A/N: So I started writing this a while ago just for kicks, but my life became incredibly busy and it (along with TLTU) fell by the wayside. I'm looking to pick up writing again, and this was the idea that seemed to flow best. Enjoy!
P.S. Obviously, I do not own Harry Potter.
"It was supposed to be our 'Great War', the 'Final Battle'. In our naivete we assumed that Voldemort was the source of the problem. How wrong we were. Voldemort was nothing more than a symptom, and with him gone the blinders were ripped from our eyes. Nothing had really changed beyond the surface, and we still lived in a world where birth mattered infinitely more than ability. Looking back, I think that realization might be what ultimately set me on my path."
-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the British Ministry of Magic in 2005
'I wonder who decided dark wizards should live in dark, forbidding lairs?' Green eyes traveled over polished redwood and dark marble. 'Although the floor is covered in blood, though that's on purpose.'
"Harry?" The familiar voice pulled his attention from the quivering form on the table in front of him.
"'Mione!?" He turned to see his oldest friend standing in the door to the hall, a dark blue pantsuit giving her a professional air. He was several steps towards her before he saw the raised eyebrow and glanced down.
"Oh, um…" He flushed as brown eyes traveled over slacks and a green button-down nearly soaked in blood. A quick burst of magic, saturated with his will but too ill-defined to be called a real spell, exploded from his body and obliterated the blood to leave him clean. Quick steps carried him to Hermione and he caught her up in an exuberant hug.
"It's good to see you too!" She said laughing when he finally set her on her feet and moved back to look her over. For a moment he simply drank in the sight of her, eyes the same brown he'd first seen nearly two decades ago and hair that still refused to bow even in the slightest to any effort to contain it.
"You look good." There was a whole multitude held in that simple statement. It had been nearly an entire year since he'd last laid eyes on her, and she'd been just shy of a wreck then. They'd both taken Luna's death badly, but for Hermione there was an added component of guilt laid on top of the sorrow. Letting Nott live had been her call, and as a result she blamed herself for his later actions. Hermione gave him a small honest smile tinged with sadness.
"So what was so important that you had to pull me all the way back from Sydney?" She asked, the playful tone in her question a bit forced.
"You were in Australia!?" Harry asked incredulously before giving a small shrug. "Makes sense I guess, it wasn't hit nearly as bad as we were…."
"They were nearly untouched, honestly. The aboriginal Shamans live in such remote areas that nobody really bothered with them, and their magical traditions are fascinating." She launched into a description of the differences between British and Shamanic magics at a mile a minute.
Harry smiled, a soft curling of the corners of his mouth so different from the manic grins that so often plagued him. Hearing Hermione wax poetic on the mysteries of obscure magic was like seeing a sliver of the little girl he'd known so long ago, and it only stiffened his resolve more.
"As interesting as my trip was though, I don't think you called me back here to discuss my travels."
"No, i didn't." A wide smile showing perhaps more teeth than was strictly conventional stretched Harry's mouth. "I've finished a project!" He exclaimed with air of a child completing their first styrofoam solar system for a science class, his tone completely at odds with Hermione's suddenly wary look. "Oh come on, I'm not that bad." Harry stated with a small pout.
"Harry, the last time you said 'I've finished a project' it turned out to be a blood ritual that was only technically legal because it was forgotten before Britain was a country. This same ritual managed to make my hair glow for nearly a month and cost you your ability to feel fear."
"I still say that was a benefit, not a cost." Harry muttered.
"Fear is a rational response that helps you avoid dangerous circumstances, and you sacrificed it for something you could have gotten just as easily through practice."
"The ability to sense magic accurately takes most people an average of 2-3 decades Hermione, time I didn't have to wait. Besides, without that ability I wouldn't have been able to finish this project." He gestured grandly to the lines of blood covering ⅔ of the hall.
"And what exactly is this project?" She asked with a sigh. "And why is there a naked man tied to the table?" This seemed to pull Harry for a loop as if he'd forgotten the nearly-delirious man he'd been tending to.
"Proving the anthropic principle, and he's a volunteer."
She raised an eyebrow. "A volunteer?"
"Well, maybe an unwilling volunteer." Harry admitted.
"Also known as a victim."
"You might be right, but to be fair he's also a veeeery bad man. And I really did need someone's blood."
Letting the matter drop for the moment Hermione took a closer look at the diagram. The shape of the runes had the characteristic infuriatingly familiar structure without actually being readable that all blood runes shared, and the circle was bigger than any blood magic circle she'd ever seen before.
"So what exactly does blood magic have to do with obscure philosophical theories about the nature of the universe?" She shivered slightly as Harry's smile widened.
"Well you can't take a journey without a destination, right?" Without waiting for an answer he moved to a section of runes that created their own contained sub-circle within the larger array and pulsed a stream of magic into it. The runes glowed a deep sullen red that seemed to suck the light from the hallway and leave behind a series of interconnected glowing spots that floated in the air. Harry pointed to one of the spots several links from the center of the strange cluster.
"We're here, see?" The light pulsed. "Nice, habitable universe. Good constants and everything, but here." The lights shifted and another spot pulsed. "No good. Elementary charge is different amongst other things and the whole universe is basically chaos for us." More spots pulsed as Harry spouted a litany of problems.
"Uninhabitable earth, different speed of light in a vacuum, don't know what happened here but the earth is molten…" Fully ⅔ of the lights pulsed and were rejected before he turned back to Hermione. "See, most of these are useless."
"Harry" Hermione croaked as she finally found her voice. "Are you saying those are other universes?" He beamed.
"Yup. Just the closest right now, didn't want to power up the whole ring and the farther out you go the more juice you need."
"Why? How?" His earlier words filtered through the currently stalled corridors of her mind. "Journey…" She looked down at the bloody array with new understanding. "You're trying to connect them. You're going to make a doorway."
