Chapter Text
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Commissioned Artwork by CharlieJacobs. Please do not edit, repost, or use without permission.
I do give permission for this to be used in bound copies of Break the Chain, so long as the bind is for personal or gifting purposes only.
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𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚎
.·:·.☆☾☼☽☆.·:·.
𝟹𝟷𝚜𝚝 𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟶𝟶𝟹
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Traipsing through Whitehall was like trying navigate some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland. As they moved, dipping into alleyways and pressing their backs against brick walls every time they heard a noise ring out in the dead of the night, Hermione distracted herself by trying to work out when exactly the ending of the world could be classified as a full-blown apocalypse.
She wasn’t sure if there were any official criteria or statistical findings on the matter; Perhaps there had to be a certain number of deaths, or all of the little boxes had to be ticked in the right order.
Hundreds of thousands of lives lost.
Check.
The entire electrical grid going dark.
Check, check.
Businesses closing. Pillagers in the streets. People killing one another for food and water.
Check, check, check.
Five years, five months, and two days ago, Harry James Potter had defeated Lord Voldemort and saved the world.
Hermione wasn’t sure when she’d started counting. Perhaps it had been a byproduct of life after the war. A day since the battle. Then a week. Then a month. Perhaps some desperate switch in her brain had been flipped, and she’d defaulted to numbers because numbers were the only thing that still made sense.
It was all the same, in the end. She could chart the days, the hours, but it wouldn’t change a thing.
She knew that. She just couldn’t stop.
Five years, five months, and two days ago, Harry James Potter had defeated Lord Voldemort and saved the world.
Three years, five months, and two days ago, a series of magical bombs were set off on the main street of every major wizarding district across Europe.
Once upon a time, Harry was the boy who lived. And then he did it all over again.
Two hundred and Ninety-Three days ago, Harry died in her arms.
It had been forty-seven minutes since Callum nursed, which meant she had at least an hour and thirteen minutes until he woke up, so long as the cushioning and silencing charms Remus had cast on the wrap she carried him in held up.
They’d been walking for sixteen minutes, which meant there were four minutes to go.
The last full moon was twenty-three nights ago. Because of the time of month, Remus’s reflexes were heightened, and his pain levels were low, so he was able to move rather quickly. He squeezed her hand every ten steps, as if he were ensuring she was still there.
It had taken Severus five days to show symptoms after he accidentally infected himself with the pathogen. It had taken nine days after that for him to take his last breath.
Five hours ago, they had exited the tunnels to sneak off to the woods and give him the closest thing to a proper burial that they could. Padma had refused to come, which Hermione had anticipated.
Three hours and thirty minutes ago, Remus had informed her it was time to follow through with his plan. Two hours and fifty-eight minutes ago, they’d stopped arguing about the aforementioned plan when she finally relented.
One hour ago, as she’d been nursing Callum while Remus fed her from the few rations they’d managed to find while they were on the surface, she’d felt hope begin to unfurl inside of her stomach.
It could work.
It would work.
Honestly, it had to work because they were properly fucked if they failed.
When Bellatrix Lestrange resurfaced on the second anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, nobody knew how to manage the third war that had been suddenly thrown into their laps. The world was still weak, still recovering after the last war—and, in truth, most failed to see her as the threat that she was.
Voldemort had been short-sighted at times; blind in his quest for power. But Bellatrix was power, layered in contingencies and failsafes. The fact that she had Horcruxes was a given, since dozens had seen her fall at the end of Molly Weasley’s wand, but she didn’t rely on a handful of pureblooded sycophants to do her bidding.
Bellatrix had plans, and the money and intelligence—as buried beneath her madness as it may have been—to back them up. The attacks on Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and the other villages and thoroughfares were just the beginning.
By the end of the year 2000, the first attack on the Muggle world came in the form of mass bombings at Trafalgar Square on Christmas Eve.
The attacks on both worlds continued through the following year until the lines between the Muggle and magical worlds blurred. The Minister for Magic worked tirelessly with the Muggle Prime Minister, but by November of 2001, most of the people who had survived were forced underground—quite literally, in Hermione’s case.
Before the world went belly-up all over again, Hermione and Padma Patil had both been studying for their masteries—Hermione, as a student teacher for Remus Lupin, and Padma in the same role for Severus Snape.
When the school closed its doors to students after the Trafalgar Square attack, the four of them were amongst the ten who stayed behind to guard the castle. After Hogwarts was breached, they were the only survivors.
