A/N: Hello again! It's been a minute.
I'm still hellishly busy and will continue to be so for a good long while. But I made some progress over the holidays and have been stuck at home because of snow for two days now, so... here's part two. It's only had my very fallible eyes on it. If you catch any glaring grammatical issues, then sorry, but them's the breaks.
Last but not least, there's about a 50% chance this threeshot will expand to a fourshot. Not sure I can fit everything I want into the next section without it feeling cramped, but we shall see.
Enjoy!
PART TWO: The Central Finite Curve
He was kissing her.
Fred Weasley was kissing her.
Strong hands cradled her head, fingers driven deep into the snarls of her hair, curled and wrapped around the wavy tendrils, like he was trying to tie himself to her, to link them both together in a helplessly tangled knot.
He flattened himself against her, searing her with enthusiasm and pressure and heat. It was emotion. Pure, true, and painful. The kind she might drown in.
She hadn't even known she was swimming.
After that initial moment of elated surprise, when he'd stopped laughing, closed his eyes, and crashed his mouth down to hers, she'd kept her own eyes open, staring blankly at a blurry expanse of his pale, freckled skin. Her body had gone rigid, struck still and astonished.
He was kissing her.
Fred Weasley was kissing her.
Her mind was slow in catching up. Much slower than it should've been.
Several wide-eyed, heart-stopping seconds passed. She tried to pull back, but when she did, it was like trying to escape a vice. His grip on her hair, though not painful, was firm and unyielding.
She pushed against his chest.
He wasn't present enough to tell she wasn't kissing him back, she didn't think—didn't think he was thinking, but her shove snapped him out of the current of emotions he'd plunged into so readily. He pulled back from her, dazed, breathing deeply like he'd swum a mile. Warm brown eyes met hers, shining and slightly unfocused.
He looked happy. Incandescent, even.
He wasn't letting go of her hair.
Hermione's hand rose to her lips. Her fingertips brushed against her dry, chapped skin, but she could hardly feel it, her mouth was so desensitized from his.
"What's going on?" she asked. Her voice was steady, detached, because she was talking to a dead man.
A man they'd buried. A man they'd grieved.
She was talking to this man, to Fred, and asking him what was going on.
He just laughed.
Laughed, like this was some kind of joke.
"I've no idea!" he said, grinning again. "But you're here, and you're real, and I'm not going to question it."
She was here? She was real?
She blinked.
They were on two utterly different realms, weren't they?
Her mind whirled, spinning and running, utterly consumed by the implications, so much so that she almost didn't notice him lean back in again.
Almost.
Her hands flew to his chest, halting him a hairsbreadth from her lips. She could smell him. Could feel his eager inhale. The strength of it washed over her. A love and a tug and a pull.
"No. Stop."
He paused immediately.
He inched back, though it appeared difficult for him, then leaned back to a reasonable distance, his eyes fixed on her lips.
"Hey," Hermione said softly, pressing her fingers into his shirt, jostling him slightly. In answer, Fred blinked, then shook his head, as if clearing away cobwebs or shaking off a spell.
"Hey," Hermione continued, just as gently, "you have to look at me. We have to figure this out. What's happening. Why you're here, in Hogwarts, all of a sudden. Why you're," she faltered, stumbling, "well, alive."
If he was here. If she wasn't imagining things. If this wasn't the product of a malfunctioning illusion, an enchanted castle that was threaded with a spiraling, dispelled curse—one that wasn't finished. One that would spread, would grow, continue on and on.
She needed answers.
She pulled back from his arms, and reluctantly, he released her, his hands falling from her hair. His fingers trembled, twitching toward her once more before stilling at his sides.
Hermione's heartbeat sped up at the helpless gesture, but she swallowed her awareness of it, pushing it down. Now was not the time.
"You died over a year ago. Fourteen months and a handful of days." Her words came out in a rush, and they hung in the air, rough and accusatory, as if what had happened was his fault.
She couldn't help it. Putting those words together and speaking them aloud—into being—made her feel like she was talking to a corpse.
And maybe she was.
