A/N: This one has been in my brain for a while and won't leave me alone. Since I can't guarantee how often I'll update my other stories, I can't commit to an update schedule on this one either.
Obligatory warnings and disclaimers:
1. All recognizable material from the Harry Potter universe, and any other published work, is the intellectual property of the appropriate parties, none of whom are me. Original ideas, such as non-canon names and events, are my own.
2. This story is rated M. Mostly for language and suggestive dialogue, but I can't guarantee there won't be depictions of violence or adult situations. You have been warned.
3. This story will progress toward a Harry/Hermione relationship. If that isn't your cup of tea, I hope you read and enjoy anyway, but if not I understand.
4. I'm going for a style here similar to Firefly or Farscape. Good chunks of humor and light-heartedness interspersed with the serious and gritty. I'm not sure if I'll succeed, but I'm going to try.
A/N: 4/16/19 - Corrected the day of the week November 1st was. See A/N of Ch 2 for explanation.
Chapter 1 – The 'Crux of the Problem
"What the bloody blue fuck is that?!" exclaimed the tall, muscular being as he stared in abject horror.
The figure who had escorted him into the room rolled her deep blue eyes at her companion before responding. "That, my lord," she said, knowing that her sarcasm would go completely over his head, "is a knot."
"That's not a knot," the man replied, raising his arm and shaking his hand at the object of his incredulity. "That's so much more than a knot. That's a . . . a tangle . . . a snarl . . . a rat's nest . . . a complete and utter clusterfuck. How the hell did this happen?"
A third figure, dressed in a long red one-shoulder dress and wearing a very severe expression, joined them in their conversation. "That happened, cousin, because of you," she said, unable to hide the venom in her voice.
"Me?" he stated innocently. "How could I have caused that?"
"I'm going to guess you don't remember that little acolyte you were sweet on in Ephyra?" the woman responded, the steel still completely discernible in her tone.
The man, for his part, scrunched his face in concentration as he tried to remember. There had been so many, over such a long time. Finally he gave it up as a bad bet. "Nope, can't say that I do. But what's it got to do with anything?"
"I can't believe you, Zeke!" she screamed. "You don't remember the little trollop at the Nekromanteion who you gave knowledge of quasi-immortality and the Death Arts to?! Does the word 'Horcrux' ring any bells?!"
"Wait," he answered, turning back toward the woven masterpiece – well, except for the knot – that hung on the wall of the room. "You mean to tell me that this thing is because of a Horcrux?"
"Not just one," the first woman responded. "Though she never used the knowledge herself, the information you provided to your . . . conquest . . . was recorded in the temple archives, eventually passed down over the years until it came into the possession of one Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom is terrified of dying, and so when he found the information buried in an ancient text he saw it as a way to live forever. But he took it too far. He didn't just make one; he made seven."
"Seven!" the man – Zeke – exclaimed. "That work was never meant to make seven. The consequences –"
"Are staring us right in the face," the second woman hissed.
"Yes, Attie, I get it. Bad me. But what's the big deal? Just snip them. Isn't that what you do?"
"Oh, dear me, whatever would we do without your great and all-knowing wisdom?" she snarked. "Why didn't us simple womenfolk think of that? Oh, wait; we did. Guess what else splitting your soul more than once happens to do?" Attie stormed over to the tapestry, shears in hand, and attempted to snip one of the threads belonging to a Horcrux. To Z's horror, her shears passed right through it. "Because of how many times Riddle split his soul, there's not enough substance to any one of the threads for my shears to take hold. The result of which is that it would appear that we can't cut any of them, and we can't cut his until all of the Horcruxes are gone."
Zeke approached closer to the massive hanging and inspected the imperfect section closer. "It looks like almost all of the lines are broken, most of them at the edge of the knot," he stated. "So, yes, it's a bit messy, but the weave should even itself back out, right?" He turned to the first woman, not wanting to engage an angry Attie in further conversation. "Right, Chloe?"
"It's not that simple," Chloe responded. "Yes, it would appear that the threads of 6 of the 8 soul shards have been severed by something happening in the mortal world, but look at the damage. Look how many other threads have been pulled into the knot, away from their allotted place in the Weave. Threads that were supposed to braid together are instead forever separated, or entwined with threads I never meant for them to wend with. Some threads have even been snapped without Attie's shears, and much shorter than Lacey meant them to be. Yes, we could possibly move some threads around on the far side of the knot, but this," she tapped the tangle, "would always be here, and all of the Weave in this section that comes after it would forever be altered, in some ways irrevocably."
"So what do you suggest, Chloe?" Zeke asked. Technically it was Chloe, Lacey, and Attie's job to maintain the tapestry, but as 'the head honcho' – as he sometimes referred to himself – any backlash ultimately fell on him. Zeke didn't like backlash. He didn't like any kind of lash; BDSM just wasn't in his (admittedly long) list of kinks.
