know what to do now. Coming in here had been a terrible mistake. It was obvious to her that Remus had been here after James and Lily were killed, distraught at the realisation that Sirius had betrayed them, he would have thought Peter was dead too.
Remus Lupin, the last marauder, left alone in the dark.
What had he done? She wondered, in those twelve years alone? Had he been here in this room, with only The Prophet for company while the wizarding world had celebrated Voldemort's downfall? The only one feeling like he’d lost everything in that war, not even able to be happy that wizarding society was saved, because that society shunned him so cruelly, and yet he'd fought to save it anyway.
Hermione had never really thought about how separate, how truely lonely he must have felt as everyone rejoiced after Halloween night. All the while he’d lost the three people who’d stood by him for the last ten years.
She wondered why Sirius had never come back here after Azkaban. It was so well hidden, it would have been an excellent place to hide. Maybe he couldn't face it, the reminders of the life he’d lost.
The swirling thoughts of lives ruined forty years ago filled her mind, and made the tears come thicker. But she couldn’t just sit here with him stunned forever, so she tried to channel her thoughts, reminding herself what each of those sacrifices gave them. How they’d all been part of story that got them to where they were now, to equality, to a safe world for the next generation, if the muggles didn’t fuck up the planet of course.
It worked, she felt more focused. She needed Harry here now, they needed to move on from this. She picked up her wand from the floor next to her knee, and took a deep breath, thinking about her kids. Thinking about Rose, so proud of her exam results, of Hugo with his muggle camera up in a tree at the Burrow taking photos of James and Roxanne hurtling through the air on their brooms. She was so proud of them, however distant their relationship was, their existence made her world a brighter place.
“Patronum Nuntius,” she murmured, her children's faces firmly in her mind, and at once a pale twisting otter ghosted from her wand.
Harry, Hermione thought, the translucent otter growing more opaque as she thought the message into it. I’m at Sirius's flat, 75 Parkway, Camden Town, you need to come here now. We have a problem. “Make sure he’s alone,” she said quietly, her voice still thick from emotion, as she addressed the playfully turning otter aloud. It was swimming happily in the air before her as it listened, then with a whip of its tail it swam away across the room, heading directly south west, towards the Ministry, in the centre of London.
Hermione looked down at the prone form of Sirius as it vanished through the wall. She couldn’t stop herself from tracing the arch of his eyebrow, or his bottom lip, the feeling of attachment that had been growing these last few days was so strong now. How was she supposed to say goodbye?
She knelt there, her fingers resting on his warm cheek, feeling like a fool, knowing what she had to do, and knowing how much it was going to hurt. Knowing that her life was going to seem more bleak, more repetitive, and more dull, without the bright light of Sirius Black that she’d been exposed to for the last five days. She never would have thought that Harry's taciturn, traumatised, alcoholic godfather would have been the person to finally show her the bright side of life.
And now, as soon as the sun set, she was going to be responsible for his destruction.
She heard Harry’s footfalls on the staircase outside and her breath caught; grim reality was going to enter the room with Harry. There would be no more delay now. She drew her hand back from Sirius’s face reluctantly. Was that it? The last time she’d ever get to touch him?
“Hermione?” Harry’s voice travelled through the half open door. It was the first time she’d ever been disappointed to hear him. He pushed the door open, it creaked noisily, stiff from nearly forty years of disuse and she turned to watch him enter. His wand held at the ready, eyes sweeping the room as he kept his back to the wall. Auror Potter, she thought fondly, cautious to the last.
“Here,” Hermione said, drawing his attention, since he probably couldn’t see them half hidden by the sofa. “It's safe, but we never should have come here. He knows too much now.” She pointed to the newspaper.
“Oh, shit,” Harry breathed in horror, as he stooped to pick it up and read the headline properly.
“Indeed,” Hermione murmured.
Harry looked at her then. “Are you okay?” he asked, taking in her blotchy face and red eyes.
She shook her head, it was time to be honest. “Not really. I’ve done something stupid, Harry.”
“That’s not like you,” he said cautiously, as he knelt down next to Sirius.
“Hmm,'' Hermione mumbled, finding she couldn’t quite look at her old friend as she admitted this. She looked at the still and silent Sirius instead. “Sirius and I …” she began hesitantly. “We've been – this week has been strange,” she could hear the self-justifying note in her voice, the little plea that Harry wouldn’t think poorly of her. “We’re close –”
“You mean you shagged him?” Harry interrupted, he didn’t sound surprised at all.