She finally looked up at him, and saw a gradually dimming smile, the remnants of his sudden, joyous high, trapped and wavering like an old, deflated balloon caught in the treetops.
"You think I died?" Fred asked, looking down at her. "At the Battle?"
She nodded, straightening. "Yes. There was an explosion. Rookwood, I think."
"Rookwood," he spat suddenly, face twisting into something cruel and mean and bitter. Abruptly, his eyes flew from hers, moving to some unknowable spot just over her shoulder. His fingers constricted around nothing, balled into hard fists. "Rookwood was the one - he was the one who -" He cut himself off, an expression she'd never seen clouding his face. "A Reducto and - and... stray debris. A piece of wood - of bloody timber that - " he stopped, swallowing. "It happened before any of us could blink."
Hermione frowned. "But it doesn't make any sense. I was fine."
"You were not fine," Fred bit out.
"No, I was. But if you were - "
"I lived through it, Hermione. I'll never forget it."
"You're missing my point! I'm just trying to figure out - "
"Hermione, stop, please." Fred looked pained. Torn. Like there was a gaping, heartsick wound in his chest and she was both the wound and the knife. "What does it matter?" he implored. "We're here now—one of us, both of us, back from from the dead. I get it, and I don't care. Can't we just—have this?"
She stared up at him. Stared up at him, at George's face, and felt pulled toward him, inexplicably, an aching, empathetic rip forming in her, at her very center.
A memory. An echo.
She couldn't do as he asked.
This wasn't an everyday occurrence. This wasn't normal. People didn't just cheat death, not without dire consequences. They'd all learned that lesson well enough.
She didn't think that's what this was, though.
Think.
A conjecture. An educated guess.
She had to find out.
"It might matter a great deal, Fred," she said quietly, and it was as if she'd cast a spell. Fred's eyes fluttered closed, as if he was struck by and savoring the sound of his name on her lips. When his eyes opened again, the raw yearning in his stare scalded her, and she faltered, pieces of her resolve crumbling. "I'm - I'm not certain you understand what's really going on."
"I'm not completely dense, you know," he said with a painful, self-deprecating half-smile. "But you're right, I don't understand. You died for me; I died for you. Suddenly, we're here—one of us, both of us, back from the dead." He stepped closer. "Aren't you happy to see me, Hermione? Because my heart is leaping out of my chest right now. I've wanted this—wanted you for so long. I can hardly form the words."
She stepped back. Tried and failed to ignore it as Fred took her retreat like a physical blow.
This was too much.
She didn't know what to do.
She needed—she just needed a minute. Just to figure it all out.
"Fred. Listen to me. I'm not who you remember. Or think I am. Or, oh - " and she paused, biting her lip and squeezing her eyes tight. "Oh, this is complicated," she muttered to herself, then took a steadying breath, opening her eyes, and continuing on as gently as she was able. "I'm not the person you think I am, and I think you know that."
"I - no. Hermione, don't say that."
She shook her head. "I don't know who your Hermione was, but we — we were never... I'm not your Hermione."
She was right, but it was the wrong thing to say.
"Yours?" came Fred's incredulous voice. "Yours?" He stepped closer. "Hermione, I am nothing but yours. You are the love of my life. We nearly married. Would have, before the war, if you — if we weren't so concerned about being too young."
Eighteen.
She would've been eighteen then, when he wanted to get married.
She would have only ever been eighteen.
Hermione's eyes burned. It was confusing, the what-could-have-been, and too much. Disorienting, like whiplash.
But if that's how it was for her, what must it be like for him, to see her now?
Like stumbling over a mirage, a figment of his deepest, cruelest dreams, only worse, because she was real. Here but not his.
She couldn't indulge him, though. Couldn't let him cling to false hope for a second longer. That desperate want—it wasn't just wrong, it was harmful. Would only make things more difficult, more painful.
No. The only way out was through.
"Fred, for me, that never happened. We — we never even dated. The Fred here, in my world, died, and when he did, so many people felt his loss, myself included. I loved him, I did. Of course I did. But as a brother. A friend." She sucked in a breath, tears welling in her eyes, as they often did, utterly frustrating and entirely unhelpful. Still, she continued on. "I'm not the person you know or remember," she said, "I'm sorry, Fred, but I'm not your Hermione. I never was."
