#rightthefirsttime

Right the First Time

Chapter 54: The Chalice

January 21st, 1980 – 23:00 – Wargrave, England

The cacophony of explosions around her made her ears ring violently as she ducked behind a pillar, narrowly avoiding a knockback jinx. The moment the smoke had cleared and Regulus was made visible, the room had erupted into chaos. The crack of apparition shook the foundation of the crypt as Death Eaters fled the battle, not willing to face the Order members who had now removed their masks—unwilling to hide behind the shield of anonymity that the silver masks provided.

Clutching her wand tightly, Hermione shrugged out of the oversized black robes, letting them pool around her feet. They were hard to maneuver in, and as she was fighting to for her life, she didn't want to risk getting caught in their snare. To her right she could see Dorcas, her body still hung limply in the air behind Voldemort who was sparring with both Regulus and Fabian. To her left, Alastor alternated between sending spells and physically assaulting the Death Eaters within reach.

Pushing off the rough stone pillar, Hermione stepped over the robe as she cast a Protego shield in front of her before moving from her hiding spot and into the fray. She needed to get Dorcas down and out of harm's way, but more importantly, she needed that bloody chalice. With Voldemort preoccupied, her chances of taking the dark object were much greater.

She shouldered her way through the room, narrowly avoiding spells as they were cast haphazardly around her. She didn't know if she was their intended target, or just happened to be in the path of fire, but she could feel the heat and hear the sizzle as her shield absorbed the damage.

As she approached the sarcophagus, her nervous heartbeat drowned out the explosion of spells around her. Voldemort was a mere five feet in front of her, his crimson robes marring the sea of black in the crypt. His back was still to her, but she knew it wouldn't be long. Even from his vantage point she could see he was toying with Regulus and Fabian, dueling with them with a practiced ease that she was both frightened of and envied. Magic had never come easily to her; it had taken much revision and practice to hone her skills, where it appeared Voldemort might have been born with the talent.

Dropping her shield, Hermione quickly cast the counter-curse to Voldemort's levitation spell and Dorcas fell on top of the tomb with a sickening crunch, her head bouncing off the etched stone.

Hermione rushed to her side, careful to keep the dark wizard in her peripheral vision as she visually assessed the unconscious witch. Dorcas was breathing, but it was labored, the rise and fall of her chest similar to someone who had just run a marathon. Dried blood clung to her dark skin where she had been lacerated from what Hermione could only assume was Dolohov's favored curse.

Biting her bottom lip, Hermione tried to lift the witch to no avail, only managing to tug her a few inches towards her before the weight became too much. Hermione lifted her eyes to look at Voldemort when she heard a loud crackle of magic. The cascading jinx he sent missed Regulus—barely—and landed against Fabian's shoulder. It sent the redheaded wizard stumbling back upon impact, sending him into a mass of Death Eaters whose bodies absorbed the explosive magic. One by one, their bodies began to ignite in explosions, as if someone had lit firecrackers and shoved them in their robes. She couldn't hear screams over the booms of magic, but she knew exactly what was happening. The way Fabian's mouth gaped open in horror as his body twisted in a fruitless attempt to flee from the jinx. The way the Death Eaters grabbed at their robes, clawing to be free.

Chapter 56: Forever

The holiday—despite Remus' insistence that Valentine's Day was not a real holiday— was spent in the company of friends. Hermione, Sirius and Remus floo'd to Godric's Hollow to celebrate with Lily and James. Despite the papers reporting Voldemort's defeat, everyone within the Order knew that it was only a matter of time before he returned, thus the Potters and Longbottoms were still under what Frank and James had taken to calling house arrest.

The afternoon was filled with sweets, laughter and a shared bottle of wine amongst everyone but Lily. Although he would never say it, James was restless. Hermione could see it in the way he spoke with Remus and Sirius, eager for company. She knew the feeling well. While on the run during what should have been her seventh year, she grew impatient waiting for some breakthrough to happen. Sure, she'd had the company of Harry and Ronald, but that only went so far. After staring at the boys for months on end, she had been eager to see someone—anyone else that wasn't them or someone trying to kill them.

After a small luncheon, Sirius and Hermione bid farewell to Remus, Lily and James. Much to her surprise, Sirius had arranged for their roommate to stay the night with James and Lily under the threat of physical violence. The three of them were slated to leave for Germany within the next couple days and Sirius was keen on getting some alone time in before they tracked the world's most violent dark wizard.

While Hermione was thankful for the quiet time with Sirius, she couldn't help but feel slightly bad for Remus. The only consolation would be the mound of chocolate the werewolf could work his way through while staying at the Potters'.

Sirius had planned their night alone down to the last detail. Upon arrival back at the Tutshill cottage, a bag of Chinese takeout awaited them on the counter next to a bottle of elven wine. He had apparently persuaded Mundungus to drop off dinner while they were at the Potters'. The wizard was happy to assist—for a small fee. While she normally would have scolded him for spending what little money he had frivolously, the smell of her favorite dish quickly quieted her rebuke.