“Well, yes ,” Hermione confirmed, a bit shocked at his blasé reaction. “But it’s more than that, at least to me. I'm such an idiot,” she sighed regretfully.
“Yep,” Harry murmured. Giving her a little nudge with his elbow, his eyes were on Sirius too. “You knew he had to go, how dare you make yourself happy for a little while?”
Hermione felt her mouth try to pull up in a smile at this comment, a wash of relief she hadn’t been expecting made her feel slightly better. Harry wasn’t angry, or grossed out, or disappointed in her. “Seriously,” he went on, “it’s been like having the old you back, these last few days. I knew something was up. You seem so … light.” Hermione smiled properly at this, even though the cold clenching of impending heart break was still there in her chest.
Harry’s sad smile reflected her feelings very well as he added. “Remember in our second year of training? We’d just sit around all weekend long, hung over til lunch, then we’d go off on some adventure in the afternoon, and end up in the pub again for tea? It was all so easy. You were so happy then.”
“I guess,” she agreed. For the first half of that year perhaps, but as the second year of Harry and Ron’s Auror training had drawn to a close Ron and Hermione’s relationship had started to fall apart. “We were his age, or nearly.” she nodded to Sirius.
Harry nodded silently and they both sat quietly, Hermione wondered if Harry was feeling just as overwhelmed as she was. “So what's the plan?” He asked eventually.
“Other than me sitting here looking at him and crying, you mean?” Hermione murmured, feeling the tears pricking again at the thought of action.
“Yes,” Harry said softly, his arm going around her shoulders. “Other than that. You’ve done that part already, next step now.”
She took a steadying breath. “I’m going to modify his memory,” she said firmly, trying to convince herself. It felt like such a violation. “It’s the only way.”
“Fuck,” huffed Harry, squeezing her shoulders.
“Yes,” she agreed, emphatically. “I think I've known I would for a while, he’d never be able to not tell us anything.”
“I had wondered if that’s what would happen,” Harry admitted.
“He’s going to h-hate me,” Hermione said, and her voice shook, as it really hit her, what doing this would mean.
“Yeah, but you’ve already lived it,” Harry reminded her kindly. “He clearly didn’t hate you enough to be cruel to you when we met him, or me for that matter.”
This gave Hermione a decent bit of comfort, and then the memory of the sleepy drunk Sirius in the library at Grimmauld Place replayed. “I know you had to, I forgive you.” she could hold on to that, she thought.
She wondered how he’d known to say it then, that it would be one of the last times, or possibly the last time they would be alone together. She realised then, as she tried to think of other times he could have mentioned something, that they had rarely been alone, was that in fact the only time?
It also clearly meant that she didn’t wipe everything away. Confundus maybe, rather than a complete Obliviate.
She did like the Confundus Charm better as far as memory modification went, it was what she’d used on her parents all those years ago. Obliviate had a tendency to stick, wrapped up too deeply inside the mind, according to the research she’d done that first week of summer after sixth year. It had made her too scared to use it on them.
Confundus on the other hand, just blurred bits out, she’d wondered for a long time if this was what Slughorn had done to himself, when he’d given Dumbledore the memory of Riddle's request for information on the Horcruxes. The description Harry had given her certainly matched what she’d seen in her work - witnesses to crimes that hadn’t been protected properly in the early days after the war, Confundus was a much easier charm to master, and criminals looking to cover their actions used it to protect themselves. Unless the witness had legilimency used on them, their secrets were safe, even veritaserum didn’t work as they gave what they believed to be a true version of events from their muddled memory.
The charm on Sirius only had to last six months after all. Once he got to Halloween it didn’t matter what he remembered, the important things were set in motion then. So, maybe she could let him keep some things …
“He still needs to remember to hide the time turner,” Hermione said, thinking it over, “We found a spot in the wall of the alley that we think he used. “We’ll need to get him out of here obviously.” she added.
Harry nodded. “It's so weird that it's all still here. He must have had some strong protective magic on it.”
“I guess we just leave it?” Hermione said sadly, “It’s been here thirty-eight years without anyone noticing, no point in changing it now?”
Harry nodded again. “It might be kind of nice,” he looked around, “to look at his stuff, know a bit more.” He waved a hand in the direction of the bookshelf with its record collection, half spilled on the floor. “Music, the happy part of his life,” he shrugged, a bit awkwardly. “Now that I feel like I know the person that lived here.”
