Exposure
Colours and shapes merged together in Hermione’s vision. A whirl of landscapes blurring together too fast for her brain to unscramble them. She clutched onto the spout of the teapot she was holding onto like it was a lifeline until everything stopped spinning.
It was with some satisfaction that Hermione noted that while she was perfectly upright, Malfoy was sprawled on the floor. “I hate Portkey’s” he groaned, rubbing a sore spot under his head.
Somewhat pettily, she didn’t offer him her hand and let him make his own way upright. He cast a jealous look in her direction at her distinctly unrumpled and put together appearance as he pulled his robes straight.
“Which way is it?” She asked him once he’d stopped fussing over himself. He didn’t answer her out loud choosing instead to point towards the left, he still looked quite green.
The wizarding community of New York was a world away from London. Hermione wanted to stop and take her time exploring every nook and crevice of it, she wanted to spend hours delving into the culture but there simply wasn’t the time. She wasn’t here for pleasure, they had business to attend to and if she was to explore the American wizarding community she didn’t want to do it with Malfoy anyway. She could only imagine the comments he would make at her reactions.
They walked briskly and mostly in silence. Despite the fact that it was a warm sunny day and the square was filled to the brim with wizarding families enjoying a day out, no one glanced twice at them. There were no reporters hounding them for quotes, no covert photographers trying to sneak photographs, no people asking for autographs or spitting on their shoes. The wizarding war that had taken over so many years of their life hadn’t touched here, it was a distant floating rumour that had drifted in and out of these people's lives. In America the war was something discussed briefly at the dinner table perhaps, gossip passed around work, just a story. It was refreshing to be somewhere without the burden and the shadows of the war. Hermione took a deep breath of the clean, fresh air as if it would fill her up, as if it could make her feel whole again even just for a little while.
“I like it here” Malfoy observed beside her “it’s peaceful.”
With the rush of broomsticks constantly speeding overhead, the loud screeches of children dashing towards an ice cream stall and the heckle of sellers advertising goods, peaceful didn’t seem like the right word. Yet Hermione knew exactly what he meant. There was a sense of peace in the normality of it all. In the knowing that life after tragedy lived on. That while it sometimes felt like their world had stopped spinning it was still turning after all.
“It’s beautiful,” she replied.
They walked in silence for a little longer, Malfoy making quick strides with his long legs that Hermione had to rush to keep up with, until they finally reached the shop.
The little building looked completely out of place next to the tall brick brownstones and the leering skyscrapers. The black paint on the outside peeled and the windows were stained with a layer of grime so thick that Hermione wondered if they had been washed at all in the last century. It made Borgin and Burkes look positively homely and she suppressed a shiver as she followed Malfoy through the doorway, the bell tinkling overhead.
Every nook and crevice was piled high and crammed with dark objects. Hermione could feel the hair on the back of her neck stirring as her magic twitched, unable to suppress her shudder this time. An ancient moth-eaten curtain stirred behind the tiny desk and out from behind it emerged a witch, her wizened fingers clutching onto a sturdy ash wand. “Your business?” she rasped, tiny jewel-like eyes narrowed at them suspiciously.
“We have an appointment, I wrote” Malfoy informed her, his back ramrod straight as he looked down his nose at her. From the outside he was the picture of poised elegance and superiority but Hermione knew better. She could feel the discomfort and desperation pouring from him, he wanted this badly, likely even more than she did.
The witch appraised them for a moment longer before finally lowering her wand and Hermione saw the tension ease ever so slightly out of Malfoy’s shoulders, her own still clenched tightly.
“Follow me” the witch grunted and then she had turned and disappeared behind the curtain.
________
When they emerged, almost two hours later, from the cave-like shop the weather had changed drastically along with Hermione’s mood. She stormed down the cobbled street with her nose high in the air, the anger and upset rolling from her in tempestuous waves. Malfoy had to hurry to keep up with her fervent strides, lest he be left behind.
“Granger.”
She ignored him, narrowly missing colliding with a pedestrian who shouted out in a broad New York accent something that sounded like “tourists.”
“Granger” he tried again. Once more she pretended she didn’t hear him, or perhaps she really didn’t, unable to hear anything over the raging sound of the blood pummeling through her eardrums. Malfoy huffed and reached out grasping a hold of her elbow and spinning her around to face him.
“How dare you -”
She began but he cut her off, crossing his arms across his body and levelling her with a stare “Granger, what’s wrong?”
Agitatedly she rolled a muscle in her jaw, staring at the dreary skyscrapers behind him “It didn’t work” she huffed “just another dead end.”
“So? I'm yet to understand your motivation for caring, Granger. Shouldn’t it be me having this reaction?”