"You always were the smartest person I've ever met." Harry said with a smile as he leaned down to slightly alter a rune.
Blood magic was unique among the different arcane branches because of its ability to create connections. Little vestiges of the art had survived in Magical Britain even under the corrupt and censorious ministry in the form of Unbreakable Vows and several medical spells. Harry (spurred on perhaps by the vaunted 'blood wards' Dumbledore had always put so much faith in or possibly an urge to understand how his mother had protected him with her very death) had both revived and advanced the art beyond what anyone could have predicted. This, though….this was so far beyond what she'd even thought was possible that she was having trouble processing. A disturbing thought penetrated the fog and she looked sharply at her oldest friend.
"Why Harry? Why are you trying to reach other worlds?"
"To solve the causal loop problem of course." She'd half expected the answer but that didn't make it any easier to hear.
"Harry, you can't go back in time." His laugh had a hint of madness to it.
"Well you can, but not very far and you can't violate causality without causing a paradox. At least in this universe. But if you were to jump to another universe there'd be no problem. They're causally distinct from one another, at least until somebody breaches them, so extra-universal influences don't violate causality." He seemed to dim slightly as the smile slipped from his face.
"I'm tired 'Mione. Voldemort was supposed to be our 'Great War' but we learned too many bad habits when we were young, and by the time we learned that you had to take DECISIVE ACTION" Harry took a deep breath and lowered his voice from the brief outburst. "By the time we learned how the world really worked too many had already died, and too few were left. There's nothing we can do about it now, but I found another universe. One nearly identical to ours where we could have a fresh start."
"And what?" Hermione asked sharply. "We just abandon everything we build here? Betray everyone who depends on us?"
"There's no one left to betray, nothing left to abandon." Harry retorted, his voice biting. "Do you know how many of the people from our Hogwarts class are still alive? Six. I checked last year, and that number includes the three who transferred out after the basilisk second year. As for everything we built?" He gestured at the hall around them. "You haven't even been in the country for almost a year, and we both know I'm more a liability than an asset to what's left of our community these days. Nobody wants the 'Dark-Wizard-Who-Lived' around, even if I've never used "dark" magic against them specifically. Face it, this world gets on fine without us."
Half-realized fears and hopes warred across Hermione's face as she stared at Harry, memories of friends both long gone and newly lost pushing her towards agreeing while fears, perfectly legitimate fears, tried to hold her back. She was more than familiar with the amount of blood in a human body and there was more here than a single person could have provided. Harry was becoming more and more callous as the years went by, even by her own warped standards, and she was genuinely worried about what he might unleash if he managed to succeed. They'd had no idea how much darkness lay in his heart when they were younger. With it now so close to the surface unleashing him on the relatively peaceful era before their fight with Voldemort would be like dropping a swarm of manticores on them.
'Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that's exactly the kind of thing Harry would actually do. Morgana only knows where he'd get the manticores from though….'
"How would it even work Harry?" She ran a hand through the unruly brambles she called hair and let out a sigh. "You wouldn't have any resources or connections, depending on how far back you manage to place yourself. Just showing up out of nowhere and starting a campaign for equality in your normal style would just get you branded as a terrorist at best."
"That's the best part" Harry said, gesturing at the array. "With this, i'll be going back as me." A small pulse of magic lit up the array in its entirety and Hermione was momentarily taken aback by the sheer size of it. 'There must be dozens of lives tied up in that spell' She shut down the part of her that was trying to calculate just how many. This was far from the most extreme thing Harry had ever done and there was no changing it now.
While Hermione had been gaping at the newly revealed runes Harry had walked over to a section and began explaining in a fond voice. "This part identifies the alternate self and targets the array to them, while this part" he pointed to an adjacent set of symbols "merges the traveller's soul and the target's into one entity, which only works because the two souls have functionally identical bases, seeing as they're more or less the same person and all. You'd have all your knowledge and most of your magical power, but merged with your younger self you'd have access to all the same support structure."
Unbidden a smile came to Hermione's lips as she listened to him outline his plan, the expression drawing an answering quirk from Harry's eyebrow. "Just thinking." She said by way of answer, then gave him an arch look when the eyebrow stayed raised.
"About anything in particular?" He asked with a smile.
"Just about how it took you nearly three decades to learn to plan ahead." A startled laugh broke free from Harry at that. "When exactly were you planning on taking this little cross-dimensional trip of yours?"
"In about…" Harry glanced at the array, which had begun to glow softly. "Two minutes or so? It'll take that long to charge the array." A tic began to develop above Hermione's brow.
"I take it back." She growled as she stalked forward. "And what exactly was your plan if I refused?"
"You weren't going to." Harry said matter-of-factly. "You're the most logical person I know 'Mione, but you're also one of the most passionate. There's next to nothing holding you in this world, much less this country, and you're not going to pass up the chance to see your friends and family again." He winced at the word family.
'Even after all these years those scars still run deep'
"And if I wanted time to plan? To look over your array or gather supplies?" She ground out.
"Can't take anything physical with us anyways." He answered cheerfully. "The portal only works for souls, bodies take WAY too much energy."
She glared at him for nearly a minute as the array grew brighter and brighter, his smile dimming slowly until he began to show signs of nervousness. When he looked on the verge of doing something stupid in an attempt to apologize she finally spoke.
"One of these days YOU are going to be the one chasing ME on a crazy plan, and I don't want to hear a single word." His smile threatened to break his face in half as he beamed at her. "Not. One. Word."
"Anything you say 'Mione."
"I'm not joking. Even if I ask you to dress up as Moody in a tutu and tapdance in Knockturn Alley on Halloween."
"Totally fine with me." The stupid thing was, he'd probably do it if she asked. Damn him and his steadfast loyalty.
