A/N: Unforgivably long time. Blah blah blah. No excuses aside from the many A/N's that have graced other fics/updates. Lots of health issues, mainly. Sorry. Not abandoning. Just be patient.

Feel free to re-read if you need to in order to catch up. Lord knows I had to.

Enjoy.

Chapter 44 - A New Reality

Memory was a strange thing, Hermione thought as the flames started to whip around her body and engulf her surroundings. In that moment, as she stood and watched the destruction around her, she remembered a moment during her childhood when she had been camping with her family. She had been very young-four or five-and had yet to truly understand the danger that fire presented to human flesh.

She had been drawn to the campfire and had reached out to touch the friendly dancing flames. She had shrieked with pain, and in spite of their best efforts her parents had decided to cut the holiday short in order to take their daughter to A & E for treatment of her burns. It had been a hard-won lesson. She had always been incredibly wary of fire since then.

Now, as she watched and waited for the inevitable pain, Hermione couldn't help but wonder what would have happened if she had simply heeded her parents' multiple warnings and never tried to touch the fire. Would she have possessed such a hesitance now? It seemed silly to think about. This had been her idea, and there hadn't been much hesitance in it. She had chosen this destruction. So she steeled herself for the inevitable agony.

And yet, it didn't come.

"Though I'm loathe to admit it, my dear, I am immeasurably impressed."

It took a moment, but Hermione could barely believe her own eyes as the flames parted to reveal a stunning woman, long auburn hair billowing around her. A long, pale arm reached out to into the inferno and caressed the merry orange. Her robes seemed unharmed as she moved, unhurried and apathetic to the carnage around her. It was as if the fire was going out of its way to avoid her.

Just as it seemed to be going out of its way to avoid Hermione.

"What is this?" Hermione asked when she found her voice, in no mood for preambling niceties.

Selena Selwyn laughed. "Oh my girl...you still don't understand, do you?"

The older woman came to a stop in front of her, and she tilted her beautiful head to the side as if assessing Hermione. Hermione felt herself twitching under the scrutiny, though not for the usual reasons of physical insecurity that sometimes plagued her. No, something within her resisted being in the same area as this woman-hated sharing the same oxygen. She felt overwhelmed by the desire to flee; to run as far and as fast as she could.

But she remained fixed to the spot as Selena met her gaze.

"You had two weeks with Alexandra and still know nothing about that night," she said, more matter-of-fact than questioning. "Well, allow me to enlighten you."

Before Hermione could move away, Selena pressed her palm to the younger woman's forehead and Hermione felt herself spinning into an abyss of colour and sound. Finally, she stopped, only to find herself standing with a much younger Selena and the dark, looming figure of the being who had inspired many of her adolescent nightmares.

They were in Harry's nursery in Godric's Hollow, two decades earlier. Lily Potter was standing at Harry's crib, desperate to save her crying child. Hermione tried to move toward the woman, trying in desperate confusion to place herself with the woman she had grown up admiring for her bravery and self-sacrifice. But she couldn't move.

"She was courageous, if naive, to think she could stand against us," a voice mused, and it took a moment for Hermione to realize it was the voice of the Selena she knew in her present. The witch beside her-the younger Selena-hadn't spoken, but then again, Hermione knew the Selena from the past was a very different creature from the enigma of a woman she had initially been introduced to.

"But she didn't know what the Dark Lord knew," the voice continued. "She didn't even suspect he hadn't intended for her to die that night."

Hermione stood, stunned. "What?"

"He was going to offer her a place at his side. Can you imagine? I had thought her a simple Mudblood at the time. I hadn't understood how he could offer something so precious to someone so undeserving."

"Move so I may destroy the child," Voldemort's chilling, shrill voice sounded then, drawing Hermione's attention back to the scene in front of her. "Move, and you will be rewarded."

"Never!" Lily screamed, green eyes wild with the uncompromising strength of a savage lioness.

"Idiot," Hermione heard another voice say. She was shocked that it seemed to come from her, though she knew it wasn't the sound of her own voice. Then she realized that she was inside present-Selena's memory, which means the words had come from past-Alexandra. Aside from the nauseating thought of being trapped in the body of a woman she truly despised, her head throbbed with all of the questions that weeks of research hadn't come close to answering.