Fred turned from her, swallowing. She almost couldn't watch.
Time extended in that moment, slowing and stretching between them, hollow and distant.
He nodded slowly, once, twice, collecting himself.
By the time he turned back, she was looking at a different person. A close-lipped smile. It was so clearly fake and so clearly for her benefit that she felt like a monster, like the worst person who'd ever lived, to make him suffer. To make him suffer and feel the need to hide it.
But this? This whole thing? It wasn't her fault.
It couldn't be.
Why did she feel like it was her fault?
"Okay," Fred said firmly, as if convincing himself. Convincing her. "I'm okay." He smiled wider, and his forced cheer twisted her gut.
This wasn't her fault. It couldn't be. She didn't do anything except tell the truth.
"So, twins," he said kindly, taking a stiff step back and sticking his hands in his pockets, away from her. "I can think of it that way. You look the same, but you're not the same, even if you share similar experiences."
"I guess," Hermione said helplessly. "If it helps you to think of it that way."
He nodded. "It does."
And, really, what could she say to that?
A thread of silence passed between them. He looked at her, and she looked at his close-lipped smile. Attempted to take stock of the last—was it really only ten minutes?
Was the world actually capable of so much change in under a quarter of an hour?
The Fred who wasn't her Fred but was still Fred nonetheless cleared his throat and smiled wider. He was forever smiling, it seemed. That, at least, had not changed.
"Now, I'm sure that not knowing how this," he stopped, gesturing meaningfully between the two of them, "happened is driving you absolutely spare."
"Yeah," Hermione conceded softly. A guilt she didn't understand bubbled in her throat. "It really is."
"Thought so," Fred grinned, and it looked real this time, if a bit sad. "Let's go figure it out, then, yeah?"
...
...
...
The logical thing was, of course, to report straight to Professor McGonagall. This was a school matter, after all, and she was the school's mistress. They both agreed it was the proper first step.
Or it should have been, anyway. Three actual steps later, and Fred nearly fell on his face, his legs buckling as he tried to follow Hermione as she went to collect her things. In a slapdash effort to keep him upright, Hermione dove for his shoulder, throwing his arm around her neck. He weighed more than she'd ever suspected, all stocky, substantial muscle and searingly warm skin. She nearly collapsed under him.
Needless to say, the what-should-have-been got derailed.
"I'm fine, Hermione, really. It's nothing."
"Sure," she said, extracting her head from under his arm as she deposited him in the wooden armchair she'd been using minutes and hours ago. His legs stretched, sprawling, as he collapsed more than sat, unsuccessfully hiding a wince.
"Seriously, Hermione. It's fine. I'm fine. We should go."
"Right," she said, reaching for her wand.
She couldn't leave him, of course. Not now. He was hurt, nearly pale as a ghost underneath all that masculine bravado, and clearly unstable. Clearly - something.
"Look, okay, so maybe it'll take me a second or two, but you could go first, lead the way and find Minnie, tell her I'm here, that I'm coming along right behind you, and - "
"Don't be ridiculous, Fred," she said, and had the strangest urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she rolled her wand between her fingers, then extended it in front of her and called on a memory. The strongest one she had.
"Expecto Patronum," she cast, and, as always, felt her heart expand and lighten in response. Tangible, intangible joy sprung from her wand, silvery and perfect.
Her otter circled, flipping in the air before swimming up and over Fred's leg, around his torso, across his shoulders, and down his arm. It then jumped to her side expectantly, floating, buoyant and serene, as it awaited instruction.
She turned to it and cleared her throat. "Headmistress, please come to the library as soon as you can. No one is in immediate danger, but it's - there's someone you should - it's urgent."
Not for the first time, she wished for a re-record button on Patronus correspondence. Still, though. While it wasn't the most eloquent message she'd ever sent, it would suffice. Her eyes tracked her otter, watching it go, the silvery blue, almost-opaque creature swimming through the wall as easily as any ghost.