"We undo the knot, or at least the worst parts of it," Attie responded for her. "Unweaving all of this nonsense entirely, trying to eliminate the Horcruxes from reality, would unravel the tapestry more than is safe, but if we pull the threads back to a certain point, say around here," she indicated a spot after Riddle's thread had separated but before the knot became unseemly, "we shouldn't cause catastrophic damage to the weaving but can still hopefully avert the worst of the damage. But here's where it gets tricky. We need someone, a mortal, to destroy the Horcruxes, or destroy them again as the case may be, and do in Riddle as well, hopefully sooner than was done previously to avoid this, as you so elegantly put it, clusterfuck."
"You're talking about a Champion," Zeke said. "I didn't think there were any Champions left."
"There's one, newly minted," Chloe said, tugging slightly on one particular thread that seemed almost comically tangled within the briar patch formed by the Horcruxes. "Amusingly enough, for most of this thread's journey it's been entwined with one of the Horcrux threads; one that was snapped just a short time ago. I could merge this thread back upon itself as the Weave is undone, allowing our Champion to maintain the knowledge of what might happen so that they can hopefully accomplish their task more easily."
"Your Champion? After all this time, have the three of you finally taken a Champion?"
"Well, we're sort of hoping to . . . share the mortal with who their actual Benefactor is," Chloe said cautiously. "But in order to make that happen we're going to need your help."
"Oooooo . . . .kayyyy . . . ," Zeke responded just as carefully. "And whose Champion is it actually?"
"You're not gonna like it," Attie said in a sing-song voice, taking vindictive pleasure in Zeke's approaching torment.
"Who?"
"Are you sure you want to know?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure you're sure?"
"Just tell me already!"
"He's Thandie's Champion," Attie finally said with vindictive glee.
"Fuck me," Zeke said, his chin hitting his chest as his hands came up to cover his eyes.
"Definitely, and more than likely repeatedly," Chloe said with a smirk, also taking some pleasure in Zeke's pain. "If even half of the stories I've heard are true, she can be a wild one."
"She's crazy!" Zeke shouted. "Sure, she's smokin' hot, but she's batshit loco. Completely checked-out whackadoodle bananas. You never know if you're getting the ditz or the devil."
"Yep," Attie said. "And because of The Rules we can't talk to her directly until you go on our behalf and receive her permission. So you're going to have to go and get it. And get it. And get it. And probably get it some more." She managed to contain her glee seeing the wide-eyed expression of terror on Zeke's face. "Hop to it, tiger."
The last thing Zeke heard as he stormed out of the room was Chloe's muffled sniggers, which were almost drowned out by Attie's maniacal cackle. Some days it just didn't pay to be the man in charge.
{-}
He lay in a bright mist, though it was not like mist he had ever experienced before. His surroundings were not hidden by cloudy vapor; rather the cloudy vapor had not yet formed into surroundings. The floor on which he lay seemed to be white, neither warm nor cold, but simply there, a flat, blank something on which to be. (from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling, 2007)
The dreaded green had finally cleared from the corners of his vision as Harry Potter started to come fully back to himself. The last few hours ran through his mind as he desperately tried to get a handle on what had recently happened to him. The battle. Snape's memories. Learning the dreaded truth that he had to die in order for Voldemort to be mortal once more. His desperate wish to talk to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny one last time, and his either brave or cowardly (he wasn't sure which) decision to forego their goodbyes. His walk to the Forbidden Forest, to his death, which simultaneously seemed to both take forever and be over all too soon. The visit from his parents, Sirius, and Remus via the Resurrection Stone. Walking into the clearing. Voldemort incanting the Killing Curse, the last words he would ever hear. The bolt of Dark Magic travelling toward him as if in slow motion. There was no pain, no moment of realization as to his demise. One moment he was there in the forest and then, between one blink of his eyes and the next, he found himself here on the floor, surrounded by this strange fog.
As he got to his feet the mist around him began to coalesce. Before his eyes, shapes began to form; chairs, tables, walls, and a counter near a door to . . . who knew where. As he stood, he came to the sudden realization that he was completely nude. Glad that he was alone, he looked around hoping some of the mist had coalesced into clothes.
At least, he thought he was alone.
A feminine giggle and a "Nice butt there, Champ," had Harry swinging around to address the voice. There, sitting at one of the tables, was an impossibly attractive woman that made Harry wish he had a robe to cover his sudden and (not to toot his own horn) pretty easily noticeable interest in her beauty. Her curves were exquisite, with long crossed legs leading up to what appeared to be full, round hips encased in skin-tight dark denim. A trim waist gave way to a slightly above average bosom for her overall build, ensconced in another extremely tight piece of clothing, the V-neck t-shirt proclaiming 'Genie Inside, Rub Here and Have Your Wishes Granted' across the almost obscenely stretched chest of the garment. Continuing upward (though for a moment Harry was tempted to try and summon the Genie), after a slender neck was a beautiful face; high cheekbones curving down to a cute nose and full pink lips. Her brunette hair was curly and currently pulled into pigtails, and her big bright brown eyes seemed to swirl with some unknown combination of mirth, mischief, mayhem, and madness.