The voice emenating from her continued, "Do you not realize you've lost? Your husband is dead, and you will be soon if you don't submit."

"I will never submit to you willingly," Lily spat, glaring at Hermione with a fury that made the young witch flinch.

"Be reasonable, Lily," the past-Selena said from Hermione's side, her green eyes wide and fearful as she pleaded with her school-day nemesis. "He said you'll be rewarded. Don't you want to be rewarded?"

"No," Lily said firmly.

"Then I shall have to go through you," Voldemort simply said, before unleashing a Cruciatus Curse that had Hermione wincing with repressed memory. She had been on the receiving end of the curse so many times, but never had she seen it played out with such vicious hatred. Again, she tried to move toward Lily and again, she was unable to.

"You can't change that which has already occurred," present-Selena's voice said mildly, as if knowing the conflict raging in Hermione's mind. "Now watch."

Lily's screams subsided as she fell limply to the ground, her body twitching as Voldemort methodically walked around her twice, wand aloft as he murmured words that Hermione didn't understand. Then he stood facing her, long arms raised as his wand ran shapeless patterns through the air. Hermione watched, horrified, as Lily's back arched, pulled upward from her ribs by some invisible cord and straining her body in an uncomfortable-looking back bend.

"The power of a wizard comes from three places," the present-Selena voice explained. "The mind, the soul, and the-"

"The body. I know," Hermione interrupted.

The voice tsked. "We thought so too, at the time. I think the Dark Lord still thinks it, but I know better. Not the body, at least. The heart. I've learned the body is merely a vessel-a conduit for the power. But the power itself...well, that is in the mind, the soul, and the heart. I didn't understand it at the time; the power that comes from love." She spat the word in hatred. "That's where we went wrong."

Hermione watched wordless as the magic in the room throbbed, pressing into her body like millions of relentless fingertips. This was where the paintings had ended, with Lily still somewhat alive and Voldemort conjuring some unknown spell in front of past-Selena and past-Alexandra. Hermione held her breath, waiting for what was about to happen next. This was the missing piece; the link in the chain she had been searching for.

As she had expected, the magic rebounded and exploded. Hermione felt something fly into her body, slamming into her chest with such force that she flew backwards.

Dazed, she blinked up to see present-Selena's face watching her with barely-contained amusement. Hermione found herself on the ground, surrounded by swirling flames. She was back in the present, and understanding started to dawned on her.

"Alexandra...er...that is...the woman I knew to be Alexandra...she was possessed by Lily's heart, not her soul. Wasn't she?" Hermione gasped, her throat suddenly parched.

"Most of it," Selena replied, not offering to help Hermione as the younger witch struggled back to her feet. "We hadn't realized her little brat would ruin the ritual. We hadn't counted on a baby being able to siphon off some of the power. Potter absorbed most of the mind, which explains why he is so unfathomably gifted when, for all intents and purposes, he doesn't seem to put much effort into it."

Despite herself, Hermione couldn't help but find this logic sound. She would be lying if she said she hadn't sometimes secretly considered it a miracle he had passed any of his classes at Hogwarts, even with her help, knowing how little attention he had given to his studies.

"I absorbed most of the soul. The soul is the foundation of power, you see. It is the skeleton of the whole. It's one of the reasons why I resemble Lily Potter more than I did before. I can't say I resent that. I had envied her before she died. I wasn't much of a witch before that night, you see, though I wanted to think I was. But I always sat on the sidelines, content for Alexandra to receive all the attention. But after..." She let her words trail off.

"But...in the paintings..."

"I had more heart than Alexandra did before that night," Selena said. "I'm sure you've realized by now that the magic went to those who were deficient. A child doesn't have much of a mind, and therefore Potter was primed to receive it. Alexandra was heartless. She went through men and boys with as much regard as most women put into picking and discarding their shoes." She leaned forward, a look of conspiratorial glee on her face. "Sound familiar?"

Hermione bristled. "I don't know what you mean," she sniffed.

Selena laughed. "Touched a nerve, did I? Well, it's the only reason for it, in my opinion, for the power to have chosen you. You may have wed that insufferable blood traitor, Granger, but you did not do so for love. Or do you not think it interesting that, of all the men you could have wed, you chose the one most like yourself in that regard?"

"In what regard?" Hermione bit out.