Hermione shook her head. “I don't think I could ever come back up here,” she said quietly. “You should have seen him, I thought he was going to curse me. He was so furious, it was frightening.”
“Okay,” Harry said after a moment, clearly deciding they needed to move on. He looked at his watch. “Teddy should be here in about ten minutes, he just had to wait for the evening shift to arrive.”
Hermione had forgotten what a hard run the third year Auror cadets had. Full time training plus on call roster. Teddy would have had a dreadful day after his night of revelry and tequila.
Harry got to his feet, and looked around again. “Is it weird that I want to tidy it up a bit?” he grimaced slightly. “He didn’t do this now, right?”
“No,” Hermione assured him, it was like this when we came in. “I think Remus must have been here, after he was arrested. That's the only way the paper could have been here right?“
Harry glanced at the smashed tea cup. “We know he’s got a temper,” he put his hand to his chest, as if remembering, and Hermione realised he was. He was thinking of the basement kitchen in Grimmauld Place. When he had accused Remus of playing the hero, of wanting to be like Sirius. It seemed to hit her much harder now, how much that must have hurt Remus, his brazen brilliant friend that had been lost twice over, and there was Harry who’d never known the real Sirius, taunting Remus with him. No wonder he’d snapped and flung Harry against the wall, just like that little broken tea cup.
“We’ll have to wait til it’s dark and then take him down to the alley,” Hermione said, turning and reaching out for her handbag that she’d tossed aside in her dash to get the paper out of Sirius’s hands. “Because he has to take his bike back with him, so I’ll do the memory charm while he’s knocked out.”
Harry sighed heavily and she wished he wouldn’t. She didn’t need to be reminded how shit this all was. “What about the time turner?” He asked.
“I’ve got a plan,” she said sadly, as she fished the golden chained hourglass from her bag. Then she picked up her wand again from the floor beside her knee and took a deep breath. She needed to focus on the enchantment she’d memorised from the old book that morning. This type of magic always creeped her out a bit. She’d only learned about it properly since she found that little book in the Ministry library, all about the power that linked blood and magic with ancient parts of the earth. Gold, glass and sand, all of the earth, easy to tie to her, bind to her magic.
She took aim with her wand, not at the little golden hourglass, but at her palm. She heard Harry’s shocked intake of breath as she cast a very precise ‘ Diffindo’ and a red line welled with blood across the mound of flesh at the base of her thumb. It stung sharply, she’d cut it deeper than she meant too.
“Hermione!” Harry exclaimed, his voice shocking her with its volume in their quiet space. “What – ”
But she didn’t answer. Her hand really hurt, so she wiped the blood across the time turner quickly, a smear of crimson on gold and glass. She murmured the ancient words from the book, and wondered for a moment just how much she’d really known that something would go wrong today.
“Will you explain now?” Harry said frustratedly, as he pointed his own wand at her still bleeding hand, and healed it instantly.
“I’ve tied it to me,” Hermione murmured, relaxing as the pain in her hand vanished. Thank goodness for Harry. “No one else can use it now.”
“How do you know it will work?” He asked sceptically, and she couldn’t blame him, it still looked exactly the same.
She held it out. “One way to check, I suppose.”
Harry took it in his hand, and tried to turn it, but it was like it had become fused, none of the parts moved any more. He pushed harder, blunt nailed fingertips on the fragile rings, his strong hands clearly trying their best, but nothing happened. It was solid. Not done, he picked up his wand. “Finite Incantatem,” he said firmly, and the time turner glowed. For a moment Hermione worried that it hadn’t worked after all, but when he tried to turn it again it was still as solid as anything. “Any other reversing charms I could try?”
“There’s Origolocus or … even Aufero Maxima ?”
Harry tried both of these, with no result. He gave it back to her and the moment it made contact with her skin the golden rings loosened. Like the little object had relaxed.
“I’m still amazed by you,” Harry said quietly, sounding slightly amused. “Even after thirty years.”
She smiled ruefully at him. “I’m much better at breaking the law than I should be.”
“Inside job?” Harry teased.
“Something like that. Although you're going to be the one to actually deceive them,” she aimed her wand at the time turner again. “Geminio.” A second, completely identical time turner burst forth. “The blood magic won't be on this one,” Hermione said, “because it’s not really gold, just an imitation, so the magic won’t bind to it.” She gave it to Harry and the rings spun easily.
- “Great,” he said, standing upright to pocket it. “Hopefully the real one is there though, don’t fancy being on Madam Lincoln’s bad side.”
