[FIC] You and Me and the Rain (Tonks/Hermione, R)
TITLE: You and Me and The Rain
AUTHOR: eudaimon
DISCLAIMER: None of this, not even the holes in Charlie Weasley’s Quidditch jersey, or little Bill's ballerina frills are mine.
PAIRING: Hermione/Tonks (though, because of communiquills , I’m incapable of calling Tonks Tonks. Forgive).
RATING: R. Most definitely R.
WORD COUNT: 8896
WARNINGS: Character death(s). A year from one end of the world to another.
SUMMARY: Love is watching someone die.
A/N: betaed to perfection by pre_raphaelite1. Any mistakes are, deplorably, my own. Written for redpiratemel as part of witchwinter's femmeslash...bash. x-posted with her permission.
Nobody else here baby
No-one here to blame
No-one to point the finger
It’s just you and me and the rain
- u2
On her belly in the dirt she waited until she realised that the ringing was in her and not the world. Still, she lay motionless for a time, until the edges of burnt clothing cooled, until Kingsley came to gather blistered skin into a blanket, and all the time, one thought.
Oh, mate, I’m sorry I didn’t feel more.
-
In the middle of the bed, the pitched roof of the attic room, she sat stripped to the waist, hunched over her knees, curled in around her own breasts, while behind her Ron puffed and swore and dabbed her with ointment which smelt like chamomile tea tasted. Breathing was difficult. She felt crushed, smaller than she had before. Charlie set on the bed beside her, tears running numbly down his face. She tried to say something, couldn’t. Her voice felt like a frail, fluttering thing, its wings caught in her throat. It felt so alien that it made her cough, and Charlie thumped her on the shoulder, which hurt more than it should and, unbidden, came the memory of sneaking her dad’s cigarettes behind the fourth greenhouse, fifteen years old.
“You’re not helping, Charlie,” Ron said, still dabbing, wiping, piecing her back together, almost a doctor, nearly enough. “Dora, drink your tea. It’ll help.” She sipped the hot liquid.
It took a long time; Ron was smoothing plaster across the more burnt places on her back. It took a long time, but, finally, she managed it.
“Hermione.” Even her name sounded burnt, coming past charred lips. Later, Dora wouldn’t be able to say why it was Hermione’s name that came first when she wanted to know if they’d been told; why not Harry or Fleur or Molly? None of them…just Her-mi-one like a song.
“I went and told her,” Charlie was saying. “Brought her home. She’s with Harry…She…isn’t taking it so well.”
Which made Dora feel colder and more cruel than she had before, burnt and wizened by smoke and heat until she couldn’t bear her own weight.
The day that Remus Lupin died.
-
Grimmauld Place had a malevolent, sour feel, and she was always cold. You don’t belong here, said the walls. Or you do, and that’s the problem, isn’t it, Nymphadora…scared of fitting too well? She dressed herself in layers to dull the noise, her dad’s old jumpers, Charlie’s socks. Molly’s constant cups of tea and fussing were almost welcome. She’d never really liked tea. She was twenty seven when Remus died. She sat staring into her cup and wondering about how grief could feel so much like relief. She thought of the pencil mark count which her mother kept in the back of an old exercise book hidden in dad’s shed. One mark for Remus, now. Yeah, it was almost a relief. They’d been waiting so long for the next one. There had been such a lot of loss. Dumbledore, the Diggory boy whose face she only knew from Auror reports…Severus Snape and Sirius Sirius Sirius. She glanced at the heavy clock on the wall, a split second before it began to strike twelve. With a sigh, she heaved herself up out of the soft chair and sank down beside the fire, wrapping herself around herself, ignoring the pull in her back. She turned up the collar of her jumper against the sound of pouring rain and watched as the fire resolved into her old dad’s handsome face.
“Wotcher, Dad.”
“’ello, Dora.” It was nice to hear his voice, harsh and whispery as it was, forced through the embers. “Is that my jumper, Dragonfly?” She plucked at moss green wool, riddled with holes.
“Yeah. Mom was throwing it away.” In the fire, Ted shrugged or seemed to shrug.
“This isn’t about jumpers, Dora. We heard. We wish you’d come home.”
“I can’t just come home, Dad. There’s a lot to do here.”
“But your mother and I are very…we know how much Remus…we just wish that you were here, Dora.”
“I will be soon, Dad. It’ll be Christmas soon and…y’know…there are lots of people here, Dad, and the less time I spend at home the better and…” Even her own jokes tasted forced. She could hear her mother’s voice in the background, a hum, a buzz of sparks. “Tell Mom not to worry either. Tell her…we’re looking after each other.”
A noise in the garden, loud enough that she heard it over the sound of the storm; someone tripping over the rusting wrought iron furniture which Harry and Ron had dragged during the summer, trying to approximate what home might feel like, if it was there, down in the dark. Sensing that worrying (or, at least, obviously worrying) would do him no good, her dad had launched into his usual Leeds report; her mother, the cats, Charlemagne the train. Dora’s attention had drifted. She’d turned on every light in the sitting room, the better to hide the sofa’s clawed feet in shadow (everything in that house had claws). Light spilled through the big windows out into the garden, the garden which Sirius had cleared himself, muttering all the time about life finding ways and means. The rain showed up against the dark and Hermione, soaking wet, her hair streaming, holding out her arms. Dora found herself staring, not listening to her dad talk, something about derailment, just watching Hermione turn slowly in the pouring rain.
“Dad. Dad, I’m going to have to go, Dad. Tell Mom I’ll call, Dad…Dad. I’ll be home for Christmas, Dad.”
Dora paused over her boots, fumbling with her laces while the sparks settled in the hearth. Her dad’s jumper, Charlie’s socks. Sirius’ boots.
Her entire life was made up of borrowed pieces.
“Hermione?”
“Hmm?”
“Hermione, love, the rain. Mate, you’ll catch a chill.” Hermione’s shirt had soaked transparent, and Dora couldn’t look away from the slope of her back down to the waistband of her tweed skirt. Her long tawny hair stuck in flat curls across her shoulders, to the side of her face. With the light pouring over her, the rain bouncing off her, she shone and reminded Dora of something, though she couldn’t put her finger on what just then. “Hermione, sweetheart, come in.”
When Hermione opened her eyes and stopped turning, Dora could see that she’d been crying. She hadn’t seen before because of the rain. She dragged her dad’s green jumper over her head, draped it around Hermione’s shoulders like a shawl. The rain soaked through her t-shirt quickly; she heard Ron’s voice scolding her about damp dressings, and then her scalp tightened as her hair shrank through a rainbow.
“You’re beautiful,” said Hermione, meaning he’s dead.
“I know,” said Dora, answering the wrong thing. “Just come inside love. Please.”
“Okay,” Hermione said and let Dora lead her.
-
“Oh God, oh God…I’m so very, horribly drunk.” She was still crying, pulling ineffectually at the buttons of her wet blouse. The thin (cheap) fabric clung across the neat swell of her breasts. Dora felt herself flush, not just from the radiating heat of the fire. Her skin stung as her drying shirt plastered across her shoulders. Hermione was a vision, flushed, damp eyed and damp lipped. God, it had been such a long time since girls. Too much of a good thing is as bad as none at all. Hermione twisted the weight of her long hair up from the nape of her neck, and the way it stretched the muscles in her arms, made arches of the lines of her back and neck…
“When did you get so beautiful, Hermione?” Which was another way of saying when did you grow up without me noticing?
Hermione made one of the fluttering fingers dismissive gestures that she’d perfected in a house full of boys. She pulled at her blouse again, her hair falling across her face.
“Oh…for fuck’s…sake.” A hiccupping sob shook her. Dora fought the urge not to laugh; capable Hermione Granger, jewel of the Department for Lost Spells, capable, clever, flummoxed by a damp shirt.
“Sit still." Carefully, very aware of the way that breathing changed Hermione’s shape, Dora picked open the white buttons. It was the kind of blouse that a little girl might wear for school. Beneath it, in black lace, Hermione’s breasts were like everything else about her: neat, exact. Dora pushed the wet fabric down over her arms. The curls stuck to Hermione’s shoulders looked painted on, showed up gold in the glowing light. That was it. She sat back on her heels and looked at Hermione in her black bra and her tweed skirt, her hair in curls and disarray. She reminded Dora of a painting she’d seen in a book which her mom had, once. She didn’t look quite real in her angles and her lines, her soft glow.
“Do you know…” said Hermione, in the heightened conversational tone of the really, truly drunk, “How long it’s been since anybody saw me in my bra?” Dora shrugged. “It was Ron and I was seventeen years old. That summer with the Horcruxes. That summer when we all did things because we thought that the world was ending.” Oh, mate, I’m sorry that I didn’t feel more. “What I remember most about that summer is this house,” she said. “This house and you.”
“Me?”
“You. You don’t have any idea what…watching you is like, do you, Dora. You’re like…something loud happening in a quiet room. The world can’t stay the same because it echoes, see?” She moved her hands, trying to shape what she was saying. “I was with Ron and it…it was nice but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t, and I seemed to spend my entire time watching you. I remember everything, Dora. I remember every single thing.”
“You’re very drunk, Hermione.”
“I am, but it isn’t…don’t you see? It isn’t the point, Dora.” She was fumbling behind her now. The waistband of her tweed skirt dug in to pale skin and Dora found herself picturing Hermione’s belly button above the waistband of knickers which would, undoubtedly, be black. “There was a day when I came downstairs and you were sitting on the counter in the kitchen talking to Remus, and your shirt had ridden up and you were wearing…turquoise knickers, and I remember never seeing anything like it, and I remember being so jealous of him.”
“Of Remus?” Hermione nodded, still fumbling behind her back.
“Because he’d probably bought them for you. I was seventeen…I didn’t have to be rational.”
“You? Were the most rational seventeen year old that I have ever met.”
“Yes. Well. That’s not really the point, is it?”
“Apparently not.” Suddenly, she needed a drink.
“You made me feel like such a little girl,” said Hermione, finally, abandoning the catch of her bra and pushing the straps down her arms, the tilt of her breasts keeping the fabric gathered and in place. “You made me feel like something waiting to happen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be…just…just help me with this.” Not knowing what she was doing, not sure why, Dora reached around Hermione and unhooked the triple catch of her bra. It was like riding (or falling off) a bike; Hermione’s bra was Angelina’s bra was the bra that Charlie had worn for a panto was all bras. Nothing mystical to it. She felt her breath catch, at the sight of Hermione’s bare breasts, her nipples pale pink. She felt like a cliché, but still, it was difficult to breathe, as black lace dropped to the carpet.
“What are we doing, Hermione?” said Dora, as Hermione leant forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth, the corner, a sweet and off centre kiss. ‘You’re drunk, we shouldn’t.”
“I’m drunk and we should.” she said. “I’m not jealous of him anymore, Dora.”
“Oh, God.” Dora spilled forward against Hermione, crushed a kiss against her lips, pressed Hermione’s breasts against her t-shirt still damp in spots from the rain. And there it was. Suddenly, Dora couldn’t breathe for feeling.
“I have wanted to kiss you for years,” said Hermione, breathless, burnished.
“But why now?”
“Death makes us brave.” She stood up, a little clumpy in her librarian’s shoes. “Does this door lock?” Dora nodded. She still wanted a beer, found herself staring up at Hermione from below, as she worked her heavy skirt down over her thighs. She was so beautiful in that particular light. A fire in every bedroom kept Molly fussing.
God bless Molly Weasley, and all who sailed on her.
Hermione’s knickers were black and barely there, a touch of pink ribbon, unexpected, lovely. They didn’t quite match her bra, which was even more perfect.
In the bed, they moved more slowly, Hermione in her knickers, Dora still in her jeans, her t-shirt, Charlie’s socks. If Dora had ever thought of Hermione that way (and, guiltily, with Remus, she had), she’d expected her to be a typical Gryffindor virgin, white cotton panties, pulling faces, hiding in pillows. What she’d never imagined, with Remus or otherwise, was Hermione’s body above her, Hermione lifting her neat breasts with her hands.