"Heartless. Incapable of true love, at least not of the kind most people think. You both went through partners without consideration for the other person's feelings, and you did so knowing that you could never feel love for those people. I suppose you saved the wizarding world an enormous amount of heartbreak by marrying each other, knowing that the other had just as much baggage. It's poetic, really, and, as I said, the only reason for your current situation."

Though she and Sirius had been through so much together, had acknowledged the love they had for each other, had agreed that they were meant to be together in almost every way, Hermione couldn't help the fact that Selena's words pierced a very vulnerable part of her. Unwilling to examine it, however, Hermione swallowed her pride and decided to ignore the barbs in order to ask the question that she felt was more relevant.

"You refer to yourself in the first person. As 'I'. But...you were Alexandra, before that night."

Selena shrugged, which Hermione found very disconcerting as the action didn't seem to fit the woman. "Old habits, I suppose. It's been over twenty years. I was far more comfortable with the changes that occurred to me than Alexandra was. Everything muddled up, you see. Not only Lily Potter's mind, heart, and soul, but ours as well. What little empathy the past version of myself had...well, she ended up with it."

"So you relinquished your heart in order to possess a little more soul?" Hermione asked, unable to keep the suspicion out of her voice.

Selena laughed, and it was biting. "'A little more soul'?" she mocked. "Oh, my dear, you have no idea how much I gained. I may have lost what shred of humanity I had, but I gained more power than anyone else in that room."

Hermione blinked. "But...why?"

"Think, you ignorant child. Potter was a baby. He may have siphoned some of the power, but there is only so much one can gain when the mind still so young. Alexandra was powerful, yes, but her emotions made her unstable and unpredictable. So what was left all went to me."

"But Voldemort-"

"You dare say his name. How foolish," Selena interrupted with a sneer. "He gained nothing. He thought he did, but he became weaker. He didn't realize he gave us all a bit of himself that night, a fact that I have kept from him to preserve my own life." She paused with a slight, dark smirk. "Not that he could do anything to me now."

Hermione felt a cold dread slide up her spine, and she asked, "Why are you telling me this, Selena."

The woman smiled. "You must have realized by now, my dear, that fiendfyre was never going to be the end of this."

Hermione inhaled sharply, realizing the discomfort she felt when Selena appeared-the discomfort that had only grown as Selena needled and prodded her with verbal parries-came from a part of her she had never felt before. A part that encouraged dark deeds and sinister thoughts. The Darkness she had been battling was more than the oppressive taunting she had felt when wearing the horcrux seventh year; more than sly, silken temptation she felt when about to do something wicked. It was a battering ram, pummeling through her defenses to envelope her heart with its black purpose.

"All of that power...it can't simply be destroyed by a sweep of dark magic," Selena said, bringing her hand to Hermione's cheek and caressing the skin. They both swallowed hard, both reviling the gesture, but neither moved away. "It has to go somewhere."

"And...and it's in me?" Hermione asked softly.

Selena removed her hand to gesture around them, where the fiendfyre was still raging around them and yet had left them unharmed. "You know that no ordinary wizard or witch could withstand this. And yet look at us. We are above it, better than. We are a new breed, my dear."

"And this is what Voldemort wants," Hermione said, grimicing. "A new breed of witch or wizard who can take over the world."

Selena chuckled. "Well, I suppose that might be his end goal. He was never one for subtlety. Which is why I'm here, to offer you the same thing he offered Potter's stubborn mother. Join us, Hermione Granger."

It was Hermione's turn to laugh. "You must be truly insane if you think I have any intention of joining you now that I have this power," she said, the hand that had been gripping her wand raising toward the other woman.

But nothing happened.

Selena seemed to be expecting this, because she merely smiled. "If it were that easy, don't you think I would have killed you by now?" she asked. "We're evolved, yes, but we're also linked. I cannot hurt you any more than you can hurt me. No matter how much we want to."

Nostrils flaring at the injustice of the situation, Hermione reluctantly stowed her wand and looked at the woman with a defiant jut of her chin. "Then it appears we're at an impasse."

"Not quite," Selena sang. "You see, you're burdened by your morals. You may have more darkness in you, more of the Dark Lord's glorious purpose, but the power that flows through your veins is still hindered by your precious values. I, on the other hand, possess no such hesitations."