"Er . . . hi," Harry lamely opened with. The woman giggled again.
"Hello Harry. Won't you have a seat?" she responded, and he felt almost like a piece of meat as her eyes roamed up and down his body, lingering at the place he was desperately trying to cover with his hands.
"How do you know my name?" Harry asked, suddenly more wary of his companion.
"Oh, I know a great deal about you, Mr. Potter," the woman replied silkily. As she ogled him again, she continued, "and I know a great deal more about you now than I did a minute ago." She laughed at the panicked expression of embarrassment on Harry's face, but instead of continuing the tease (which was her favorite part of dealing with mortals) she decided to show just a little bit of mercy and keep the proverbial ball rolling. "Please join me, and I'll do my best to explain and answer at least some of your questions."
Harry looked around before saying anything. "Umm . . . do you think there are any robes around here? Or a towel. Or anything really," he said.
"Are you cold, Harry?" she asked coyly.
"No . . . yes, yes, that's it. I'm cold," he answered, knowing she was playing with him. Hell, if he took a few steps forward the real reason for his request would have literally been staring her in the face. She seemed to know it too, because a (admittedly cute) pout came over her features before she pointed behind him. Looking back, he saw what appeared to be a bathrobe in Gryffindor red, easily discernible against the almost blindingly white backdrop of the room. He grabbed and quickly donned it before taking the offered seat opposite her at the table. "Thanks. So . . . I'm dead then?" Harry asked, trying to make sense of where he was and what was going on. If this is, as Dumbledore called it, 'the next great adventure,' I think I want my money back Harry thought to himself, so far unimpressed with the afterlife except for the attractiveness of the company he was now keeping.
"No, you're not dead," she answered quickly before scrunching up her face and continuing. "Well, not really. Well, maybe a little. But not like full dead. Only kinda dead."
Harry just blinked at her.
"Okay, so the short answer is 'technically yes but we're going to be working on that,'" she finally said.
"Who's 'we?' Actually, who are you?"
"Oh, sorry, yeah, I tend to forget that most people who have met me don't get to come back and talk about it." She extended her hand across the table. "I'm Thandie. I'm your Benefactor, and you're Harry James Potter, my Champion."
Harry had just taken her hand to shake it when she said the last two parts. "Champion? Benefactor?"
"Yep," she said, popping the 'P' sound. "You are the rightful owner of all three of my artifacts, so that makes you my Champion in the mortal realm."
"Three artifacts . . . you mean the Deathly Hallows?"
"Ugh, what a misnomer," she said with a snort of derision. "There's nothing really hallowed about them. They were just the toys I chose to bestow upon my first Champions."
"You keep saying 'Champion,'" Harry responded. "I thought possessing all three Hallows made you the Master of Death."
A vicious smirk came over Thandie's features and she leaned farther over the table, giving Harry a rather delightful peek down her shirt as she lightly drew little circles on the back of Harry's hand - which he just realized she had kept hold of the entire time after their handshake - with her fingernails. "Harry, don't get me wrong; I like you, and you're packing a pretty decent bit of alright down below, so if you're up for a couple rounds of slap and tickle I'd be game. But if you think you can 'master' me, I'll tell you right now that more powerful beings than you have tried. Hell, I don't think Zeke will ever walk normally again." Harry's beet red reaction to her statements cause her to laugh again as she sat back and crossed her shapely legs again. "No, possessing the 'Hallows,'" she made air quotes at the word, "does not make you the 'Master of Death,'" again using air quotes while speaking the title in as deep a voice as she could manage. "The Master thing was actually some prick in like 1340 or something like that trying to overcompensate," she finished, sticking up her pinky and wiggling it to reinforce her statement. "Kind of sad really. But anyway, since The Rules changed so that we can each only have one Champion, after the Peverells died I decided that whoever could claim ownership over all 3 artifacts would become my designated Champion in the mortal realm. And you were the one to do so," she finished, giving Harry a light golf clap.
Harry's Adam's Apple moved as he gulped. "So you're Death?"
"That's one of my names," Thandie responded easily. She cocked her head at the expression on his face. "What? Expecting a black hooded cloak and a scythe? A skeletal hand reaching out to claim your soul and carry it on? Pfft. Propagandist bullshit."
"No. I mean, maybe a little, but you're . . . you're . . . " Harry pointed at her as he tried to get out the rest of his sentence.
"A girl?" Thandie offered.
"So bloody sexy," Harry finally answered without thinking, before slamming his hands over his mouth. I can't believe I just told Death she was sexy he thought to himself. She's going to murder me. Well, maybe not since I'm already dead, but she's going to do something to me. He was wholly unprepared for her to smirk and to see just the lightest dusting of pink to rise on her cheeks.