Once the students were sent home, Hermione and Remus had begun working alongside Severus and Padma in their nearly non-stop brewing of healing potions and emergency elixirs, so after the breach, the four moved into a bunker in Slough that Severus’s Muggle grandfather had built in the 1940s.
It wasn’t pretty, nor was it an ideal arrangement, but they got by and eventually formed a strange sort of patchwork family, complete with bickering and bonding.
The four still went above the surface to fight when needed, but spent long periods of time holed up in the brewing room in the bunker. The days crawled by, and they killed the time with a stack of old records Padma found during a mission in Stockton and far too much booze, because most never thought to pillage the Muggle pubs and liquor stores.
Hermione had been living in the bunker for three months before it happened, one cold February night. She and Remus had been up long after Padma and Severus had both excused themselves to go get some rest, exactly five minutes apart because they were still trying—and failing—to hide their relationship in its early stages.
Severus had left an old Eagles record playing, Remus poured them each another drink, and a heated debate about the efficacy of peppermint oil when over-brewed led to a sloppy kiss, another heated debate, and Remus grabbing her by the arse and carrying her off to bed.
They didn’t talk about it for a while, but by April, they’d both stopped pretending. By June, he’d sank his teeth into her neck and claimed her as his mate. In July, the four inhabitants of the bunker passed around a bottle of tequila and cast some vows.
Remus did the honours of the binding for Padma and Severus. Severus cast the rite for Hermione and Remus.
It was all far faster than it would have been if the world had remained good, and neither couple likely would have even come together if they hadn’t been forced to live their days buried beneath the earth, but it didn’t matter.
They were sloppy and frantic, terrified for their lives, and disgustingly in love.
And then, on the Seventh of October 2002, the first act of chemical warfare rippled across the continent.
Three weeks later, Hermione found out she was pregnant.
Harry, the last of the friends she knew to be alive, died in her arms in January of 2003. Severus and Remus had gone out to meet Harry and Kingsley to exchange potions and intel when a group of Muggle pillagers attacked them.
She held Harry for hours while they worked tirelessly to heal him from a gunshot wound to the abdomen, but the damage had been too vast for even magic to fix.
Things shifted after that.
They were running out of food, preparing for a baby they couldn’t even take care of, and had lost contact with nearly everyone they knew—whether they were all dead or in deep hiding was anyone’s guess.
When the water supplies all across Europe were infected with a magi-chemical pathogen that attacked the immune system of anyone with Muggle blood, Hermione had all but given up.
The pregnancy was hard on her body without the proper food and care, but they had all tried their best. Severus brewed her prenatal potions, Padma pilfered knitting supplies from an abandoned house nearby to make a baby blanket, and Remus had been nothing short of incredible, even with all the doubt and fear she knew he carried.
When Callum Orion Lupin was born on the 27th of June, 2003, they’d had an entire, perfect week of blissful peace. Until Seamus Finnegan came crashing into the bunker, nearly dead, clutching a sample of the pathogen, and things exploded from there.
Remus and Severus stopped allowing Hermione and Padma into the brewing room. Having long since lost the need to brew healing potions in bulk, they shifted their efforts to trying to find a cure for the pathogen. Both men became nearly maniacal about cross-contamination, to the point that they brewed only in their pants and then burned them afterwards.
They thought they were being as safe as possible until two weeks before Halloween. Severus had been sitting at the little dining table, casually discussing Callum’s teething pain with Hermione, when he coughed.
It was just a fucking cough.
It barely registered at all until he pulled his hand away from his mouth, and she saw the blood coating his palm.
He went so fast after that. Too damn fast, and it wasn’t fair, but there was nothing they could do but watch him fade away.
Hermione saw the change in Remus almost instantly. He became frantic, losing sleep, constantly scribbling away on spare bits of parchment and muttering to himself as he paced the floor.
Two days before Severus passed, he told her of his plan. She’d argued with him, lost her mind about the dangers of time magic and how short-sighted he was being, until Padma stepped into the doorway, cradling Callum in her arms as she asked the question that tipped Hermione over the edge.
What other choice do we have if we want Callum to live?
And so, here they were, still covered in dirt from burying Severus as they moved through the desolate city with the baby strapped to Hermione’s chest beneath one of Remus’s oversized zip-up jumpers.