She sighed, air flaring from her nostrils as she ran a hand through her unruly curls. No matter how many times Malfoy asked her this question she didn’t have an answer for him. Even if she could tell him the truth, that she was doing this - all of this - for Regulus it wouldn’t have felt like an adequate answer. Regulus could live on with the dark mark, he could spend the rest of his life simply pretending it wasn’t there but Hermione knew it would never be enough. He would always feel the burn of it on his skin even if it was covered, the shame of knowing it was there under his robes. She remembered the relief she felt when Madam Pomphrey had been able to remove the thin white scars spelling out ‘mudblood’ that Bellatrix had left on her arm. Her arm had felt lighter somehow, she had felt lighter. She wanted to give that lightness to Regulus, she wanted to be useful. She had failed her parents time and time again, she didn’t want to fail him too.
Malfoy was standing beside her and his annoyance at her continuous attempts to avoid his questions was clear in the tightness of his jaw and the way he clasped his hands behind his back. Part of her wanted to answer him, he was helping her after all, but the other part of her - the part that had spent school years being tormented by him - found a slight satisfaction in his unsatisfied curiosity.
She pulled the teapot out of her pocket and tapped it with her wand watching as it began to glow a pernicious looking red. “Coming?” she asked “or would you rather stay here?”
Malfoy rolled his eyes and put this fingertip on the teapot. They landed back in England with a pop and Draco groaned as his jaw cracked into the floor of the alley while Hermione remained upright, brushing the dust nonchalantly from her robes.
“This isn’t over Granger” he mumbled, pulling himself to a standing position.
Hermione ignored him, walking out of the alley by the leaky cauldron as she searched for something in her bag.
“I mean it” he shook his head, rushing to catch up to her hurried footsteps “you can’t just keep expecting me to not ask questions when -”
He cut himself off so abruptly that Hermione looked up from where she was rummaging in her bag. Malfoy was staring down at the ground, at a crumpled copy of the daily prophet that he’d just nudged with his fancy patented leather shoe. His blonde eyebrows were pinched together, lips tugged downwards into a frown as he bent down to pick the paper up.
The pit of Hermione’s stomach dropped, the paper was misted by light rain, dusted with mud from a footprint. It was not the sort of thing Malfoy would willingly pick up between his manicured fingernails unless he really wanted to read the headline. She wondered what news was big enough to warrant the reaction and the familiar anxiety that had been her paramour throughout the war gripped at her insides.
“Hermione?” Malfoy asked and she flinched at the use of her first name, the name he had never called her. “Care to explain” he asked, voice dripping with an almost accusatory tone “why this says that Sirius Black’s brother is still alive? That my cousin is still alive?”
He turned the paper around and Hermione’s worst fears were confirmed. They knew. The world knew.
_______
The cigarette was burning away between his fingertips, ash crumbling onto the mahogany wood of the kitchen table. No one spoke. No one seemed to breathe and Hermione instantly felt the stifling tension of the room as she sat down at the end of the long table.
“Regulus?” she asked softly. He didn’t answer, his eyes were fixed on a candle centrepiece though she doubted he actually saw it. The cigarette burned lower, threatening his ivory skin but still he didn’t react.
Behind them, Sirius was pacing relentlessly up and down the kitchen and his steps made a hollow echoing sound on the flagstones. Harry glanced at Hermione and then as if communicating telepathically they both quickly scurried from the table, Sirius following them out into the hall.
“Where were you?” Sirius hissed, trying to keep his voice hushed “we sent an owl.”
Hermione swallowed, guilt coating her insides as she contemplated lying. “I was out of the country” she finally admitted “on business, the owl couldn’t have reached me in time.”
Sirius pushed a hand through his raven black hair, letting out a low sigh through his clenched teeth “not your fault” he waved her off “sorry im just…stressed. I don’t understand how this information could have been leaked.”
“Ministry leak we think” Harry pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose “we were trying to sort some legal paperwork out for him…restore access to the Black family vaults and the like…it was supposed to be air tight but there must be a prophet informant inside the department.”
Hermione’s teeth sank into her bottom lip in frustration “it’s none of their business” she snapped “airing out his dirty laundry like this…with no warning too.”
Harry sighed “it would have come out eventually” he said and then at Hermione’s sharp glare he raised his hands in surrender “but it shouldn’t have been like this.”
“The way we grew up…” Sirius leant against the bannister, shaking his head deciding against going into the details “it’s not important, it’s just, the attention of something like this will be difficult for him to deal with when he’s not fully acclimated to being in this timeline yet.”
Hermione nodded. Although he’d only found out at eleven years old, Harry had been in the press pretty much forever. His whole life in the wizarding world had been marked by gossip and scandal and he’d grown used to ignoring the attention that followed him in every space. Hermione though remembered well the first time that she’d caught the attention of the press. She’d been fifteen years old and Rita Skeeter had published countless articles about her involvement with Viktor Krum and her supposed dalliance with Harry.
In many ways Hermione felt as though Regulus was her kindred flame, they were often similar and she knew that he would despise the attention the news coverage would grant him as much as she had. The speculation and the gossip would be the end to his private life, the curiosity would take away his right to gently assimilate into the future, to announce himself when he was ready and she hated that this had been taken from him.
“What do we do?” Hermione asked.
Sirius sighed “nothing we can do…we be there for him and we wait.”