“Christ you’re drunk,” she said, meaning God when did you get so beautiful and how did we get here? She ran her hands over Hermione’s arse, lace catching on her palms. The tweed skirts weren’t doing Hermione any justice. Dora’ own figure was the product of years of careful study; her mom’s eyebrows and ankles, Aunt Julie’s breasts (bigger than Hermione’s), Minerva McGonagall’s tidy waist. That Hermione came out perfect, just perfect, first time, was something of a marvel. As Hermione shifted down her, pushed her shirt up and kissed bare skin, Dora thought about how a lot of this was whiskey and grief and regret. She wondered if not telling Hermione to stop made her a bad person.
When Hermione peeled her shirt up over her head, cotton caught on the edges of sticking plaster. Hermione tutted and kissed the singed edges of burns. Dora was braless and Hermione pressed her breasts together, kissed and licked her nipples hard, blew across damp skin. Dora wriggled under Hermione’s weight.
“Stay still,” said Hermione, fumbling with the conundrum that was Dora’ button fly. She lifted her legs to squirm out of her jeans, caught herself smiling as Hermione ran her hands down bare thighs. Her own knickers were green satin and Hermione’s fingers skittered over the shiny fabric. She found herself wishing that she’d shaved her legs more recently - it had been so long since she’d needed to. Hermione leant down against her, kissing her deeply, her hips pressing Dora down into the mattress. Hermione flicked her nipple with her tongue, kissed down between her breasts, spread her thighs around Hermione’s hips. Hermione reached between them, traced her finger over the dampness on the front of her knickers. Dora tried to buck her hips, couldn’t, pinned in place as she was. Suddenly, she had the feeling that she was quietly, yet very firmly, being ambushed.
Between her legs, Hermione pressed her lips to damp satin. Dora closed her eyes, let out her breath shakily. Hermione started to peel Dora’s knickers down around her thighs. Dora got up on her elbows, glanced down between her own legs. Neat dark hair. Hermione draped green silk across Dora’ belly, straightened up to work her own underwear down. Between her thighs, Hermione was almost blond.
“You’re not what I thought you’d be.”
Hermione bent down to kiss Dora’ belly, her hand between her own thighs.
“You thought that I’d be all innocent and then you found out that I was…fantasizing about your knickers?” Hermione grinned, shifted to lie between Dora’ legs. Dora lifted her leg to drape it over Hermione’s slender shoulder. She raised her hips as Hermione spread her cunt with her fingers.
“You make me want to do filthy things,” said Hermione, every word a sucking kiss between Dora’ legs that made her squirm. “All of my life, I’ve wanted to do filthy things.”
“You’re twenty one years old, Hermione. You’re…ah…you’ve very young.”
“You’re thinking about normal years, Dora. War years cut your life in half.”
“Come here, pretty girl…” Gently, Dora reached down and disengaged Hermione from between her legs, drawing her up to lie beside her. She kissed Hermione’s damp lips. “Gorgeous, daft girl.” She rolled Hermione’s body against hers, breasts pressed against breasts.
“M’not gorgeous. M’clever.”
“You can be both, Hermione,” said Dora, stifling a yawn, kissing both of Hermione’s eyelids, still dying for a beer.
-
“Headache?”
“Mmph.”
“Poor baby.”
“Can I get in there with you?”
“I think there’s room for a skinny piece like you.”
The Blacks had never embraced Muggle technology; no showers, but the baths were deep and round. Dora lay in the hot water, short hair slicked back, and watched Hermione, her long hair corkscrewing, wrapped in Dora’ mom’s old robe, black silk, printed flowers.
“Are you working today?”
Dora shook her head.
“We’ve got bury Remus by sun-down.”
“Are you going to say something? Later, I mean.”
“Possibly, probably. The water’s getting cold,” she said, meaning I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
With her back to the tub, Hermione shimmied out of Andromeda’s robe. Dora hunched up, anticipating Hermione’s legs folding against her own. She was surprised when, gently but insistently, Hermione slid between her legs. Dora hooked one knee over the edge of the tub to make room as Hermione settled into the curve of her. She wrapped one arm across Hermione’s chest, palming her breast idly.
“I half expected you to be all penitent and reluctant this morning.”
“I am never drinking again.”
“That isn’t what I meant, Hermione.”
“I know.”
“No regrets?”
Hermione twisted, pressed her mouth against Dora’ at an odd angle; the kiss was crooked but it held.
“I am never drinking again.”
Dora punched her nipple, grinning.
Outside, there was still rain falling.
-
After the bath, Hermione draped herself in Andromeda’s old robe while Dora toweled her thick hair. Hermione studied herself critically in the mirror, cupped her neat breasts through satin.
“I wish that these were bigger.” Behind her, Dora turned sideways, arching her back to stick out her own bust. She was still naked. “It’s alright for you though, isn’t it? You can be whatever you want.”
Dora went back to combing the snarls out of Hermione’s hair.
“Mmph.”
Hermione was chewing the nail on her little finger.
“What do you look like really?” Dora’ eyebrow twitched.
“I…” When Nymphadora Dora was fifteen years old, she had made a list of her faults, the better to hide them. “No, Hermione. No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“…Dora.”
Dora took a deep breath.
“Okay. Alright,” Clever girl, always questions. Questions are exhausting, pretty girl. “But let me get dressed first. One should never humiliate one’s self knickerless.”
The corner of Hermione’s serious mouth lifted.
“Okay.”
-
“On your head be it, Hermione Granger,” said Dora, tugging self consciously at the hem of her t-shirt. “If you see me and filthy things are no longer on your mind, on your…bloody…head.”
Hermione pouted through a curtain of damp hair.
“Okay, okay.” Dora closed her eyes and took a deep breath and tingled as she changed.
“Oh,” said Hermione. Dora opened her eyes and studied herself in the long mirror, its frame draped with scarves and plastic beads. Her mom’s eyebrows, Auntie Julie’s breasts, Minerva McGonagall’s trim waist. “You’re a bit taller, aren’t you?”
Dora nodded.
“An inch and a half taller than Charlie.”
“Mmm.” Hermione turned to brush her fingers through shoulder length mousey hair, down over narrow shoulders and narrow hips. She pressed the flats of her hands to barely there breasts and ran her fingers delicately down Dora’ ribs. She tucked her hands into the back pockets of Dora’ jeans. “Why, Dora…You have absolutely no bottom to speak of.” Fighting a smile, Dora slapped Hermione’s own ample arse hard enough to make her squeak.
“Bitch. And who says bottom anymore, anyway?” Hermione pushed her hips flush against Dora’. On tiptoes, she pressed her lips to Dora’, with a touch of teeth.
“Perhaps. I think I’ll keep you anyway. Lack of bo…arse not withstanding.”
“Oh, thank God,” said Dora, rolling her eyes and pushing her hand between them, curving fingers to feel where Hermione was still wet. “I…”
Right on cue, the doorbell rang.
“Shit. Bugger.” She ran her damp thumb over Hermione’s bottom lip. “Hold that thought, pretty girl.”
“I’m not-“
When Dora opened the door, her dad was perched against the banister, reading the football scores on the back page of the newspaper. There was a hole in the chest of his jumper. His reading glasses were too far down his nose. Of all things, Ted Dora was a blissful constant.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Ello, Dragonfly, I…” He looked up.
“It isn’t polite to stare, Dad. And a fly is going to fly in there and take up residence and then Mom’ll banish you to the shed forever, and…”
“I’m sorry, Dora. I’d forgotten what you looked like.”
“Bollocks, you. Fancy a cuppa?” She pushed her hand through pink hair, making it spike.
“Well, I shouldn’t…” He held up a knotted carrier bag from a Muggle supermarket. “I just dropped by to bring these from your mother for tonight…afterwards, I mean, and there’s a match on, and…”
“There’s a TV in the kitchen, Dad.”
“OK…well, maybe a quick one, then.”
-
“Honest to God cats, Dora. Cats.”
“Cats? How awful.” Her dad regarded her balefully over the rim of his mug.
“It is not nice to take the piss out of your father, Dora.”
“Yes, Daddy. Ooh, look. You’re a goal down.”
“Dora.”
“Can…I have a cup?” Hermione was standing in the doorway from the bedroom, still wearing Andromeda’s dressing gown, her hair twisted up from the nape of her neck. Dora watched a flicker of recognition go across her dad’s face, for the robe if not the girl.
“Of course you can.” Dora got up to make Hermione a cup of tea. “What did I tell you earlier, Dad? Flies. Lots of flies, Dad.”
“Sorry, Dragonfly. I was just wondering if you were going to pretend I wasn’t here all morning.” He held out his hand. “I’m Ted. I had the regrettable honour of fathering this ingrate.”
“Cheers, Dad…” said Dora, rinsing out a mug as Hermione shook her dad’s hand. He’d never even met Remus Lupin. “Dad, this is Hermione Granger. She works for the Ministry; Department of Lost Spells. She’s friends with Harry Potter.”
“That’s a very lovely dressing gown, Hermione,” said Ted, smiling, by the sound of his voice.
-
There weren’t words to describe it; a funeral for someone who was always supposed to die but not so soon. Everyone had looked at her like they expected words or something. What was she supposed to say? “I’m sorry I didn’t feel more”?. She had just clutched Hermione’s hand and closed her eyes, thought of him as hard as she could and hoped that that was good enough.
Afterwards, the air static and chill with apparation, they pushed scarred tables back against the Leaky Cauldron’s walls, and they poured good whiskey and they raged against the dying of his small but warm light. She had stood in the corner, felt like the ugly girl at the ball (been that girl, inside out). Her mom and dad came towards her, her mom pretty in a black skirt spread with net, her long dark hair bound up in gypsy colours, her dad wearing something which looked surprisingly like a Ravenclaw tie charmed red and white.
“You look lovely, Nymphadora but shouldn’t you be…standing somewhere or something.” Her mother’s skin was dry and smelled sweet and soft, like powder.
“Leave her alone, Andy. She isn’t a widow.” Her Dad leant in close to hug her. “You look beautiful, Dragonfly.”
I’m not beautiful, Dad. I’m sad.
You can be both.
Vaguely, she remembered that Muggles wore black for funerals, let grief drain them colourless. Not Wizards, though. Precious little light to begin with. Molly Weasley sat silent beneath a hat which sparkled with peacock feathers; every funeral, now, reminded her of Bill, of Percy too, blank and silent and all those things. Ginny, huge in green satin bent her head to listen to Fleur, who’d stayed after Bill had gone on, who sipped champagne from a long and graceful flute. When Kingsley came back to the table, he slid his fingers under the long curtain of Ginny’s bright hair to where her neck was bare above the collar of her dress. Dora’s mom and dad were dancing; her dad’s ridiculous tie, her mother’s hair wrapped up for mourning. There were a lot of faces which she didn’t recognize; Remus had been quiet and yet everywhere at once. In her corner, she watched these things happen and said nothing.
“Who put you in the corner?” said Hermione, offering her cheek for a kiss. She’d spritzed perfume in the coils of her hair. Her dress was blue. She was wearing the same shoes as she did for the ministry.
“I’m hiding,” said Dora.
“Not very well,” said Hermione, stepping back to scan over neatly fitted black dress and Andromeda’s old red shoes, dancing shoes. They were missing six red sequins over one heel, the reason why Andromeda Dora hadn’t danced in an awful lot of years. She was dancing for Remus Lupin, though, Dora’s beautiful mother.
“Penny for them?” Charlie slid between herself and Hermione. He’d resisted a tie manfully, was tanned and burnt and handsome, open collared. Dora realized that she hadn’t seen him since that night when she’d opened her eyes, half of her clothes burnt away or sticking to her skin and he’d appeared against seared retinas like an angel.