"Why thank you, Harry. While most men's . . . reaction to me," she opened her eyes wide, eyebrows raised, and looked down toward his groin to indicate what she meant by 'reaction,' "usually expresses that non-verbally, it's still nice to hear it every now and then. Makes a girl feel good about herself and endears you just a little bit more to her heart. Keep up that honesty and willingness to cowboy up and speak what's going through your head to a woman and I can see you doing very well."
Harry desperately tried to change the subject, if only so that his face would stop burning. "You said something before: 'mortal realm,'" Harry said. "Can I assume then that you're from some immortal realm?" What a dumb question. She'd Death; of course she's immortal.
"Yessireeyoubetcha," Thandie almost sung; if she thought his question was stupid it didn't show in her response. "No one's gotten the description, who is there, or what we do quite right yet, though a number of different religions have parts and pieces of the puzzle. But that's neither here nor there; I'm not in the mood to get into a debate about the merits and drawbacks of the various and sundry types of worship. The reason we're talking right now is that I've been made an offer to subcontract you out to a few acquaintances to help them with a particularly nasty problem that you already have some familiarity with."
"And what's that?"
"Tom Riddle." Any response Harry might have made died in his throat. "We'll get to the specifics in a bit, but first let me tell you a story."
Harry's embarrassed and confused but still semi-friendly countenance evaporated. "I'm not in the mood for stories," Harry snapped angrily. "Tom Riddle has been the bane of my existence since I was a baby. He murdered my parents, causing me to be raised by those goddamned Dursleys. His followers have killed, or caused to be killed, so many people that I care about. Dumbledore. Tonks. Fred. Remus." Harry swallowed hard. "Sirius," he whispered before finding his voice again. "I spent the last year trying to end him, enduring cold, hunger, desperation, doubt, fear, abandonment, and god knows what else." Harry's eyes shone with tears at his next statement. "I'll never get the sound of Hermione's screams out of my head as she was tortured. Because of him, and because of her loyalty to me." He stopped and took a breath. "I'm shot of him here, aren't I? And I can see my parents, and Sirius, and everyone else I've already lost again now that I'm here, right? And, eventually, everyone that I love that is still alive will end up here, right?"
Thandie looked at him. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?!" Harry yelled, standing so quickly that he knocked the chair he had been sitting in backwards. "My life was never simple, so why the FUCK can't my afterlife be?!"
For the first time since their meeting, the woman he was facing lost the flirty, flighty persona, and in the gaze she bore at him he saw what she truly was; he swore he could hear the truth of her in his mind. Yes, to look at her many would call her feminine perfection personified. To listen to her talk you'd call her a ditz or, as the Americans called it, a 'Valley girl.' Or maybe just an overly flirtatious bar bunny. But underneath it all was her true self. She was Deliberate. Determined. Driven. Dangerous. She was Death, in the guise of a 5'10" brunette bombshell. "Sit," she commanded, and the chair shot back under him so fast he didn't even realize he was sitting again until they were once again face to face across the table. Her countenance softened slightly as she beheld him. "Listen, Harry, I understand you've had a lot of suck in your life, and not the good kind. And I understand that all you really want to do right now is rest. For fuck's sake, you walked into that clearing and took the hit just so that the people you love could have a chance of getting rid of that asshole. And, to be honest with you, I think you deserve a break, and if I could give you one I would. But I can't."
"Why not?" Harry asked again, but this time it came out as a whine as his elbows came up on the table and he buried his face in his hands. "Why does it have to be me?"
"Come with me and I'll show you," Thandie offered, standing from her chair and holding out her hand. After a moment's contemplation, Harry came across the table and laid his hand in hers. Instantly the room they had been in began to reshape, the fog returning before seeming to blow by as if they were travelling through a cloud. And when it cleared, they were someplace else entirely. Tall Ionic columns support a marble archway in which was housed a very solid looking door. Thandie pulled slightly on Harry to get him moving and, hand in hand, they walked toward the door, which opened at their approach. As they passed through into the room beyond, Harry was awed by the gigantic, elaborate tapestry that hung on the wall directly opposite them. It stretched farther up than Harry could see and was easily the width of a Quidditch pitch. As they approached it, he noticed that the myriad of threads that made up the hanging were so numerous and colorful that he wasn't sure he was aware so many different shades existed. There were bright bold primary colors mixed in with earth tones and shades of gray. There were even a decent number of different neon threads scattered throughout. They stopped a few feet away from the bottom right edge, where Harry noticed the only true mar in the otherwise oddly beautiful work of art.
"It looks like someone maybe had a few too many," Harry said, trying to inject some levity back into the budding relationship with his Benefactor. "Probably should have stepped away from the loom."
"I assure you, Mr. Potter, alcohol had nothing to do with it," said a voice to their left. Turning to the sound, Harry saw three women walking toward them. The one to the left was the shortest of the three, and wore a white long sleeved dress that flared at the waist and ran down to her ankles. The middle one was of average height but was very thin and dressed in a tight deep blue minidress with a surplice neckline. The third was tall and dressed in a flowing red dress that had a strap across one shoulder. It was the one in the middle that had spoken before, and she continued. "The damage that you see to the tapestry was not caused by any of us, though we are indeed the Weave's creators and keepers. No, that was caused by the evil of Tom Riddle's Horcruxes. They so polluted the natural order that they caused the very threads of Fate to entwine in patterns that I and my sisters had never intended."