As it left, the weight of the past twenty minutes settled on her. Again and again, every minute, it took her by surprise. This thing. This rupture in the rational.
Magic.
It certainly never gave anyone a break, least of all her.
Hermione squared her shoulders, ready to find answers. To figure out what was happening, here, in this castle that was as close to a home as she had left.
She took a deep breath, turned, and — and —
A wooden desk. Scattered papers. A vacant chair.
The room was empty, and Fred was gone.
...
...
...
"I'm not making this up."
"Of course not, Miss Granger."
"He wasn't an apparition. Or a - a figment of a person, something pulled from my mind like a boggart might try. He was solid. He was real. As real as you or me. I'm telling the truth."
She was babbling. She knew it, too. It had taken some coaxing to get her out of the library and up to the Headmistress's office, when Professor McGonagall finally rushed in. The whole walk there, Hermione'd been muttering nonsensically, eyes roaming, searching for Fred. How mad she must have seemed, imploring her mentor to keep an eye out for the late Fred Weasley as they traversed the halls.
But Fred was real. He had been. She just had to make her see -
"Miss Granger, I believe you," Professor McGonagall replied with uncharacteristic emphaticness.
It stopped her short. "You do?"
"Yes."
Simple. Straightforward. True.
Hermione nearly sagged in her seat.
"I don't know that I would believe me, if the situations were reversed," Hermione admitted, running her hand over her face.
"You're a smart young woman, Miss Granger. You've never been one to stretch the truth or embellish a story, not for anyone's sake." Professor McGonagall rested her elbows on the desk and carded her fingers together, causing the sleeves of her emerald-green robes to slide down her arms, exposing thin, pale wrists. She glanced at Hermione and raised a pointed brow. "Besides, you look like you could use a little belief right now. Am I wrong?"
A shaky laugh passed Hermione's lips. No, she certainly was not.
Professor McGonagall wasn't Dumbledore, didn't exude an all-knowing presence, but she was kind, and she was patient, and she waited for Hermione to collect herself, not making any sign of disapproval as Hermione's laugh trailed off, high and just the slightest bit unhinged.
When Hermione quieted, Professor McGonagall gestured to an old stone basin in the corner of the room. Professor Dumbledore's antique pensieve, looking as an unobtrusive as a bird bath and nothing at all like the expensive heirloom relic she knew it was.
"We do have a way of analyzing these things. Hindsight and pensieves go hand in hand."
They stood, and as they grew nearer to the corner of the room, Hermione felt oddly reluctant. It's not that she didn't trust Professor McGonagall. That wasn't it. But all the same, she almost couldn't make herself pull the memories from her head, nearly balking at the last second. As if it was all too private to be shared, meant only for the two of them. For her and for Fred.
But Fred was dead.
Real and dead and, in the immediate and perhaps the forever, not here. So she pulled the swirling strand of the last half hour from her head, as easily and anticlimactically as plucking a stray thread from an old sweater, and deposited it within the shimmering bowl. There was a silent splash, and that was that.
"Shall we, my dear?"
Hermione took a deep breath and nodded, accepting Professor McGonagall's outstretched hand.
And she was swimming.
...
...
...
"I - well," Professor McGonagall started, her Scottish brogue spiking thickly.
A flush bloomed high across the older woman's cheeks, and she looked as flustered as Hermione had ever seen her, straightening the hat on her head and fussing with nonexistent wrinkles. "I had no idea Mr. Weasley felt that way, Ms. Granger."
"He didn't," Hermione insisted instantly. "The Fred we knew, anyway."
"Right. Of course." Professor McGonagall tapped her temple with her finger, walking back to her desk. "As you said, it wasn't him."
"Then what was it?" Hermione huffed a sigh, frustrated. But, no - that wasn't right. "What was he?" she corrected.
The pensieve recollection hadn't exactly illuminated anything, at least not for her. It was strange, of course, watching herself, and just as bizarrely intimate from third person as it'd been in the moment, but this time she had Professor McGonagall at her side, which bled into the experience. It was like evenings when she'd watched a movie with her parents only for an unexpected sex scene to interrupt the plot. They'd all stiffen, and no one would so much as breathe until the scene ended.