A noise sounded off to the right, and Remus held his arm out to signal for her to stop. He looked back at her and jerked his head to the right, so she dipped into the alley. Pressing her back to the wall, she held her breath until he turned and waved her forward.
“Is he still sleeping?” Remus placed his hand on Callum’s back and bent down to press his nose to the baby’s head to give him a sniff.
“I think we’ve still got time, he’s been fairly steady with his naptimes lately,” she replied. Remus nodded in response, looking back over his shoulder, and then met her eyes again.
Something flashed over his face that she couldn’t name, and she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. She had always prided herself on her ability to read him, so something about the way he seemed to be working even harder than usual to school his features unnerved her.
Before she could overthink it, he pressed his lips to hers in a quick peck, then sniffed her shoulder. Taking a step back, he took off his jacket and held it out to her.
“You’ll be cold,” Hermione protested.
“The full is next week,” Remus responded.
Shit. That was right.
The days all sort of bled together for her lately. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped counting the passage of time and started counting everything else. Thankfully, Remus had a built-in calendar due to the changes his body cycled through each month, so at least one of them could keep track of the days.
“In that case, why are you even wearing a jacket?” she asked in a hushed tone. Remus stepped forward to help her into the jacket, then pulled back and carefully tugged the fabric away from her chest to zip it around the Callum-shaped lump beneath her jumper.
“I thought it might help to bring it.” He bent down again, placing a kiss atop Callum’s curls where his head rested against her collarbone, then reached for her hand. “We’ve only got a few blocks left, let’s go.”
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A dazzling, sparkling light danced along the ceiling of the time room, casting iridescent beams all over the floor as Hermione softly swayed, humming quietly to keep Callum from fussing.
Remus stood in front of a large bookshelf, methodically adjusting the arms of several different clocks. He seemed to be working in a pattern of sorts—third clock from the left, back five minutes. One down, one over, forward an hour.
He moved with a quiet determination. Sure of himself.
Remus had always exuded a nervous energy, worried and uncomfortable in nearly everything he did. But when his mind was at work, all of his anxiety seemed to melt away. His brain was one of the few things he was confident in, to the point that he often became obsessive.
It was a trait they shared—their implacability when it came to matters of intelligence.
After she’d calmed down over his suggestion and heard him out, his plan made sense. She should have known it would; he never would have suggested such a thing if he hadn’t been sure that the likelihood of them succeeding was high enough to take the risk.
Especially with Callum in tow.
Still, it all seemed so fantastical, so unbelievable, but he had an answer ready for every question and protest she presented.
She had, of course, wondered why he’d chosen the time he did, but he explained it all with ease. Per the Laws of Time Magic, they could not directly move through the timeline with the intent of stopping death.
If they went back to the seventies, it would be impossible to do so without the intent to save James and Lily, and the same could be said for if they went back to the time after the second war.
While they could acknowledge that their actions back in time would eventually change the world, if they were to move with the direct intent of preventing specific deaths, Magic would collect her price, as she often did.
They’d gone over the options dozens of times, but he always came back to the same year, and so, Hermione took a leap of faith. Remus certainly knew the eighties better than she did.
He continued to wind up all the clocks, the countless hours he’d spent over the years learning about time magic lending him a steady competence that—well, honestly, it was rather hot, though that was par for the course, because he was always rather hot.
After he’d set the twentieth clock, he turned to face her. He didn’t speak, just scanned her face rapidly before he pressed his lips together in a thin line and gave a single nod.
The light danced across his face, and Hermione stopped swaying as she tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.
“You look so tired,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it before, though in all fairness, neither of them looked their best these days. Two years spent in a bunker was, as luck would have it, absolutely terrible for the complexion.
Still, he looked worse for wear. His skin was pale, as were his lips. His eyes looked utterly exhausted, the little lines at the corners even more pronounced than usual. Overall, it was as if he hadn’t slept in days.
Had he slept the last few nights?
She supposed she hadn’t put much thought into the matter. He nearly always stayed up later than her. Either she fell asleep before he did when they’d lie together after making love, or he’d be up writing or reading, playing music softly while she went to bed, or he’d be holding her while she nursed Callum and would stay awake to move the baby after she drifted off.
He was always in bed when she woke up, so she just assumed he went to sleep shortly after her, but perhaps she’d been mistaken? Of course, with Severus sick, the last few weeks had all blended together even worse than time usually did, so there really was no telling.
“I am,” he confessed. “But I’ll get some rest soon, cariad.”