Harry wracked his brain, trying to remember where he had heard of three sisters and Fate mentioned before; primary school was a long time ago, and it wasn't exactly something taught at Hogwarts. After a moment, it came to him. "You're the Moirae," he said at last. "Lachesis," he continued, indicating the short blond on the left, "Clotho," pointing at the black-haired woman in the short blue dress, "and Atropos," finally looking at the tall red-headed woman to the right.
"Indeed, though we prefer to go by Lacey, Chloe, and Attie," replied Atropos – Attie – as she turned back toward the wall. "But this is the problem at hand, and this is why we have asked Thandie if she would consent to have you help us."
Flabbergasted, Harry's eyes opened wide. "Me? What could I possibly do to help with that you three can't do?"
"A Horcrux is not only an abomination but an aberration," Lacey began. "There have been 127 Horcruxes created since the knowledge was first passed to man. Can you see anywhere else on the tapestry that looks as this does?" Harry looked up and then to his left as far as he could in each direction before shaking his head in the negative. "No, because while Tom Riddle is evil made flesh he is also extraordinarily bright and powerful. He's the only person in the entire span of humanity who was afraid of Thandie here enough to have ever made more than one, and in doing so he's created a situation that we are powerless to stop."
"I'm assuming you know my role," Attie took over for her sister. "I am the one who cuts the thread, who decides when and how life ends. Or, at least I'm supposed to." She approached the tapestry and pulled on a string that was such a dark orange that it was almost brown. "This is the fragment of Tom Riddle's soul that exists within his constructed body. Watch." She pulled her shears and Harry watched in stunned horror as they passed right through the thread in her hand. "For the first time in the history of the world, we are unable to end the life of a mortal when and how we please. Tom Riddle, at least from this aspect, is truly immortal."
"This is where you come in," Chloe picked up the story. "We cannot end him, but you can. As both a mortal and our Champion you could take this struggle back into your world and end the taint of Tom Riddle once and for all."
"So you want me to, what, exactly? Go back to Earth and finish Tom off?"
"That's one option," Chloe answered. "You could go back here," she pointed at a spot at the edge of the knot, "at just the moment you left, and have but one more Horcrux and Tom to defeat."
"However," Lacey stated, "that will not fix the damage that has been done." She walked over and the tapestry shifted, almost as if it had zoomed in on the knot, making it much larger and the individual threads within it more clearly defined. "It has been my job since time immemorial to measure out the threads of each mortal, but the Horcruxes have not only disrupted my sisters' work but my own." She pulled lightly on a bright pink thread that appeared to have broken due to the strain it came under while in the knot. "Nymphadora Alexandria Tonks Lupin. Her thread should have continued long past this moment." She grabbed another thread, this one lime green. Harry noticed that the threads had been braided with each other before they had both broken. "Remus John Lupin. While his string was not destined to continue as long as Nymphadora's, their entwining should have gone on for many years."
She released Remus's thread and, digging into the knot a little, pulled on another snapped one that was a brilliant yellow. "Cedric Edward Diggory."
A very light blue, almost white, one. "Colin Matthew Creevey."
A light grey thread. "Amelia Rachel Bones."
A string that was the color of beach sand. "Lavender Caroline Brown."
And finally, a jet black cord that was slightly thicker than the others. "Sirius Orion Black."
"And it's not just lives cut short," Chloe picked up the explanation from Lacey. "I've watched I don't know how many threads weave themselves together to form this tapestry, lacing themselves together to become stronger then they were separately." Seeing Harry's bewildered expression, she clarified. "Love, Harry. Of all forms. Familial, platonic, romantic; it is in large part love that weaves the tapestry. Familial and platonic love causes the cords to form amazing patterns as they continually criss-cross and form a very strong web, while romantic love causes them to braid themselves together. I, in the end, have to do very little but make sure that the correct threads start their journeys into the Weave near enough to each other that this takes place. It is a truly wondrous site to behold, no matter how many times I've seen it.
"But Voldemort has even disrupted that. Look here," she said, and the tapestry shifted yet again, to where now the strands within the knot were the diameter of Harry's pinky. Chloe grabbed a thread. "This is you, Harry," she said, running her hand up and down a bright, almost sky blue thread. As she did so Harry felt a tingling along his back, almost as if she were running her fingertips up and down his spine, and he shivered. He looked at her incredulously, and she just smirked. "Thandie isn't the only one who can tease," she said. "But I digress. One thing that I've always noticed is that the different bonds of love almost always appear as different color patterns. Familial relationships, or ones that are as good as family, are generally colors in the same spectrum; all shades of reds, blues, et cetera. Platonic love can really be anything, and believe me there have been some wild combinations. But a romantic love, at least one that is true, right, and destined to last, shows itself in complementary colors between the threads." She pulled again on Remus and Tonks' threads, bright pink and lime green. "But in some cases, this . . . monstrosity . . . has caused threads that really have no right to join as they have to do so." She backed up a little on Harry's thread and came to a deep navy blue string that had briefly braided with his own before they again separated. Harry looked at her questioningly, and in answer, she stated simply "Ginevra Molly Weasley."