“Keep it,” she said, letting him thread his rough fingers through hers as he bent to give Hermione a kiss.
“Come and dance with me, Dora.”
What else to do but dance?
“Hermione,” she started, making excuses, but Ron was there, his tie loosely knotted, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He looked like he almost always did.
“Fancy a dance, librarian girl?”
“I have told you this before, Ronald. I am not a librarian. I research.”
Ron looked up at the ceiling, weighing something up.
“As far as I can tell,” he said, slowly, “It all comes down to one thing.”
“Oh?”
“Librarian…Researcher. It’s all just ugly shoes, isn’t it?”
“Ronald.”
Charlie rolled his eyes, chuckling.
“Dance, Dora?”
“Why not,” she said.
While they danced, when they danced, in his arms, she felt seventeen again. Funeral, what funeral; she’d never met Remus Lupin in his tired tweed. There was no such thing as war. Charlie Weasley had always dealt in minor miracles.
At a table in the corner, Hermione had kicked off her ugly shoes and sat wiggling her toes in Harry’s lap. Ron was sitting with them and the three of them were laughing. They had each other, regardless, through training and exams, long shifts, conundrums and war; through all of that, there was the three of them.
The doctor, the librarian and the boy who lived.
With the smell of Hermione’s hair clinging to her fingers and Charlie’s shirt, Dora closed her eyes and danced and clung to what she had.
-
She sat on a bench in the pub’s garden with her head between her knees, not drunk but dizzy - the dancing and the grief. She had stood up in front of all those people; she wasn’t a war widow but she owed up him all the same.
“What have you done with your hair, Dora?” said Charlie, almost but not quite touching her hair; mousey brown, twisted up almost neatly.
“It was clashing with my shoes,” she’d said and stood.
At first, she thought that she wouldn’t look at anybody, but then she opened her eyes and saw Hermione in her blue dress, her hair pinned to one side of her face, barefoot and beautiful like the promise of a new life, smoking a Muggle cigarette.
Okay, thought Dora, and spoke only to her.
“There’s been a lot,” she said, “Of death. This isn’t just about him. Remus used to say that the moon is bright because it has the capacity to…to reflect all light.” She pushed her hair back off her forehead. “He would have said that we were all stars. And he’s right. A star…” She looked at her father, who had told her these things when she was little, who believed that Muggles had it better because they wanted to understand, “Shines for a long time after it actually dies. It takes a long time for all of that light to run out. We must…No…We Will not and we are not going quietly. It’s for them, isn’t it? For Bill and Dumbledore and Mad Eye, dear Mad Eye. For Cedric Diggory who I never met and don’t remember, for Luna and for Sirius too.” She smiled and couldn’t hold it, raised her glass instead, a finger of gin for Remus Lupin and all of them who still shone. “To all of them and to Remus Lupin, who had his fair share of light. Don’t worry, mate, we aren’t going quietly. Not yet.”
It was very cold. She wrapped herself around herself.
“I’m sorry, mate, I really am sorry.” Still no tears. She thought about Fawkes, very gone, and how the world had been growing steadily darker for years and years.
A hand touched the back of her neck, out of all of that dark.
“Room for a little one?”
“Don’t underestimate an arse like that one, pretty girl.”
Laughing, Hermione slid onto the bench, bare legs, Ron’s overcoat huddled around her. There was plenty of room, too much. The two of them echoed.
“You did a great job, Dora.”
“Not a job, is it?”
“You were still good…Did…did you love him?”
“I wish I’d done more.”
“Love isn’t about doing things, Dora.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Hermione wrapped her fingers through Dora’.
“Let’s not go back there tonight, hmm?”
“I can give you a lift to the Ministry from my place in the morning.”
“Okay, good.”
“I’m going to Leeds for Christmas on Friday. Mom and Dad.”
Hermione nodded.
“Let’s go home,” said Hermione, squeezing Dora’ fingers in the dark, echoing, doing.
-
“Tell me you didn’t bring work with you, pretty girl.”
“I…maybe a little.”
“Oh, Hermione.” Dora crossed her arms across her chest, Charlie’s old Quidditch jersey against the chill of a house with a wood stove. “Love, it’s Christmas.”
“It’s Boxing Day,” said Hermione, a defiant tilt to her chin, flushed and pretty above her old Gryffindor scarf.
“Come in, come in…Mom’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“Ah. Clothes, this time,” said Ted from the lounge, behind his newspaper, contriving to sound almost disappointed.
“Dad.”
Hermione blushed, unwinding her scarf in the doorway.
“Hi, Ted. I’ve got some things you might be interested in with me. Hellenic. We’re trying to fill in the gaps. I mentioned your name and Lewis went spare.”
Behind his newspaper, Ted made interested noises.
With her mother in the kitchen, her dad smiling at Muggle horoscopes, Dora pulled Hermione against her in the hall, her hand unconsciously jerking a fistful of wool in the small of Hermione’s back.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too…I bought…things.”
Dora raised an eyebrow, watched as Hermione flushed and fussed with her satchel. “Go and do your work, pretty girl. Drink your tea. Charm my Daddy.”
Hermione smiled and ducked into the lounge.
The afternoon passed slowly, evening falling early, lights showing up better in the dark. In the evening, after dinner, while Dora and her mother worked their way through a bottle of red wine and watched black and white Muggle movies on television, Hermione and Ted sat on the rug and puzzled over notes.
“I feel like I’m missing something obvious,” muttered Hermione, massaging her stockinged insole. “Something that has to be here.”
“Bloody Greeks,” said Ted, magnanimously, sipping beer for a bottle. He’d fetched one for Hermione too and Dora reflected on the beauty of Hermione’s lines when he lifted her drink. “I met an oracle once. Shrew. Andy was not impressed by the scars, were you, Dove…”
“I was not.” Her mother tousled her father’s hair fondly. “Finding another husband after you got eaten whole would have been too much trouble, Edward.”
“I would have fought my way from the heart of the beast for you, Andromeda.” Her mother made a soft, beautiful dismissive noise with air between her lips. In her armchair, Hermione’s head against her knee, Dora yawned theatrically. On the wall, the clock showed nine.
“Bed, Hermione?”
“Did you make up the guest bed yet, Nymphadora?”
She felt Hermione stiffen against her knee.
“No, Mom. There’s a mattress on my floor. Girlie chats. Y’know how it is. Dad, mom’ll explain later.”
“Yes, love.”
She wasn’t fooling anyone.
-
“Don’t look.”
“I’m not looking.”
“You’ll ruin it if you look.”
“I promised that I wouldn’t look, didn’t I?”
Dora lay on her back on the single bed of her youth, her arms pillowed behind her bed, her eyes tightly closed.
“Can I open them yet?”
“Yes. Yes, alright…you can open them.”
She saw Hermione perched against the edge of her cluttered desk; her dad had taken to storing papers in her room when she was fifteen…He’d carried on unabated after she’d left home. Hermione stood against all of the paper, her hair loose on her shoulders, her waist cinched in red satin. For a moment, just a second, Dora was sorry that Hermione wasn’t nude, poetry of bare skin and all that jazz. Uncertainly, Hermione raised one hand above her head. Her face fell.
“I look a mess, don’t I? I know that this was a mistake. It’s all…it’s all ugly shoes, isn’t it?”
Dora bit back a laugh.
“Come here, stupid girl.”
Hermione tottered a little in very high heels before she found her feet. She hoisted her battered leather handbag.
“Bag of tricks.” She gave a tremulous smile. On the bed, Dora lay back and spread her legs. Hermione knelt on the mattress between them. “Do you want to touch me, Dora? I think that I might like for you to…y’know, touch me.” She had laid her hands on the front of Dora’ jeans, over her hips, her fingers splayed to touch bare skin where Dora’ sweater had ridden.
In the time it took Dora to wriggle down onto her knees on the floor, Hermione had lifted her breasts out of her corset. Dora leant forward and licked Hermione’s left nipple, nipping at it with the edges of her teeth. She kissed down the red satin, ran her tongue over the strip of bare skin between ribboned waistband and corset. She hooked her thumbs under the elastic in Hermione’s knickers. Hermione’s fingers tightened in her hair as she worked the fabric down over hipbones and the curve of Hermione’s arse. Once she had Hermione naked from the waist down, Dora guided her leg up over her shoulder. She ran her finger down the damp furrow between Hermione’s legs. She pushed a finger up inside Hermione, licked a line from her knuckle to Hermione’s clit to make her shudder.
“Come on pretty girl,” murmured, encouraging. Hermione cupped her breasts as Dora licked and sucked, slid her finger in and out of Hermione’s cunt. Hermione rolled her breasts with the palms of her hands, pinched her nipples and rolled up towards Dora’ lips.
“Filthy enough for you, pretty girl? Hermione twisted, her leg tightening over Dora’ shoulder.
“Shut up…” She sucked in a breath, sounded desperate, her head tipped back, her next breath almost a groan. “You’ve done this before.”
“Sometimes,” murmured Dora, pressing the word up inside Hermione’s body.
“I’m going to…I can’t…” whimpered Hermione, writhing, poetry in bare skin and red satin. Dora didn’t say anything, added a second finger, mouthing a little prayer against all of that heat.
Hermione’s orgasm came with a soft sigh.
Dora kissed her way back up Hermione’s body with damp lips. She gave Hermione a long, loose kiss, her fingers moving lazily between spread legs. She wrapped her own legs around Hermione’s thigh, still in her jeans.
“How was that then, filthy girl?”
Hermione coloured prettily.
“We’re not done yet.” Dora laughed, sitting up to drag her shirt up over her head. She was braless, and cool air on bare skin was bliss. Her mouth made a soft ‘o’ when Hermione stretched her nipple, pinching gently.
“And here was me thinking that you were, ah, a good girl, Hermione Granger.”
“I have been a good girl all of my fucking life,” said Hermione, rubbing her nipple hard with her thumb. “And now I want to do filthy things.”
“Go on then,” said Dora, her mouth tightening. “Do your worst.”
-
On all fours, she pressed her face into the pillow while Hermione worked the Muggle sex toy deeper into her, while Hermione rubbed her clit hard from behind. Her arse stung from being slapped. She’d bit her fist to keep from moaning until Hermione had urged her up onto her hands and knees. Even the thought of her mom and Dad at the end of the hall hadn’t kept her quiet, until Hermione had balled up worn red knickers and pressed them into Dora’ mouth.
She rocked backwards on her knees, a muffled moan for more. Even when she sobbed for less, Hermione pressed on.
“No more,” she’d begged, meaning not enough.
Which she came, she exploded. It had been a very long time. She was herself, totally herself, for more than a minute. Hermione spread mousey hair across her breasts, rubbed her nipples and sighed contentedly.
“You’ve done this before,” murmured Dora, rubbing her hands through pink spikes.
“Sometimes,” said Hermione, drowsily. “I think I love you.
“Good,” said Dora, curling in, turning in, wrapping herself around Hermione and all of that warmth.
-
She opened her eyes twice. She opened her eyes and saw her mom and dad sitting beside the bed. Her mother was wearing the shawl she’d worn around her hair for Remus’ wake thrown around her shoulders. Her dad was reading the newspaper.
“Hello, Dora.”
She opened her eyes again without closing them. Hermione was sitting at the side of the bed (not hers) Hermione’s eyes were closed, but there was something watchful in the way she held her shoulders. At the bedside, a calendar read March. March? Where did February go?
She tried to speak. Her voice felt tight and swollen; her eyes teared with the effort of forcing the word passed cracked lips.
“’ermione?”
Hermione’s eyes flickered open, too big and bright in a pale face.
“Dora.”
“What’s up, pretty girl?” She said, meaning nobody calls me Dora and don’t tell me don’t tell me.
Hermione leant forward, gently took Dora' hand. There was something black under both of their fingernails.