A hum began to build from the array and Harry quickly stepped off to the side, just in time apparently. The lights representing alternate realities began to fade until only two were left, one red and one blue with a thick white line connecting them. The line seemed to pulse and move from the red dot to the blue dot in increasingly quick tics, and the floor above the main array began to grow hazy and warped like the air above hot pavement. Transfixed, Hermione stared at the distortion as it slowly became circular and darkened. Finally there was a loud *snickt* sound and the air seemed to jump to the sides as inky darkness filled the space between them.
"I'm supposed to go through that?" She asked doubtfully.
"It's totally safe." Harry said confidently. "It's just a magical doorway between dimensions covered with a spell field that will pull your soul out and put it in a new body. Totally fine" The look she gave him should have been able to burn him to cinders. Looking back at the rent in reality she huffed.
"Let's get this over with" With that battle cry she marched determinedly over to the rift and, trying very hard not to think about what could go wrong, stepped through.
Harry watched her disappear through the tear in reality and for the first time in recent memory he felt...unease. Not fear, but if he still possessed that emotion he'd probably be gibbering right now, which was stupid. He'd checked the equations literally hundreds of times, and they were perfect. Right now Hermione was merging with her alternate self, and thus perfectly fine. All he had to do was step through the tear and all his hard work would pay off. Despite knowing this his hands were shaking.
"Interesting" He murmured as he looked at his traitorous appendages. He neared the tear at a sedate walk, stopping only to admire his creation for a moment and give the darkness a quick salute. "Commence reckless plan #157." He said with a sardonic grin, and stepped through.
"One of the most common questions asked of us was why we didn't use our influence more when it was at its peak, right after Voldemort's defeat, and to that question I always ask another: 'Why didn't you listen?'. The answer to both is the same. Despite what we'd done, we were still kids. With none of us even out of our teens yet and those in power used to the status quo, trying to get anyone to listen was like shouting into a void. We had done the impossible and saved Magical Britain, but even that didn't overcome our ages or, in several cases, our births."
-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the Ministry of Magic in 2005
He woke up. It was a strangely anticlimactic end to all his research and planning, to walk through the portal and not even be aware of the momentous feat of magic being performed around him.
'I didn't even feel my soul being pulled from my body.' Harry thought morosely. He'd spent more time than was strictly healthy wondering about the nature of the soul and how the consciousness mingled with it, and for him to not even notice being disembodied was disappointing.
A glance around him showed a familiar (if somewhat unwelcome) bedroom, one he'd spent most of his summers during Hogwarts ensconced in while the Dursleys did their best to work him like a slave. The threadbare boxers he was wearing scratched against his skin uncomfortably as he shifted to avoid the early morning sunlight and glare at the clock, which blinked 6:22.
"Too early for either whale to be up and about while 'Auntie Dearest' is probably planning to spy on the neighbors for a while yet. Perfect' Harry thought with a smirk. He swung his legs over the side of the bed as he bounced to an upright position, and promptly fell on his face.
"Ow." He groaned slowly as he picked himself up, glaring at his limbs as he realized the problem. "Getting used to being short again is going to be a bitch."
It had taken more effort than expected, but an hour later he was seated at the table enjoying a breakfast of crepes wrapped around strawberries (one of the few healthy foods that could be found in the Dursley household, courtesy of Petunia's obsession with the ruby fruits). There was something surreal about the whole experience, and not just because he was sitting in a house he'd last seen as a burned-out ruin. This was probably the first time he'd ever been able to cook something solely for himself in his entire tenure in his relatives' care. The novelty put a whole new spin on what was normally a humdrum activity that had him smiling right up until he heard the stairs creaking heavily.
Vernon Dursley was not a man to take particular care in his motions, but traversing the stairs was one area where deliberation was key. A grand total of six steps had needed to be replaced over the last decade as his weight tore them down, and shards of wood painfully embedded in flesh will teach even the most obstinate some caution. This cautious approach lasted right up to the moment his eyes caught sight of the boy eating his hard earned food at his table, and he rumbled forward. Harry looked up with a pleasant smile as Vernon lumbered forward, his face purpling in rage.
"Morning." He said in a cheerful voice.
"YOU. HOW DARE YOU-"
Harry smoothly pulled his right hand out from under the table and tapped his now-visible wand against the table.
"How dare I what?" He asked in the same cheerful tone, wand still tapping hypnotically. "Make myself breakfast? It was quite easy actually. I could teach you if you'd like"
Vernon froze for several seconds as his eyes locked onto the length of polished wood before his bravado returned.
"You don't scare me, boy! You're not allowed to use that thing outside of that freak school of yours, that bearded poof said so." A cruel light glinted in his eyes.
"You know, you're absolutely right!" Harry exclaimed in mock surprise, then brought up his left hand as if holding an invisible ball. The space above his palm wavered like asphalt on a hot day before a ball of blue flame coalesced there, flickering calmly. "Guess it's a good thing I don't need one to deal with you."
The flat tone in Harry's voice seemed to penetrate some deep part of Vernon's hindbrain, and his posture shifted from threatening to defensive in the blink of an eye. Harry, the flames still cradled in his hands, chuckled softly as he looked at the terror of his younger years.
"You know, it would be so easy to end you right now. I could shove this-" he gestured with the hand holding the blue flames. "-down your throat and burn you from the inside out, and there's nothing you could really do to stop me." Vernon found himself unable to look away from Harry's eyes but there was nothing there but cold anger, long repressed and concentrated.
"It would be so easy. But I won't lower myself down to your level." The flames blinked out of existence like they'd never been, and Vernon found himself shuddering as some of the adrenaline flooding his system backed off. "Today is your lucky day, Uncle. It's the day I walk out of your life and you never have to see me again, and all you have to do in return is act like I still live here!" Harry's voice turned playful again as he popped the last bite of crepe into his mouth with his right hand while the left made an careless grasping motion. A crowd of objects including a cage with an irate Hedwig flew down the stairs and stacked themselves neatly in the trunk in front of Harry's feet, Vernon flinching as each object passed him. Harry stood up, absently sending his dishes to the sink at the same time, and grasped the handle.