"What?" Harry asked loudly. "But you said . . . family . . . how is that possible? I mean . . . sure she's Ron's little sister, and so has kind of been one to me to, but we . . . you know . . . were together."
"The simple answer is that as close as siblings is all you were ever supposed to be," Chloe said. "Did being with her ever seem . . . perhaps less than you thought it should?"
Harry thought about the few weeks that he and Ginny had been together at the end of Sixth Year, in particular to the moments alone they had stolen prior to leaving school. And as he considered them he thought of a few times where, though his hormonal teenage self had been more than happy to kiss and caress a willing female body, his emotional and intellectual sides had seemed . . . uncomfortable was probably the most apt description. He closed his eyes and shook his head to try and rid himself of the discomfort that was rising within him at the memories.
"Realizing something, aren't you Harry?" Lacey interjected, and he popped his eyes open to look at her. "And I'm sorry but you're not going to like a very possible reason that the two of you were ultimately attracted to each other, beyond her initial hero worship when she was very young, and of course both your and her physical attributes." The blond-haired sister walked up next to Chloe and slid back to a very faint, almost invisible, thread that upon very close inspection proved to be the same dark orange as Voldemort's cord had been. As Harry looked back along his own filament he saw that this one was wrapped around his throughout almost the entire knot; not braided like they had mentioned previously but chokingly attached like a vine. Or a weed. "This is the cord for the Horcrux that was in your scar," she said. "This color is complementary to Ginevra's and, to a much lesser extent, your own. That's one of the reasons it was able to attach to you that Halloween night. It's also one of the reasons he was so easily able to influence her with the Horcrux she was possessed by. No," she said immediately seeing Harry's face turn a little green, "that does not mean that either you or Ginevra were attracted to Tom Riddle, or hold any sort of affection for the man whatsoever. While Chloe is right that romantic entanglements show in complementary colored threads, it does not mean that such a relationship has to exist. It's just a . . . compatibility, I guess. A familiarity; that thing that mortals can't seem to pin down about some of the people they encounter, but gives them the sensation that some people have the potential to be very important in their lives. It's like squares and rectangles; all threads destined for true romance are in complementary colors to each other but not all threads that are complementary colors to each other are destined for romance."
"The point," Attie said - giving both of her sisters a look that seemed to say 'you're wasting time' – as she walked up and tugged on a gossamer string that travelled very closely alongside his own, "is that it was not Chloe's intent for you and Ginevra to be together. This person would be much more compatible with you, would generate a much more rewarding romantic relationship if you wish it. But because of both the Horcrux around your own thread and the damage that Tom Riddle's actions have caused as a whole, that never happened as it should have, or more accurately as it had the potential to."
Harry walked up and looked closely at the thread Attie had pointed out, and all three sisters stepped back from the tapestry. It was an almost perfect orange, bright and beautiful, and seemed a perfect match for his own cord in Fate's weaving. Harry reached his hand out to touch the new string, and as his fingertips brushed its length a series of images flashed through his head.
A small girl walking across a school stage to receive an award, a bright smile on her cherubic face. She was very pleased with herself at having done so well as to be receiving her prize in front of the entire school. She had worked hard on her project, and it was nice to be rewarded for her efforts, and it had been even nicer when her parents had both hugged her and said how proud they were of her.
A modest but well-kept sitting room with a decked-out Christmas tree in one corner. The same girl from the previous flash, this time a couple of years older, tore through the wrapping paper of her presents while a middle-aged couple, her parents Harry somehow knew, looked on with mirth and affection.
The same three people a few years farther along, and this time they were joined by someone Harry would know anywhere. Minerva McGonagall sat in a chair opposite the three on their couch as she explained that the little girl was a witch and would have to attend a special school to learn to utilize her gift. The girl's eyes lit up with excitement about the possibility that, not only was she magical, but that an entire new world both of knowledge and experiences would be open to her.
An argument in the same sitting room between the three family members, the mother complaining very loudly that the girl had almost died and wondering what was going on at the school they had agreed to send her to. The girl stating with conviction that they would not keep her away, that her best friend needed her and, now more than ever, she needed him too. Her father tried to put his foot down, to which the girl just said that she loved them both more than anything but if they tried to keep her from going back she would fight them with everything she had.
The older couple sitting on the couch, watching telly and talking about their vacation plans, when the girl quietly walked up behind them, tears streaming down her face. She raised her wand toward her parents and whispered a single word: "Obliviate."