Hermione's brow furrowed. "Hesitations?"

Selena leaned in, her eyes fixed on the younger witch. "Make no mistake, young lady. I will do whatever it takes to bring you to the Dark Lord's side. You think murdering Oliver Wood was the worst that could be done? Everything you know, everyone you love, is forfeit now. Your werewolf ex-lover, dead. Your little blood traitor Weasley friends, gone. And your husband," She grinned maniacally. "I will dismember him limb from limb while you watch and turn his pelt into a cloak."

Panic clenched around Hermione's heart at the thought of her life without Sirius. It wasn't lost on her that his demise was the only one that filled her with such unyielding fear. She would have a difficult time living without Remus, the Weasleys, even Harry...but a life without Sirius?

She didn't know if she would be able to bear it.

"You have two days to get your house in order, Miss Granger. If you are not at Malfoy Manor by midnight on the second day...well..." She smirked. "You know the consequences."

"You aren't going to win this," Hermione said, hating that her voice sounded so small.

Selena laughed, and it wasn't a good sound. "And that is where you're wrong, my dear. I've had over twenty years to live with this power; twenty years learning how to control it and discovering its limits. You've had it for...what? An hour? You may be sharp...far more clever than you have a right to be, given your lowly birth...but even you cannot make up a twenty year learning curve in forty-eight hours."

And with a wild laugh, she aparated into thin air, leaving Hermione with the weight of everything that had just transpired.

"We have to go after her," Sirius insisted as he was held back by both Remus and Kingsley. For the past half hour he had been pacing, cursing, and sporadically trying to get to the fireplace in spite of logically knowing that there was no where he could floo to. But now he was at his wit's end, and he didn't care if he ended up coming out of a random Welsh Muggle's fireplace if it meant he was actually doing something to get to his wife.

"Stop it, Sirius," Remus said, forcefully pushing the animagus back with all the might he possessed. Strong though he was, even Sirius was not immune to the power of a werewolf, and he found himself nearly flung into the sofa.

Sirius glared at his best friend. "What's wrong with you? Don't you care? Aren't you worried that-"

"Of course I am!" Remus roared, his normally-calm demeanor shattering as his eyes took on an amber glow. "Don't you think I want to go charging after her too?! You're not the only one she means something to, Sirius, but she told us what she was going to do and there's no coming back from that."

Sirius felt like he had just stabbed very deeply right into the heart.

"You think she's dead, don't you," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"No! Of course not! I just...I..." but from the look on the werewolf's face, Sirius knew the possibility had not escaped his friend, no matter how much they all believed in Hermione's talents.

"Sirius," Kingsley said gravely from where he was monitoring both Severus and a still-unconscious Harry. "I know...I know it's not something we want to entertain. And if there's anyone...anyone at all...who could find a way out of it, it would be Hermione...but what we saw in her eyes..." He swallowed hard, uncharacteristic emotion passing over his usually-stoic face. "That darkness needs to be destroyed."

"No matter the cost? No matter that my wife and our child-"

"What?!" both Remus and Kingsley interrupted forcefully, both whipping around to face him.

Sirius sighed, feeling himself precariously close to tears as he ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He hadn't meant to blurt that last part out but he was beyond control. The moment he left her, he knew something wasn't right. He had seen the depth of potential evil when he had looked into those hazel eyes he loved so much; had seen the 'Darkness', as she had called it. But he couldn't reconcile it with the woman he knew, with the woman he loved beyond all reckoning.

So he had been careless, and now he was certain he would have to deal with the consequences.

"Are you saying," Remus said, his voice dangerously low. "That we just allowed a pregnant woman to essentially commit suic-"

"She is not dead!" Sirius shouted, grey-green eyes seeped to silver rage as his hands shook, white-knuckled in his helpless ire.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Remus shouted back. "The woman you love is carrying your child and you just let her-"

"I didn't let her do anything! No one can make her do anything she doesn't want to do and you of all people know that!"

"Sirius," Kingsley said, his voice just as soft and dangerous as Remus's had been. "Are you saying Hermione was...is...pregnant?"

"Yes. No. I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Remus growled.

"I'm not speaking fucking Greek, Moony, I don't fucking know!"