"It's been fun, but I think it's time we went our separate ways."
Vernon stared at him in a combination of fear and suspicion the entire way to the front door, his frown growing with each shriek from Hedwig until the door shut.
Harry closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath, a thin line of sweat making a line from brow to collar. Wandless magic was good for shocking his uncle and avoiding ministry warnings, but controlling a wandless multi-summon was hard, especially in a high-stress situation and despite the profound hatred he felt for Vernon terrifying the man with magic had made him feel… unclean somehow. He leaned against the door for a minute until his breathing slowed, then shook himself and pushed off the frame, his attention shifting to the baleful gaze of his oldest companion.
"Sorry about that, girl." Harry said as he leaned down and undid the latch to her cage. Hedwig glared at him as a few short wingbeats took her to the top of the cage, then reached out with one wing to swat the side of his head. "Hey, I said I was sorry!" he exclaimed as he dodged the feathered appendage. "Fine, how about you fly ahead and I'll get you some bacon later?" Hedwig's stare seemed to bore into before she gave a small bob of her head a soft bark. Harry sighed in relief. "I'll be at the Leaky Cauldron, meet me there?" His familiar gave another bark before disappearing in a flurry of wingbeats, and Harry couldn't help but smile as he watched her fly away. He'd missed her more than he realized.
As soon as Hedwig's flying form passed out of sight Harry's expression faded back into a neutral mask that was soon covered by a nondescript cap and a minor glamour to change the color of his eyes and the shape of his face (not to mention cover the famous scar), leaving him completely unrecognizable within seconds. A quick glance in the reflection of the kitchen window (through which he could still see Vernon staring at the front door) showed his work as satisfactory, prompting a small nod to himself as he pulled the familiar length of holly and phoenix feather from his pocket and holding it. A loud bang and some smoke later, and he was on his way.
In a tower tucked away high in a castle in Scotland, a witch slept surrounded by empty sherry bottles. Her slumber was anything but peaceful; sweat marred her brow even as her body tossed and turned restlessly.
Sybill Trelawney, contrary to popular opinion, was not unaware of what the rest of the staff (and most of the students) thought of her. She knew she drank far more than was healthy, and that a few like Minerva openly called her a fraud to her back. What most didn't know was that she wished, down to the bottom of her very soul, that they were right. That she didn't have the sliver of the Sight that she'd been born with, that tormented her.
It was a commonly known fact that a Seer would remember none of a prophecy they uttered. This had been established early on in ancient Rome, and to a degree was true. What was not widely known was the side effects of a prophecy; for any event to be momentous enough to trigger a Seer's gift, much less a gift as weak as Sybill's, it would have to affect hundreds, or even thousands, of lives. Such events were more often than not of a profoundly violent nature, and while a Seer couldn't remember the prophecy itself, there was a bit of 'bleed-through' as the prophecy was wrenched through their psyche and into the normal world. Which meant, for a Seer, that their unconscious absorbed all the surrounding 'atmosphere' of the prophecy, leading to some very uncomfortable side effects like the ones currently being experienced by Sybill.
The sweat and thrashing began to increase to a frenzied tempo as Hogwarts' Divination professor began to moan softly, the thick duvet tangling around her limbs and holding her down, until something resembling a loud groan passed her lips and her back arched up. Eyes normally dark green glowed white with power as the unfiltered essence of time itself flowed through her, barely guided by her weak gift, and she began to speak in a guttural tone.
"The child of light falls into shadow.
As the very walls of the world are torn asunder innocence perishes under the weight of experience.
A darkness that once was will never be, but in its place an abyss beyond all threatens.
Besides him walks the Supplicant of Alexandria, his heart and mind kept safe next to poison.
And she shall stand between the world and the abyss, for on her shoulders lies the choice
Should the abyss come forth only the poison may save all, but should she cling to the heart the abyss shall reign forevermore.
The child of light falls into shadow…."
As her voice faded away Sybil's thrashing quieted down to the occasional grimace, and the sweat slowly dried as her sleep became at least somewhat peaceful. With the pressure of the impending prophecy gone her gift slowly faded back into quiescence, and once more Sybill Trelawney was just one more simply person with a number of demons, nothing too uncommon in a country that had survived Voldemort.
"It started, as things most often do, with one person deciding that the current status quo was unacceptable. James Stafford was a muggleborn that graduated from Hogwarts in the spring of 1978 with some of the highest marks seen since Albus Dumbledore and Thomas Riddle walked those hallowed halls. His transcript was full of praise from professors, and Slughorn himself put in a good word on the boy's behalf as he transitioned from school into the working world. Despite all this, James was denied patronage from Mastery after Mastery, and ended up taking work as a janitor in a small shop as a means to pay for what little he needed. Angered by the bigotry he was facing he vowed to gain the mastery he sought in skill, if not on paper, and by the time the Second Blood War had ended he emerged ready to help shape a society that had finally seen the folly of 'blood purity'. Unfortunately for him, the same people were, by and large, still in power, and so he was brushed aside. Unfortunately for those same people, he didn't take this second dismissal quietly."
-Excerpt from 'Falling from Grace' by Harry James Potter. Banned by the Ministry of Magic in 2005
There were few things more disconcerting than waking up somewhere you were not expecting, but waking up somebody you were not expecting trumps that by quite a bit. From the moment Hermione opened her eyes she had been bombarded by memories that had long since dulled with age, but now were brought to life in vivid color as she slowly panned her gaze around the room.
"Merlin, why is everything so cluttered?" She stared balefully as the bookshelf straining to contain her collection of literature, its shelves looking like the only thing holding them up was the tops of the books on the shelf underneath. Compared to the meticulously organized and crafted library trunk she'd used as an adult, the strained shelving was almost offensive.