Harry let go of the strand and dropped to his knees, breathing heavily and with his heart aching. "Hermione," he managed to gasp, and suddenly he fully understood the sacrifices that his best friend had made; had made because she cared about him more than he had ever realized. She had gotten into her first and only screaming match with her parents after their foray into the Department of Mysteries because she had followed him there and gotten hurt, which had scared them half to death. The same loving parents who had raised her, nurtured her, and always believed in her, she was going toe to toe with in order to stay by his side. The same two people who would do anything for her, do anything to make her happy. The parents that she had made forget her, their only child, so that they would be safe while she went with him on his mission to find the Horcruxes. It had nearly destroyed her to do what she had done to them, not knowing if she would ever be able to get them back. She had cried herself to sleep every night for almost a week afterward. But she had done it.
For him.
Harry's mind re-engaged, and he stood back up and faced the four women, phoenix fire burning in his eyes. The sisters looked on with stoic and unreadable expressions, but Thandie had a smile on her face that would light up London. "What's option B?" he said simply.
"Pardon?" Chloe asked.
"You said my going back to right when I left was one option. What's the other? What allows me to fix this? To make sure Cedric and Sirius and Remus and Tonks and as many of the others as possible live as long as you intended them to?" He looked back at the brilliant orange thread and felt a surge of affection for his best friend that he had never allowed himself to feel before, but that felt right nonetheless. "What do I have to do to make sure that Hermione never has to do that, never has to feel that? I'll do whatever it takes."
The Moirae smiled; they had their Champion. It was Thandie, however, who got the first comment in. "It's very simple. We untie the knot."
"Not anywhere near 'simple,' but essentially correct," Lacey commented. "We, as the keepers of the tapestry, will undo the Weave in and around the knot, unravelling time and reality back as far as we dare, so that as much of the knot as possible is undone. The good news is that this will eliminate a great deal of the damage, allowing us to re-forge the threads that have been prematurely snapped and hopefully putting things back on track. Also, provided nothing that was inside the knot goes too haywire, the rest of the tapestry should rebuild itself pretty much the way it was before, so as you mortals say, 'no harm, no foul.'"
"You're going to revert time?" Harry asked, and they nodded. "If things outside the knot should end up the same as they were, what are the chances that things within it work out any differently this time than last time?"
"That's where you come in," Chloe said. "You see, when we undo the weave, I will be threading . . . well, you . . . back along your own cord such that you maintain all of the knowledge and experiences that you've had since the point we will revert to. That will give you not only the additional years of education and maturity but the knowledge that you already possess about Tom, the Horcruxes, and everything else. I can also make it such that the Horcrux that was with you stays snapped and doesn't make the trip back with you, but only that one. Without it wrapped around and, for lack of a better term, choking your soul you should also notice a few hopefully welcome changes."
It sounded too good to be true. And when something sounds too good to be true . . . "What's the catch?"
"Well for one, it means that you're going to have to find and destroy all of the Horcruxes again. And you're going to have to do it without arousing suspicion that you have any information that you shouldn't. You can't just walk into Dumbledore's office and say 'I know where the Horcruxes are, let's go get 'em.' To do so would radically destabilize the tapestry and possibly do things to it that are even worse than the knot. You need to find a way to do this quietly and unobtrusively, without raising suspicion and while still going through everything you went through during the time that we send you back to. You'll have to lie to almost everyone, to people you never thought you would lie to, and you're going to have to be convincing about it. Forever. The truth can never slip out."
"Two," Attie continued, "you are going to have to live with the knowledge of what happened for the rest of your life. You'll remember all of the deaths, all of the pain and suffering. It might not sound like much at the moment, but part of that is because you haven't really had time to process much of it yet. But you'll look at people and remember how they fell, and how you felt when it happened. It's unavoidable."
Harry looked at Thandie. "I'll remember watching Sirius fall through the Veil? Seeing Cedric get hit by Wormtail's Killing Curse? And when I see them, I'll also see those moments?" The beautiful being just nodded her head. "And I'll remember Hermione's screams." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, solidifying his resolve. "Worth it. What else?"
It was Lacey who answered. "Once we send you back we will not be able to help you in any way. While we are doing this in order to try and restore the natural order, it is forbidden for us to truly interfere in the mortal realm. We're bending The Rules quite severely just to do what we're already doing, but both we and Zeke agree that it's the best plan we have."
Harry nodded his head. "Okay, when do I leave?"
The sisters walked over and stood in front of him before Chloe spoke. "Thandie will take you where you need to go, and once you're in place we'll begin the process." Chloe smiled before putting her hand on the center of his chest. Lacey put hers on his left shoulder, and Attie put hers on his right. "Thandie may be your Benefactor, but you are our Champion now as well, the Champion of both Fate and Death."
"Try not to let it go to your head," Attie said with a smirk.
"Oh, and even though the fate of the world as you know it is in the balance, try to have a little fun," Lacey said with a smile of her own.
"All work and no play makes Harry a dull boy," Chloe finished, before the three women released him from their grasp and stepped back again.