“Don’t you remember, Dora? You got…you did get hit in the head. Charlie brought you back. Kingsley was angry. He didn’t want you there, but…”
“Me? Hit in the…” She heard the dismissive tone in her hoarse voice even as she became aware of the dull ache in the back of her head. Hermione had mentioned it and made it hurt. In the hurt was a memory, screwed up tight and small and sore, of stumbling through smoke, bending to pick something up…what? Something, and the sky falling then, the roof, and she’d fallen, and hurt.
She blinked, a tear slipping down her face. It wasn’t her room. It wasn’t her bed. She didn’t want to…she didn’t want, and something was so terribly wrong in the world.
“Hermione…I don’t remember.”
“Shhh, Love. It’s okay.” It isn’t. Don’t lie to me. You’ve got a glass forehead, pretty girl. Hermione squeezed her hand. “It was nobody’s fault, Dora…An accident. At first, Kingsley thought…but no, Dora, no. Just a stupid terrible bloody accident. I’m so sorry, love. I’m so very sorry.”
She’d been bending to pick something up. Her dad’s train. Red paint black split. Charlemagne. Her dad’s train. Her dad.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, her bottom lip trembling wildly. “You’re lying to me.” Her mom as well, the bright gypsy colours of Andromeda’s shawl, miraculously whole colours blowing, snagged on blackened wood. She was shaking her head fit to snap her neck. She jerked her hand free of Hermione’s, rubbed her knuckles, her entire surface scorched.
“Dora, I…”
She moved without thinking; Auror training (move quickly, move without opening your eyes). Her hand snapped out. Her palm stung and Hermione’s cheek flushed. Slapped, Hermione’s face was sharp and pretty, her eyebrows high, her lips tight.
“I’m so very sorry, Dora,” she said, rubbing her cheek.
In her room in St Mungos, swaddled tightly against burns and sorrow, Dora screamed herself to shreds..
-
My dad didn’t know anything about the war, or at least he pretended that he didn’t. He was proud of that. All of his life, my dad was proud of the choices that he made. That he was a wizard; that was unspeakably cool to my dad…I don’t think that he ever stopped reminding my Auntie Julie. My Dad…My dad wanted to know things…My Dad cared. He didn’t feel like his work at the Ministry did much good. He felt blessed to just be doing something with made him extraordinarily happy. My mother was another thing that made my dad extraordinarily happy. To the day they…until they died, they were so in love it was difficult, at times, to understand. They were just in love. My mother always said that she loved my father because he made it possible for her to do impossible things. My dad had that about him; he was quietly magnificent, my dad, but my mom was something too. Most beautiful of the Black sisters, braver by far than my horrible aunts who did as they were told and hated my mother for living life as only she could. My mother and father were the bravest, most beautiful people who I have ever met. It takes a lot to make a new world. A lot of courage and a lot of strength. My Dad wasn’t Atlas, but he tried. He used to say that my mom was all the God that he needed. The world in which my mom and dad lived was a long way away from war. Not fire proof, in the end though. I wanted…to tell you a quick story about my mom and dad in closing. More my dad, but it was because of my mom. Almost everything with my dad was. Anyway. Dad was asked to join…Dumbledore offered my dad a job once, when I was a little girl. My mom said that my dad just smiled, thanked Dumbledore for the very great honour and said “When am I supposed to look after my girls if I’m off being a hero for the whole world?” My mom refused that job too. She said it’d play havoc with her dancing shoes. My mom and dad were just happy with what they had. My mom wrote books. My dad went on adventures, but he always came home. Better that they went on together, I reckon. They did marvelous things together, my mom and dad, and I’ll miss them forever. Andromeda Black. Edward Tonks. Mom and Dad. I’ll love you forever. I will miss you forever.
She’d written it all out neatly on a piece of paper, which she trembled when she held. She wore the same dress that she’d worn for Remus’ funeral, for all of the funerals. She wore Sirius’ old boots. She buried her mother in her worn out dancing shoes. When she started to cry, somewhere around her quietly magnificent dad, Hermione got up in front of everyone and held her hand.
-
The snow was melting one day and freezing the next, dithering. She sat in the garden counting shoots of green, watching as the Spring fought valiantly to win. It was something, she decided, that the world went on. She took a long drag on her cigarette. During the first war, the war when she was very little, her dad had taken up smoking on the porch at night. Her dad had smoked with relish, like a man who really enjoyed the act of smoking, but he’d also kept a good watch, had Ted. Dora huddled in the damp, and kept a watch of sorts. Eventually, Charlie came to sit beside her. There was something endearing about a twenty seven year old man still wearing a Quidditch jersey with holes in the elbows.
“Hello, pretty girl.”
So that’s where that had come from…Charlie and all of those years ago.
“Wotcher, Charlie.”
“What’re you thinking about?” She offered him the cigarette and he took it.
“Just the way that my dad used to smoke.”
“Mmph. I miss your mom and dad.”
“You miss them.”
She took her cigarette back from him and smoked in silence, her fingers curled just so, like her dad used to.
“Ginny’s about ready to pop,” said Charlie, scrubbing his hands through red hair. “And she’s furious with Kingsley all of the time…She figures either he’s going to miss it or, worse still, he’ll actually get back. Either way, I figure that New York is the place to stay.” Which made her laugh, which made him perfect in her eyes, just then.
“Three months from one end of the world to another,” she said, finally. “Doesn’t seem like a lot of time does it, mate…”
“It’s only the world, Dora.”
She leant her head against his shoulder.
“I just thought it’d be bigger, that’s all,” she said.
-
Philomena “Bill” Shacklebolt was born nearly four months to the day after the first end of the world. Her father made it back from New York in time to be in attendance. Ginny, formidable as she always been and ever would be (her mother’s daughter) swore and sweated, but afterwards, she glowed. She was twenty years old; war makes young wives. They were making the best of what they had, Ginny and Kingsley were. How easily life stops.
Dora sat back and held Bill in a bundle of patchwork, after Ginny had managed to shoo away a flock of adoring uncles.
“You’ll confuse her,” said Ginny, fondly, stifling a yawn. “Always changing girl.”
“Nawh,” said Dora, smiling as Bill rooted blinding against the front of her old Rolling Stones t-shirt. “Clever girl, this one. She’ll know me by my eyes. No milk there, pretty one.”
“All of that death and still a little life,” said Ginny, smiling wanly and holding out her hands for her little proof of life. She settled Bill against her breast, grasping mouth, gold brown skin, dusky head.
“And then love arrived,” said Dora, quoting some Muggle poet she couldn’t remember, getting up to leave.
“Oh, no, stay a while,” said Ginny, baring her breast for her baby, most definite proof of life. “Talk to me like a real human being, Dora. Nobody talks to me anymore. Everybody just oohs and ahhs and treats me like a milk cow.”
Dora sat back in her chair, her bare feet up on the edge of Ginny’s bed.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Ginny rolled her shoulder, made a soft surprised sound when Bill snuffled and snorted.
“Not the war. Anything but the bloody war. I look at them sometimes and it just feels like they’re getting further and further away.”
“Who?”
“The three of them.”
Dora shrugged.
“I just love her.” Just like that, she said it. Ginny smiled.
“The thing about loving Kingsley,” said Ginny, shifting Bill to the other breast, “Is that I feel like nobody could take him away from me. A long time ago, there was…Harry and he…was going to break my heart but Kingsley wouldn’t know how. Kingsley’s got such big hands but he’s so careful.”
“I think..what it is…how it is…It’s been cold for so long, Ginny, but she’s very warm. I’ve been cold for so fucking long.”
“Shhh,” said Ginny, shielding Bill’s tiny shell ear.
That was it though, wasn’t it? The end of that very long winter. The new world that Hermione was.
Either Hermione was the spring, or the spring was with her.
-
Spring passed into summer (the world moving as it does). Ginny dressed Bill in ballerina frills and tiny Quidditch shirts, swaddled clawed feet in scarves to keep Bill’s soft curves safe. The war went on but what she’d mostly remember, later, were the quiet times - lying on a rug on the lawn, Hermione in a spotted bathing costume like something from a fifties magazine. At night, they lay in bed with the windows thrown open (the heat, the heat). She had always slept naked, but Hermione always fumbled around on the floor for discarded knickers and afterwards stretched out, white cotton and suntanned skin. There were three moles under Hermione’s left breast that sparkled like a constellation. After she came, she twirled one curl of her hair around her finger over and over. Her breasts were barely handfuls. The word “tits” made her blush. Her skin was perfect, without scars - she had never been a soldier. In the world of Hermione’s body, there was no such thing as war.
She lay flat on her belly beside Hermione, her bones heavy and lazy in all of that heat. Hermione’s legs were spread, one knee bent, Dora’ fingers moving slowly between her thighs. There were patterns to Hermione; a rise of her hips, a tightening of the delicate skin around her nipples, a sudden breathlessness. She wrapped her fingers around Dora’ wrist, sudden iron strength, guiding, pressing.
Dora let herself be led. Why not?
“If I ever leave you,” said Hermione, breathlessly. Hermione was a talker, always had been, had always felt the need to press words into every possible place. Don’t always need to make a noise, pretty girl. Just let it wash over you like a wave. “If I ever leave you, I want you to know that I was never this happy.” Tell-tale lift on the last syllable. Come on, pretty girl, don’t make me wait. A little more pressure, a kiss for Hermione’s breast. Hermione’s body was doors and archways, inviting inward movement.
Comeoncomeoncomeon.
Later, lying quietly and lulled by the soft, regular sound of Hermione’s sleeping breathing, Dora lay with her ear against Hermione’s heartbeat. She’d been an Auror for long enough that she had a sixth sense, sort of. Her ribs were full of alarms. Hermione had pulled her knickers back on, still giggling with aftershocks. Dora smoothed white cotton over a gently curving belly. She kept very still. There were no stars in London’s sky. Grimmauld Place existed in a bubble of its own darkness. A long time as an Auror had given Dora a healthy sense of her own mortality and a good head for a battle coming her way. She closed her eyes, felt herself shrink a little to fit better against Hermione’s side.
If she goes, make it quick.
If she goes, just give me enough time to say goodbye.
Please.
Dora made a wish on the constellation which shone under Hermione’s left breast, and slowly fell asleep.
-
Remember, remember, the fifth...
Remember, oh, remember me.
Been there before, or had she? The walls all seemed to be moving, which recalled kissing in the shadows of a staircase, side step waltzing, her mouth pressed to Hermione’s. Never was much of a dancer, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but you, oh you. Never was much of a dancer, but with you to follow. The walls of the room are charred and dark (Harry went supernova and blew the world away). Brief vision of Harry and Hermione and Ron, hands linked before the light went bright, went so bright, and they gave all of everything, all of that love for a moment's silence after all of those years of noise.
Her ears were ringing. The insides of her eyes were spangled with stars.
All of that noise.
She sat up, felt crushed, smaller than she had been before. Charlie sat beside her, tears running down his face. She tried to say something, couldn’t. Her voice felt like a frail, fluttering thing. Its wings got stuck in her throat and made her cough. Charlie thumped her on the back and unbidden came the thought of sneaking her Dad’s cigarettes behind the fourth green house, fifteen years old.
Finally, she managed it. Finally, it came, an ugly sound, a croak.
“Hermione?”
Even her name sounded burnt now, blackened, and Charlie was shaking his head.
She didn’t so much collapse as shrink, fold down, wizened by the smoke and the heat until she couldn’t bear her own weight. She closed her eyes but colour see nothing but white. There had been so much light. On her back in the dirt, the world was very dark after all of the white light which love shed. It came back to her in flashes, a year from one end of the world to the other. She’d been right; it had been bigger all along. Dora closed her eyes and cried, that one word hanging in the air, Her-mi-one like a song, as, with a shudder, the world began again.