The sound of someone unexpectedly moving downstairs startled her and she immediately tried to jump out of bed, already willing her wand into hand, only to stumble and catch herself on the wall. A confused glance downward immediately informed her that she was now considerably shorter than she was used to, and that the hand holding her wand was lacking the normal polished manicure she'd adopted along with her professional persona.
"Hermione? Is everything OK up there?" The sound of her father's voice froze her more effectively than any petrification, throwing her back year into memories she'd long suppressed.
As a young woman, Hermione Granger was many things: driven, intelligent, perceptive. Her positive qualities were easy to name, but ask the right person and many of her negatives came just as easily to light: opinionated, stubborn. Arrogant. It was a word she would never use to describe herself early on, but one she would come to accept as her most grievous sin. Case in point, trained Mind Healers normally underwent a rigorous two year apprenticeship before being certified in even the most basic mental modifications. Outside of simply blanking the last few minutes or (in extreme cases) hours of someone's memory, the Memory Charm was a tool of extreme complexity, fraught with possible missteps and pitfalls. Hermione, on the other hand, picked up the basics of the spell in a little over two weeks and then erased herself from seventeen years of her parents' memory. Such a large cover up was patched with a quickly manufactured identity slapped on top and then they were sent away to Australia with fake lives and fake names. It should have come as no surprise that her attempts to reverse the damage, not weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts, were neither completely successful nor without consequences.
The first attempt to retrieve their memories was, in a manner of speaking, a success. The Grangers did recover their previous lives in the entirety, remembering their daughter and magic. What didn't happen, however, was the erasure of their past lives. Suddenly her parents had not one but two lifetimes worth of memories stuck where normally only one would reside, and their psyche was having a hard time compensating. What was supposed to be a quick in-and-out trip began to drag, and the effects were felt all around.
Hermione, in typical fashion, threw herself into books and academia in an attempt to fix what she'd broken. She was blowing through an accelerated book-list of accepted Mind Healer texts at a furious pace even as her parents' minds began to bend under the stress. The Grangers began having moments of disorientation, memories either disappearing altogether or suddenly being relived with startling quality. The stress of their condition and the knowledge that their daughter was responsible, even with the best intentions, began to taint their relationship.
Even as Hermione was working furiously to try and heal her parents, Ron began to grow more and more confused and angry over Hermione's abrupt disappearance. It takes an extremely powerful witch or wizard to apparate internationally or create a similar portkey, and while Ron wasn't a dunce he had neither Hermione's skill or Harry's raw power. Their relationship was so new, and as what was supposed to be days grew first into weeks, and then months, Ron began to become distant. Nearly eleven months after she'd first left to find her parents Ron sent a letter saying he 'loved her but couldn't wait forever'. Harry delivered the letter (as he was capable of international travel) at Ron's request, his oldest friend citing a fear of the letter getting lost. It said a lot about the state of their relationship at that point that Hermione was barely distracted from her research by the letter, or that she shed only a few tears over the note. She was so focused she missed the aura of rage that had sprung up around Harry as she told him of its contents, and it would be nearly a year before she learned of the chain reaction it had set in motion.
Three weeks after Ron's letter Hermione's parents would be involved in a fatal car crash as her father's memories suddenly superimposed while he was on the highway, and it would be another month before a heartbroken Hermione could gather the will to travel back to Britain. By that time, however, the 'Dark Lord Stafford' had begun to penetrate the media, and she once again had something to focus on-
"Hermione!?" Her mother's cry broke Hermione from her reverie, though it actually helped spur the small trickle of tears that began to fall.
"I'm fine mum!" She shouted back, proud that her voice was stable. "I just tripped is all."
She heard her father say something and her mother's answering laugh, and took a moment to process. They were alive. Alive and safe and with their minds intact. They were downstairs.
Less than a minute later a rumpled but dressed Hermione dashed down the stairs and caught her father in a bone-breaking hug that almost made him lose hold of his coffee, then switched to her only-slightly-more-prepared mother.
"What brought that on?" Her father asked, smiling.
"Nothing" Hermione mumbled into her mother's shoulder. "Just felt like hugging you both."
Her mother's laugh caused her shoulder to dig slightly into Hermione's cheek but she didn't care. Her family was whole again.
Despite it being summer it was still a weekday, and her parents still had their practice to attend to. Hermione had to hold herself back from clinging to them as they left, continually reassuring herself that they would be back soon, safe and sound.
She was attempting to distract herself by making a list of all the things she remembered from this time period her last time around when the doorbell rang and, curious, she padded over to open the door.
"Harry!?" She said in a subdued shriek as she tried to ask the important question with her eyes and tone. "Is it you?"
"Hey 'Mione'" He replied in a nervous tone. "I, uh. I could use some help."
Regardless of the answer to her question she would never refuse to help Harry, and as she stepped aside he moved past her and began pacing.
"Is everything ok Harry?" She asked as she closed the door. "You look...nervous."
"I am." He said in a clipped tone. "And that's the problem."
Confused, Hermione raised an eyebrow at him in the universal 'and?' look. He paused his pacing and returned her look with an incredulous one of his own.
"I am nervous. Nervousness is a derivative of anxiety, which is a derivative of fear." Understanding dawned for Hermione even as she started to recognize the look in Harry's eyes.
"Hermione" He said, grabbing her shoulders and turning fully to look at her. "I can still see magic, but my fear is back. There was nothing in my equations that suggested this, and I don't know what happened!"