It was exactly like that, only there hadn't been a sex scene, obviously. He'd only kissed her. Kissed her and held her, and looked at her with the kind of raw yearning she wouldn't be able to shake for a long, long time.
Awkwardness and the new vantage point aside, though, there didn't appear to be much cause as to what made Fred come or go. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone, almost as if it was a movie, and he was spliced right out of the film strip.
"I've time-travelled before, and this wasn't that," Hermione continued. "He wasn't from the past or the future. There wasn't a time-turner or magical device in the room, other than my wand. It was just - Fred."
"No, it wasn't time travel, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall agreed, looking worried. "This hadn't been what I was expecting, when I asked you to look into the castle. I'm not certain, even now, but I'm afraid it's something far different, and much, much worse."
"Worse?" Hermione asked, beginning to panic.
Worse meant danger. Worse meant death.
Worse was supposed to be behind them.
Professor McGonagall sighed. "Dramatic of me, I'll admit, but unfortunately not wholly untrue. Rarer, perhaps, is the better word. Something vastly less common and entirely unlikely."
Hermione nodded, though she didn't understand. Something less mundane than time-travel. This was the world she lived in, apparently.
Every time she thought she had a grip on it, it was only to discover another layer of secrets, of information kept from her.
She forced her heart to calm.
"Forgive me, Hermione. This past year—it wasn't something I considered, even in passing," Professor McGonagall continued, perhaps seeing the look on Hermione's face. "As we feared, it appears the damage done during the battle indeed triggered something, but the damage was also worse than anticipated. It must have gone right down to the central node of our ley line, in many of our worlds."
Hermione blinked. "I'm — I don't understand, Professor. Did you say 'worlds?'"
"Yes, my dear. Our worlds." Professor McGonagall sighed, and quite uncharacteristically, and perhaps a little disturbingly, reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Give me a moment to collect my thoughts, if you would, but I think you can follow the implication of my words."
She could. For a few paces, at least.
Our worlds as in plural. Plural as in many. Many as in hers.
As in Fred's.
Professor McGonagall spoke up a minute later. "Our world, but other distinct timelines. Lifelines, if you will. There are an infinite number of them, purportedly, according to the Founders, though I suppose we can't ever really know for sure. How could we? How could anyone?"
"I -" Hermione shut her mouth, frowning. More information she didn't know. This hadn't been mentioned, even once, in anything she'd ever read, and she'd certainly read an awful lot, especially on Hogwarts and the Founders. "There are an infinite number of worlds?"
"Yes. But I'm specifically talking about our world," Professor McGonagall corrected. "Within the infinitesimally small subsection of worlds that are similar to ours, there are still iterations that span on forever."
And what a sentence that was.
Hermione shifted in her seat. "I think I follow, Professor, but that's a lot to take in."
"Indeed, it is. Especially when you consider that infinite is more than just extremes: our world but Voldemort won, or our world but Mr. Potter was never born. Infinite is our world where I wore maroon today instead of emerald, and our world where everything — everything — was exactly the same, up to this very conversation, only I said 'interaction' instead of 'conversation.' The problem is the infinites are supposed to be separate. To be distinct."
"But then there's Fred."
Professor McGonagall nodded. "Indeed."
"And what happens now that they're not? Distinct, I mean."
"That, Miss Granger, I do not know."
...
...
...
Hermione woke up the next morning face down on a couch in the Gryffindor common room. There was a crick in her neck, and a pressure building behind her eyes.
She turned, uncomfortable in more way than one. The room was unsettling. Quiet and empty. It should have been buzzing: a crackling fire, scratching quills, chattering students. But that was summer for you. Quiet. Empty.
She hadn't made it to bed last night, clearly. There had been too much to go through, too much to read. It'd been a feat in itself that she'd remembered to Floo Harry and tell him that, once again, she'd be staying at Hogwarts overnight. After the call, she'd been consumed by research, hardly stopping to eat. A fit of weakness some time in the early hours of the morning must have convinced her that moving to the couch was a good idea. She'd likely read all of two pages before falling asleep.