AUTHOR: eudaimon
DISCLAIMER: None of this, not even the holes in Charlie Weasley’s Quidditch jersey, or little Bill's ballerina frills are mine.
PAIRING: Hermione/Tonks (though, because of communiquills , I’m incapable of calling Tonks Tonks. Forgive).
RATING: R. Most definitely R.
WORD COUNT: 8896
WARNINGS: Character death(s). A year from one end of the world to another.
SUMMARY: Love is watching someone die.
A/N: betaed to perfection by pre_raphaelite1. Any mistakes are, deplorably, my own. Written for redpiratemel as part of witchwinter's femmeslash...bash. x-posted with her permission.
Nobody else here baby
No-one here to blame
No-one to point the finger
It’s just you and me and the rain
- u2
On her belly in the dirt she waited until she realised that the ringing was in her and not the world. Still, she lay motionless for a time, until the edges of burnt clothing cooled, until Kingsley came to gather blistered skin into a blanket, and all the time, one thought.
Oh, mate, I’m sorry I didn’t feel more.
-
In the middle of the bed, the pitched roof of the attic room, she sat stripped to the waist, hunched over her knees, curled in around her own breasts, while behind her Ron puffed and swore and dabbed her with ointment which smelt like chamomile tea tasted. Breathing was difficult. She felt crushed, smaller than she had before. Charlie set on the bed beside her, tears running numbly down his face. She tried to say something, couldn’t. Her voice felt like a frail, fluttering thing, its wings caught in her throat. It felt so alien that it made her cough, and Charlie thumped her on the shoulder, which hurt more than it should and, unbidden, came the memory of sneaking her dad’s cigarettes behind the fourth greenhouse, fifteen years old.
“You’re not helping, Charlie,” Ron said, still dabbing, wiping, piecing her back together, almost a doctor, nearly enough. “Dora, drink your tea. It’ll help.” She sipped the hot liquid.
It took a long time; Ron was smoothing plaster across the more burnt places on her back. It took a long time, but, finally, she managed it.
“Hermione.” Even her name sounded burnt, coming past charred lips. Later, Dora wouldn’t be able to say why it was Hermione’s name that came first when she wanted to know if they’d been told; why not Harry or Fleur or Molly? None of them…just Her-mi-one like a song.
“I went and told her,” Charlie was saying. “Brought her home. She’s with Harry…She…isn’t taking it so well.”
Which made Dora feel colder and more cruel than she had before, burnt and wizened by smoke and heat until she couldn’t bear her own weight.
The day that Remus Lupin died.
-
Grimmauld Place had a malevolent, sour feel, and she was always cold. You don’t belong here, said the walls. Or you do, and that’s the problem, isn’t it, Nymphadora…scared of fitting too well? She dressed herself in layers to dull the noise, her dad’s old jumpers, Charlie’s socks. Molly’s constant cups of tea and fussing were almost welcome. She’d never really liked tea. She was twenty seven when Remus died. She sat staring into her cup and wondering about how grief could feel so much like relief. She thought of the pencil mark count which her mother kept in the back of an old exercise book hidden in dad’s shed. One mark for Remus, now. Yeah, it was almost a relief. They’d been waiting so long for the next one. There had been such a lot of loss. Dumbledore, the Diggory boy whose face she only knew from Auror reports…Severus Snape and Sirius Sirius Sirius. She glanced at the heavy clock on the wall, a split second before it began to strike twelve. With a sigh, she heaved herself up out of the soft chair and sank down beside the fire, wrapping herself around herself, ignoring the pull in her back. She turned up the collar of her jumper against the sound of pouring rain and watched as the fire resolved into her old dad’s handsome face.
“Wotcher, Dad.”
“’ello, Dora.” It was nice to hear his voice, harsh and whispery as it was, forced through the embers. “Is that my jumper, Dragonfly?” She plucked at moss green wool, riddled with holes.
“Yeah. Mom was throwing it away.” In the fire, Ted shrugged or seemed to shrug.
“This isn’t about jumpers, Dora. We heard. We wish you’d come home.”
“I can’t just come home, Dad. There’s a lot to do here.”
“But your mother and I are very…we know how much Remus…we just wish that you were here, Dora.”
“I will be soon, Dad. It’ll be Christmas soon and…y’know…there are lots of people here, Dad, and the less time I spend at home the better and…” Even her own jokes tasted forced. She could hear her mother’s voice in the background, a hum, a buzz of sparks. “Tell Mom not to worry either. Tell her…we’re looking after each other.”
A noise in the garden, loud enough that she heard it over the sound of the storm; someone tripping over the rusting wrought iron furniture which Harry and Ron had dragged during the summer, trying to approximate what home might feel like, if it was there, down in the dark. Sensing that worrying (or, at least, obviously worrying) would do him no good, her dad had launched into his usual Leeds report; her mother, the cats, Charlemagne the train. Dora’s attention had drifted. She’d turned on every light in the sitting room, the better to hide the sofa’s clawed feet in shadow (everything in that house had claws). Light spilled through the big windows out into the garden, the garden which Sirius had cleared himself, muttering all the time about life finding ways and means. The rain showed up against the dark and Hermione, soaking wet, her hair streaming, holding out her arms. Dora found herself staring, not listening to her dad talk, something about derailment, just watching Hermione turn slowly in the pouring rain.
“Dad. Dad, I’m going to have to go, Dad. Tell Mom I’ll call, Dad…Dad. I’ll be home for Christmas, Dad.”
Dora paused over her boots, fumbling with her laces while the sparks settled in the hearth. Her dad’s jumper, Charlie’s socks. Sirius’ boots.
Her entire life was made up of borrowed pieces.
“Hermione?”
“Hmm?”
“Hermione, love, the rain. Mate, you’ll catch a chill.” Hermione’s shirt had soaked transparent, and Dora couldn’t look away from the slope of her back down to the waistband of her tweed skirt. Her long tawny hair stuck in flat curls across her shoulders, to the side of her face. With the light pouring over her, the rain bouncing off her, she shone and reminded Dora of something, though she couldn’t put her finger on what just then. “Hermione, sweetheart, come in.”
When Hermione opened her eyes and stopped turning, Dora could see that she’d been crying. She hadn’t seen before because of the rain. She dragged her dad’s green jumper over her head, draped it around Hermione’s shoulders like a shawl. The rain soaked through her t-shirt quickly; she heard Ron’s voice scolding her about damp dressings, and then her scalp tightened as her hair shrank through a rainbow.
“You’re beautiful,” said Hermione, meaning he’s dead.
“I know,” said Dora, answering the wrong thing. “Just come inside love. Please.”
“Okay,” Hermione said and let Dora lead her.
-
“Oh God, oh God…I’m so very, horribly drunk.” She was still crying, pulling ineffectually at the buttons of her wet blouse. The thin (cheap) fabric clung across the neat swell of her breasts. Dora felt herself flush, not just from the radiating heat of the fire. Her skin stung as her drying shirt plastered across her shoulders. Hermione was a vision, flushed, damp eyed and damp lipped. God, it had been such a long time since girls. Too much of a good thing is as bad as none at all. Hermione twisted the weight of her long hair up from the nape of her neck, and the way it stretched the muscles in her arms, made arches of the lines of her back and neck…
“When did you get so beautiful, Hermione?” Which was another way of saying when did you grow up without me noticing?
Hermione made one of the fluttering fingers dismissive gestures that she’d perfected in a house full of boys. She pulled at her blouse again, her hair falling across her face.
“Oh…for fuck’s…sake.” A hiccupping sob shook her. Dora fought the urge not to laugh; capable Hermione Granger, jewel of the Department for Lost Spells, capable, clever, flummoxed by a damp shirt.
“Sit still." Carefully, very aware of the way that breathing changed Hermione’s shape, Dora picked open the white buttons. It was the kind of blouse that a little girl might wear for school. Beneath it, in black lace, Hermione’s breasts were like everything else about her: neat, exact. Dora pushed the wet fabric down over her arms. The curls stuck to Hermione’s shoulders looked painted on, showed up gold in the glowing light. That was it. She sat back on her heels and looked at Hermione in her black bra and her tweed skirt, her hair in curls and disarray. She reminded Dora of a painting she’d seen in a book which her mom had, once. She didn’t look quite real in her angles and her lines, her soft glow.
“Do you know…” said Hermione, in the heightened conversational tone of the really, truly drunk, “How long it’s been since anybody saw me in my bra?” Dora shrugged. “It was Ron and I was seventeen years old. That summer with the Horcruxes. That summer when we all did things because we thought that the world was ending.” Oh, mate, I’m sorry that I didn’t feel more. “What I remember most about that summer is this house,” she said. “This house and you.”
“Me?”
“You. You don’t have any idea what…watching you is like, do you, Dora. You’re like…something loud happening in a quiet room. The world can’t stay the same because it echoes, see?” She moved her hands, trying to shape what she was saying. “I was with Ron and it…it was nice but it wasn’t enough, it wasn’t, and I seemed to spend my entire time watching you. I remember everything, Dora. I remember every single thing.”
“You’re very drunk, Hermione.”
“I am, but it isn’t…don’t you see? It isn’t the point, Dora.” She was fumbling behind her now. The waistband of her tweed skirt dug in to pale skin and Dora found herself picturing Hermione’s belly button above the waistband of knickers which would, undoubtedly, be black. “There was a day when I came downstairs and you were sitting on the counter in the kitchen talking to Remus, and your shirt had ridden up and you were wearing…turquoise knickers, and I remember never seeing anything like it, and I remember being so jealous of him.”
“Of Remus?” Hermione nodded, still fumbling behind her back.
“Because he’d probably bought them for you. I was seventeen…I didn’t have to be rational.”
“You? Were the most rational seventeen year old that I have ever met.”
“Yes. Well. That’s not really the point, is it?”
“Apparently not.” Suddenly, she needed a drink.
“You made me feel like such a little girl,” said Hermione, finally, abandoning the catch of her bra and pushing the straps down her arms, the tilt of her breasts keeping the fabric gathered and in place. “You made me feel like something waiting to happen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be…just…just help me with this.” Not knowing what she was doing, not sure why, Dora reached around Hermione and unhooked the triple catch of her bra. It was like riding (or falling off) a bike; Hermione’s bra was Angelina’s bra was the bra that Charlie had worn for a panto was all bras. Nothing mystical to it. She felt her breath catch, at the sight of Hermione’s bare breasts, her nipples pale pink. She felt like a cliché, but still, it was difficult to breathe, as black lace dropped to the carpet.
“What are we doing, Hermione?” said Dora, as Hermione leant forward and pressed a kiss to her mouth, the corner, a sweet and off centre kiss. ‘You’re drunk, we shouldn’t.”
“I’m drunk and we should.” she said. “I’m not jealous of him anymore, Dora.”
“Oh, God.” Dora spilled forward against Hermione, crushed a kiss against her lips, pressed Hermione’s breasts against her t-shirt still damp in spots from the rain. And there it was. Suddenly, Dora couldn’t breathe for feeling.
“I have wanted to kiss you for years,” said Hermione, breathless, burnished.
“But why now?”
“Death makes us brave.” She stood up, a little clumpy in her librarian’s shoes. “Does this door lock?” Dora nodded. She still wanted a beer, found herself staring up at Hermione from below, as she worked her heavy skirt down over her thighs. She was so beautiful in that particular light. A fire in every bedroom kept Molly fussing.
God bless Molly Weasley, and all who sailed on her.
Hermione’s knickers were black and barely there, a touch of pink ribbon, unexpected, lovely. They didn’t quite match her bra, which was even more perfect.
In the bed, they moved more slowly, Hermione in her knickers, Dora still in her jeans, her t-shirt, Charlie’s socks. If Dora had ever thought of Hermione that way (and, guiltily, with Remus, she had), she’d expected her to be a typical Gryffindor virgin, white cotton panties, pulling faces, hiding in pillows. What she’d never imagined, with Remus or otherwise, was Hermione’s body above her, Hermione lifting her neat breasts with her hands.