"Harry, you need to calm down." Hermione found herself slipping back into the academic persona she wore for most of her early years as she tried to head of what appeared to be an anxiety attack from her best friend, one of the most fearless people she'd ever met even before the ritual. 'Curious. Maybe an atrophied ability to deal with fear and its side effects due to long-term absence? Nevermind, focus Hermione. We can figure out what happened after we make sure Harry doesn't blow up the house with a burst of accidental magic." She grabbed his shoulders in a mirror of his grip and stared into his eyes. "I need you to tell me exactly what happened, and then we can both work on figuring out what restored your ability to feel fear, OK? Just take it nice and slow."
Harry stared at her for the several heartbeats as the panic began to fade from his eyes, and then took a deep breath.
"OK" he said, closing his eyes and letting out a shuddering breath. "It all started-"
The Knight Bus was just as jarring as ever, and even bracing didn't seem to help much with the multi-directional impacts. When he finally reached the Leaky Cauldron his legs felt like jelly and he threw a glare at the conductor as the bus vanished with a bang and a puff of smoke, probably to terrorize some other innocent passenger.
He allowed himself a minute or two to get his stomach back into something resembling proper placement and then straightened, taking notice of the crowds specifically not taking notice of him and the pub.
"Inside the notice-me-not, good." He thought as he reached into the pocket of his oversized jeans and produced his wand. Unlike at Privet Drive, there was always a goodly amount of magic being cast in or around the Leaky Cauldron. While the Trace could tell magic was being cast in the vicinity it couldn't tell by whom, and as a result it ignored any 'pings' from high-magic areas. In other words, he was free to cast a more powerful glamour than he could manage wandlessly, as well as shrink his luggage.
When the door to the Cauldron opened the few people to look up saw a distinguished older man with a thinning hairline and a thick mustache dressed in dark grey robes, and promptly went back to their meals as he walked up to the barman.
"G'day sir, what 'cn I do for ya Mr...?" Tom asked, his dictation actually quite impressive for someone with no teeth.
"Wells, Herbert Wells. And I could use a room for the next few weeks if you have one available?" Harry replied, his voice artificially aged and deepened. He used a bit of sleight-of-hand to make a galleon appear in his right hand which he placed down on the table, then another.
"Could be I do, iffn it be for a fine gentleman like yerself." Tom answered, quickly grabbing a key off the wall without looking. "The rates is two galleons a day, or 10 for a week, and that includes breakfast and dinner.
"Done." Harry answered immediately. He could afford that quite easily, and clunked down another 18 galleons. "I trust this will stand me in good stead for the next two weeks?" Tom's nod was enthusiastic as the old barman led moved around the counter and motioned for Harry to follow him. Up a flight of rickety stairs that could only be stabilized by magic, they walked down a hallway lined with numbered doors until they stopped at one labeled '4'.
'Ironic' Harry thought to himself with a small grimace, one that disappeared before Tom could notice.
"'ome sweet 'ome." The barman quipped with a toothless smile, opening the door with a flourish even as he handed over the key.
The room was simple but spacious, the expansion charms obvious but looking well-maintained. A bed sat against the far wall bracketed by windows while a small wardrobe lined the wall to his right, and a desk to the left. It wasn't fancy, but it was nondescript and anonymous. Perfect.
"Thank you." He nodded to Tom as he produced another galleon and pressed it into the barman's hand. The gold disappeared with practiced efficiency even as Tom bowed theatrically low, and Harry shut the door to the room behind him. As soon as he heard the stairs begin to creak under Tom's weight he pulled his wand once more and layered charms over the doorway; locking, imperturbable, shielding, anti-eavesdropping, and a dozen others imbued the wood before he finally let out a relieved breath and felt secure.
A flick of his wrist had his trunk out and enlarged on the bed, and another conjured up two tablet-sized pieces of slate and a steel stylus. He set the slate on the desk and, using the stylus to etch, began to work.
An hour later he was nearly done with the second tablet, the first already glowing as his blood pooled into several eldritch shapes, when a knock at the door caused him to nearly gouge a furrow from the slate.
"Mr. Wells? Got some dinner for ya."
For a moment Harry froze, the shifting glow of the first tablet mocking him with its astounding illegality. Then another knock came, and his heart began to pound wildly.
"Just a minute!" He shouted back, looking wildly around the room. He needed a place to hid the tablets! As the doorknob rattled Harry made a wild gesture and sent the tablets underneath his bed, the sheets hanging low enough that only the slightest red glow was visible playing across their underside, and grabbed his wand to undo the protections he'd placed on the door.
"Beef stew an' a side of fresh bread, hot from the oven." Tom said as he stepped in, a tray floating behind him. He paused a moment as he saw Harry standing half out of his chair, then smiled at the empty desk and directed the tray onto the wood surface. "Just leave it when yer finished, Killy'll grab it."
"Thank you, it looks delicious." Harry said with a wooden smile, and the barman shuffled out.
As the door closed Harry sank to his knees, head pounding in time with his heart, held back a scream.
"You were carving blood runes in the Leaky Cauldron!?" Hermione's voice rose as she stared at Harry, who blinked owlishly at her.
"That's what you focus on?" He asked incredulously after a moment. "Not the restoration of an emotion I shouldn't be able to feel according to every fundamental rule of magic?"
She gave him a look reserved for times when he was being particularly dense.
"Harry, you threw our souls across dimensions and merged them with their younger counterparts, a feat I didn't even think possible until I showed up at your doorstep yesterday...two decades from now...er, whenever!" She began massaging her temples, a strange sight for a girl not yet 14. "Either way, the established rules of magic are useless here. The standard laws of magical Britain, however, are still very much in play!"
"Smart enough to send us on a cross-dimensional time trip but nearly gets himself thrown in Azkaban on the first day we're back!" She fumed. Harry stared at her, then gave a sigh and looked down.
"You're right." He admitted, causing Hermione's brows to raise. He was normally much more recalcitrant than this when it came to admitting mistakes.
"And you're admitting this so easily because…" She ventured, curious. Harry shot her a dirty look.