He stepped forward and bent his forefinger, pressing it to the underside of her chin to tilt her head back. Hermione smiled as he pressed his lips to hers, sighing happily into his mouth.
“I don’t think I’ve told you enough how important you are to me,” Remus whispered, moving his hand to cup her face as he broke the kiss. He placed his free hand on Callum’s back, smiling when the baby let out a sleepy little huff.
“You tell me plenty,” she protested playfully. “But I do love it when you remind me.”
“You are. Important. Vital. The love of my fucking life, Hermione. And I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. I would have given up years ago. I think I spent most of my life just waiting for a good enough excuse to give up entirely.”
“And then I had to swoop in and ruin your plans.”
“Aye.” He laughed, running a hand over Callum’s downy curls as he continued, “I’ll never know how I got so lucky to have you. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for giving me our boy. But I think…I think in the end, this is the closest I can get to giving you the world you deserve.”
“You don’t need to thank me for loving you, Remus,” she told him. “I’ve told you before, and I’ll tell you again, even if the world falls to pieces, there’s still nowhere I’d rather be than by your side.”
“My little hopeless romantic.” Remus shook his head, smiling at her, and she shrugged in response as she looked down at Callum.
“Nah. Just practical. I think your baby looks good on me, Mr Lupin. Why on earth would I want to have missed this?”
“My baby looks perfect on you, Mrs Lupin.” Gold flashed through his eyes briefly, and he crashed his mouth back to hers. He kissed her harder than he had before, his hand protectively cradling Callum’s head between them, then broke away to plant a soft kiss on the baby’s cheek before he stood back to his full height and looked over his shoulder toward the bookshelf.
“This is going to work.” He spoke as if he were reassuring himself more than her, but Hermione responded all the same.
“It’s going to be brilliant, Remus. We’re going to go back, just the three of us, and we’re going to have a better life there,” she said confidently.
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, glancing over his shoulder again, then looked back at her with a nod. He smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes as he echoed, “Just the three of us, cariad.”
Hermione smiled back, forcing herself not to overthink his pause.
He was tired.
This was a lot of work.
It was just his nerves.
We’ll be fine.
Remus took a step away and turned back to the bookshelf, swivelling his head before he reached out and tweaked the hand on a clock in the centre of the third shelf.
“I only hope that, once this is done, you can—”
A booming sound rang out, some sort of heavy thump, thump, thump loud enough to startle Callum awake. He let out a shrill cry, and Hermione pressed her hand to his cheek as she began to bounce, trying to soothe him whilst Remus cocked his head to listen.
He waited a beat, then two, his hands curling into fists at his sides before he whipped around and grabbed her by the shoulders.
“I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so sorry. I wanted more time to explain,” he rushed out, turning her so her back was against the bookshelf.
“Time to explain? Remus, what's—”
The door to Hermione’s left shook as something slammed against it, and she gasped, clutching Callum tighter.
“Auror Department. Open the door.”
“Remus,” Hermione repeated, tears stinging her eyes as fear surged through her. The Aurors. A mockery, Hermione thought, for Lestrange's henchmen to masquerade under the name of those who once protected their world.
They were relentless and cruel. They would kill them on sight, or worse, and they were going to break down the door any second.
No.
This couldn't be happening; they'd been so close.
“I love you.” He slanted his lips over hers again, so briefly she barely felt the contact, then pressed his nose to Callum’s head before he jerked away and shoved a hand in his pocket.
“424 Laurel. 2b. Brixton.”
“What? I don’t—”
A crashing sound—as if someone had fired a spell against the door—reverberated through the room, and Callum screeched again. Remus pulled a small scrap of parchment out of his pocket and thrust it into her hand, squeezing her fingers before he guided her hand to the baby.
“Hold his head,” he ordered with a low growl. Hermione complied in an instant, opening her mouth to ask what was wrong, but Remus interrupted her as he reached over her head, fidgeting with one of the clocks again.
“I love you. I love you more than life. There is no world in which I don't love you, and I swear to the fucking gods if there was any other way—” he shook his head and looked back down into her eyes.
“424 Laurel. 2b. Brixton. It's on the note. Say it.”
“Remus, what the fuck is—”
“Hermione, say it.”
“424 Laurel. 2b. Brixton. What’s going on?”
The door rattled again.
Remus gave her a sad smile, placing a hand on her cheek as the other continued twisting something on the bookshelf.