"Then why did you say...what you said?" Kingsley asked, trying to remain calm amidst Sirius and Remus's anger.

"She...she didn't take her contraception potion yesterday and we..." He didn't finish the thought, trying desperately to reign in his panic. He didn't want her last thoughts of him to be their conversation the night before. Even though she had seemed mollified by his apologies, he was still guilty that he had reacted so poorly. He didn't want her still thinking he suspected anything of her.

Remus's nostrils flared, but he said nothing as Kingsley exhaled slowly. "So...it's still early stages."

Sirius merely nodded, his head starting to pound. He felt like he was in one of his nightmares, only everything was inescapably real. Not for the first time in his life, he felt real despair. Fiendfyre was nothing to sneer at. It had destroyed countless lives and left nothing but pure destruction in its wake. There was no way a mortal could outrun it or outsmart it. It was, by its very definition, an uncontrollable, undeniable agent of chaos and death.

"She can't be dead," he said softly, tears starting to fall as he let his head drop into his hands. The wrenching pain at just the thought, at the mere idea, of being without her was worse than all the years he had been trapped in Azkaban; worse than the years trapped in the Veil.

Worse, even, than the moment he had heard that most of his friends-the brothers and sisters he had cultivated throughout his young life-were gone forever.

So engrossed in his heartache and deep pain that he didn't notice Harry start to stir. It wasn't until his godson issued a deep groan that he looked up to see the younger man nursing his head, blinking dazed, confused green eyes at everyone in the room.

"Wha-where am I?" he asked, his eyes flicking from where Kingsley and Remus stood to Sirius's hunched, seated form and Severus's quiet presence in the corner.

"Harry," Kingsley said, relief evident in his voice. That, out of everything, made Sirius's even more furious and he lashed out at the one person to whom everything always seemed irrevocably tied.

"How could you have let him do it, Harry?" Sirius bit out, jumping to his feet and rounding on the dark-haired man. "How could you let him kill her? When did you become so heartless?"

"Sirius-" Kingsley tried to put a calming hand on the animagus's shoulder but Sirius flung it off.

"If you had just stopped to think...why do you never stop and think..."

"Sirius, stop!" Remus barked, once more pushing his friend away.

"This wouldn't have happened if he hadn't-"

"If I hadn't what?" Harry spat, eyes narrowed at being attacked seemingly-unprovoked. "What are you on about now?"

"Hermione might be dead and if you hadn't-"

"What?" Harry breathed, paling significantly and clutching the arms of the chair he had been in until his knuckles were white. "Hermi-she's dead?"

When no one contradicted him right away, he jumped to his feet, only to waver precariously. It was obvious he still hadn't recovered from whatever happened to him in the cottage, but since no one in the room-save Severus-knew exactly what had happened, they all lunged to make sure he didn't fall.

Kingsley got there first, putting an arm out to stop both Remus and Sirius. "Leave him be," he said, the demand in his voice unmistakable.

"Wha-what's going on? What happened? Last thing I remember..." He trailed off then, if it were possible, he went even paler. "Oh God. Oh my God. The paintings. Alexandra. I was...I was so angry...and then Snape..." His eyes went round and Kingsley was only just able to help him back into the chair as he collapsed. "She's dead. Snape killed her."

"What? No, the fiendfyre..." Sirius started but Kingsley stopped him.

"Yes, Harry, Alexandra is dead," he said, shooting Sirius a speaking glance. "And Hermione said you collapsed as soon as she was killed. Are you alright?"

"Am I alright?!" Harry practically screamed. "What. The Fuck. Happened?"

"Hermione took you to see the paintings of your parents...dying," Remus said, emotion clouding his voice. "After you saw them, she said you went a bit...funny. She said...she said you told Alexandra she deserved to die and that's when Severus showed up and...and killed her."

Harry looked at his former professor, his mouth opening and shutting as he gaped in silence. Sirius went back to pacing, wondering if he could aparate to the Welsh countryside and walk to where the cottage wards were. He was certain the fiendfyre would destroy them, but he hoped he could get there in time to...

In time to what? He didn't know, and with every minute that passed without a word from Hermione, he died a little more inside.

"Where's Hermione?" Harry finally asked.

"She stayed behind to destroy...to destroy the corpse," Kingsley replied.