"Because you are right, and even though I managed to come up with this plan and make it work, I'm not much of a planner under normal circumstances. I tend to tear off on my own and in this case I fell back on old habits without considering the consequences. I'm sorry." He looked up with one of those lopsided smiles she could never seem to stay angry at. "Pax?" Despite her best intentions she felt a smile begin to form.
"Pax." She said as she stopped fighting the smile, then walked over to Harry and wrapped him in a hug. "I'm glad you made it safely." she said softly as he returned her embrace. They broke apart some time later, Hermione discretely wiping a tear from her eye before asking something she really should have asked earlier.
"So what were you carving those runes for anyway?
Amelia Bones sighed as she looked down at the body in front of her and tried to ignore a far-too-calm Narcissa Malfoy neé Black as the other woman stared at her. Despite the body of her husband and father of her child lying just a few feet away the Malfoy matriarch had shed not a single tear, and was instead glaring haughtily at Amelia.
"And you just found him like this?" She asked, ignoring the way Narcissa's eyes narrowed in irritation.
"Yes." She bit out. "Just as I told the other Auror, I found him like this when I woke this morning." No mention was made of the fact that it had taken her nearly half an hour after waking to become curious about Lucius' uncharacteristic sloth and come to his bedroom. They hadn't shared a bed in years.
Amelia ignored the not-so-subtle dig that the director of the DMLE had been ordered by Fudge to investigate this scene directly, convinced foul play was the only way his 'good friend' could have died. "Anything?" She turned to Victoria Samuels, the DMLE medic she'd brought with her.
"Nothing overt, that's for sure." Victoria said without looking up. "No signs of magic, dark or otherwise. The cause of death appears to be a heart failure, though not of the normal kind. It's like an otherwise normal heart just...gave out." The medic looked up from the body to Narcissa. "Did he have any medical conditions, anything he saw a Healer about regularly?" The widow Malfoy just shook her head sharply. "Then I've got nothing. Apart from a slightly elevated plasma volume he's completely normal, and that could be explained by a late-night glass of water." She stood up with a small groan as her back cracked, vanishing the gloves on her hands as she moved. "I'll have my report on your desk by two." Amelia nodded as the other woman walked away and turned back to Narcissa.
"My condolences, but as you just heard my ME found no signs of foul play. I'm very sorry, but it appears there is nothing I can do." 'Not too sorry though. Maybe Cornelius will actually grow a backbone without Malfoy's gold whispering in his ear. Or at least have an original thought for once.'
Narcissa glared at her back the entire way out.
"I cannot believe I let you talk me into that." Hermione said for the third time as she and Harry sat outside of Fortescue's. Her parents were at work still, and she was shamelessly taking the opportunity to enjoy one of the shop's sinfully decadent creations without their disapproving looks.
"See, you say I 'talked you into it', but I don't remember you arguing very hard…" Harry smirked as she threw him a dirty look.
"Only because you, if left to your own devices, would probably have turned Narcissa into an inferus just because, or some other spur-of-the-moment headache that I would then be compelled to deal with after the fact. Going along with you was just heading a problem off at the pass."
"You make it sound like I can't follow a plan." Harry adopted a mock-hurt expression.
"Your 'plan' was to waltz through their wards and inject him with conjured potassium. No layouts, no reconnaissance, just breaking and entering with a side of homicide." Despite her criticism Hermione's voice was more droll than angry. Much as she knew she should care about premeditated murder, Lucius Malfoy was just...not a nice person, and that was putting it kindly.
Harry's smirk said he was fully aware of how little conviction backed her protests and spooned another generous helping of ice cream (vanilla with fire ants and gummy bears, a strange combination). He savored the bite for a moment, eyes closed with bliss, and then smirked evilly as he met her eyes. "Either way it worked, and I'm looking forward to the Prophet article. I wonder if they'll rule it natural causes or try to start a witch hunt…"
Hermione scoffed. "It's Skeeter, so... I'm betting they blame Dumbledore obliquely while calling the DMLE incompetent for allowing a 'distinguished member of the community' to fall prey to nefarious influences."
Harry reached into his pocket, pulling out a galleon and placing it on the table between them as he quirked a brow. A moment later her own galleon joined Harry's as she smiled sweetly at her best friend.
"Easy money"
Harry narrowed his eyes at a smiling Hermione the next day, both of them ensconced in the Granger living room. "You know, I thought you'd have been nicer to Trelawney. Kindred spirits and all." Brown eyes narrowed dangerously, and it was only Harry's well-honed reflexes that saved him from the volley of wandless stinging charms. The smoking spots on the couch fabric were quickly repaired as Harry cautiously poked his head out from behind the couch, then tumbled over. His shoes, the laces tied together by a discreet charm from Hermione while he dove for cover, arced over his head and nearly landed on the table holding the morning Prophet.
MURDER MOST FOUL!
Community Mourns the Loss of an Icon
-Rita Skeeter
Dear readers, it is with great sorrow today that I write of the loss of a great man, one our society may well never see the like of again. A brilliant paragon possessed of long-reaching vision and great oratory skills, of nearly-unending perseverance in working to correct the ills of our world. A man whose legacy can be seen in laws passed and charitable works.
I speak, of course, of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy.
The patriarch of the Malfoy family was found dead in his Wiltshire manor late yesterday morning by his wife, Narcissa Malfoy neé Black. DMLE Aurors were called immediately to the scene along with DMLE Medical Examiner Victoria Samuels, a 12 year veteran of the Department, who declared Lord Malfoy's death a result of 'spontaneous heart failure'. Despite a lack of evidence of any predisposing health conditions and a well-known aversion to unsavory activities that might result in such weakness, Samuels declared no signs of foul play. That the assertion neatly absolves the DMLE of searching for the perpetrator of this 'natural death' is, of course, merely procedure.