“No,” Hermione agreed, ominously. “She doesn’t suffer fools.”
She looked back at Sirius again, still and peaceful, his loose hair splayed on the dusty carpet. Was she really going to rummage around in his mind and take this week from him? He’d been so open about the fact that he’d needed the break, that he’d felt better about Marlene after talking with her. Would taking this all away also take away his progress with his grief? And what about the spell shock, would it mess with that too? Would she be responsible for prolonging his recovery?
There was a decent bit of fear building in her chest as she wondered if the slightly manic personality he’d had when she’d known him in the 90’s was actually due to her meddling, not just a decade of imprisonment.
While she had this internal battle Harry had wandered over to the record shelf and was actually tidying up, opting to distract himself from this horrible situation with busy work.
“Legilimens,” she murmured, her wand close to Sirius’s temple. All at once she began to see his unguarded thoughts in her mind's eye. The memories of their confrontation; her tear-stained face, the trembling front page of The Prophet held in his hand. “ Confundus,” she whispered, and at once it was gone, clouded and vague, only a feeling of unease left in its wake.
Then she pushed further, the motorway into London, their clasped hands on the gear stick. The bright sunshine in France, the vibrant green hills, Harry and Teddy next to his bike in the driveway.
“Confundus.”
Only the sound of laughter left. Then with a bit of a shock she saw the memory of herself, dress askew in that golden lit bedroom. Her wand shook slightly.
“ Confundus.”
“Confundus,” she hissed out, as their rushed fumble in the muggy buanderie presented itself in quick succession. Like his unconscious mind had linked the two moments. Then clouds of pale dust, and Teddy lying on the drive.
“ Confundus.”
Sitting on the lawn under the big ash tree, green grass and red wine, the first day there, then laughing in the dark as he danced with Teddy on that same lawn, beer bottle in hand. She let him keep those. The memories were getting tangled now, she was finding it hard to pick out the important bits. There was pouring rain on the windshield of the car and icing sugar on his fingers.
Then suddenly a funeral, a flower-covered coffin in front of them, and a young Remus Lupin on his right. Hermione was shocked to see that Remus was quite trendy, his sandy hair was longish and curly and there was a little silver sleeper in his ear. A pale, jagged scar crossed his cheek making him look slightly dangerous, even though Hermione knew he was anything but.
There was an oppressive weight of loss pressing on Sirius’s mind, she could feel it, and then a jostling, and James Potter had an arm around him from the left. Lily, red-eyed and miserable at his side.
But then she was looking at herself on the sofa watching telly. “ Confundus.”
Then a blurry disjointed memory of cold bed sheets, carnal sensation and building pleasure but tainted with sadness, or dread maybe. Hermione thought it must have been a memory of Marlene but there was no mistaking that long curly hair strewn across the pillow, it was the bane of her life. Her wand shook worse than ever and the legitimacy spell wavered and broke.
He’d been sad when they were together last night?
She sniffed, not altogether surprised that there were tears on her face again.
She tried again, focusing better this time, getting the recent memories, hoping that it would be enough, because even after the spell lifted her hands kept shaking and she felt drained. Guilt and fear roiling inside her she stood, wiping at her face with trembling hands. Looking over at Harry and his tidy stack of records.
He didn’t say anything as she caught his eye, just smiled sadly. Then there were footsteps out on the stairs and he immediately drew his wand.
“Harry?” Teddy’s voice called, cautiously. Harry pulled the door open wider to meet him.
“Ted, in here,” he said.
Teddy entered the room with his wand out too, very much the careful Auror. Hermione found it easy to forget that he was nearly qualified now. It really didn’t seem like four years had passed since he’d left Hogwarts. “You alright Hermione? Harry rushed off, said there was an emergency.”
“It's fine,” she said, disliking her quavery voice. "Sirius came in here, he saw too much. I've had to alter his memory."
“Oh,” Teddy said, looking down at the stunned Sirius on the floor. “So he won't remember me now?”
“I’ve left him some bits and pieces,” Hermione explained. “He’ll know that he met you, I think he’ll know who you are.”
“Okay,” Teddy breathed, sounding relieved. “What’s with the spooky third dimension corridor out there?” He gestured with this thumb back out into the hallway. “We’re not all in ‘81 or something mad, right?”
Hermione felt the ghost of a real smile lift her face. She hadn’t thought of it like that, but this was a real time capsule. “No,” she said. “He just had war-strength security charms cast all over it. The muggles don’t even know it exists.”