Harry's brow furrowed. "It's all so foggy...I don't remember anything but being so angry...I wanted Alexandra dead so badly...I felt...relieved when Snape..." He swallowed hard. "Oh God. What's happening to me?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Of course. It's always about you," he murmured.

"Sirius!" Remus hissed.

"No, he's right," Harry said, shaking his head. "I don't know what's happening...so many things are going on in my head and I...I can't keep up...what happened to Hermione? Why did Sirius say she was dead?"

"She said the only way to stop the Darkness was to set everything on fire," Sirius explained through clenched teeth. "Fiendfyre."

"Only way to stop the...the darkness? But...what? I thought she fixed it. She found the pearl, and..."

"What pearl?" both Remus and Kingsley asked.

"There was a pearl. In my robes. She thought Alexandra hid it on me. It was on a string around her neck when she...when when my parents died. It was in the painting. Hermione said it was...it was imbued with something. Something evil. It made me...made me think and say and do such...such horrible things."

"And she has it now?" Remus asked.

"I...she put it in a vial in her pocket."

Kingsley and Remus shared a look, then glanced at Sirius, who had gone back to pacing. He shook his head, knowing what they were thinking. "It wasn't the pearl that made whatever evil is taking hold of her," he said flatly.

"Evil? What..."

"If I may," came a slow drawl from the corner, and everyone turned to look at Severus. The fact that he was talking meant that he had once more broken through the silencing spell Sirius had conjured, though no one was surprised given how close to madness Sirius had become. The very last thing the man had been concentrating on was keeping his nemesis quiet.

Sirius was, however, quite keen on concentrating on him now.

"You better watch your next words, Snape," Sirius said, levying all the anger and frustration he had at the hooked-nose man. "No one in this room would care if they're your last."

"I'm consigned to the fact that I am going to die soon, Black. You needn't threaten me," Severus said calmly, though the flicker of fear in his eyes told them all that he wasn't as confident as he sounded.

"Good. Now, you were going to say something useful?" Remus bit out, crossing his arms.

"I may have been...wrong."

They all blinked.

"About what, Severus," Kingsley finally asked cautiously.

"About the Cruciatem Transdictum. At least...my theory that it died with Alexandra may have been wrong."

"A bit late for regrets on that score, don't you think?" Sirius chided.

"For many regrets, I'm sure, yes," Severus said, not rising to the bait. "And more's the pity for Miss Granger, I'm afraid."

"Why?" Remus asked.

"Because when she threatened me...that is to say, before you all arrived, once Draco left to get you, she threatened me...I saw the same evil Black spoke about. And I fear...I fear that blackness cannot be extinguished by fiendfyre or any dark magic."

"Why?" Remus asked again.

"I don't know. A feeling."

"Well excuse us if we don't trust your feelings when it comes to my wife, seeing as you haven't been particularly trustworthy thus far," Sirius bit out.

"Fair enough," Severus said with an incline of his head. "But I am now realizing that the consequences of that night in Godric's Hollow have far more reach into our present than I ever thought. And if Miss Granger was carrying a token or talisman that contained some of the energy from that original Cruciatem Transdictum ritual, then whatever power was in Alexandra might not have been killed when I...when I killed her."

"What are you saying, Severus?" Kingsley asked.

"I...I don't know. I don't...I don't understand the ritual as I thought I did. I..." Severus heaved a deep sigh, closing his dark eyes for a moment before opening them again. "All I know, though, is if I'm right...if the magic from that night can live on in another being...then Miss Granger isn't dead."

"What?" Sirius said quickly, not daring to imagine that the one man he hated more than almost anything else in the world had just given him hope.

"I think we're all hoping she isn't dead," Kingsley said cautiously. "And if you're right...that's a good thing."

"If I'm right," Severus said darkly. "And Miss Granger is still alive..." He swallowed again. "I don't think any of us will think it's a good thing. Least of all Miss Granger."

Sirius bristled. "How dare you, you-"

"Let him speak, for God's sake, Padfoot," Remus said in exasperation.

"If she comes back, Black, for all our sakes...keep a watchful eye," Severus said, his eyes baleful as he looked at the fuming pureblood. "Because if what I think has happened has actually happened...well...Merlin help us all."

I'm hoping to update sooner than 3 years. That's about all the promise I can give.

Hope you liked.