Lord Malfoy has been working hard in recent years against many of the entrenched obstructionists in the Wizengamot to form a unified progressive coalition focused on progress while still defending our sacred traditions. One can only wonder if someone without the skill to face him in the political arena instead chose a coward's way of silencing the great man, or if the long hours Lord Malfoy has had to put in at the Ministry helping to shape policy are to blame in weakening the late Lord's known prowess enough for something to slip him by. With the DMLE currently declaring the case closed, we may never know. Regardless, we at the Daily Prophet mourn with all of Britain, and indeed the world, over the loss of an Icon of our times.
In all honesty Harry could admire the amount of work that went into smearing basically everyone who wasn't Malfoy in the article. He wasn't sure if Skeeter had somehow sniffed the story out and been there in bug form or if Narcissa had taken the initiative and contacted her, but the 'journalist' had taken basically no information at all and spun it into a compelling tale. A martyr working for the good of all wizarding-kind against an obstinate Wizengamot and a Ministry that needed his help, if Harry hadn't known better even he might have been swayed a bit by the rhetoric.
"You know, I think Rita missed her calling with this whole journalist thing." Hermione looked at him curiously as Harry tried to undo the locking spell she'd somehow managed to infuse his shoelaces with. Frustrated, he checked to make sure his body covered her line of sight and used a whisper of will to draw a drop of magic-infused blood to the surface of his finger. The power infusing the red liquid responded to his thoughts, immediately forming a glyph that flashed as he touched the laces and absorbed the spell. A wicked smile formed on his lips as he turned to his best friend while surreptitiously flicked the now-round drop of blood at her pant-covered leg. "With all that experience creating fiction she should have been a novelist. She'd probably bankrupt Lockhart in under a year."
Hermione groaned at the mention of her one-time crush. "I am never going to be able to live that down, am I?" The long-suffering look she shot towards him morphed into something approaching puppy-dog eyes, but before they could work their magic on him a voice startled them both.
"Never going to live down what?" Hermione stiffened in surprise and tried to turn, but the binding spell Harry had transferred to her pant leg sealed it to the couch and nearly pulled her out of the comfortable sweats she'd been lounging in.
"Hermione might have had a bit of an...interest in our Defense teacher this year, and he turned out to be less impressive than he appeared." Harry responded promptly, already rising to introduce himself to Hermione's mother, a woman he'd only really only met once in their previous lives (the last summer, in fact). "Harry Potter, at your service". He said, lowering his lips to her proffered hand. He stopped his lips a fraction of an inch before touching her knuckles before looking up to meet familiar eyes crinkled in amusement.
"A charmer." Hermione's mother said with a smile, noting the flaming blush now covering Hermione's cheeks. Despite being dressed in slacks instead of a skirt or dress the older woman pulled off a passable curtsey. "Desdemona Granger, though if you're willing to share about this interest of Hermione's you can call me Des. Perhaps over dinner tonight? You'd be more than welcome."
"Mother!" Hermione's blush was nearing catastrophic proportions as she watched her best friend flirt with her mother before Harry looked at her with a knowing smile and winked. Winked! Her blush flared even darker as she glared at them. "I hate you both." She muttered.
"Love you too 'Mione." Harry laughed back, and Desdemona's brow rose as Hermione accepted the nickname and sentiment without comment. 'Interesting…' She thought as Harry turned back to her.
"It's a deal, though if I'm staying for dinner I insist on at least helping prepare it." Harry said. "I've cooked for my relatives for years, so I should be able to be of at least a little use."
"A gentleman and a cook, I may just have to keep you Harry." Des said, continuing the game more to see her daughter's reaction than anything else. She reached out and slid her hand through Harry's elbow with exaggerated flourish. "The kitchen awaits, dear sir, as do your promised stories. Besides-" she looked down at Hermione "I think it will take a few minutes before 'Mione' comes to her senses."
Laughing as Hermione began to bang her head against the table, the two began to head towards the kitchen. Behind them Hermione could only close her eyes and lament ever allowing those two to meet.
"This can only be trouble." She muttered.
"So let me get this straight; your crush, a teacher of many flowing golden locks and shiny teeth, not only lied about having the equivalent of the Victoria Cross but, instead of being called on it, he was actually given a teaching job? Does the wizarding world not have background checks?" Des asked incredulously as she chopped vegetables while Harry prepared a teriyaki marinade for the chicken.
"They do." Harry said without looking up. "But it's more of a 'who was your father' or 'who do you know' background check than a 'what are your qualifications'." He added minced ginger and garlic to a small bowl already containing blended soy sauce, brown sugar, and cornstarch before stirring vigorously and adding it to a container holding the chicken. "And Dumbledore has had problems in the past keeping Defense teachers around. They tend not to last long." Hermione nodded in agreement even as she scowled at the nepotism.
"Why? Is Hogwarts' pay bad or something?" Des asked as she finished the bell peppers.
"Nope. Position is cursed." Harry replied with a smile to Desdemona's incredulous look.
"You...have a cursed teaching position."
"Yup. 2 for 2 so far for us,and I hear it's pretty much par for course. The Weasley twins apparently tried to set up a betting pool around it but nobody would bet for the professor, so it never took off." Hermione winced slightly as her mother gave her an arched look.
'Oh, that's right I forgot. I haven't told them much about what happened at school...oops.'
"I see."
Harry continued on, completely oblivious to Hermione's growing feeling of dread.
"At least Flopheart didn't actively set out to kill me, just...accidentally sort of fell into it." A layer of plastic wrap went around the chicken before it was placed in the fridge to marinate. "And he didn't stutter, so that puts him MILES ahead of Quirrel, at any rate." He turned to see both Granger women looking at him, Des with incredulity quickly shifting to displeasure while Hermione's hair was actually starting to stand up due to her attempts to silence him wandlessly.
"Er...the chicken should be ready in half an hour or so?" He tried lamely, but alas he was doomed.