“I love you,” he sighed mournfully, trailing a knuckle down Callum’s cheek. “I love you both, cariad. There is no version of me who won’t love you. Tell me you know that.”
“Of course I know that,” Hermione huffed. She shifted Callum against her chest. “I love you, too, Remus. Now what the bloody hell is—”
The door broke. A beam of red light shot across the room, narrowly missing Hermione’s shoulder.
Callum howled—or, what they called his baby howl, a soft little awooo sort of sound.
Remus growled, deep and guttural as he pressed a hand to her shoulder and nodded down to the baby.
“Protect his head. Keep him safe. I’m so sorry.”
A brilliant, devastating shade of green ricocheted through the room just as all the ticking of the clocks screeched to a halt. Hermione stood suspended in utter silence, and then she was falling, tumbling backwards as the room warped and dimmed around her.
She clung to Callum as her body turned over on itself, spinning through some sort of vortex. Streaks of light in every colour flew past her. Every time she thought she’d found her footing, the ground seemed to give way beneath her.
And then it stopped.
The world stilled as she landed, hard, flat on her arse with both arms wrapped around a now-silent Callum.
No.
No, no, no, please, she thought, hurriedly unzipping the jacket to shift him in her arms as she looked down at his face. Her vision was blurry, and she had to blink rapidly to clear it, but once she could see again, she breathed a sigh of relief.
He was safe. Breathing. Content, as if whatever chaos they’d just been flung through had soothed him—which, honestly, sounded about right. He’d always been rather chaotic himself.
“You’re okay,” she whispered, pressing her lips to his forehead. “We’re okay.”
Callum let out a sleepy mewl, and she glanced around, her eyes going wide. They were in an alleyway, which seemed to open up to an ordinary street. It was late, and dark, and relatively silent, save for a few people walking around.
Whitehall.
Not far from the ministry, but things seemed vastly different from the way they’d been a mere hours ago. Everything looked shockingly…normal.
But the normalcy wasn’t what caused her breath to catch in her throat; it was the scenery around her.
As Hermione stood and slowly crept to the end of the alleyway, awareness settled over her as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.
The signs splayed across the awnings over the shops. The shirt of the man leaning against the window of a pub across the street as he smoked a cigarette. The car idling by the curb nearby.
It was all older; all reminiscent of her early childhood, when she’d pop off to the shops with her mum or walk to the park with her dad.
“What the fuck did he do?” she whispered, then winced as she glanced down at Callum, who was looking up at her with wide eyes. Some day, she’d need to break her cursing habit, lest his first word be fuck.
Today was absolutely not that day.
Hermione moved deeper into the alley and sat back down. She shoved the parchment she’d been clutching into her pocket and slipped out of Remus’ jacket. Carefully unzipping the jumper, she discarded it as well and began to unwind the wrap she’d used to bind Callum to her chest.
Pulling her beaded bag out of the pocket of the jumper, she dug around inside until she’d found a pacifier and a fresh nappy. When she checked, Callum didn’t need a change and seemed fairly content, but she popped the dummy in his mouth to be on the safe side and carefully swaddled him in the wrap, then the sweatshirt for good measure.
It wasn’t dreadfully cold out, but there was enough of a chill that it caused her to fuss over his swaddling for a moment, tucking the arm of the sweatshirt around his face so that it covered his ears. Finally, she pulled the jacket back on and cradled the baby to her chest with one arm as she used the other hand to bring the lapel to her nose.
Tears welled in her eyes as she drew in Remus’s scent, but she forced down the ball of emotion welling in her throat and climbed to her feet as she walked back toward the street.
Callum stirred in her arms. Turning his head to press his nose to her collarbone, he drew in an audible sniff, then let out a soft whine.
“We're okay, cubby,” she cooed, patting his back. “Daddy must be sending us somewhere safe. It's all going to be alright.”
Stepping out onto the pavement, she plucked the note from her pocket and stared down at the address he’d scrawled onto the parchment before she sighed and closed her eyes.
I need a ride. I need a ride. I need a ride.
She wasn’t sure if it would work; she wasn’t even sure how it worked, but she heard the screeching of tyres and smiled triumphantly as she opened her eyes.
The Knight Bus stood before her in all its rickety glory, and she stepped forward as the doors opened to reveal a plain-looking older man with stringy hair.
“Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard,” the man called out, giving her a kind smile. “Just stick out your wand hand, step on board, and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Sherman Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this evening. Might I ask your name, miss?”