Thandie came up next to Harry and took his hand. "Time to go, Champ," she said, and together they walked back through the doorway. Once again the mist formed and passed by them, except this time when it stopped instead of a small café they appeared to be in a stark white replica of his Hogwarts dorm. "Which one is you?" she asked, and Harry pointed at one of the four-poster beds. Thandie walked up to him and pressed herself against him. "You know, we have a little time before they're ready. Sure you don't want to play a quick round of Hide the Wand?"
Harry flushed red but managed to extricate himself from her personal space before replying. "Not that I'm not interested, and not that I don't think it will be something I would never forget, but I think I've got just the right girl in mind for my first time," he replied, his thoughts falling back to his brown-haired best friend.
Far from being disappointed, Thandie smiled at him as she sat demurely on the edge of his bed. "Then take to heart what I told you earlier; be honest and willing to speak from your heart. It makes a girl feel good about herself." She patted the bed next to her. "Now, Champ, a few things before you head back." Harry took the offered spot and turned to face her. "First, remember what the sisters said; without the Horcrux there are going to be some differences that you're going to have to get a grip on PDQ. If the changes are too radical or too noticeable it could eff stuff up. Second, just because they said we can't help once you leave here doesn't mean we can't help before you leave," she said with a mischievous grin. "I don't know what those three have in mind, but for my part I'm not going to make you some superwizard or anything like that. That being said, you might all of a sudden know a few things that you didn't before that might help you along the way. Consider them a present from a benevolent Benefactor." She puffed out her perfect chest in self-importance.
"Next, remember that you are my Champion, both now and the 'then' that we're going to send you to. It's a lifetime conscription. That means that even when you return you will be the master of my artifacts; they will answer to your call if you desire it. Be cautious of their power but don't hesitate to use it should the situation warrant.
"Lastly," Thandie said, and again her normal demeanor vanished in favor of a more serious countenance, "remember that the whole point of this is to try and put things as right as they can be put back to. That means that things will work out differently than they did the first time. People may be different. Events may not play out the way you remember. Just because something happened one way before, or someone reacted a certain way before, don't take it for granted that things will happen that way again. Some of that may be for the better, some for the worse, so just do the best you can with it."
Harry nodded, recognizing the wisdom in her statement. He tentatively reached out and took her hands in his. "Thank you, Thandie." Her right eyebrow raised at his comment. "I know that I was brought here in order to be given a job, but I also understand that I'm being given an opportunity to literally change the world for the better. And I know that opportunity only exists because of you. So, thank you." He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and was again amused to see her slight blush.
"Oh you're going to be trouble, I can tell," Thandie said with a smirk. She opened her mouth to say something else but then stopped and looked around. As Harry did the same he noticed that the white replica of his dorm room wasn't quite so white anymore; very faint color was rising in all of the surfaces. "We're out of time. Quick, under the covers." Harry pulled back his comforter and climbed into his bed, and let out a light laugh as Thandie proceeded to tuck him in. As more color came to the environment, she ran her hand lightly through his hair. "Take care of yourself Harry. And remember; be honest and speak from the heart." She bent down and kissed him on the forehead, and he felt a warmth pass from her to him. "Sleep now, Harry. When you wake, you'll be as far back as they can send you."
Harry started to drift and was nearly out when, as if from a great distance, he heard Thandie exclaim "Really? They're sending him back to then?! Those bitches! Those complete fucking bitches!" He couldn't make his brain process her statements properly as he felt the last of his consciousness leave him, and his world went black.
{-}
Groggily Harry began the process of blinking the sleep out of his eyes. For the first time in he wasn't sure how long he felt warm, well-rested, and eager to start the day. As his mind fully engaged, the events of his unbelievable journey came back to him, and he shot straight up in bed and took in his surroundings. The first thing he immediately noticed was that the room was in clear focus despite the fact that he didn't have his glasses on. Maybe this is one of those changes in me they mentioned Harry thought to himself. He was in his bed in the Gryffindor dorms; the other four sets of curtains were open, showing that he was alone in the room. He looked over at the clock on his bedside table and saw that it was almost the end of the breakfast hour on Sunday, 1 November, 1994.
1 November, 1994. The day after the Goblet of Fire had spat out his name as the Fourth Champion in the Tri -Wizard Tournament. When Ron had accused him of betraying their friendship and cheating his way into the competition. The beginning of almost the entire school - and then a good chunk of the wizarding world once Rita Skeeter's articles started - once again turning against him. The beginning of the series of events that led to the return of Lord Voldemort in a little over 8 months' time. With a loud groan Harry fell back onto his bed and couldn't help but both agree with and reiterate the last words he'd heard from Thandie.
"Those complete fucking bitches!"
A/N: For whatever reason I really enjoyed writing the god and goddesses above, especially the alternative names. I mentioned the Fates, but if it's unclear "Zeke" is Zeus/Jupiter/Odin/Yahweh/God/Allah, whatever - the head honcho. Thandie is Thanatos from Greek mythology. Yes, I made Death a girl: deal with it.