There was a moment of silence then as Teddy looked around the room and Hermione's eyes drifted back to Sirius. The young man who’d been tossed out of time from the middle of a war, paranoid and grieving, and yet somehow, had brightened all of their lives.
“Look,” Harry said, drawing their attention and holding up two of the records, clearly trying to lighten the mood.
Teddy squinted at them for a minute and then laughed quietly. “The prequel you reckon?”
Harry showed them to Hermione; the cartoonish cover art of Ziggy Stardust , and the graffitied toilet stall of the Rolling Stones Beggars Banquet .
“If only they’d known the corny campiness in their future," Hermione said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get that song out of my head now.” She hoped that she’d never lose the image in her mind of Teddy and Sirius and their ridiculous dancing efforts last night. No matter how sad she was, she was pretty sure that would make her smile forever.
They spent the next hour in an odd limbo. Hermione ended up washing the dishes, a plate and glass tumbler, so dust-encrusted she had to magic the water to boiling to get them clean. She threw away the broken tea cup from the floor. Then she wiped the counter down, it was so thick with dust that she threw the tea towel in the bin as well. She cast a few cleaning spells over the little room and vanished the mouldy bread in the larder, and a glass bottle of horrifically congealed milk in the fridge. Real bachelor, Hermione thought, there was nothing else in the cupboards. Only a nearly empty whiskey bottle next to the mouldy bread.
Harry had found Sirius's gramophone, and set the needle on The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars . Its wistful, zingy aura fitted their bizarre situation. Sirius was still lying stunned on the floor, and it wasn’t until the windows grew dark, and Harry tried flicking the light switch – with no result, as the power bill hadn’t been paid for thirty eight years – that they all seemed to realise it was time.
Harry did the honours, levitating the limp Sirius out of the room and down the stairs. Hermione took one last look around. It made her feel better now that it looked nicer in there, less forgotten, no more cobwebs, Bowie still sitting on the turntable, silent now, but like it was just waiting for someone to come home. She closed the door, and cast the strongest colloportus she could manage over it. Then followed Harry and Teddy and the drifting Sirius down the stairs.
By the time she reached them, both Harry and Teddy had one of Sirius’s arms slung over their shoulders, gripping his dangling hands tightly to keep him in place as they manoeuvred out the door. There were quite a few muggles around; Camden was a busy place in the evening.
A couple of muggles threw them concerned glances and Hermione wished they’d thought to use the cloak. Sirius’s head lolled and his feet dragged along the pavement as they moved as quickly as they could towards the alley. But Teddy, quick on the uptake as always, said cajolingly in a loud voice, as if talking to Sirius. “Told you five tequila shooters in a row was a bad idea, mate!” and they got into the alley without any actual questions.
They went all the way down to the disillusioned motorbike, and Hermione, who’d managed to pull herself together quite spectacularly, said. “Okay, hold him still. Remember, he’ll be confused, but he should still know us.”
“ Enervate .”
Sirius's eyes flickered, and his drooping head lifted, his feet shifted slightly, as they tried to take his weight. “Urgh,” he groaned, gaze landing on Hermione and her drawn wand at once. “Are we really back to stunning, woman? I thought we’d moved past that?”
Hermione nearly laughed, glad she hadn’t taken this snarky part of his personality away, “Not quite,” she said.
He looked groggy, blinking as he looked at Harry on his left and then Teddy on his right. “All come to see me off then?” He shook his head, as if testing it. “ Fuck . Why did you stun me? Merlin’s tits my head hurts.”
“Sorry, I was worried you were going to run away now that we're back in London,” Hermione quickly improvised.
He sniffed slightly as he pulled his arms free, then he rubbed at his head, like he was trying to iron the headache out of his forehead. “Were we in France?”
Hermione nodded. “We were, but only briefly. I nearly ran you over on your bike remember? When you arrived with Mr Potter’s time turner.”
He was studying her face intently, a little smile growing. “Yeah,” he said, vaguely. “Stunned me then too. I met you two there,” he said, smiling properly. “Harry,” he grinned, “and … Remus’s boy … Teddy,” he said after a moment's thought and Teddy beamed back.
“That's right,” Teddy said. “Remember me, when you get home, and look after my dad?”
“I will,” Sirius promised. “Whose kid are you?” He asked Hermione suddenly.
“No one you know,” Hermione said. “Do you remember the plan with the time turner?”