“Christ you’re drunk,” she said, meaning God when did you get so beautiful and how did we get here? She ran her hands over Hermione’s arse, lace catching on her palms. The tweed skirts weren’t doing Hermione any justice. Dora’ own figure was the product of years of careful study; her mom’s eyebrows and ankles, Aunt Julie’s breasts (bigger than Hermione’s), Minerva McGonagall’s tidy waist. That Hermione came out perfect, just perfect, first time, was something of a marvel. As Hermione shifted down her, pushed her shirt up and kissed bare skin, Dora thought about how a lot of this was whiskey and grief and regret. She wondered if not telling Hermione to stop made her a bad person.
When Hermione peeled her shirt up over her head, cotton caught on the edges of sticking plaster. Hermione tutted and kissed the singed edges of burns. Dora was braless and Hermione pressed her breasts together, kissed and licked her nipples hard, blew across damp skin. Dora wriggled under Hermione’s weight.
“Stay still,” said Hermione, fumbling with the conundrum that was Dora’ button fly. She lifted her legs to squirm out of her jeans, caught herself smiling as Hermione ran her hands down bare thighs. Her own knickers were green satin and Hermione’s fingers skittered over the shiny fabric. She found herself wishing that she’d shaved her legs more recently - it had been so long since she’d needed to. Hermione leant down against her, kissing her deeply, her hips pressing Dora down into the mattress. Hermione flicked her nipple with her tongue, kissed down between her breasts, spread her thighs around Hermione’s hips. Hermione reached between them, traced her finger over the dampness on the front of her knickers. Dora tried to buck her hips, couldn’t, pinned in place as she was. Suddenly, she had the feeling that she was quietly, yet very firmly, being ambushed.
Between her legs, Hermione pressed her lips to damp satin. Dora closed her eyes, let out her breath shakily. Hermione started to peel Dora’s knickers down around her thighs. Dora got up on her elbows, glanced down between her own legs. Neat dark hair. Hermione draped green silk across Dora’ belly, straightened up to work her own underwear down. Between her thighs, Hermione was almost blond.
“You’re not what I thought you’d be.”
Hermione bent down to kiss Dora’ belly, her hand between her own thighs.
“You thought that I’d be all innocent and then you found out that I was…fantasizing about your knickers?” Hermione grinned, shifted to lie between Dora’ legs. Dora lifted her leg to drape it over Hermione’s slender shoulder. She raised her hips as Hermione spread her cunt with her fingers.
“You make me want to do filthy things,” said Hermione, every word a sucking kiss between Dora’ legs that made her squirm. “All of my life, I’ve wanted to do filthy things.”
“You’re twenty one years old, Hermione. You’re…ah…you’ve very young.”
“You’re thinking about normal years, Dora. War years cut your life in half.”
“Come here, pretty girl…” Gently, Dora reached down and disengaged Hermione from between her legs, drawing her up to lie beside her. She kissed Hermione’s damp lips. “Gorgeous, daft girl.” She rolled Hermione’s body against hers, breasts pressed against breasts.
“M’not gorgeous. M’clever.”
“You can be both, Hermione,” said Dora, stifling a yawn, kissing both of Hermione’s eyelids, still dying for a beer.
-
“Headache?”
“Mmph.”
“Poor baby.”
“Can I get in there with you?”
“I think there’s room for a skinny piece like you.”
The Blacks had never embraced Muggle technology; no showers, but the baths were deep and round. Dora lay in the hot water, short hair slicked back, and watched Hermione, her long hair corkscrewing, wrapped in Dora’ mom’s old robe, black silk, printed flowers.
“Are you working today?”
Dora shook her head.
“We’ve got bury Remus by sun-down.”
“Are you going to say something? Later, I mean.”
“Possibly, probably. The water’s getting cold,” she said, meaning I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
With her back to the tub, Hermione shimmied out of Andromeda’s robe. Dora hunched up, anticipating Hermione’s legs folding against her own. She was surprised when, gently but insistently, Hermione slid between her legs. Dora hooked one knee over the edge of the tub to make room as Hermione settled into the curve of her. She wrapped one arm across Hermione’s chest, palming her breast idly.
“I half expected you to be all penitent and reluctant this morning.”
“I am never drinking again.”
“That isn’t what I meant, Hermione.”
“I know.”
“No regrets?”
Hermione twisted, pressed her mouth against Dora’ at an odd angle; the kiss was crooked but it held.
“I am never drinking again.”
Dora punched her nipple, grinning.
Outside, there was still rain falling.
-
After the bath, Hermione draped herself in Andromeda’s old robe while Dora toweled her thick hair. Hermione studied herself critically in the mirror, cupped her neat breasts through satin.
“I wish that these were bigger.” Behind her, Dora turned sideways, arching her back to stick out her own bust. She was still naked. “It’s alright for you though, isn’t it? You can be whatever you want.”
Dora went back to combing the snarls out of Hermione’s hair.
“Mmph.”
Hermione was chewing the nail on her little finger.
“What do you look like really?” Dora’ eyebrow twitched.
“I…” When Nymphadora Dora was fifteen years old, she had made a list of her faults, the better to hide them. “No, Hermione. No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“…Dora.”
Dora took a deep breath.
“Okay. Alright,” Clever girl, always questions. Questions are exhausting, pretty girl. “But let me get dressed first. One should never humiliate one’s self knickerless.”
The corner of Hermione’s serious mouth lifted.
“Okay.”
-
“On your head be it, Hermione Granger,” said Dora, tugging self consciously at the hem of her t-shirt. “If you see me and filthy things are no longer on your mind, on your…bloody…head.”
Hermione pouted through a curtain of damp hair.
“Okay, okay.” Dora closed her eyes and took a deep breath and tingled as she changed.
“Oh,” said Hermione. Dora opened her eyes and studied herself in the long mirror, its frame draped with scarves and plastic beads. Her mom’s eyebrows, Auntie Julie’s breasts, Minerva McGonagall’s trim waist. “You’re a bit taller, aren’t you?”
Dora nodded.
“An inch and a half taller than Charlie.”
“Mmm.” Hermione turned to brush her fingers through shoulder length mousey hair, down over narrow shoulders and narrow hips. She pressed the flats of her hands to barely there breasts and ran her fingers delicately down Dora’ ribs. She tucked her hands into the back pockets of Dora’ jeans. “Why, Dora…You have absolutely no bottom to speak of.” Fighting a smile, Dora slapped Hermione’s own ample arse hard enough to make her squeak.
“Bitch. And who says bottom anymore, anyway?” Hermione pushed her hips flush against Dora’. On tiptoes, she pressed her lips to Dora’, with a touch of teeth.
“Perhaps. I think I’ll keep you anyway. Lack of bo…arse not withstanding.”
“Oh, thank God,” said Dora, rolling her eyes and pushing her hand between them, curving fingers to feel where Hermione was still wet. “I…”
Right on cue, the doorbell rang.
“Shit. Bugger.” She ran her damp thumb over Hermione’s bottom lip. “Hold that thought, pretty girl.”
“I’m not-“
When Dora opened the door, her dad was perched against the banister, reading the football scores on the back page of the newspaper. There was a hole in the chest of his jumper. His reading glasses were too far down his nose. Of all things, Ted Dora was a blissful constant.
“Hello, Dad.”
“Ello, Dragonfly, I…” He looked up.
“It isn’t polite to stare, Dad. And a fly is going to fly in there and take up residence and then Mom’ll banish you to the shed forever, and…”
“I’m sorry, Dora. I’d forgotten what you looked like.”
“Bollocks, you. Fancy a cuppa?” She pushed her hand through pink hair, making it spike.
“Well, I shouldn’t…” He held up a knotted carrier bag from a Muggle supermarket. “I just dropped by to bring these from your mother for tonight…afterwards, I mean, and there’s a match on, and…”
“There’s a TV in the kitchen, Dad.”
“OK…well, maybe a quick one, then.”
-
“Honest to God cats, Dora. Cats.”
“Cats? How awful.” Her dad regarded her balefully over the rim of his mug.
“It is not nice to take the piss out of your father, Dora.”
“Yes, Daddy. Ooh, look. You’re a goal down.”
“Dora.”
“Can…I have a cup?” Hermione was standing in the doorway from the bedroom, still wearing Andromeda’s dressing gown, her hair twisted up from the nape of her neck. Dora watched a flicker of recognition go across her dad’s face, for the robe if not the girl.
“Of course you can.” Dora got up to make Hermione a cup of tea. “What did I tell you earlier, Dad? Flies. Lots of flies, Dad.”
“Sorry, Dragonfly. I was just wondering if you were going to pretend I wasn’t here all morning.” He held out his hand. “I’m Ted. I had the regrettable honour of fathering this ingrate.”
“Cheers, Dad…” said Dora, rinsing out a mug as Hermione shook her dad’s hand. He’d never even met Remus Lupin. “Dad, this is Hermione Granger. She works for the Ministry; Department of Lost Spells. She’s friends with Harry Potter.”
“That’s a very lovely dressing gown, Hermione,” said Ted, smiling, by the sound of his voice.
-
There weren’t words to describe it; a funeral for someone who was always supposed to die but not so soon. Everyone had looked at her like they expected words or something. What was she supposed to say? “I’m sorry I didn’t feel more”?. She had just clutched Hermione’s hand and closed her eyes, thought of him as hard as she could and hoped that that was good enough.
Afterwards, the air static and chill with apparation, they pushed scarred tables back against the Leaky Cauldron’s walls, and they poured good whiskey and they raged against the dying of his small but warm light. She had stood in the corner, felt like the ugly girl at the ball (been that girl, inside out). Her mom and dad came towards her, her mom pretty in a black skirt spread with net, her long dark hair bound up in gypsy colours, her dad wearing something which looked surprisingly like a Ravenclaw tie charmed red and white.
“You look lovely, Nymphadora but shouldn’t you be…standing somewhere or something.” Her mother’s skin was dry and smelled sweet and soft, like powder.
“Leave her alone, Andy. She isn’t a widow.” Her Dad leant in close to hug her. “You look beautiful, Dragonfly.”
I’m not beautiful, Dad. I’m sad.
You can be both.
Vaguely, she remembered that Muggles wore black for funerals, let grief drain them colourless. Not Wizards, though. Precious little light to begin with. Molly Weasley sat silent beneath a hat which sparkled with peacock feathers; every funeral, now, reminded her of Bill, of Percy too, blank and silent and all those things. Ginny, huge in green satin bent her head to listen to Fleur, who’d stayed after Bill had gone on, who sipped champagne from a long and graceful flute. When Kingsley came back to the table, he slid his fingers under the long curtain of Ginny’s bright hair to where her neck was bare above the collar of her dress. Dora’s mom and dad were dancing; her dad’s ridiculous tie, her mother’s hair wrapped up for mourning. There were a lot of faces which she didn’t recognize; Remus had been quiet and yet everywhere at once. In her corner, she watched these things happen and said nothing.
“Who put you in the corner?” said Hermione, offering her cheek for a kiss. She’d spritzed perfume in the coils of her hair. Her dress was blue. She was wearing the same shoes as she did for the ministry.
“I’m hiding,” said Dora.
“Not very well,” said Hermione, stepping back to scan over neatly fitted black dress and Andromeda’s old red shoes, dancing shoes. They were missing six red sequins over one heel, the reason why Andromeda Dora hadn’t danced in an awful lot of years. She was dancing for Remus Lupin, though, Dora’s beautiful mother.
“Penny for them?” Charlie slid between herself and Hermione. He’d resisted a tie manfully, was tanned and burnt and handsome, open collared. Dora realized that she hadn’t seen him since that night when she’d opened her eyes, half of her clothes burnt away or sticking to her skin and he’d appeared against seared retinas like an angel.
