Shadow Walks |h.p/h.g|

ch. 10

Harry and Remus emerged from the Pensieve more than an hour later, pale, trembling, and emotionally exhausted. They'd finally had to resort to overlapping the memories and playing them both at once, the two different perspectives yielding to them the whole of Bellatrix's last words to Hermione.

"Adjicio universum."

And Harry's world had been knocked off its axis. Change the universe. Together with what he'd learned from Calpurnia, it seemed to suggest a terrible reality.

Wordlessly, Remus had handed Harry the glass from the table, and Harry knocked its contents back without hesitation. The effects of the Calming Draught seemed minimal, although he supposed that it was keeping him from going completely mad all at once, and he was pacing in the small living room like a caged animal.

"Change the universe?" Remus was asking mildly, sipping his own concoction. "From what? To what? What did that do to Hermione?"

The multiverse room, Harry thought dizzily. The Death Eaters had somehow gotten wind of what the Unspeakables were researching - perhaps through Rookwood... who knew how long the studies had been going on? Bellatrix had devised the plan - a contingency plan - and had sent ... someone ... into the Department of Mysteries - when? five years ago? longer? - to get... something... that necklace? But why had nothing turned up missing? What was required to send someone out of the universe? And how did you get them back - assuming they'd live through the transfer? Harry sighed. He still didn't have enough answers.

"I think - " he began heavily, trying to ignore the wobbliness of his knees as he paced. "I think that Bellatrix... Bellatrix ..." He swore under his breath and resumed speaking slowly, trying to formulate his threads of suspicion and circumstance into something concrete. "She must have - she must have seen something... realized the horcruxes were gone - somehow knew that Voldemort's victory was not necessarily a sure thing. She wanted to - "

"If she was so worried about the possibility of your defeating him, why wasn't she with him - why didn't she warn him?" Lupin wondered, as Harry floundered visibly. But Harry shook his head at Remus' words. He understood Voldemort better than anybody else, more than he would have ever desired.

"Would you go tell Voldemort that you were afraid he was going to lose a battle to a boy that wasn't even eighteen years old? Lestrange would have known that it would mean certain death. She must have arranged her own plan, one that would keep her free - what could be more Slytherin than that? - and that would - that would... yes..." His eyes blazed green fire, as he hit on the driving force of Bellatrix's motivations. He was certain of it. "That would keep the victor from happiness, even though he'd won."

That is what you did to her. Turn about is fair play. Malfoy's words echoed in his ears, and began to make a twisted kind of sense. Even though he'd not been anywhere nearby when Rodolphus Lestrange was killed, Harry knew that it was not her husband who had been the subject of her obsession and utter devotion for decades. Harry had taken that person from her, and so she had, in turn, unerringly targeted the one without whom Harry could not survive.

Bellatrix was right. Who would have thought that a Mudblood could matter so much?

"Why not just kill Hermione the way you killed Voldemort?" Remus was playing devil's advocate, forcing Harry to think, to be absolutely sure... but he wasn't sure of anything.

Why not just kill her? An odd sort of joy tugged at his heart at the realization. She wasn't dead. She wasn't dead. But the road ahead of him remained dark and fraught with danger and uncertainty.

"Malfoy," Harry said shortly, pulling his mouth into a grim and taut line. "Malfoy's got to be involved. That's what he was talking about at the Ministry. He would have known - known - Hermione's importance to me... he would have known what the mystery surrounding her death would do... the - the lack of closure... the tiniest possibility that she was alive would have - it kept me - I was - and they were watching, enjoying my pain, Ron's pain - Malfoy couldn't have known how Ron and Hermione would part - Ron would have just been a bonus... and they've been - all this time... and who knows how Hermione - " His voice trembled and broke.