Inside the kitchen the cigarette slipped from his fingertips entirely, leaving a burn on the table that his mother would have screamed about. Regulus looked down at the mark, picked himself up from the chair his body felt moulded to and slipped from the kitchen. He walked by Harry, Hermione and Sirius without another word and they watched him go feeling helpless.
Hogsmeade village was a world away from the one he’d grown up with. In the twenty years that had passed, more than half of the shops he’d visited in his school years were gone, replaced by newer shinier establishments. At two pm on a random Tuesday the village was not busy and Regulus was thankful for it, knowing that Diagon alley would have been packed full of people staring.
On instinct his feet carried him to the outskirts of the village and he sighed in relief when he saw that the little tea room was still there. The maroon paint on the fading sign was even more chipped than it had been in his time and the sight made him smile, he knew the stubborn old woman who owned it would always refuse to change it. “People know where to find me” she’d grumble “don’t need no fancy bloody sign.”
The bell tinkled overhead as Regulus shuffled inside. It was small and the tables were close together giving it a cramped sort of feeling but Regulus had always liked it. During his school years people had preferred the lively atmosphere of the three broomsticks or the cutesy schtick of madam puttifoots. He’d often spend hours in the isolated little tea room, reading or studying, enjoying the peace away from the world.
“Can I help you?” the young girl behind the counter asked, tucking a tendril of bleach blonde hair into her ponytail as she reached for her notepad.
“Just a tea please” Regulus asked politely “rooibos, no milk.”
She nodded “sit down darling, il bring it out for ya.”
He picked one of the little tables in the back. It was a little spindly and the wood was soft with age but a small bouquet of bluebells in the centre gave it a homely feel.
“There you go” the waitress placed the tea down on the table and smiled at him before going to sit in the back. He wondered if she read the prophet, he guessed that she didn’t and felt lucky that he didn’t have to feel the weight of her inquisitive stare on him.
The tea scalded his tongue but Regulus savoured the burn down his throat, hoping it could distract from his racing thoughts. It was out, everyone knew. He was officially, legally and publicly alive. He should have felt relief but instead all he felt was dread. There had been safety in his anonymity, safety in being unknown. Now everyone would have questions and he wasn’t sure he had answers. He’d struggled enough telling Sirius.
He thought about Hermione and how she seemed to always understand and felt guilty for ignoring her at Grimmauld. It wasn’t like he’d done it purposefully, the place had just felt stifling all of a sudden. He’d grown up his whole life being told that being a Black made him special. He hated to admit, even to himself, that he felt vulnerable without the protection of his name, Black was no longer the surname it had been in his time. It longer carried the same connotations.
“Some people think of me as a hero” Hermione had told him once, late in the night when the rest of the world was still asleep and honesty came easy “others think of me as a villain…some people think i'm undeserving of fame…some people worship me…bow to me in the streets.”
“What do you think?” he’d asked her.
“I wish they wouldn't think of me at all” she’d told him. Now, Regulus finally understood what she meant.
To some, he would always be a death eater, to others he would be a hero who tried to take down Voldemort, to many he would be Sirius Black’s little brother. He wished he could be just Regulus, like how Hermione saw him but he worried that no one would ever see just him.
“Excuse me” a voice broke him from his thoughts “but are you Regulus Black?”
Regulus’ heart stopped as he looked up at the source of the voice and then it started beating again rapidly as he wondered if he was losing his mind.
“Panda…?” he asked in disbelief, she looked as though she hadn’t aged a day, it was impossible.
The girl shook her head “Luna” she told him “My name is Luna Lovegood, Pandora was my mother…may I sit?”
Regulus nodded, still shocked and the girl sat opposite him, clutching her own peppermint tea.
“Is Panda…”
“She died,” Luna interrupted, “when I was nine, accidental spell backfiring.”
“Im sorry” Regulus told her and he truly meant it “Pandora was my friend, one of my only true friends.”
Luna nodded “she used to tell me stories about you…she liked you very much she said your wrackspurts were like hers.”
Regulus looked up at the girl, into her wide and curious blue eyes. She spoke openly and her voice was floaty and airy. She reminded him so much of Pandora it made his chest ache and he found that he inexplicably trusted this girl he had just met. She knew who he was and yet she didn’t ask him about the cave, didn’t ask him about the past or even the present.
He felt hope bloom in his chest that perhaps he would be okay, perhaps he would get through his life being cleaved open and blasted across the pages of the daily prophet. People would stare, people would gossip and ask questions and make assumptions about him but he could move forwards. He had Sirius and Hermione and just because everyone he knew in the past was dead didn’t mean he didn’t have a future, that he couldn’t move forwards.
“Luna” he blurted out after they’d been talking for over an hour about various things, Pandora mostly, “would you like to be friends?”
Luna smiled at him “I used to not make friends easily” she said “people thought I was strange but I should like to be your friend Regulus Black.”
She was strange but Regulus rather liked that about her, Pandora had been strange too but she’d been one of the only people to see him for who he was and not the persona he put out.
He returned to twelve grimmauld place feeling lighter without the weight of the newspaper.