He was still watching her so intently that she didn’t know if he was actually listening, until he nodded. “Lemniscate?” he asked, “the infinity symbol, was that …?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “That’s right. Over there on the wall.” She pointed behind the big skip bin. “When you’re home, magic the brick out of the wall and put the time turner in there, and then seal it back up and mark it. We have to be able to give it back to the Ministry. Tell James we're sorry his dad’s one is ruined. It’s in your bag.” Hermione pointed to the disillusioned shape of the bike, where Sirius's rucksack was strapped to the back above the wheel.
“I’m going to set the date for you,” Hermione said, as she pulled the blood-magicked time turner from her bag. Not able to to think about anything else except getting this over and done with.
Then suddenly Harry was hugging Sirius who staggered slightly, but returned it enthusiastically, before Teddy joined in. Long arms around them both, his usually cheerful face so very sombre as he caught Hermione’s eye.
“Do your best,” Harry said, to Sirius. “You were a great godfather.” His gruff voice shook, and Hermione’s resolve wavered a little, but he wasn’t done yet. “Thanks Sirius, for everything you did, or do, I suppose it is, I don’t think I ever told you that. But I was always so grateful to have you.”
“I’ll remember that,'' Sirius said, looking rather touched, but then he added ruefully. “When you're being a cheeky little shit.”
Harry laughed, but it was broken, a dry half-sob.
Hermione stepped forward to hug Sirius then. She’d kept such a careful distance, but she just couldn't any more. He pulled her to him instantly, naturally, like he’d been waiting for it, and fleetingly she worried that she hadn’t taken enough of his memories of their time together.
He squeezed her tight and murmured in her ear. “I wish we’d had more time, I won't forget last night,” and she realised that the Legilimency spell had broken halfway through that memory, she hadn’t blurred it enough. Although, even in its original version it wasn't that clear anyway.
Tequila: Confundus in a bottle.
As she went to pull away he kissed her cheek. “Thanks, for everything,” he said earnestly.
“You’re welcome,” she replied, catching those sharp eyes that she knew would be with her forever. And hoping that his gratitude meant that she had managed to preserve the progress he’d made mentally while with her in France.
“Better go and win this war then, eh?” Sirius said, his voice was quite brittle as he held out a hand for the time turner. But Hermione reached out, putting the long golden chain over his head, making him dip slightly to make it easier for her. She couldn’t stop her fingers from brushing the sides of his throat as she drew them away. Then he walked the couple of steps to his bike, still unsteady on his feet, either from stunning or Confundus. Hermione wasn’t sure.
“If you sit on the bike, I'll set the date,” she told him.
Dutifully, he swung a leg over the motorbike, and then leaned over to the side, stretching his body back, to pull his wand awkwardly from the front pocket of his jeans. Harry must have stowed it there when they brought him downstairs. He bent forward and slipped it down inside his clunky boot next to his ankle.
“Right,” he said with a bracing, fatalistic kind of sigh. “I’m ready.”
Hermione gulped and looked at Harry who had his arms crossed and his lips pressed together firmly. Teddy too, was still looking very serious.
Hermione reached out to lift the golden hourglass from where it rested against his chest and set to work; the outer ring for the year, the middle for the month, and the smallest one for the date, 16th May 1981.
Then she spun the hourglass in the centre and at once the magic was obvious, pearly light emanating from the device, like a little torch in the dark alley.
And then without so much as a pop, he was gone. Faded from view, like he’d never been there at all.
“Come on.” It was Harry who broke the dragging, stunned silence, looking at Teddy.
Teddy was standing dumbly, just like Hermione, not quite present. “Help me shift this skip, we need to get a move on, you know Ginny hates when we're late for Thursday dinner. Are you coming tonight, Hermione?”
She smiled, her face feeling strange and numb as she did so. A home cooked dinner did sound good. “I might actually.” She was trying very hard to hold it together as Harry pushed on the skip and its wheels squeaked and bumped on the cobbled alley floor. She thought about her children again; that’s what this was all about after all. “I’m going to go and see the kids tomorrow, since I've still got three days of holiday left.” Harry looked back at her, clearly very pleased with this idea.
“I don’t know why Ginny makes such a fuss about us being late,” Teddy muttered, as they lit their wands to find the right brick in the dark. “It’s not like Mum and Dad are ever on time either. Mum’s always faffing about at the last minute, winds Dad up no end.”
Harry grinned and nodded, his fond smile caught in the light of Hermione's wand. “They always do seem to be rushing in the door.”
Then he blinked and shook his head, suddenly confused. Hermione felt it too.
Something was different…
End of Part One.