“Keep it,” she said, letting him thread his rough fingers through hers as he bent to give Hermione a kiss.
“Come and dance with me, Dora.”
What else to do but dance?
“Hermione,” she started, making excuses, but Ron was there, his tie loosely knotted, his shirt sleeves rolled up. He looked like he almost always did.
“Fancy a dance, librarian girl?”
“I have told you this before, Ronald. I am not a librarian. I research.”
Ron looked up at the ceiling, weighing something up.
“As far as I can tell,” he said, slowly, “It all comes down to one thing.”
“Oh?”
“Librarian…Researcher. It’s all just ugly shoes, isn’t it?”
“Ronald.”
Charlie rolled his eyes, chuckling.
“Dance, Dora?”
“Why not,” she said.
While they danced, when they danced, in his arms, she felt seventeen again. Funeral, what funeral; she’d never met Remus Lupin in his tired tweed. There was no such thing as war. Charlie Weasley had always dealt in minor miracles.
At a table in the corner, Hermione had kicked off her ugly shoes and sat wiggling her toes in Harry’s lap. Ron was sitting with them and the three of them were laughing. They had each other, regardless, through training and exams, long shifts, conundrums and war; through all of that, there was the three of them.
The doctor, the librarian and the boy who lived.
With the smell of Hermione’s hair clinging to her fingers and Charlie’s shirt, Dora closed her eyes and danced and clung to what she had.
-
She sat on a bench in the pub’s garden with her head between her knees, not drunk but dizzy - the dancing and the grief. She had stood up in front of all those people; she wasn’t a war widow but she owed up him all the same.
“What have you done with your hair, Dora?” said Charlie, almost but not quite touching her hair; mousey brown, twisted up almost neatly.
“It was clashing with my shoes,” she’d said and stood.
At first, she thought that she wouldn’t look at anybody, but then she opened her eyes and saw Hermione in her blue dress, her hair pinned to one side of her face, barefoot and beautiful like the promise of a new life, smoking a Muggle cigarette.
Okay, thought Dora, and spoke only to her.
“There’s been a lot,” she said, “Of death. This isn’t just about him. Remus used to say that the moon is bright because it has the capacity to…to reflect all light.” She pushed her hair back off her forehead. “He would have said that we were all stars. And he’s right. A star…” She looked at her father, who had told her these things when she was little, who believed that Muggles had it better because they wanted to understand, “Shines for a long time after it actually dies. It takes a long time for all of that light to run out. We must…No…We Will not and we are not going quietly. It’s for them, isn’t it? For Bill and Dumbledore and Mad Eye, dear Mad Eye. For Cedric Diggory who I never met and don’t remember, for Luna and for Sirius too.” She smiled and couldn’t hold it, raised her glass instead, a finger of gin for Remus Lupin and all of them who still shone. “To all of them and to Remus Lupin, who had his fair share of light. Don’t worry, mate, we aren’t going quietly. Not yet.”
It was very cold. She wrapped herself around herself.
“I’m sorry, mate, I really am sorry.” Still no tears. She thought about Fawkes, very gone, and how the world had been growing steadily darker for years and years.
A hand touched the back of her neck, out of all of that dark.
“Room for a little one?”
“Don’t underestimate an arse like that one, pretty girl.”
Laughing, Hermione slid onto the bench, bare legs, Ron’s overcoat huddled around her. There was plenty of room, too much. The two of them echoed.
“You did a great job, Dora.”
“Not a job, is it?”
“You were still good…Did…did you love him?”
“I wish I’d done more.”
“Love isn’t about doing things, Dora.”
“Sometimes it is.”
Hermione wrapped her fingers through Dora’.
“Let’s not go back there tonight, hmm?”
“I can give you a lift to the Ministry from my place in the morning.”
“Okay, good.”
“I’m going to Leeds for Christmas on Friday. Mom and Dad.”
Hermione nodded.
“Let’s go home,” said Hermione, squeezing Dora’ fingers in the dark, echoing, doing.
-
“Tell me you didn’t bring work with you, pretty girl.”
“I…maybe a little.”
“Oh, Hermione.” Dora crossed her arms across her chest, Charlie’s old Quidditch jersey against the chill of a house with a wood stove. “Love, it’s Christmas.”
“It’s Boxing Day,” said Hermione, a defiant tilt to her chin, flushed and pretty above her old Gryffindor scarf.
“Come in, come in…Mom’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“Ah. Clothes, this time,” said Ted from the lounge, behind his newspaper, contriving to sound almost disappointed.
“Dad.”
Hermione blushed, unwinding her scarf in the doorway.
“Hi, Ted. I’ve got some things you might be interested in with me. Hellenic. We’re trying to fill in the gaps. I mentioned your name and Lewis went spare.”
Behind his newspaper, Ted made interested noises.
With her mother in the kitchen, her dad smiling at Muggle horoscopes, Dora pulled Hermione against her in the hall, her hand unconsciously jerking a fistful of wool in the small of Hermione’s back.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too…I bought…things.”
Dora raised an eyebrow, watched as Hermione flushed and fussed with her satchel. “Go and do your work, pretty girl. Drink your tea. Charm my Daddy.”
Hermione smiled and ducked into the lounge.
The afternoon passed slowly, evening falling early, lights showing up better in the dark. In the evening, after dinner, while Dora and her mother worked their way through a bottle of red wine and watched black and white Muggle movies on television, Hermione and Ted sat on the rug and puzzled over notes.
“I feel like I’m missing something obvious,” muttered Hermione, massaging her stockinged insole. “Something that has to be here.”
“Bloody Greeks,” said Ted, magnanimously, sipping beer for a bottle. He’d fetched one for Hermione too and Dora reflected on the beauty of Hermione’s lines when he lifted her drink. “I met an oracle once. Shrew. Andy was not impressed by the scars, were you, Dove…”
“I was not.” Her mother tousled her father’s hair fondly. “Finding another husband after you got eaten whole would have been too much trouble, Edward.”
“I would have fought my way from the heart of the beast for you, Andromeda.” Her mother made a soft, beautiful dismissive noise with air between her lips. In her armchair, Hermione’s head against her knee, Dora yawned theatrically. On the wall, the clock showed nine.
“Bed, Hermione?”
“Did you make up the guest bed yet, Nymphadora?”
She felt Hermione stiffen against her knee.
“No, Mom. There’s a mattress on my floor. Girlie chats. Y’know how it is. Dad, mom’ll explain later.”
“Yes, love.”
She wasn’t fooling anyone.
-
“Don’t look.”
“I’m not looking.”
“You’ll ruin it if you look.”
“I promised that I wouldn’t look, didn’t I?”
Dora lay on her back on the single bed of her youth, her arms pillowed behind her bed, her eyes tightly closed.
“Can I open them yet?”
“Yes. Yes, alright…you can open them.”
She saw Hermione perched against the edge of her cluttered desk; her dad had taken to storing papers in her room when she was fifteen…He’d carried on unabated after she’d left home. Hermione stood against all of the paper, her hair loose on her shoulders, her waist cinched in red satin. For a moment, just a second, Dora was sorry that Hermione wasn’t nude, poetry of bare skin and all that jazz. Uncertainly, Hermione raised one hand above her head. Her face fell.
“I look a mess, don’t I? I know that this was a mistake. It’s all…it’s all ugly shoes, isn’t it?”
Dora bit back a laugh.
“Come here, stupid girl.”
Hermione tottered a little in very high heels before she found her feet. She hoisted her battered leather handbag.
“Bag of tricks.” She gave a tremulous smile. On the bed, Dora lay back and spread her legs. Hermione knelt on the mattress between them. “Do you want to touch me, Dora? I think that I might like for you to…y’know, touch me.” She had laid her hands on the front of Dora’ jeans, over her hips, her fingers splayed to touch bare skin where Dora’ sweater had ridden.
In the time it took Dora to wriggle down onto her knees on the floor, Hermione had lifted her breasts out of her corset. Dora leant forward and licked Hermione’s left nipple, nipping at it with the edges of her teeth. She kissed down the red satin, ran her tongue over the strip of bare skin between ribboned waistband and corset. She hooked her thumbs under the elastic in Hermione’s knickers. Hermione’s fingers tightened in her hair as she worked the fabric down over hipbones and the curve of Hermione’s arse. Once she had Hermione naked from the waist down, Dora guided her leg up over her shoulder. She ran her finger down the damp furrow between Hermione’s legs. She pushed a finger up inside Hermione, licked a line from her knuckle to Hermione’s clit to make her shudder.
“Come on pretty girl,” murmured, encouraging. Hermione cupped her breasts as Dora licked and sucked, slid her finger in and out of Hermione’s cunt. Hermione rolled her breasts with the palms of her hands, pinched her nipples and rolled up towards Dora’ lips.
“Filthy enough for you, pretty girl? Hermione twisted, her leg tightening over Dora’ shoulder.
“Shut up…” She sucked in a breath, sounded desperate, her head tipped back, her next breath almost a groan. “You’ve done this before.”
“Sometimes,” murmured Dora, pressing the word up inside Hermione’s body.
“I’m going to…I can’t…” whimpered Hermione, writhing, poetry in bare skin and red satin. Dora didn’t say anything, added a second finger, mouthing a little prayer against all of that heat.
Hermione’s orgasm came with a soft sigh.
Dora kissed her way back up Hermione’s body with damp lips. She gave Hermione a long, loose kiss, her fingers moving lazily between spread legs. She wrapped her own legs around Hermione’s thigh, still in her jeans.
“How was that then, filthy girl?”
Hermione coloured prettily.
“We’re not done yet.” Dora laughed, sitting up to drag her shirt up over her head. She was braless, and cool air on bare skin was bliss. Her mouth made a soft ‘o’ when Hermione stretched her nipple, pinching gently.
“And here was me thinking that you were, ah, a good girl, Hermione Granger.”
“I have been a good girl all of my fucking life,” said Hermione, rubbing her nipple hard with her thumb. “And now I want to do filthy things.”
“Go on then,” said Dora, her mouth tightening. “Do your worst.”
-
On all fours, she pressed her face into the pillow while Hermione worked the Muggle sex toy deeper into her, while Hermione rubbed her clit hard from behind. Her arse stung from being slapped. She’d bit her fist to keep from moaning until Hermione had urged her up onto her hands and knees. Even the thought of her mom and Dad at the end of the hall hadn’t kept her quiet, until Hermione had balled up worn red knickers and pressed them into Dora’ mouth.
She rocked backwards on her knees, a muffled moan for more. Even when she sobbed for less, Hermione pressed on.
“No more,” she’d begged, meaning not enough.
Which she came, she exploded. It had been a very long time. She was herself, totally herself, for more than a minute. Hermione spread mousey hair across her breasts, rubbed her nipples and sighed contentedly.
“You’ve done this before,” murmured Dora, rubbing her hands through pink spikes.
“Sometimes,” said Hermione, drowsily. “I think I love you.
“Good,” said Dora, curling in, turning in, wrapping herself around Hermione and all of that warmth.
-
She opened her eyes twice. She opened her eyes and saw her mom and dad sitting beside the bed. Her mother was wearing the shawl she’d worn around her hair for Remus’ wake thrown around her shoulders. Her dad was reading the newspaper.
“Hello, Dora.”
She opened her eyes again without closing them. Hermione was sitting at the side of the bed (not hers) Hermione’s eyes were closed, but there was something watchful in the way she held her shoulders. At the bedside, a calendar read March. March? Where did February go?
She tried to speak. Her voice felt tight and swollen; her eyes teared with the effort of forcing the word passed cracked lips.
“’ermione?”
Hermione’s eyes flickered open, too big and bright in a pale face.
“Dora.”
“What’s up, pretty girl?” She said, meaning nobody calls me Dora and don’t tell me don’t tell me.
Hermione leant forward, gently took Dora' hand. There was something black under both of their fingernails.