“Hermione Lupin,” she responded as she pulled her wand from her pocket and held it out. The man nodded in approval and gestured for her to put it away as he looked down at Callum.
“And who is this fine little lad or lass you’ve got with you tonight, Ms Lupin?”
“This is, Callum,” she said, shifting the baby in his arms. “I need to get to Laurel Lane in Brixton. Is that alright?”
“Quite alright, Miss. Come aboard.” Sherman stepped to the side, holding his arm out for her to pass him. Hermione braced a hand on the railing as she carefully climbed aboard and cast a nervous glance around.
She’d heard enough about the Knight Bus to know how chaotic it would be, and couldn’t help but ponder the etiquette of asking the shrunken-head of a driver to take it easy, but Sherman seemed to be one step ahead of her.
“Hey, Ern! We’ve got a wee one aboard, what say you take ‘er easy tonight?”
“You got it, Sherm!” Ernie called out joyfully before the lever slammed and the bus lurched forward, causing Hermione to stumble.
“Just have a seat here on one of the beds, miss. Ern’ll go easy on ya. I’ve got a wee lad at home meself, you know,” Sherman told her with a proud grin. “My little Stanley. Just turned nine years old, he did.”
“That’s wonderful.” Hermione forced a smile and sat down, dipping her head to press her nose to the crown of Callum’s head as a wave of exhaustion hit her.
What the fuck did he do?
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The trip from Whitehall to Brixton took roughly fifteen minutes—which was a welcome surprise. Given what she’d heard of Ernie’s driving, she expected the trip, which normally should have taken around twenty-five minutes, to take less than ten, so maybe he had taken it easy.
Though it hadn’t felt like it.
With every lurch and hard braking of the bus, she felt her anger climbing. She’d asked Sherman, in as casual a tone as she could muster, if he had a copy of the Daily Prophet, and he’d produced the printing from that very morning.
31st October, 1983.
The Prophet had a full-page spread highlighting the second anniversary of the death of the Potters, complete with speculation about where baby Harry was being hidden away, which caused a whole new surge of anger as her mind flashed to the Dursleys before quickly circling back to Remus.
He’d sent her back without him.
He had fucking promised her that they would do this as a family. He said, over and over, ‘I’ll be there. I’ll take care of you both. I will keep you safe. You won’t be alone, I’ll be there.’
But here she was, standing before a rickety set of stairs in a shoddy block of flats across from a pub in Brixton, exhausted and alone, with a now-screaming baby in her arms—because of course, as babies often did, he had to wait until thirty seconds after she’d stepped off the bus to start squalling to be fed.
It was her fault. She should have paid closer attention to how much time had passed, should have woken him back up to feed him while she had the chance.
Alas, she’d been slightly preoccupied by the fact that her husband had just flung her and their infant son twenty years back through time without him.
Without him.
How was she supposed to rationalise this? How the actual, Godric-loving fuck, was she supposed to do this without him?
Why had he left her?
Most importantly, where was he sending her?
Remus didn't exactly have a network of support in 1983. It had been a dark time for him, for obvious reasons, and he'd effectively cut himself off from the magical world, save for the letters he and Ted exchanged, and, if memory served her correctly, Moody had started forcing him to meet for a drink once a month by ‘83.
Given the year, the options were limited. There was no way Andromeda and Ted lived in this building. Moody had mentioned once, years ago, that he'd inherited his family brownstone in the seventies. She really couldn’t think of many other people whom he would have even known the whereabouts of in the early eighties.
He didn't know his Muggle family. Hope had passed away in 1979, and Lyall lived back in Abergavenny, so it wasn't anyone he was related to.
Could it be Emmeline? Mary? No, neither of those felt right. He and Mary hadn't been very close, and he'd mentioned seeing Emme on occasion when she was ‘in the city’, so she couldn't have lived in the East End.
The answer had to be there. She needed to focus, to think of who she could be forgetting. But Callum screamed again, so she forced the thoughts aside as she began to climb.
Fourteen stairs. She climbed them carefully, one by one, as she forced herself to steady her breathing.
In through the nose, out through the mouth.
Twenty-one steps down the corridor.
Turning to the left, Hermione stood before a blue door with peeling paint and drew in another breath before she raised her fist and knocked three times.
She waited seven seconds before she raised her fist to knock again, just as the door swung open to reveal—
“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.”
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