Rolling over, Hermione spied evidence supporting that theory. A ruddy brown leather book was upside down on the carpet. The spine was bent fully open, the pages splayed out. She panicked, quickly reaching out to rescue the text, sighing in relief to find it undamaged.
A second, then third check confirmed it.
The book Professor McGonagall had given her was from her private library. It was a theory text, and more. A private exploratory journal written by one of Hogwarts' earlier Headmistresses, Phyllida Spore. Spore specialized, oddly enough, in Herbology, and she wrote extensive theories on how Hogwarts was much like a rhizome, built on a node of many worlds. Not all of them, of course. Not even close to all of them. But it was a fixed and central point for many. For enough.
For hers and for Fred's.
That's what had happened the past year, apparently, and was happening still. Initially, Hermione found it hard not to be frustrated with Professor McGonagall, though she had certainly tried her best to fight that feeling. Professor McGonagall'd had the answer, after all this time, all this work. Hermione couldn't begin to count the hours she'd spent researching, and she'd had the answer.
The more she read Phyllida Spore's journal, though, the more she conceded that their current circumstances truly were improbable. Who wouldn't think shuffled about chairs and broom closets and miscellanea were vanished or duplicated? She really couldn't blame Professor McGonagall for thinking a zebra a horse.
Having an answer wasn't the same as solving a problem, though. They still had to corral the beast. And it was only getting worse as time went on.
Thank goodness they hadn't lost a student to the unfolding chaos.
Although, Hermione supposed with a painful twitch and remembered flash of red hair, now they had.
And she and Professor McGonagall had two months til start of term to fix it.
More of Phyllida Spore's published and unpublished works were in the library, according to Professor McGonagall. In the Restricted Section, specifically, not for any innate dark and dangerous properties but because they were delicate historical artifacts that Irma Pince would never allow out of the library, even if it meant the dissolution of their world.
After a hasty breakfast of toast and eggs and strong black coffee, Hermione barrelled into the library, making her way straight for the Restricted Section. Madam Pince, to Hermione's immense frustration, hovered over her shoulder as she navigated the stacks, either because she was still untrusting of her after all these years or because there were no other students for her to haunt. It took twenty minutes before she finally, reluctantly, left Hermione and returned to the front desk. For the moment, at least.
It was enough. Hermione pulled another text from the stacks. This one was black, overlarge, and the last book she could responsibly carry to her table, as levitating some of the older books could damage their preservation charms, which was not something she was willing to chance. Was not allowed to chance, she mentally corrected, thinking again of Madam Pince.
One of the worst lectures she'd ever received had happened in third year, when she'd been in the midst of finals stress and had been stonewalled by Harry and Ron and hadn't slept properly in weeks, if not months. Hermione could remember it so clearly. She'd looked about furtively, a pile of rare books stacked on the floor in front of her, the tallest reaching the top of her skirt, and decided to cast a quick, covert Leviosa so that should could move them all at once. Madam Pince had caught her. Of course she had. The woman's harsh, cutting words had dissolved her, instantly, to tears.
Hermione walked at a brisk pace, trying to shake off the memory. When she reached her destination, she gently deposited the four separate volumes on her table and scowled. Thirteen shouldn't be allowed to haunt you forever.
She took a deep breath and exhaled roughly through her nose. They had two months. It was time to get started.
"I was wondering if you'd be here. You keep disappearing on me."
Hermione jumped. Actually jumped, straight in the air, not unlike Crookshanks when she accidentally stepped on his tail. Whirling around, hand on her chest, Hermione sucked in a breath at the flash of red hair. It was him.
Well, not him him. Not hers.
And not yesterday's either, she didn't think.
This Fred was teasing, mischievous. He leaned against the far wall, his legs crossed at the ankle. A thin, raised white scar bisected the left side of his face, starting at his chin and trailing off into his hairline.
"Fred?" Hermione asked, though she knew the answer.
"In the flesh," he said. And he laughed.