They'd picnicked on the living room floor in front of a slow burning fire on a thick white throw that laid over the dingy carpet. They ate straight from the paper containers upon her insistence and drank from glass cups as they had no wine glasses to speak of in the cottage. Hermione had never been a really big fan of Valentine's Day, as her experience was that it was an over-celebrated day for young couples to snog publically, but today had been perfect. It was days like today that made her heart sink, knowing that her time with Sirius, Remus, Lily and James in the time was quickly coming to an end.

Leaning back against Sirius' chest, she turned her head so his heartbeat thumped comfortingly against her cheek, his arms loose around her waist as he held her in his lap on the floor. When he spoke her name with a small laugh, she glanced up, the hint of a smile pulling on her lips. "What?"

"You weren't listening to a thing I just said, were you?" Sirius questioned, cocking a single brow at her before lifting his cup to take a small sip of the sweet red wine.

"Define listening." Hermione reached up and swiped away a droplet of wine that leaked from the corner of his lip before popping her thumb to her mouth to lick the liquid off. Leaning forward, she set her own nearly empty cup on the coffee table before she shifted in his lap to turn and face him.

Sirius shook his head as he looped one arm around her waist, tugging her closer until she was forced to spread her thighs so his hips could slip between them. "I was just telling you that I think I've managed to convince Prongs that Peter is a terrible name for his sprog."

Chapter 55: Children’s Story

February 7th 1980 – 02:41 – Tutshill, England

Seventeen days. Four hundred and eight hours. Twenty four thousand four hundred and eighty minutes. It had been the longest wait Hermione had ever experienced in her life. The once-agonizing time spent thinking about her friends over summer holiday as an adolescent paled in comparison to what the past seventeen days had felt like. Voldemort and his followers had not been heard from since the botched recovery mission, and while the periodicals were speculating he might have met his defeat, Hermione and the rest of The Order knew what this calm truly meant.

He was not giving up. No, the exact opposite. He was planning. Licking his proverbial wounds and scheming of ways to complete his plan. And as unsettling as that was, Hermione didn't know what was worse about this situation. Knowing that he could attack at any moment with a renewed madness, or the fact that he had seen enough of her past to figure out she was not simply a witch working with The Order. She prayed that despite what he'd seen, he wasn't able to piece together where her origins lay, but knew full well he was mad enough to jump to large conclusions when left to his own devices.

She allowed herself to not dwell on the possible repercussions of Voldemort entering her thoughts, and instead focused on where they went from here. With Voldemort in hiding, his Death Eaters lurking in the shadows, it allowed Wizarding Society the reprieve from their morbid reports and instead they focused on what The Prophet had taken to calling the celebration of the century. The 35th anniversary of Grindelwald's capture and subsequent imprisonment.

The newspapers, both British and foreign, focused on the final battle between Grindelwald and 'The Great Albus Dumbledore', retelling the story of the night of his arrest in the days leading up to the anniversary. As interesting as it was, Hermione was beginning to grow tire of sifting through the headlines in search of a clue that might give her an idea of where the Dark Lord was hiding. She knew it was only a matter of time before Voldemort decided to reappear and remind the Wizarding World that his reign of terror was far from over—unlike Grindelwald's.

With an irritated sigh, Hermione closed the day old copy of The Lamp Lighter and tossed it onto the coffee table beside her propped up feet. She knew it was a stretch to expect the small publication she'd found to publish anything that might help her search, but she had to try. The Prophet had been of no use, and The Wizard's Voice was nearly two days behind by the time the copies arrived from overseas, which meant that even if she did read something of interest, by the time they got there, the threat would already be gone.

Dropping her elbow on the arm of the couch, Hermione let her chin rest in her palm as she let her free hand rest the crown of Remus' head that lay in her lap, her fingers sliding slowly through his soft brown hair like one would stroke a cat. It was nearly two in the morning, and Sirius had called it quits nearly four hours ago. Remus, having had a hard time sleeping since they'd moved into Tutshill, offered to keep her company while she worked. He had been in the middle of combing Le Cri de la Gargouille, as his French was much better than her own, when he drifted off to sleep with his head in her lap. At first she'd debated waking him to move him to the bedroom, but he had looked so peaceful. She knew the little sleep the werewolf was getting was restless, and with the possibility of having to thwart an attack at any given moment given the way the Death Eater's worked, she let him stay with the French newspaper draped across his chest and his head in her lap.

Her eyes drifted to the newsprint, watching the moving images from the past. Even if she didn't have a rudimentary knowledge of the French language, she would know what the article was about. She'd seen the pictures what felt like a thousand times before. They were all over her history books in school and were also used in every single article she skimmed in the other publications. A young Albus Dumbledore stood in front of the Deutsche Zaubereiministerium beside the Chancellor. He looked almost dazed in the photograph as blasts of white light from the cameras popped. Behind him, just in the foreground, the Commission for Dark Wizard Apprehension was ushering a furious Gellert Grindelwald into the back of a carriage, his wrists bound with magic-repression handcuffs, his lips magically sewn shut.