“Don’t you remember, Dora? You got…you did get hit in the head. Charlie brought you back. Kingsley was angry. He didn’t want you there, but…”
“Me? Hit in the…” She heard the dismissive tone in her hoarse voice even as she became aware of the dull ache in the back of her head. Hermione had mentioned it and made it hurt. In the hurt was a memory, screwed up tight and small and sore, of stumbling through smoke, bending to pick something up…what? Something, and the sky falling then, the roof, and she’d fallen, and hurt.
She blinked, a tear slipping down her face. It wasn’t her room. It wasn’t her bed. She didn’t want to…she didn’t want, and something was so terribly wrong in the world.
“Hermione…I don’t remember.”
“Shhh, Love. It’s okay.” It isn’t. Don’t lie to me. You’ve got a glass forehead, pretty girl. Hermione squeezed her hand. “It was nobody’s fault, Dora…An accident. At first, Kingsley thought…but no, Dora, no. Just a stupid terrible bloody accident. I’m so sorry, love. I’m so very sorry.”
She’d been bending to pick something up. Her dad’s train. Red paint black split. Charlemagne. Her dad’s train. Her dad.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, her bottom lip trembling wildly. “You’re lying to me.” Her mom as well, the bright gypsy colours of Andromeda’s shawl, miraculously whole colours blowing, snagged on blackened wood. She was shaking her head fit to snap her neck. She jerked her hand free of Hermione’s, rubbed her knuckles, her entire surface scorched.
“Dora, I…”
She moved without thinking; Auror training (move quickly, move without opening your eyes). Her hand snapped out. Her palm stung and Hermione’s cheek flushed. Slapped, Hermione’s face was sharp and pretty, her eyebrows high, her lips tight.
“I’m so very sorry, Dora,” she said, rubbing her cheek.
In her room in St Mungos, swaddled tightly against burns and sorrow, Dora screamed herself to shreds..
-
My dad didn’t know anything about the war, or at least he pretended that he didn’t. He was proud of that. All of his life, my dad was proud of the choices that he made. That he was a wizard; that was unspeakably cool to my dad…I don’t think that he ever stopped reminding my Auntie Julie. My Dad…My dad wanted to know things…My Dad cared. He didn’t feel like his work at the Ministry did much good. He felt blessed to just be doing something with made him extraordinarily happy. My mother was another thing that made my dad extraordinarily happy. To the day they…until they died, they were so in love it was difficult, at times, to understand. They were just in love. My mother always said that she loved my father because he made it possible for her to do impossible things. My dad had that about him; he was quietly magnificent, my dad, but my mom was something too. Most beautiful of the Black sisters, braver by far than my horrible aunts who did as they were told and hated my mother for living life as only she could. My mother and father were the bravest, most beautiful people who I have ever met. It takes a lot to make a new world. A lot of courage and a lot of strength. My Dad wasn’t Atlas, but he tried. He used to say that my mom was all the God that he needed. The world in which my mom and dad lived was a long way away from war. Not fire proof, in the end though. I wanted…to tell you a quick story about my mom and dad in closing. More my dad, but it was because of my mom. Almost everything with my dad was. Anyway. Dad was asked to join…Dumbledore offered my dad a job once, when I was a little girl. My mom said that my dad just smiled, thanked Dumbledore for the very great honour and said “When am I supposed to look after my girls if I’m off being a hero for the whole world?” My mom refused that job too. She said it’d play havoc with her dancing shoes. My mom and dad were just happy with what they had. My mom wrote books. My dad went on adventures, but he always came home. Better that they went on together, I reckon. They did marvelous things together, my mom and dad, and I’ll miss them forever. Andromeda Black. Edward Tonks. Mom and Dad. I’ll love you forever. I will miss you forever.
She’d written it all out neatly on a piece of paper, which she trembled when she held. She wore the same dress that she’d worn for Remus’ funeral, for all of the funerals. She wore Sirius’ old boots. She buried her mother in her worn out dancing shoes. When she started to cry, somewhere around her quietly magnificent dad, Hermione got up in front of everyone and held her hand.
-
The snow was melting one day and freezing the next, dithering. She sat in the garden counting shoots of green, watching as the Spring fought valiantly to win. It was something, she decided, that the world went on. She took a long drag on her cigarette. During the first war, the war when she was very little, her dad had taken up smoking on the porch at night. Her dad had smoked with relish, like a man who really enjoyed the act of smoking, but he’d also kept a good watch, had Ted. Dora huddled in the damp, and kept a watch of sorts. Eventually, Charlie came to sit beside her. There was something endearing about a twenty seven year old man still wearing a Quidditch jersey with holes in the elbows.
“Hello, pretty girl.”
So that’s where that had come from…Charlie and all of those years ago.
“Wotcher, Charlie.”
“What’re you thinking about?” She offered him the cigarette and he took it.
“Just the way that my dad used to smoke.”
“Mmph. I miss your mom and dad.”
“You miss them.”
She took her cigarette back from him and smoked in silence, her fingers curled just so, like her dad used to.
“Ginny’s about ready to pop,” said Charlie, scrubbing his hands through red hair. “And she’s furious with Kingsley all of the time…She figures either he’s going to miss it or, worse still, he’ll actually get back. Either way, I figure that New York is the place to stay.” Which made her laugh, which made him perfect in her eyes, just then.
“Three months from one end of the world to another,” she said, finally. “Doesn’t seem like a lot of time does it, mate…”
“It’s only the world, Dora.”
She leant her head against his shoulder.
“I just thought it’d be bigger, that’s all,” she said.
-
Philomena “Bill” Shacklebolt was born nearly four months to the day after the first end of the world. Her father made it back from New York in time to be in attendance. Ginny, formidable as she always been and ever would be (her mother’s daughter) swore and sweated, but afterwards, she glowed. She was twenty years old; war makes young wives. They were making the best of what they had, Ginny and Kingsley were. How easily life stops.
Dora sat back and held Bill in a bundle of patchwork, after Ginny had managed to shoo away a flock of adoring uncles.
“You’ll confuse her,” said Ginny, fondly, stifling a yawn. “Always changing girl.”
“Nawh,” said Dora, smiling as Bill rooted blinding against the front of her old Rolling Stones t-shirt. “Clever girl, this one. She’ll know me by my eyes. No milk there, pretty one.”
“All of that death and still a little life,” said Ginny, smiling wanly and holding out her hands for her little proof of life. She settled Bill against her breast, grasping mouth, gold brown skin, dusky head.
“And then love arrived,” said Dora, quoting some Muggle poet she couldn’t remember, getting up to leave.
“Oh, no, stay a while,” said Ginny, baring her breast for her baby, most definite proof of life. “Talk to me like a real human being, Dora. Nobody talks to me anymore. Everybody just oohs and ahhs and treats me like a milk cow.”
Dora sat back in her chair, her bare feet up on the edge of Ginny’s bed.
“What do you want to talk about?”
Ginny rolled her shoulder, made a soft surprised sound when Bill snuffled and snorted.
“Not the war. Anything but the bloody war. I look at them sometimes and it just feels like they’re getting further and further away.”
“Who?”
“The three of them.”
Dora shrugged.
“I just love her.” Just like that, she said it. Ginny smiled.
“The thing about loving Kingsley,” said Ginny, shifting Bill to the other breast, “Is that I feel like nobody could take him away from me. A long time ago, there was…Harry and he…was going to break my heart but Kingsley wouldn’t know how. Kingsley’s got such big hands but he’s so careful.”
“I think..what it is…how it is…It’s been cold for so long, Ginny, but she’s very warm. I’ve been cold for so fucking long.”
“Shhh,” said Ginny, shielding Bill’s tiny shell ear.
That was it though, wasn’t it? The end of that very long winter. The new world that Hermione was.
Either Hermione was the spring, or the spring was with her.
-
Spring passed into summer (the world moving as it does). Ginny dressed Bill in ballerina frills and tiny Quidditch shirts, swaddled clawed feet in scarves to keep Bill’s soft curves safe. The war went on but what she’d mostly remember, later, were the quiet times - lying on a rug on the lawn, Hermione in a spotted bathing costume like something from a fifties magazine. At night, they lay in bed with the windows thrown open (the heat, the heat). She had always slept naked, but Hermione always fumbled around on the floor for discarded knickers and afterwards stretched out, white cotton and suntanned skin. There were three moles under Hermione’s left breast that sparkled like a constellation. After she came, she twirled one curl of her hair around her finger over and over. Her breasts were barely handfuls. The word “tits” made her blush. Her skin was perfect, without scars - she had never been a soldier. In the world of Hermione’s body, there was no such thing as war.
She lay flat on her belly beside Hermione, her bones heavy and lazy in all of that heat. Hermione’s legs were spread, one knee bent, Dora’ fingers moving slowly between her thighs. There were patterns to Hermione; a rise of her hips, a tightening of the delicate skin around her nipples, a sudden breathlessness. She wrapped her fingers around Dora’ wrist, sudden iron strength, guiding, pressing.
Dora let herself be led. Why not?
“If I ever leave you,” said Hermione, breathlessly. Hermione was a talker, always had been, had always felt the need to press words into every possible place. Don’t always need to make a noise, pretty girl. Just let it wash over you like a wave. “If I ever leave you, I want you to know that I was never this happy.” Tell-tale lift on the last syllable. Come on, pretty girl, don’t make me wait. A little more pressure, a kiss for Hermione’s breast. Hermione’s body was doors and archways, inviting inward movement.
Comeoncomeoncomeon.
Later, lying quietly and lulled by the soft, regular sound of Hermione’s sleeping breathing, Dora lay with her ear against Hermione’s heartbeat. She’d been an Auror for long enough that she had a sixth sense, sort of. Her ribs were full of alarms. Hermione had pulled her knickers back on, still giggling with aftershocks. Dora smoothed white cotton over a gently curving belly. She kept very still. There were no stars in London’s sky. Grimmauld Place existed in a bubble of its own darkness. A long time as an Auror had given Dora a healthy sense of her own mortality and a good head for a battle coming her way. She closed her eyes, felt herself shrink a little to fit better against Hermione’s side.
If she goes, make it quick.
If she goes, just give me enough time to say goodbye.
Please.
Dora made a wish on the constellation which shone under Hermione’s left breast, and slowly fell asleep.
-
Remember, remember, the fifth...
Remember, oh, remember me.
Been there before, or had she? The walls all seemed to be moving, which recalled kissing in the shadows of a staircase, side step waltzing, her mouth pressed to Hermione’s. Never was much of a dancer, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but you, oh you. Never was much of a dancer, but with you to follow. The walls of the room are charred and dark (Harry went supernova and blew the world away). Brief vision of Harry and Hermione and Ron, hands linked before the light went bright, went so bright, and they gave all of everything, all of that love for a moment's silence after all of those years of noise.
Her ears were ringing. The insides of her eyes were spangled with stars.
All of that noise.
She sat up, felt crushed, smaller than she had been before. Charlie sat beside her, tears running down his face. She tried to say something, couldn’t. Her voice felt like a frail, fluttering thing. Its wings got stuck in her throat and made her cough. Charlie thumped her on the back and unbidden came the thought of sneaking her Dad’s cigarettes behind the fourth green house, fifteen years old.
Finally, she managed it. Finally, it came, an ugly sound, a croak.
“Hermione?”
Even her name sounded burnt now, blackened, and Charlie was shaking his head.
She didn’t so much collapse as shrink, fold down, wizened by the smoke and the heat until she couldn’t bear her own weight. She closed her eyes but colour see nothing but white. There had been so much light. On her back in the dirt, the world was very dark after all of the white light which love shed. It came back to her in flashes, a year from one end of the world to the other. She’d been right; it had been bigger all along. Dora closed her eyes and cried, that one word hanging in the air, Her-mi-one like a song, as, with a shudder, the world began again.